Diocese of Fall RiveR

The AnchorThe AnchorfRiday, MaRch 9, 2012

By Dave Jolivet, eDitor

NEW BEDFORD — At the beginning of his 2012 Lenten Mes-sage, Pope Benedict XVI quotes the Letter to Hebrews, “Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works,” (10:24). The Holy Father reminds the faithful, “A society like ours can become blind to physical sufferings and to the spiritual and moral de-mands of life. This must not be the case in the Christian community!”

The Catholic Church stresses three important factors on which Christians should focus during the Lenten season: Prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The pope tells us that Christians can express their mem-bership in the one body of Christ “through concrete concern for the poorest of the poor.”

For Catholics wishing to heed the call to help the poorest of the poor, there are myriad national and international agencies that care for

Suffering of area poor and hungry canbe lessened with Lenten almsgiving

the needs of the millions of inno-cent victims of poverty across the globe.

But Msgr. John J. Oliveira, di-ocesan director of the Propagation of the Faith Office, also sees the needs in our own back yard of the Diocese of Fall River. “There are so many people in our area who are in great need,” he told The Anchor. “Almsgiving is not only about helping the missions. We can help

By Becky auButAnchor Staff

ATTLEBORO — Lent is a season of repentance and renewal, a time to turn away from our sinful-ness and recommit ourselves to following Jesus. Retreats are a way for Catholics to have the time to contemplate better and more deeply how to em-brace Jesus’ message. There are retreats for youth, young adults, married couples, and individuals. They can be for just men or women, or co-ed. They can last a weekend, a work week, or just a day. Just as Jesus regularly took time away to pray to His Father, a Catholic ought regularly to do the same.

“It’s important in the sense that anyone who is in a serious relationship with God needs time away from the daily stuff that is going on with their life to focus on a retreat — that is a time with God,” said Father Cyriac Mattathilanickal, director of La Salette Retreat Center in Attleboro for the past six years.

Whether immersed in college courses, taking care of a family or lost in a stressful job, every-thing you do and the choices you make must re-flect your faith, said Father Mattathilanickal, and retreats offer individuals that opportunity; “Take a

A Catholic retreat: Time for renewal and refreshing

By kenneth J. SouzaAnchor Staff

BOSTON — With a citizen-petitioned bill known as the Death with Dignity Act potentially headed for Massachusetts ballots later this year, a campaign is already in full swing in the Archdiocese of Boston to educate Catholics that physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are never viable options.

The campaign entitled “Suicide is Always a Tragedy” was inspired by Cardinal Séan P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap., and has been spear-headed by Janet Benestad, secre-tary of Faith Formation and Evan-gelization for the archdiocese.

“Back in the fall Cardinal O’Malley gave two homilies on the subject — one at the Red Mass for lawyers, the other at the White

Archdiocese taking the lead in the fight against assisted-suicide

Mass for nurses,” Benestad said. “He spoke against assisted suicide and appointed two steering com-mittees in the archdiocese — one to address the issue at the statewide level, working with the Massachu-setts Catholic Conference, which is the public policy arm of the bishops in Massachusetts; and the other, an archdiocesan steering committee, and I was made the head of that committee.”

Benestad said her committee decided to devise an early educa-tional campaign to inform people about the Church’s official teach-ings regarding assisted suicide, cre-ating brochures and pew cards that could be distributed at all parishes and setting up a website dedicated to the issue.

By chriStine M. WilliaMSAnchor correSponDent

BOSTON — On February 22, a federal court judge upheld the current Massachusetts buf-fer zone law that restricts Pro-Life speech outside abortion clinics. Since 2007, sidewalk

Federal judge affirms abortion clinic buffer

counselors and those praying outside clinics in the Common-wealth have been required to do so at a 35-foot distance from all entrances. The law replaced a previous 18-foot restriction.

Seven Pro-Lifers who regu-

Turn to page four

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refresher — Pope Benedict XVI kneels in prayer during his recent weeklong Lenten retreat. All Catholics can benefit from periodic retreat ex-periences. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)Turn to page 14

helping the hungry — The students at Holy Name School in Fall River recently collected more than 1,400 cans of food for those in need. The collected food was given to the Greater Fall River Community Soup Kitchens, Inc. With hundreds of hungry people across the Diocese of Fall River, donating food items is a beneficial way to give alms during the Lenten season.

preventing suicide — The Archdiocese of Boston has estab-lished a website, suicideisalwaysatragedy.org, to educate Catho-lics about the dangers of physician-assisted suicide.

eXecutive editOr father roger J. landry fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.orgeditOr david B. Jolivet davejolivet@anchornews.orgOffice MAnAger Mary chase marychase@anchornews.orgAdvertising Wayne r. powers waynepowers@anchornews.orgrepOrter Kenneth J. souza kensouza@anchornews.orgrepOrter rebecca Aubut beckyaubut@anchornews.org

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2 March 9, 2012News FroM the VaticaN

OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) — It started in 1917 with a rented house, five boys who needed a home in Omaha and a Catholic priest deter-mined to help troubled and aban-doned youths throughout the city.

Now, Boys Town helps more than 1.6 million people each year through its main campus of group homes, churches, a grade school and high school, post office and bank, as well as a national research hospital in Omaha, a national ho-tline, and other services and loca-tions around the country.

And the priest who started it all — Father Edward Flanagan — might someday be named a saint.

The process toward canoniza-tion began February 27 with Arch-bishop George J. Lucas — sur-rounded by more than 200 people with dozens of cameras flashing — placing a notice on the doors of St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha.

The notice, which is a centu-ries-old Church tradition, alerts the public to the opening of Fa-ther Flanagan’s sainthood cause. It also invites people to share their thoughts with a tribunal that is be-ing formed to review the priest’s life and works.

The process toward possible canonization continues with a March 17 Mass at Immaculate Conception Church at Boys Town — where Father Flanagan’s body is laid to rest — with Archbishop Lu-cas, Father Steven Boes, executive director of Boys Town, and other Catholic officials participating.

Father Flanagan will be named a “servant of God” at the Mass. In addition, the archbishop will install the religious officials and experts who will form the tribunal inves-tigating Father Flanagan’s work and reputation. Tribunal members will interview people who come forward as witnesses of Father Fla-nagan’s virtue.

If there is a declaration of the priest’s heroic virtues, the Church will give him the title “venerable.”

The second step is beatification, after which he is called “blessed.” The third step is sainthood. At vari-ous steps in the canonization pro-cess, evidence of alleged miracles is presented to Church authorities.

Archdiocese of Omaha opens sainthood cause for founder of Boys Town

In general, two miracles need to be accepted by the Church as having occurred through the intercession of the prospective saint.

If Father Flanagan is canonized, he would be the first person de-clared a saint whose ministry was based in the Archdiocese of Omaha.

The process could take years to complete — or even decades, said Omar Gutierrez, director of the archdiocesan Office of Mis-sions and Justice and the tribunal notary. In some cases, causes for sainthood are never completed be-cause of a lack of witnesses, funds or volunteers, or major gaps in the historical timeline for the person, he said.

But Gutierrez and others in-volved in Father Flanagan’s cause said they believe the process could move relatively quickly because officials at Boys Town have orga-nized easily-accessible records on the late priest’s life.

The groundwork for Father Fla-nagan’s sainthood cause began 13 years ago when several Boys Town alumni formed a group to build de-votion to the priest and teach peo-ple about his life and mission as a mentor and protector of youth.

The Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion has been hold-ing monthly prayer meetings at Father Flanagan’s tomb, speaking about him publicly, coordinating prayer groups in Ireland, Father Flanagan’s native land, and lead-ing pilgrimages to Boys Town that reflect on his life and virtue.

“We are humbled and over-joyed by Archbishop Lucas’ ac-ceptance of our petition to examine the heroic virtue and sanctity of Fa-ther Flanagan,” said Steven Wolf, league president and a 1980 Boys Town High School graduate.

“We see this as a response to the Holy Spirit that is moving through an international groundswell of devotion,” he told The Catho-lic Voice, Omaha’s archdiocesan newspaper.

Father Flanagan’s vision made him a thoroughly modern man, Wolf said, and his example, words and beliefs about educating and raising children are as relevant to-day as they were in his lifetime.

VATICAN CITy (CNA/EWTN News) — The Vatican revealed details of the meditations being preached to Pope Benedict XVI during his weeklong Lenten retreat led by Cardinal Laurent Monsen-gwo Pasinya of Kinshasa in the Congo.

“To live in truth,” the cardinal told the pope, “is to live according to the Beatitudes. It means repu-diating the lies of our words and actions. It means rejecting the hy-pocrisy which impels us to appear other than as we are.”

In a Vatican communiqué re-leased on March 2, the cardinal said this is as true for the Church collec-tively as it is for each individual “so that the truth of Christ’s Gospel may be known and lived.”

Last week, Cardinal Pasinya lead the pope and the Roman Curia in three meditations a day interspersed with praying the Di-vine Office and Eucharistic Ado-ration. As a result, all private and public papal engagements were canceled including a general au-dience.

The theme for the week has been “the communion of Christians with God,” with Cardinal Pasinya reflecting upon God as light, truth,

Content of pope’s Lenten spiritual exercises revealed

mercy and loving guide, before turning to consider love of the world, lack of faith in Christ and the sin of priests.

He began, however, with “the sign of the cross” saying that it was much more than habit but an “act whereby we add the splendor of knowledge and the dynamism of freedom to our every action.” It is a sign which means “sacrifice for love. It is death for resurrection.”

In his mediation upon God as “the way, truth and life,” Cardinal Pasinya said that despite many of the horrors of the modern world – including war, genocide and abor-tion — we must never been indif-ferent “to repression and man’s exploitation of man.”

“Even if the mystery of sin is beyond us,” he said “we must walk in the light” or “in other words, we must choose to abandon sin.”

Understanding God as truth is particularly important for people “who have no awareness of their own sins, for people who have lost the sense of sin because they no longer pose themselves the prob-lem of God.”

It is also important for those who no longer possess moral crite-ria and confuse good with evil, he

said, adding that this was a tenden-cy related to “religious indifference which affirms that all religious are alike but which, in reality, is seek-ing a lax morality.”

He cautioned the gathering of clerics that this phenomena can also affect priests “in the measure to which spiritual barrenness leads them into the same defects,” and when “priestly ministry thus be-comes mere functionality and has no true sense of God.”

The cardinal then warned priests against putting themselves into oc-casions where sin is more likely, stating that “our generosity does not protect us from sin. We must be prudent, and not recklessly expose ourselves to the possibility of fall-ing.”

And he offered the response of the penitent St. Peter following his betrayal of Jesus as a model of how a priest should react upon falling into sin.

“In all situations, whatever hap-pens, the Lord is always at our side. The biggest affront we can show Him is to doubt in His mercy, as Judas did.”

The retreat in the Vatican’s Re-demptoris Mater Chapel concluded March 3.

tiMe fOr reflectiOn — Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo of Kinshasa offers spiritual reflections to Pope Benedict XVI (seen through the doorway) and Vatican officials recently in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Apostolic Palace. Seated at right are Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, retired prefect of the Congre-gation for Bishops. The pope and top Vatican officials were on a weeklong Lenten retreat February 26-March 3. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano)

3 March 9, 2012 the iNterNatioNal church

VATICAN CITy (CNA/EWTN News) — The Vatican has called on Catholics around the world to give generously to the tra-ditional Good Friday collection for the Holy Land.

“The annual Lenten journey towards the Pasch of the Lord of-fers a propitious occasion to sen-sitize the Catholic Church around the world with regard to the Holy Land by promoting relevant ini-tiatives of prayer and fraternal charity,” said Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congrega-tion for the Oriental Churches, in a letter sent to the bishops around the world on March 1.

The annual collection goes not only towards the Church in Israel and Palestine but also to Christians in the surrounding states of Jor-dan, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Egypt. Recent political upheaval in the region is creating an uncer-tain future for many Christians in these lands.

It was in this part of the world, Cardinal Sandri reminded the bishops, that “the Son of God made man” traveled “announcing the Kingdom” before going up “to the Holy City” to be crucified.

From that time, he added, “ev-ery Christian finds himself at home in that City and in that Land.”

Cardinal Sandri also reminded the bishops of the “unceasing re-quest of Pope Benedict XVI that the mission of the Church in the Holy Places be generously sup-ported.”

Last month, the pope told a gathering of 182 ambassadors to the Holy See of his concern “for the people of those countries where hostilities and acts of vio-lence continue, particularly Syria and the Holy Land.”

Pope Benedict also used a Sun-day Angelus address to issue a “the

Vatican urges Catholics to help Church in Holy Land

pressing appeal to put an end to the violence ... for the common good of the whole of society and the re-gion.”

Cardinal Sandri spoke of the ur-gent need to support the “schools, medical assistance, critical hous-ing, meeting places,” and other such social services which the Catholic Church provides “to all without exception,” in the region.

By offering its charity to all religious groups the Church thus helps create a form of “fraternity” which can help “overcome divi-sion and discrimination” and give “renewed impetus to ecumenical dialogue and interreligious col-laboration.”

As for the plight of the Chris-tian minority in the region “Good Friday seems more fitting than ever as a sign of the needs of both pastors and faithful, which are bound up with the sufferings of the entire Middle East,” he said.

Many of the countries in the region have witnesses a dwindling of their Christian populations in recent years due to emigration. Cardinal Sandri said this exodus is “exacerbated by the lack of peace, which tends to impoverish hope.”

His comments come on the day that a report was published de-tailing how the money from last year’s Good Friday collection was spent. The report was produced by the Custody of the Holy Land, a branch of the Franciscan order with responsibility for the Holy Places.

It explained how the 2011 Good Friday funds were used to restore and maintain numerous shrines, churches and convents in the Holy Land including such places as Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Magdala and Mount Tabor.

A significant part of the pro-ceeds were also used to fund stu-dent scholarships, to help small

business, and to build houses, schools and play areas for chil-dren.

Cardinal Sandri concluded his letter with the hope that Pope Benedict’s upcoming year of Faith will be an opportunity for Christians worldwide to “restore the spiritual patrimony which we have received from these Chris-tians’ two millennia of fidelity to the truth of the faith.”

This can be done, he said, through “prayer, by concrete assis-tance, and by pilgrimages.”

As for his prayer for this year’s Good Friday, he asked that “around the Cross of Christ, let us be conscious of being together with these brothers and sisters of ours.”

GLASGOW, Scotland (CNA/EWTN News) — Two Catholic midwives from Scotland have lost their legal battle to avoid taking part in abortion procedures on grounds of “conscientious objection.”

“I view this judgment with deep concern,” said Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow. “I wish to put on record my admiration for the courage of the midwives who have, at very great cost to themselves, fought to uphold the right to follow one’s conscience.”

Mary Doogan and Connie Wood were previously told by the state-run National Health Service in Glasgow that they had to super-vise and support fellow midwives who perform abortions. As senior staff, they were also expected to be on standby to help in abortion procedures in certain medical situ-ations.

On February 29 Scotland’s high-est civil court ruled that the wom-en’s religious liberties were not be-ing infringed because “the nature of their duties does not in fact require them to provide treatment to termi-nate pregnancies directly.”

The Court of Session judgment also said that the women knew abortions were part of the job de-scription when they accepted their posts as labor ward coordinators.

Doogan said they were “very disappointed” by the verdict and that it would have “very grave con-sequences for anyone of conscience who wishes to choose midwifery as a career.”

The midwives had maintained that their right to opt-out of provid-ing abortions for reasons of con-science was upheld by Article 9 of

Scottish midwives lose case to avoid participation in abortion

the European Convention on Hu-man Rights and Section 4(1) of the U.K.’s 1967 Abortion Act.

The two midwives previously told the Court of Session that “they hold a religious belief that all hu-man life is sacred from the moment of conception and that termination of pregnancy is a grave offense against human life.”

But the National Health Service in Glasgow rejected their appeals, claiming that their rights are being respected because the midwives are not compelled to administer abortion-inducing drugs. The Court of Session today agreed with that argument.

The court ruled today that the 1967 Abortion Act allowed only qualified conscientious objection, and that the provisions of the Euro-pean Convention on Human Rights in relation to freedom of conscience and religion were not absolute.

Both Doogan and Wood have worked for over 20 years at Glasgow’s Southern General Hos-pital and have always made clear their conscientious objection to abortion.

In 2007, however, the National Health Service in Glasgow decided to send more women undergoing late-term abortions to labor wards, instead of admitting them to gyne-cological departments. This change in policy led to the current dispute between the health service and the midwives.

Doogan, who comes from Glasgow, has been absent from work because of poor health since 2010, as a result of the ongoing sit-uation. Meanwhile, Wood has been transferred to other duties.

AltAr rAils — Workers build an altar in front of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti’s mauso-leum at Havana’s Revolution Square. Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass at Revolution Square when he visits Cuba this month. (CNS photo/Stringer via Reuters)

4 March 9, 2012

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them all year long and we have spe-cial collections throughout the year. We must also focus on the needs of our brothers and sisters in our own communities, and I think Lent is a perfect time for us to look beyond our own needs.

“Lent is more than just giving up candy and filling up Rice Bowls and mite boxes for the poor world-wide. It’s about not forgetting oth-ers so near to us.”

One suggestion he has for area faithful is to “bring a food donation to church when attending week-end Masses. Many parishes across diocese have food baskets available for donations to help the many food pantries and kitchens in our cities and towns. We have a basket at ev-ery entrance at St. Mary’s Church in New Bedford.”

An online search of food pan-tries and kitchens within the Dio-cese of Fall River revealed more than 30 locations from the Attle-

boros through Cape Cod and the Islands.

During the recent Advent sea-son, Arlene McNamee, diocesan director of Catholic Social Servic-es told The Anchor that “there are more people with less resources than we’ve seen in years.” That trend has not changed in the less than two months since. “The fact is we cannot meet the needs that are presenting themselves and we an-ticipate more to come over the next 12 months.”

Catholic Social Services pro-vides assistance to scores of indi-viduals who are homeless, living in temporary shelters, jobless, and living below the poverty level. Donations of non-perishable food products at diocesan churches go a long way in meeting the temporal needs of many.

The need is also great for cloth-ing, including adults and children, and for baby products.

Father Michael Racine, pastor of St. Bernard’s Parish in Assonet, told The Anchor his parishioners “are very generous when it comes to helping out area food kitchens and pantries. We consistently fill food baskets at weekend Masses and send the donations to the St. Anne’s food kitchen in Fall River. We also collect clothing for needy seniors in the Lakeville area.”

Other diocesan agencies taking a proactive stance on the fight against poverty include the St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Knights of Columbus.

Msgr. Oliveira said many people think that helping the missions and national and international agencies are the only ways of helping the poor and needy. “Just bring a food item to church on Sunday,” he said. “It can be an important part of the Church’s call for prayer, fasting and almsgiving during Lent. It’s our Catholic responsibility to be con-science of the need to help others.”

For information on donating items or money to Catholic Social Services, contact 508-674-4681; the diocesan Propagation of the Faith Office at 508-995-6168; the St. Vincent de Paul Society at 508-409-1452, or 508-642-3440; any member of the Knights of Colum-bus; or your local parish.

Area poor can be helped with almsgivingcontinued from page one

“The website codified with the material that was handed out to parishes here in the archdiocese on February 11 and 12 — the World Day of the Sick and the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes,” Benestad said. “The idea here was to provide as much education as we could in a simple way on the question of as-sisted suicide. We hope to educate parishes, pastors, teachers, chap-lains — anyone who would have to speak on this issue or works in the health-related field.”

Supporters of the Death with Dignity Act garnered more than 86,000 certified signatures last De-cember, but the Massachusetts state legislature has until May to choose whether or not to act on the pro-posal before it would appear on the ballot later this year.

Proponents say the measure would give patients greater peace of mind, choice and control in their final days of life. The legis-lation permits individuals who are given six months or fewer to live to receive life-ending drugs. The law would require that two doctors verify the mental competence of patients and that there be a 15-day waiting period between the request for and writing of the prescription.

But Cardinal O’Malley in his Red Mass homily last September at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross called the initiative petition “an at-tempt to undermine the sacredness of human life that demands an ener-getic response from Catholics and

other citizens of good will.”The cardinal acknowledged

the fears that many have today of a “protracted period of decline at the end of life,” in which they may experience pain, loss of control, de-mentia, abandonment, and becom-ing a burden on others. But then he declared, “We as a society will be judged by how we respond to these fears.” The way to respond to the fear is not to allow those with the fears to kill themselves, but to respond to them with greater atten-tion, love and care.

“Suicide is a tragedy, one that a compassionate society should work to prevent,” he said.

At their June 2011 meeting, the bishops of the United States also approved and published a clear statement against physician-assist-ed suicide entitled, “To Live Each Day with Dignity.”

In it, the bishops observed that many people today fear the dying process and “being kept alive past life’s natural limits by burdensome medical technology. They fear ex-periencing intolerable pain and suf-fering, losing control over bodily functions, or lingering with severe dementia. They worry about being abandoned or becoming a burden on others.”

“Taking life in the name of com-passion,” they stated, “also invites a slippery slope toward ending the lives of people with non-terminal conditions. Dutch doctors, who once limited euthanasia to termi-

nally-ill patients, now provide le-thal drugs to people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, mental illness, and even melancholy. Once they convinced themselves that ending a short life can be an act of compassion, it was morbidly logi-cal to conclude that ending a longer life may show even more compas-sion.”

Benestad admitted there’s a lot of confusion among Catholics about end-of-life treatment options, and she hopes the Suicide is Al-ways a Tragedy campaign will send a clear message about the Church’s teachings.

“Most Catholics believe that you cannot refuse treatment even if it’s burdensome or costly or ex-cessive,” she said. “The fact of the matter is you can refuse treatment. For example, if you are an elderly person who has been diagnosed with cancer, you can refuse chemo-therapy if you feel it’s going to be excessively burdensome or painful or that it’s futile. The ethical and re-ligious directives of the Church are very clear about that.

“The second area of confusion among Catholics is that you can’t have enough pain medication at the end of life; but you can have what-ever level of morphine you need to control the pain, even if that level of treatment hastens death. Those two things are very important to clear up for Catholics as they deal with decisions at the end of life.”

But the one thing Benestad said is not condoned by the Catholic

Church is aiding someone in what has been callously labeled as “mer-cy killing.”

“That’s not a way to treat some-one who is in the late stages of life or is dying,” she said. “We care for the sick and dying, we don’t kill them.”

With the Death with Dignity Act looming on the horizon and given the current environment where as-sisted-suicide is being encouraged, Benestad said it’s vitally important for Catholics to make sure they ap-point a health care proxy who is

clearly aware of their intentions.“Catholics have to think seri-

ously about who they want to have making those decisions for them if they’re not able to themselves,” she said. “It is very important for Catholics to make clear to people making those decisions that as-sisted suicide is not an option for them. It’s not morally acceptable to them.”

For more information about the Suicide is Always a Tragedy campaign, visit www.suicideisalwaysatragedy.org.

Archdiocese leading fight against physician assisted-suicidecontinued from page one

The Anchor

5 March 9, 2012 the church iN the u.s.

Cardinal Dolan, in his blog posting, said he is putting more hope in finding a

resolution to this issue through Congress or the courts than the White House. “We have to be realistic and prepare for tough times,” he said.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New york, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bish-ops, said there is more “confu-sion than clarity” in the revised federal contraceptive mandate.

In a March 1 blog entry on the New york archdiocesan website, the cardinal said the U.S. bishops will “keep up ad-vocacy and education on the issue” and “continue to seek a rescinding of the suffocating mandates that require us to vio-late our moral convictions.”

San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer in a February 27 column in the San Francisco Chronicle said the troubling aspect of the revised HHS mandate was “not about contraception, but about reli-gious liberty.”

The mandate, announced January 20 by Health and Hu-man Services’ Secretary Kath-leen Sebelius, requires no-cost coverage of all contraceptives approved by Food and Drug Administration, including some that can cause an abor-tion, as well as sterilizations, as part of preventive health ser-vices for women. A narrow re-ligious exemption applies only to those employed by houses of worship.

In a revision announced February 10, President Barack Obama said religious employ-ers could decline to cover con-traceptives if they were morally opposed to them, but the health insurers that provide their health plans would be required to offer contraceptives free of charge to women who request-ed such coverage.

U.S. bishops and other reli-gious leaders continue to press for rescission of the HHS con-traceptive mandate, saying it

More ‘confusion than clarity’ about HHS mandate, Cardinal Dolan saysviolates religious liberties.

Cardinal Dolan, in his blog posting, said he is putting more hope in finding a resolution to this issue through Congress or the courts than the White House. “We have to be realistic and pre-pare for tough times,” he said.

He also disputed the opin-ion expressed in an editorial in the March 5 edition of America magazine, which said the bish-ops’ objection to the revised mandate is primar-ily “a difference over policy” and seemed to “press the religious liberty campaign too far.”

Bishop William E. Lori of Bridge-port, Conn., chair-man of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, also took issue with the editorial in a March 2 letter to the editor. In reference to the editorial’s call for civility and a “conciliatory style,” he said: “Maybe Mo-ses wasn’t at his best when he confronted Pharaoh. Maybe the Good Shepherd was a bit off His game when He confronted the rulers of his day.”

In his column, Archbishop Niederauer acknowledged “the issue of contraception is ex-tremely important in Ameri-can society,” but also pointed out that there are “frameworks though which the government’s desire to make contraceptives widely available and afford-able, and the Catholic Church’s desire not to be involved in supplying contraceptives that conflict with Catholic faith, can both be accomplished.”

In a March 1 congressional subcommittee hearing, Sebe-lius said she was confident an acceptable compromise could

be reached in the health care law to allow self-insured reli-giously affiliated institutions to provide contraception access without violating their reli-gious beliefs.

“There are a variety of ar-rangements already in place in the 28 states that have this law already in place and we intend to be informed by that when we propose the rules,” Sebel-ius told members of the House

Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee during a hearing about the HHS’s 2013 budget proposal.

“Whether it’s through a third-party administrator or a side-by-side plan or many oth-er arrangements, we will offer a variety of strategies to make sure that religious liberties are respected,” she said. Sebelius was responding to a question by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., who asked about possible pen-alties for religious employers that fail to comply with the HHS mandate to offer contra-ceptive drugs that violate their religious principles.

Upton said a Catholic hospi-tal in his state would likely be subject to fines of more than $1 billion.

Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who chaired the hearing, read a statement from Catholic Chari-ties USA emphasizing that the organization did not endorse the revised HHS mandate and shared the “goal of the U.S.

Catholic bishops to uphold re-ligious liberty.”

More than 4,500 women have signed a letter urging Obama, Sebelius and Congress “to allow religious institutions and individuals to continue to witness to their faiths in all their fullness.”

The open letter from women was organized by Helen Alva-re, who teaches law at George Mason University School of

Law, and Kim Dan-iels, former coun-sel to the Thomas More Law Center, under the banner, Women Speak for Themselves (http://womenspeakforth-

emselves.com).“No one speaks

for all women on these issues,” the letter says. “Those who purport to do so are simply at-tempting to deflect attention from the serious religious lib-erty issues currently at stake.

The Senate voted 51-48 March 1 to table the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, also called the Blunt amend-ment for its chief sponsor, Sen.

Roy Blunt, R-Mo.The act would have al-

lowed Church-affiliated orga-nizations, including Catholic charities, hospitals, schools and universities, to opt out of mandated contraception cover-age and would have extended exemptions to any nonreligious employer with a moral objec-tion to such coverage.

Under the amendment, any employer also would have been allowed to refuse to cover any other preventive health care procedures required under the rule if they held a moral or reli-gious objection.

Bishop Lori said in a state-ment after the vote that the bishops will continue their strong defense of conscience rights for all people.

“The need to defend citizens’ rights of conscience is the most critical issue before our country right now,” Bishop Lori said. “We will continue our defense of conscience rights through all available legal means. Re-ligious freedom is at the heart of democracy and rooted in the dignity of every human per-son.”

6 March 9, 2012The Anchor

Today we examine the second “degree” within the Sacrament

of Holy Orders — the priesthood. In the ninth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, we read the passage where Christ summoned the Twelve Apostles (the first bishops) and shared with them His divine author-ity over demons and the ability to heal and forgive sins. In the very next chapter, we read about Christ sending out the 72. These men represent the first priests, those who were to assist the Apostles as the number of disciples began to grow.

The reason that Christ sent out more than just the Twelve Apostles is found in Luke 10:2 where Christ says to the 72, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for His harvest.” Je-sus sent out the 72 as “co-workers” with the Apostles because there was and still is much work to be done in the Lord’s vineyard.

So as the Church began to grow, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles, there was a need for the Apostles to “ordain” more men to help them in establishing and caring for the Church. These men chosen to be “priests” were originally called “presbyteroi” in Greek, meaning “elder” or “presbyter” from which we get the English word, “priest” and “presbyterate” (the group of priests who work with a bishop in a particular diocese).

The “Catechism” defines “priests” as “co-workers with their bishops who form a unique sacerdotal college or ‘presby-terium’ dedicated to assist their bishops in priestly service to the people of God. Through the ministry of priests, the unique sacrifice of Christ on the cross is made present in the eucharistic sacrifice of the Church.”

We hear about the beginnings of the priesthood in several places in the New Testament. The very first time that we hear of the word “priest” in the New Testament is in 1 Peter 2:5 and 9, but it is also found in the Book of Revelation, 1:6, 5:10 and 20:6. But as we already know, the role of the priest has developed over time, just as the Church has contin-ued to grow and develop.

One of the important references to the priesthood is found in the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, where we see an establishment of different roles being given to different members of the early Church. “He gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ” (Eph 4:11-12).

Each of the baptized is part of the Church and as such is called to build up the Body of Christ in a way that is proper to his or her state in life. Priests are called to do that in a particular way, namely, assisting the bishop in the pastoral care of God’s people by teaching the faith and administering the Sacraments.

The “Catechism” provides great insight on this matter: “Christ, Whom the Father hallowed and sent into the world, has, through His Apostles, made their successors, the bishops namely,

sharers in His consecration and mission; and these, in their turn, duly entrusted in varying degrees various members of the Church with the office of their ministry. The function of the bishops’ ministry was handed over in a subordinate degree to priests so that they might be appointed in the order of the priesthood” (CCC 1562).

The Second Vatican Council ex-plained how priests are called to as-sist the bishops (the successors of the Apostles), acting on their behalf as their representatives to the faithful people of each local community. Lumen Gentium states, “In each local assembly of the faithful the priest represents, in a certain sense, the bishop, with whom they are associated in all trust and generosity; in part they take upon themselves his duties and solicitude and in their daily toils discharge them.”

Pope John Paul II, in his 1992 Apos-tolic Exhortation on the Priesthood, Pas-tores Dabo Vobis, explains “The writings

of the New Testament are unanimous in stressing that it is the same Spirit of Christ Who introduces these men chosen from among their

brethren into the ministry. Through the laying on of hands which transmits the gift of the Spirit, they are called and em-powered to continue the same ministry of reconciliation, of shepherding the flock of God and of teaching.”

“In the Church and on behalf of the Church,” the pope continues, “priests are a sacramental representation of Jesus Christ — the Head and Shepherd — authoritatively proclaiming His word, repeating His acts of forgiveness and His offer of salvation — particularly in Baptism, Penance and the Eucharist, showing His loving concern to the point of a total gift of self for the flock, which they gather into unity and lead to the Father through Christ and in the Spirit. In a word, priests exist and act in order to proclaim the Gospel to the world and to build up the Church in the name and person of Christ the Head and Shepherd” (PDV 15).

The teachings of the Second Vatican Council and wisdom of Blessed Pope John Paul II provide renewed emphasis upon the priesthood that we read about in the New Testament. More precisely, they explain that the priesthood is not a career or a job anymore than being a spouse or a parent is a job. The priest-hood isn’t something a man does for a living; rather, it is something that he becomes.

The traditional expression for this idea is that the priest acts “in persona Christi” (in the person of Christ). The priest con-tinues the work of the Christ in the world today. When the priest says, “I baptize you,” it is really Christ saying it. When he says, “I absolve you,” it is really Christ speaking. When he says, “This is My Body, this is My Blood” it is really Christ who is saying it. Most, if not all priests, would quickly explain how hum-bling this really is, because while we act in the person of Christ, we are still very human and sinful human beings.

Father Mello is a parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s Parish in Falmouth.

putting intothe deep

By father Jay Mello

It’s a new day for the Catholic Church — and for truly religious believers in general — in the United States. While the Church in the U.S. experienced discrimination in the past — most nota-bly during the Know Nothing era of the mid-19th century — for the most part, this discrimination, despite its occasional mockery of Catholic beliefs, was fundamentally ethnic and anti-immigrant in its motivation. Once this rabid xenophobia passed and Catholics had the chance to demonstrate that they were good Americans — hardworking, family-oriented, community-building, patriotic, and self-sacrificial citizens — even those who may have had theological issues with Catholic teaching couldn’t help but recognize how much Catholics and Catholic institutions contributed to the common good. From hospitals, to schools, to orphanages, to soup kitchens, to local St. Vincent de Paul chapters, to scores of other parochial, diocesan and national social work, Catholic individual and institutional charity justly won the respect and admiration of almost all Americans; proof-texting Protestants, hard-core hedonists, supercilious secularists and assiduous atheists alike all seemed to agree that the Church’s charity was a cause for the common good that should be praised, protected, participated in and promoted. Those who opposed the Church’s teachings gen-erally agreed to disagree with the Church in those areas, while enthusiastically supporting all the Church does and continues to do for the poor through her institutional charity. The good the Church did far outweighed in their opinion the problems they had with Church doctrine.

But that was then. We have entered an era when hostility toward the Church’s teachings on the part of militant secularists and ethically-emancipated voluptuaries has become so aggressive that they are hell-bent on shutting down the Church’s charity unless the Church sacrifices fidelity to its moral teaching and capitulates to incensing before the altars of Ba’al (sex) and Moloch (abortion). Until recently, these attacks have come primarily through the courts, where activist groups would seek to find activist judges to try to ignore the Constitution, centuries of laws and standard legal interpretations to invent rights, for example, to abortion or same-sex marriage and to eliminate rights to religious expression in public ceremonies or public property. It happened through the courts because the unpopular things they wanted to achieve basically didn’t stand a chance of win-ning referenda or elections. What has changed recently, however, is that those who would sacrifice the Church’s charity in order to advance a radically-secularist agenda are now seeking to do so through intentionally-ambiguous legislation and the decisions of increasingly-powerful unelected officials in agencies of the executive branch.

This change led the U.S. bishops in September to establish an ad-hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, to help the bishops not only to stay alert to the multivalent coordinated attack on religious freedom that threatens the Church’s charitable work but also to help them inform all Catholics and conscientious citizens of these unconstitutional incursions. The Archbishop of New york and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, pointed out then that there were “increasing threats to religious liberty in our society,” which is now “in unprec-edented ways under assault in America.” He noted the attempts of the Obama Administration through the Department of Health and Human Services to eliminate the Church’s charitable work from the government’s understanding of religious institutions and to force these charitable institu-tions to pay for abortion-causing pills, sterilizations and contraception. Churches could either cave in against their moral teaching and believers’ consciences, or pay a crippling annual fine, or close their doors, as Church adoption agencies have had to do in Massachusetts, Illinois and elsewhere. But that wasn’t an isolated infraction. HHS, Cardinal Dolan stated, also stripped the bishops’ Mi-gration and Refugee Services agency of its contract to continue its award-winning work with sex-trafficking victims because it refused to offer the “full range of reproductive services”— some-thing the Obama Administration, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, has also been threatening to do to Catholic Relief Services unless it likewise facilitates abortions, ster-ilizations and access to contraception. The administration has shown that it is willing to sacrifice all the good the Church has done in these areas unless the Church cooperates in what in considers evil, even though there are plenty of other groups that can deliver these “services.” Furthermore, Cardinal Dolan described how the Obama Administration’s Justice Department wants to compel religious groups to adhere to anti-discrimination employment laws, even when these violate the groups’ religious teachings — something that the U.S. Supreme Court eventually unanimously overturned in January — and regards the Church’s defense of marriage as the union of one man and one woman as an instance of unconstitutional bigotry; this latter position portends that, if the administration gets its legal way, the Church would be breaking the law if it continued to preach and practice that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.

The Fathers of the Church, when commenting on Christ’s command to love our enemies, noted that while Christians are never supposed to make enemies, they will nevertheless have them involuntarily, when others make themselves the adversaries of the Church. That is what is going on now. As Cardinal Dolan noted in a March 2 letter, “We did not ask for this fight.” The fight has come from those who have decided to treat the Church and her charitable institutions as enemies and to use the coercive power of the executive branch to compel the Church to acting against its religious teaching and individual consciences.

Church leaders have been understandably reluctant and slow to acknowledge the presence and intentions of those who have made themselves the Church’s enemies. Spiritually trained to see the good in others, pastorally experienced to working together for the common good with those who don’t agree with the Church on everything, and politically committed to engagement and conciliation rather than withdrawal and condemnation, many Church leaders were caught off guard by the sustained virulence of the recent attacks on religious freedom. Many believed President Obama when at Notre Dame he said that he wanted to “honor the conscience of those who disagree” with him and to “make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound conscience but also in clear ethics.” They took him at his word when he assured Pro-Life legislators that the health care reforms would not push abortion and would have ad-equate conscience protections. Cardinal Dolan himself believed him when in November at the Oval Office the president assured him that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church. But the bishops have had to conclude, reluctantly, that the president is not an hon-est man. Even more troubling, after the president’s phony “accommodation” that didn’t even get published in the Federal Registry, after the administration didn’t even consult the Catholic bishops before announcing it, and after the administration informed the bishops after announcing it that questions of religious freedom would not even be considered in the specifications of the accommodation, the bishops have now reluctantly had to adopt a position of justified skepticism toward the president’s stated desire to harmonize free contraception with “important concerns raised by religious groups.”

The first thing that we’ve all been learning is that, unbidden, the Church is now in a fight not of its making against members of an administration intent on using the power of government, in open defiance of the First Amendment, to compel the Church to act contrary to her teaching with regard to abortion, sterilization and contraception. This fight, as one commentator recently said, is not about contraception any more than the Revolutionary War was about tea.

Next week, we’ll examine several other lessons we’ve been learning.

What we’ve been learning, Part I ‘i will give you shepherds’

7 March 9, 2012 The Anchor

Making sense Out of

BioethicsBy father tad

pacholczyk

Our final two parabolic images in John place

Jesus in the position of care-giver and source of life for the Israel of God. They do this in the historic sense and in a future sense as well.

Historically, the Israelites were shepherds. Throughout the Old Testament there are many uses of images associ-ated with sheep. Perhaps the best known are found in Psalm 23 and in King David, the shepherd king. In the present pericope (Jn 10:1-17), John has combined several different parables about sheep, shep-herds, the sheepfold, and the sheep gate. These parables may or may not have been given by Jesus at the same time.

I shall not try to separate the various parables and discover separate meanings. Instead, I shall just summarize: Je-sus puts Himself in the role

the parables of the good shepherd and the good sheepof shepherd king and Divine shepherd; He is concerned for the welfare of the sheep and He guards them; men who were deputed to care for the sheep of Israel had betrayed their position and the trust of the sheep; and He has other sheep and it is His intention to bring all into one flock.

The image of the vine is very rich in Jewish literature, and we don’t have the space to examine adequately all the examples from the Scrip-tures and extra biblical sources. Instead, I shall put together a concatenation of images (par-able, metaphor, allegory, etc.) to allow one to meditate on this image given by Jesus.

The first link in this chain is found in the Book of Numbers, chapter 13. The men sent by

Moses to scout the land of Ca-naan come back with an enor-mous cluster of grapes borne on a pole by two men. (This image is used today as the logo

of the Ministry of Tourism of Israel.)

The land “flowing with milk and honey” will also be known as “the vineyard of the Lord.” Thus, Israel (the people) is a vine in Israel (the land).

But Israel was also a man (Jacob/Israel), and the vine grew through the 12 tribes of Israel’s descendants. (See the

following for images of Israel as vine or vineyard: Judges 9:7-15, Psalm 8:9-20, Isaiah 5:1-7 and 27:2-6, Jeremiah 2:21, Hosiah 10:1, Matthew

21:33-46.)Jesus says to his 12

disciples at the Last Supper that He is the true vine (Jn 15:1-17). This does not say that Israel is a false vine, but that He is the vine par excellence. Israel, the vine, received life from Israel the

patriarch, through human gen-eration of the 12 tribes. Jesus, the vine, shares life with His Twelve by incorporation.

A vine is pruned and dressed by a gardener. The Twelve left home and livelihood to follow Jesus. The Twelve had already been pruned to 11.

The 11 are cautioned to remain in union with Jesus to

bear much fruit and are warned of the consequences of trying to do their own thing. The vital lifeblood or sap of this vine is love (agape).

Since this teaching was giv-en at the Last Supper it seems that the phrase, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” was addressed only to the Apostles, not to all the followers of Jesus in general. It is later extended to all of us by St. Paul, who de-velops this idea of vital union with Christ in the image of the Body of Christ.

Father Buote is a retired priest of the Diocese of Fall River. For more than 30 years, he has been leading Bible study groups in various par-ishes and has also led pilgrims to visit sites in Israel associ-ated with the Bible.

This concludes Father Buote’s series on the Parables of the Lord.

parablesof

the lordBy father

Martin l. Buote

On January 20 the United States Department of

Health and Human Services issued a mandate placing first amendment rights and religious freedom in the crosshairs.

The mandate, as a provision of ObamaCare, requires “pre-ventive health services” to be covered by all health insurance issuers and all group health plans. Those insurance plans must provide (with no co-pay) the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved con-traceptive methods for women. These include not only surgical sterilizations, but also potential abortion-causing agents such as Plan B (the morning-after pill), intrauterine devices and another form of “emergency contracep-tion” known as ella. This drug, which the FDA acknowledges may also work against the life of the embryo “by preventing attachment (implantation) to the uterus,” can be taken up to five days after “unprotected” sex.

Essentially all employers would thus be forced — and therefore complicit in — finan-cially subsidizing pharmaceuti-cal abortions, contraception and sterilization procedures for their employees. All these procedures represent sinful and damaging human choices, as the Catholic Church has never ceased to point out.

The mandate constitutes a direct intrusion into the reli-gious works and governance of the Church and represents a federally-sponsored violation of her members’ consciences. The Church, as the largest provider

federal mandates and the crushing of religious freedomof not-for-profit health care in the U.S., operates roughly 600 hospitals and employs three quarters of a million people, in addition to employing hun-dreds of thousands of others in her educational and social service minis-tries.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago aptly described the authoritarian environ-ment being created by the HHS mandate in one of his recent newspaper columns: “The bishops would love to have the separation between church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in confor-mity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the gov-ernment couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not, when the law protected rather than crushed conscience. The state is making itself into a church.”

In the words of another commentator, “As is more and more obvious, ObamaCare has nothing to do with controlling healthcare costs. It has every-thing to do with government control. It’s time to admit a mistake, repeal the law, and look at market-based ways to control health care costs.”

Critics of every persuasion have condemned the HHS mandate as a particularly egre-gious violation both of reli-gious freedom and the rights of conscience. “I side with those

who feel this was an insult to freedom of religion and a slap in the face of faith-based insti-tutions,” Rabbi Eliot Pearlson of Temple Menorah in Miami Beach said.

Rabbi Dr. Michael Korman of Congregation Anshei Shalom in West Palm Beach concurred: “The entire contraception policy was poorly instituted. It appears to be in violation of our First Amendment.”

Jessica Devers in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal perhaps put it most clearly when she wrote: “I am not Catholic. I am a social lib-eral and a supporter of Planned Parenthood. I’ve educated my children about birth control since they were young. Nev-ertheless, I am offended at the arrogance of our government ruling that the Catholic Church must provide a benefit that the Church believes is immoral.”

On February 10, after stormy reaction even from President Obama’s staunchest Catholic supporters, he announced a so-called “accommodation,” which — as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly explained — really changed nothing. When the government

documents were made avail-able, it became clear that there was no compromise at all but rather some slight procedural modifications that left the sub-stance of the mandate entirely

intact.The day the “ac-

commodation” was announced, in fact, the mandate was entered into the Federal Register with no changes, along with vague assurances of possible modifica-tions at a future date (reminiscent of Speaker

Nancy Pelosi’s famous line when campaigning for Obam-aCare: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”)

Philip Rovner in the same issue of the Wall Street Jour-nal sums it up this way: “The premise in favor of the birth-control mandate is based on its being ‘essential to the health of women and families.’ I assume such items as food, housing, clothing and transportation

are ‘essential to the health of women and families,’ as well. Therefore, I propose that the ObamaCare mandates be extended to cover food, shel-ter, clothing, autos, etc. In this scenario, everybody would be paying for everyone else’s es-sentials.”

The real issue, of course, has nothing to do with access to particular “reproductive issues” (like abortion or birth control), and everything to do with whether someone else can be forced by the strong arm of a federal mandate, in direct violation of their religious freedom, to pay for practices they recognize as morally rep-rehensible.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neu-roscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, and serves as the Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org.

Upcoming Daily Readings: Sat. Mar. 10, Mi 7:14-15,18-20; Ps 103:1-4,9-12; Lk 15:1-3,11-32. Sun. Mar. 11, Third Sunday of Lent, Ex 20:1-17 or 20:1-3,7-8,12-17; Ps 19:8-11; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25. Mon. Mar. 12, 2 Kgs 5:1-15b; Pss 42:2-3; 43:3-4; Lk 4:24-30. Tues. Mar. 13, Dn 3:25,34-43; Ps 25:4bc-5ab,6-7bc,8-9; Mt 18:21-35. Wed. Mar. 14, Dt 4:1,5-9; Ps 147:12-13,15-16,19-20; Mt 5:17-19. Thurs. Mar. 15, Jer 7:23-28; Ps 95:1-2,6-9; Lk 11:14-23. Fri. Mar. 16, Hos 14:2-10; Ps 81:6c-11b,14,17; Mk 12:28-34.

On February 6, Queen Elizabeth II marked

her diamond jubilee, an achievement that Great Brit-ain will celebrate throughout 2012. I am not a monarchist, but I’ll happily join in salut-ing the Queen, who embodies several qualities that are in short supply among 21st-cen-tury public figures.

In one of a slew of diamond jubilee books, author Robert Hardman reports that Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, is awed by the Queen’s “gravitas.” One hopes it’s catching, even as one hopes that people understand why, as one of Her Majesty’s friends puts it, “she is never, you know, not the Queen.” It’s not a matter of Victorian formal-ity and still less of arrogance.

Rather, it’s that the Queen thinks of her unique position as a vocation — a responsibil-ity for which she was conse-crated at her coronation on June 2, 1953.

The character of Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was forged in the fires of World War II, when she learned the mean-ing of duty from her father, King George VI, and her mother, later the Queen Mother Elizabeth, whose name she bears. (Something of the steel in the former Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon may be grasped in her response to the sugges-tion that the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, be

evacuated to Canada to escape the Nazi Blitz and a pos-sible German invasion: “The children won’t go without me. I won’t go without the King. And the King will never leave.”) The teen-age Princess

Elizabeth played her part in Britain’s finest hour, doing the occasional radio broad-cast and joining the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, where she was trained as a driver and mechanic. The quiet stoicism and sense of composure she learned in those days have been power-ful assets these past 60 years, even if they weren’t appreci-ated by the media lynch-mob in the immediate aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Whatever one’s theologi-cal opinion of the “sacring” of British monarchs, it’s quite clear from the pictures of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation that this was a young woman

— by then a wife and mother — who thought of herself as being anointed, blessed, and crowned for a task to which she must sacrifice her own life, for the sake of her people. yes, Queen Elizabeth

II is enormously wealthy and yes, she has lived a life in which she has been spared much of the drudgery that afflicts other mortals. But anyone who does not think that Elizabeth II has made sacri-fices in living out her

monarchical vocation doesn’t know much about how public life works these days — or how this remarkable woman understands herself.

Queen Elizabeth’s sense of duty is not generic; it is specifically Christian. That is clear from her annual Christ-mas broadcasts, the one time each year she speaks to her people in something resem-bling her own voice. (The annual Throne Speech in Parliament is written entirely by her government.) The 2011 Christmas address was par-ticularly memorable. In it, the Queen talked simply, moving-ly, and profoundly about the meaning of the birth of Jesus for humanity, and about the

Christian virtues of forgive-ness, compassion and magna-nimity. I watched the address and thought, perhaps unchari-tably, that there had been few better Christmas homilies preached that day between Land’s End and the Pentland Firth. And it “worked” be-cause it came from the heart — a heart formed by Christian conviction.

Elizabeth II is said to be “low Church” in her Anglican sensibility, but that is of con-siderably less importance than the fact that she is a genuine Christian who is not afraid to bear witness to the truth of Christ as she has been given to understand it. The future is never certain, but on the present form sheet it seems unlikely that this admirable facet of Queen Elizabeth’s way of exercising her role as sovereign will be replicated in successor generations. Britain, and the world, will be poorer for that.

Still, and on the same form sheet, we may wish for many more years of her company. So on this diamond jubilee, I say, with heartfelt respect, “God Save the Queen.”

George Weigel is Distin-guished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

When I read John’s Gospel this week

about the moneychangers in the temple, I thought back many years ago when there were moneychangers in our churches. Neat little rows of quarters lined a table as pa-rishioners would come in and ask for change for a dollar to pay the “seat money.” It was a traditional donation to “pay” for your seat in church.

In Jesus’ day, such people existed to help those who had traveled to the temple in Jeru-salem for worship. It was the Passover time and many Jews went to the temple to celebrate the feast. Those present in the temple were performing a ser-vice by providing animals for sacrifice.

Moneychangers were also performing a service. The temple would not accept regular coins and required that the temple tax be paid with temple coins.

So why did Jesus drive them

out of the temple area with a whip made of cords?

John tells us: “His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, ‘Zeal for your house will con-sume me.’”

While all the Gospels mention this incident, it is only John who had this episode listed at the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. Others place it just as Jesus was to enter into Jerusalem for His passion and death.

There is the obvi-ous reference to His death and resurrection. As John’s Gospel states: “But He was speaking about the temple of His body. Therefore, when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.”

As I reflected on the read-ings for this Sunday, two meditative points come to mind

as we begin this third week of Lent.

For many, this may be the season of God’s grace when all that is not right in our lives is

cast out. Oh, we want to do it, but things are more comfortable as they are.

I can imagine a teen-ager’s room might need cleaning, but they are content with what is. Perhaps, even leftover food and dirty clothes in a pile can be found.

It is like the lady who wanted a sponsor certificate. When I did not recognize her from church, she said I had to realize how busy she was. She

worked and, while admitting that she did not work 24/7, she was busy. After all, she noted, I do have my karate.

So it is that there are things in our spiritual lives that need to be cleaned, removed, done away with. Do we really want to do it? Will it take Christ to come into our lives and do it, much the same way as He cleansed the tem-ple? Christ is willing; the real question is, are we ready?

Secondly, an obvious reflec-tion on the readings today is how do we respect the temple — the Church? Have you noticed the sound level when you come to church? One can question if people come to church to visit one another. Is it a social hour, or time to worship God? Before a special ceremony, such as a wedding or First Communion, the noise level drowns out the possibility of prayer.

One person has said it is like visiting a home and not speak-ing to the guest who had invited you.

Could it be that we have for-gotten who we are and why we are at church? We have come to worship God, to pray together in community. We come to raise our minds and hearts to the Lord, to lift our voices in prayer and song.

This is much more than a so-cial or religious obligation. It is our attempt to focus the week to come on what matters. It is the place where we are nourished by the Body of Christ and His Word. It is where we gather the strength we need to go forth to proclaim His Word, His works.

May the cleansing of the temple by the Lord remind us to cleanse our minds and hearts this Lent. May it remind us of the special place our Church must be.

Msgr. Oliveira is pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford.

8 March 9, 2012The Anchor

thecatholic

differenceBy george Weigel

By Msgr.John J. Oliveira

homily of the Weekthird sunday

of lent

god save the Queen

cleansing our minds and hearts this lent

visit the Anchor

online athttp://www.anchornews.org

Thursday 8 March 2011 — at home on the Taunton River — night of the Lenten Moon

Did you know, dear read-ers, that there’s a spe-

cialized seminary located in Weston, Massachusetts? It’s called Blessed John XXII National Semi-nary. It has prepared some 500 men for the priesthood since its founding in 1964. The men in this seminary are between 30 and 60 years of age. This is commonly referred to as a “late vocation” or, sometimes, a “delayed vocation,” but to my way of thinking, these men just took a more circuitous route to ordination. They weren’t late at all; they arrived at the altar in God’s good time. I recently saw

an interview featuring some of these older seminarians. One had been a surgeon and another a law-yer. One had been a sportswriter and another a contractor. Some

of these men had been previously married and were now widowers, even with children and grandchil-dren.

There have always been “de-layed vocations” in the Church. One of the priest-professors during my own college seminary days

had been a lineman for the electric company. After the death of his wife, he entered the seminary and was eventually ordained a priest. Then he found himself teaching

us seminarians about the Sacraments. He used to joke that he had been chosen to teach Sacramental Theology because he was the only member of the faculty who had received all seven of them.

I think of the priests of our own

diocese, some of whom had other professions before entering the seminary. They don’t talk much about it. you hear dribs and drabs of their stories if you keep your ears open. I’ve heard that several were teachers before entering the seminary. I think of Fathers Paul

Caron, Horace Travassos, and Gerald Barnwell, among others. Some worked as accountants or financial managers, like Fathers Jim McClellan and the late Raul Lagoa. Father Bill Campbell was a professional musician. Father Michael McManus was an execu-tive assistant to a mayor. Fathers David Pignato and Paul Lamb worked in the legal field; Fathers Paul Bernier, Henry Dahl, and Tom Costa were in the business world. Father Joe Mauritzen was a psychologist. Father Tad Pa-cholczyk was a research scientist. Father Ed Byington was an FBI agent. Until they came to the fork in the road and set off in a different direction.

Priests are not the only ones who may take a round-about route to the religious life. The same ap-plies to nuns. One nun in particular has been receiving a lot of notice lately. An acquaintance of mine, Pulitzer Prize-winning Maureen Dowd, recently wrote about the nun in her column in the New York Times. This alerted me to the good Sister’s journey of faith. Leave it to Maureen. In her previous life, this nun had been a glamorous Hollywood starlet. She appeared in films with the likes of Elvis Presley (twice), Robert Wagner, Anthony Quinn and Montgomery Clift. As a rising Hollywood star, she was a presenter of the Oscars at the Academy Awards in 1959. She is still a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Dolores Hart made her screen debut in 1957 as Elvis’ sweetheart in “Loving You.” It was Elvis’ first kiss on screen. He blushed. Dolo-res became an overnight success and starred with Elvis again the following year in “King Creole.”

On an episode of the “20/20” tele-vision program in 2001, Dolores Hart was reported to have been one of the most visible and envied women in the Hollywood of her day. She also appeared on Broad-way, starring in “The Pleasure of His Company” in 1959, for which she won a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress. Seven more films followed, including “Where the Boys Are,” the highest-grossing film of 1962. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Pic-ture for her performance in the film “Lisa.” Then, at the young age of 24 years, she came to a folk in the road. She chose the cloister.

On Oscar Night this year, there was Mother Dolores, back in Hollywood, strolling down the famous red carpet and waving to her fans. If you missed it live, it was rebroadcast on the “Today Show” the following morning. “Who” was she wearing at this Super Bowl of Hollywood fashion — Alexander McQueen?, Tom Ford? Marchesa? No, she was not wearing the couture of a famous designer at all but the simple habit of the Order of Saint Benedict. The short documentary on the life jour-ney of Dolores Hart is scheduled to air on HBO on April 5. It’s entitled (what else?) but “God is the Bigger Elvis.”

Often Catholics view priests and nuns as having been dedicat-ed to God since birth. In a word, they have never had a life other than Church, Church, Church. Do a little digging, and you may very well be surprised. On the journey of life, when some came to a fork, they took the road less traveled.

Father Goldrick is pastor of St. Nicholas of Myra Parish in North Dighton.

Watching how Great Britain deals with

the ethical issues surrounding health care is instructive for a few important reasons. First, we both have a Judeo-Christian foundation to our cultures; we have inherited much of our legal system from theirs; they introduced socialized medicine more than 60 years ago, and finally, they legalized abortion six years before we did — which, given the first three reasons might provide a glimpse into our own future.

Ultimately, when the citizens of one place pool their re-sources to take care of the sick (and some medical conditions cost a great deal of money) it goes without saying that unless there is a firm understanding concerning the value of each person, the healthy may grow to resent the sick, who inevita-bly take more than their “fair share” of those finite resources.

A recent court case concern-ing two Scottish midwives is chilling. Midwives have tradi-tionally been laudable women who help others bring new life safely into the world. As far back as the Book of Exodus, their singular devotion to life was clear when they refused the order from the Egyptian Pharaoh demanding that they kill the male infants born to the Jewish women. When sum-moned to explain themselves, they concocted a clever story.

“Why have you done this, allowing the boys to live?” The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women.

They are robust and give birth before the midwife arrives.” Therefore God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and grew very numerous. And because the midwives feared God, God built up families for them (Ex 1:18-21).

Unfortunately, this reputa-

tion notwithstanding, most British midwives have long been diverted from the beauty of birth to the dirty work of aborting those babies who are unwanted. The government enlisted their services as a cost-saving device, since their training is less expensive than doctors, but it was also prag-matic, since British doctors are increasingly opting out of per-forming abortions. Since the 1967 Abortion Act included a conscience clause, doctors can request exemptions, and they have been doing so in “unprec-edented numbers” according to a statement from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Thus, while early termina-tions take place in a hospital’s gynecology wing, the later procedures — usually due to suspected fetal disabilities — are performed on the delivery wing, and senior midwives were required to oversee the staff responsible for the abor-

tions. Two asked for exemp-tions, due to their religious convictions and in light of the conscience clause. The court has just refused their request.

The ruling handed down at the end of February said that their objection is not covered by the conscious clause of the Abortion Act, allowing the

judge in the case to exercise a tyranny that Pharaoh him-self couldn’t man-age. When even the fundamental issues of life and death are not covered by a con-scious clause, a cul-ture has pretty well lost its understanding

of the human person. Ironically, an even more

unnerving proposal has been made in Britain’s “Journal of Medical Ethics,” wherein two writers defend infanticide, arguing that “newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons because individ-uals who are not in the condi-tion of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons.”

The authors elaborate further, noting that if babies cannot explain themselves, then they’ll hardly understand their own loss of life, but that begs the question. What rights does the state think it’s confer-ring on persons if its judges subsequently refuse to recog-nize the consciences of those who can explain themselves? Remember well how God dealt with Pharaoh.

Mrs. Kineke is the author of “The Authentic Catholic Woman” (Servant Books) and blogs at feminine-genius.com.

fork in the road

pharaoh and the midwives

9 March 9, 2012 The Anchor

10 March 9, 2012The Anchor

Anchor persOn Of the WeeK — Sheila Matthews. (Photo by Ken-neth J. Souza)

By kenneth J. SouzaAnchor Staff

SOMERSET — During her 11-year stint working as a Maryknoll mission-ary in Guatemala, Sheila Matthews learned firsthand that the Holy Spirit often works in ways you’d never ex-pect.

While training health providers in remote rural villages, she encountered one man who didn’t seem to learn as quickly as the others.

“He was always missing things and I started thinking he shouldn’t be a health provider and we might have to ask him to leave the program,” Matthews said. “I was going to his village to supervise a clinic he was going to be running, and we went into his home. It was a very simple one-room house with a dirt floor and there was a woman over in the cor-ner in a bed, coughing away.”

Immediately sensing that the woman had tuberculosis, Matthews assumed the man didn’t have a clue and she chal-lenged him by asking about the bed-rid-den patient.

“He told me: ‘She lives in a village three hours from here and she has tuber-culosis and she needs injections every-day. I can’t walk three hours there and back to give them to her. I talked to my wife and asked her if we could let her live with us for the three months during her treatments. And my wife said we could, so I’ve invited her to live with us. I’m trying to keep her as isolated as possible,’” Matthews said.

Stunned and humbled by his re-sponse, Matthews realized that it was the Holy Spirit’s way of speaking to her.

“I was thinking to myself, who am I to judge him?” she said. “Here he was responding in a way that Christ would have responded and I’m not even sure I could have put my own family at risk like that.”

Throughout her life — whether working as a nurse, serving the needs of the poor and sick in Guatemala and El Salvador, or even simply volunteer-ing at her home parish of St. Patrick’s in Somerset — Matthews has always

heeded Christ’s call to fulfill the corpo-ral works of mercy.

Her journey began shortly after grad-uating from nursing school in the early 1970s when she joined Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and ended up working at a Catholic church in cen-tral Vermont.

“I always knew that I wanted to do some type of overseas work, but I had a sense that I should know what was going on in my own country first, which is why I went into VIS-TA,” Matthews said. “At the time, I didn’t under-stand why I’d be sent to Vermont, but it really intro-duced me to rural poverty and all its problems.”

It was through her VISTA expe-rience in Vermont that Matthews realized she not only wanted to work overseas, but wanted to do something con-nected to her own Catholic faith; which led to her seeking out the Maryknoll Mis-sionaries.

“I found that Maryknoll was one of the few groups at the time that was allowing lay missionaries to come in,” Mat-thews said. “My sister, who lives in Montana, was very good friends with a Maryknoll priest and when I went to visit her he told me all about the Maryknoll lay mission program.”

She first ended up in Guatemala for

11 years, working on a team that trained the locals to become health providers in rural areas.

“I taught them basic health care that they then could share with their vil-lages,” she said. “We also taught them about the more common illnesses so they’d be able to treat the people in their village as well. Some people would have to walk many hours to get to health care facilities, so if they were

able to treat the more common ill-nesses, it would only be the people who were really beyond their help who would have to be taken to the nearest hospital or clinic.”

Matthews next traveled to El Sal-vador, where she did similar work in the city of San Salvador for three years.

“I went from being in a very rural area in Gua-temala to a very urban area, so the problems were a lot different there,” Matthews said. “The other thing that’s inter-esting is even after being in Guatema-la for 11 years, the experience didn’t translate from one place to the other. It was very hum-bling for me to realize it was kind

of like starting all over again.”In both cases, Matthews said she

ended up receiving much more than she gave.

“I think the poor have so much to teach us,” she said. “For me, one of the basic things I struggle with is I don’t like being totally dependent on God. But for the poor in Guatemala and El Salvador, that is not a struggle for them. That is how they live everyday. They helped teach me how to do that a little bit better. I don’t say I do it well, but just a little bit better.”

When she gave up her missionary work to return home to care for her ail-ing mother nearly 10 years ago, Mat-thews said the lessons she learned over-seas came back with her.

“One of the hardest things when I came back after being a lay missioner for so many years was being able to ad-just,” she said. “The poor don’t have a lot of the material things that become distractions and impede us in our rela-tionship with God. I think it’s a chal-lenge to live in a society where we have all these ‘things’ and still be able to do that. But being part of St. Patrick’s Par-ish, it’s very welcoming and I feel at home here.”

Even though her mom has since passed away and she now cares for her father full-time, Matthews still serves her parish in a variety of ways — from teaching Faith Formation classes to Confirmation students to serving as an extraordinary minister of Holy Com-munion to volunteering for the Social Justice Committee.

“Teaching Confirmation students is more fun than I thought it would be,” she said. “The students express their faith very differently at times, but you also get glimpses of the depth of their faith. It can be pretty moving consider-ing how difficult their lives can be.”

Her work with the Social Justice Committee is very much an extension of her previous missionary efforts.

“Some of the things we try to get involved with include helping to fight against budget cuts which impact the poor,” Matthews said. “We do letter-writing campaigns to maintain inter-national aid to countries like Ethiopia. It’s a way of saying we care about those people and those cuts shouldn’t be tol-erated. If you want to balance a bud-get, you can’t do it on the backs of the poor.”

St. Patrick’s has also adopted the Haitian Health Foundation — founded by Dr. Jeremiah Lowney, formerly of Fall River — as a parish project.

“It works in the Jérémie area of Hai-ti,” Matthews said. “The fourth-graders in our Faith Formation program are offering prayers of petition for Haiti’s needs and have collected food to send there. The entire parish is involved — from the young kids to our elders who are knitting baby hats and baby blan-kets. It’s great to see the whole parish get behind the effort.”

Matthews is also active with the Pax Christi movement, which meets at La Salette Shrine in Attleboro.

“I’d encourage people to think about joining us at La Salette or starting their own group in their parish,” she said. “I think peace work is much harder than waging war and I think it’s something as Catholics that we need to work on.”

Admitting that everything she does provides her with a little bit of “peace and joy” and adding that those she helps “nourish me,” Matthews is quick to en-courage others to get involved in their own parish and beyond.

“I think a lot of times we do a good job within our parish, but we don’t real-ly stretch ourselves beyond our parish,” she said. “And it can be even within the diocese — just look at the issue of homelessness in our area. Don’t think you can’t do it. Whatever you do mat-ters — it matters to the people you’re reaching out to and it matters to you.”

“I think we’re all called to try and fol-low Jesus — a non-violent Jesus and a service-centered Jesus,” she added. “And that’s what I truly want to be doing; whether it’s activities within the Church or broader areas outside the Church.”

To submit a Person of the Week nominee, send an email with information to fatherrogerlandry@anchornews.org.

parishioner heeds call to do corporal works of mercy

11 March 9, 2012 The Anchor

ROME (CNS) — Recounting their rural Bavarian childhood and subsequent lifelong friendship, the elder brother of Pope Benedict XVI offers a privileged look at the per-sonal side of the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics.

“My Brother, the Pope,” pub-lished March 1 by Ignatius Press, is based on interviews with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger published by Ger-man writer Michael Hesemann and

Teddy bears and tabernacles: The pope’s childhood, told by his brotherwas originally published in Ger-man last year.

Joseph, the future Pope Bene-dict, was “very slight and delicate” at birth, Msgr. Ratzinger says, and was “often sick” as an infant, with diphtheria among other ailments. Later on, Joseph’s favorite toys were stuffed animals, and he was particularly attached to a pair of teddy bears.

Msgr. Ratzinger describes fam-

ily life with their parents and older sister Maria as free of any overt conflict, “since each one settled that himself and with God in personal prayer. We did not talk about such things. Such problems became a part of our prayer.”

Glimpses of the boys’ destinies came early on. When a cardinal visited their small town in 1931, arriving in a black limousine, four-year-old Joseph exclaimed, “I’ll be a cardinal someday!” Nevertheless, Msgr. Ratzinger says, his brother was never ambitious, and external honors have been “always unwel-come” to him.

“My brother was somewhat bet-

ter behaved than I,” Msgr. Ratzing-er says, yet he recounts a boyhood prank in which the two tricked a local farmer into losing track of his oxcart.

Recreation of a more edifying sort came when the boys played at being priests, using a toy altar made for them by an uncle.

“It was a really beautiful high altar, which he even equipped with a rotating tabernacle,” Msgr. Ratz-inger recalls. “Naturally we used water instead of wine for the make-believe consecration.”

The future Pope Benedict, now a proficient amateur pianist and lover of Mozart, “did not take to

music quite as spontaneously as I did,” says Msgr. Ratzinger, who went on to become the choirmas-ter of the Regensburg, Germany, cathedral. His brother “was a little more restrained, although he is a very musical person,” Msgr. Ratz-inger says.

Recounting Hitler’s rise to pow-er in 1930s Germany, Msgr. Ratz-inger says that their father regarded the dictator as the “Antichrist” and refused to join the Nazi party.

“But so as not to put our fam-ily completely at risk, he advised Mother to join the women’s orga-nization,” Msgr. Ratzinger says, noting that the women “did not talk about Hitler but instead exchanged recipes, chatted about their gardens, and sometimes even prayed the Ro-sary together.”

It was only reluctantly that the two boys obeyed requirements to join the Hitler youth and later served in the German military dur-ing World War II, Msgr. Ratzinger says. The pope’s brother was pres-ent at the Allied bombardment of the monastery on Monte Cassino, Italy, in 1944.

Msgr. Ratzinger recounts anec-dotes about their time together as adults: watching a German tele-vision series about a police dog named “Inspector Rex” and divid-ing tasks in the kitchen — the mon-signor drying the dishes which his brother, by then a cardinal, washes.

In 2005, after the death of Blessed John Paul II, Msgr. Ratz-inger was sure that his brother was too old to be elected pope. When he heard the new pontiff’s name pronounced on live televi-sion, he admits that he was “dis-heartened.”

“It was a great challenge, an enormous task for him, I thought, and I was seriously worried,” Msgr. Ratzinger says.

The pope later confided that his election had “struck him like a bolt of lightning,” Msgr. Ratzinger says.

Readers get a glimpse inside the papal household as Msgr. Ratz-inger describes his brother’s daily routine. On Tuesdays, for example, Pope Benedict listens to tape re-cordings and practices his pronun-ciation of the remarks in foreign languages that he will make at the next day’s general audience.

Msgr. Ratzinger says that his brother has not been indifferent to the many criticisms that he has re-ceived during his career, as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then as pope.

Pope Benedict is “personally very sensitive, but he also knows from which corner these attacks come and the reason for them, what is usually behind them,” Msgr. Ratzinger says. “That way he over-comes it more easily, he rises above it more simply.”

Diocese of Fall River TV Masson WLNE Channel 6

Sunday, March 11, 11:00 a.m.

Celebrant is Father Jay Mello, Parochial Vicar at St. Patrick’s

Parish in Falmouth

NEW yORK (CNS) — The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by Catholic News Service.

“Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” (Universal)

Theodore Geisel’s beloved

1971 children’s book is brought to the big screen by director Chris Renaud in a 3-D ani-mated adventure that expands the original story while retain-ing its central message about the responsible stewardship of natural resources. Raised in a town where everything is artificial, a teen (voice of Zac Efron) sets out to win the girl of his dreams (voice of Taylor Swift) by fulfilling her wish to see a real, live tree. His quest leads him to the recluse (voice

CNS Movie Capsules

12 March 9, 2012The Anchor

larly stand outside Planned Par-enthood in Boston, Springfield and Worcester filed suit against the law, citing its restriction of their right to free speech.

Justice Joseph L. Tauro split the case into two challenges — one to the law itself and the other to the law as applied. He upheld the law itself in 2008, determining that the Common-wealth has a “substantial and le-gitimate” interest in protecting public safety outside clinics. That decision was affirmed by the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and not taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In his latest ruling on the law as applied, Judge Tauro found that the regulation left open “ample alternative means of communication.”

“Protesters may engage in any form of communication with their intended audience so long as they do not do so inside a clearly marked and posted buffer zone during clinic busi-ness hours,” the ruling reads. “A valid time, place, and man-ner restriction, by its nature must burden some First Amend-ment activity for the purpose of advancing the state interest at stake.”

The judge also found that the sidewalk counselors have still been effective in commu-nicating their message despite the 35-foot barrier. They can be seen and heard by “both will-ing and unwilling listeners” and have been “successful in con-vincing a number of women not to have abortions.”

The ruling may be appealed and the matter could eventually be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Tauro is the same federal district judge who found the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in 2010.

James Driscoll, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, said the bishops are “disappointed” in the buffer zone ruling.

“Aside from the First

Amendment concerns, crimi-nalizing the peaceful and non-obstructive use of the sidewalks is unnecessary, punitive and un-fairly excessive,” he said.

Last June, the MCC testified in favor of a proposed law that would repeal the buffer zone. On its website, the MCC points out that, “Federal case law al-ready requires individuals en-tering a designated zone outside the entrances of health facilities to gain the consent of other in-dividuals before approaching closer than eight feet to coun-sel against abortion.” Massa-chusetts law also prohibits in-dividuals from obstructing any entrances to medical facilities.

The buffer zone law “creates no-speech zones in areas tradi-tionally regarded as open to the public precisely for the purpose of free expression and assem-bly,” the MCC contends.

Anne Fox, president of Mas-sachusetts Citizens for Life, said that the law shows an un-fair preference for abortion clinics.

“Unfortunately, in our coun-try right now, the regular rules do not apply to abortion clin-ics,” she said. “Either a buffer zone is a good idea that should apply to all health facilities, or it isn’t and should apply to none.”

Such laws are currently ac-tive in two states in addition to Massachusetts — Colorado, which has a 100-foot barrier, and Montana, which has a 36-foot buffer.

The justification often used for a buffer zone is the inci-dents of violence that some-times occur at abortion clinics. Fox pointed out that anyone who physically harms or kills another has violated laws much more serious than the buffer zone law.

She said the law has pushed peaceful protesters to sidewalks in front of other businesses or in the middle of busy streets. This is an undue burden on sidewalk counselors, who are particu-larly important in the Common-wealth because no informed consent laws exist.

Roderick Murphy, direc-tor of Problem Pregnancy in Worcester, said that sidewalk counselors — who pray outside the Planned Parenthood directly across the street from the preg-nancy resource center — would be able to assist two to three times as many women if the buffer zone law were repealed.

“It does affect the babies that are born,” he said. “We have a much more difficult time speak-ing to women about abortion alternatives.”

of Ed Helms) whose unbridled greed and ambition long ago caused the environmental di-saster — an outcome predict-ed in the dire warnings of the title character (voice of Danny DeVito), the enlightened but curmudgeonly guardian of the forest. First-rate animation and catchy songs forward the theme of respect for God’s creation and make this an enjoyable outing for the entire family. Some cartoon-ish action. The Catholic News Service classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.“Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds”

(Lionsgate)Less heavy-handed than the

eponymous writer and direc-tor’s other morality plays but considerably slower in pace, this romance — of sorts — fo-cuses on a single relationship, and carries a steady reminder that the wealthy and powerful have to work much harder than the less privileged to approach the kingdom of Heaven. Perry plays a computer software ty-coon whose well-ordered life is upended by a widowed office-cleaner (Thandie Newton) and her six-year-old daughter (Jor-denn Thompson). An implied premarital relationship, fleeting crass language and sexual ban-ter. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Associa-tion of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappro-priate for children under 13.

Judge affirms abortion clinic buffercontinued from page one

13 March 9, 2012 The Anchor

hiddenshakespeare

By Jennifer pierce

In two weeks I’ll be wrap-ping up this discussion

about Shakespeare and his England but I’d like to use this space this week to consider another aspect to his dramatur-gy, and that is the prominence of disguise.

Disguise features in 12 of his plays. Naturally, this by it-self cannot be counted as a uniquely Catholic phenomenon, as dis-guise has always been a prominent device in tragedy and comedy. The very art of acting itself is a form of dis-guise so it is endemic to the form and serves as a giddy in-joke on the part of playwrights; they double the uncanny practice of acting, by having the actor portray someone who is ... acting. It’s a laugh riot and still happens today. Remember Julie Andrews in “Victor/Vic-toria”?

Scholars agree, however, that Shakespeare was notably adept in using disguise as a device and that he used it fre-quently. So frequently, in fact, most studies of disguise on stage in the time period tend to focus almost entirely on the Bard. Scholars try to show an even hand but inevitably Shakespeare dominates the period when it comes to pro-viding examples of disguise.

In several of his plays people disguise themselves as friars, a jarring situation when you consider that priests in Shakespeare’s world had to disguise themselves as ur-chins, gentleman, gardeners, and the like in order to avoid prosecution. Even more jarring when you consider that it was likely that members of Shake-speare’s extended family hid such disguised priests in their midst, and that other disguised priests stayed at the building he purchased adjacent to his theater, which happened to have also been a friary at one time but was now “disguised” as a theater for entertainment.

The friar disguise was an

old trope, almost like the red shirted characters in “Star Trek.” In “Star Trek” if a character wore a red shirt you could be sure that they were going to be killed before the end of the episode. In Refor-mation comedy, if a character wore a friar’s costume you could be sure they were up to

no good. Except Shakespeare unmistakably turns that trope inside out. In a world where priests were disguised as laymen in order to do good, he created a dramatic world in which lay folk disguised themselves as priests in order to do good.

In “Measure for Measure,” for example, Duke Vincentio disguises himself as a friar so that he may observe the true villain of the piece, Angelo, in a position of power. In that habit, he enacts other devices typically used for evil in other plays during the time period, one of which was the “bed trick” in which a man was tricked into thinking that one woman was in his bed when it was actually another. It is often characters wearing a friar disguise, and without exception, it is a device of wrong doing against innocent characters. In Shakespeare’s special world, it is done so that a wronged woman may find justice, and that a licentious man be led to do what is right. It is certainly remarkable that Shakespeare performed such inversions on these devices, particularly when we know priests in disguise surrounded him, perhaps even gave him Communion or heard his con-fession.

There is something else to consider: the faithful Catholic

majority, effectively, was also in disguise. Divided between Church and crown, forced under penalty of law to one set of religious rites and practices, while secretly engaging in the old ways, one could very much feel as if he or she was living a within a disguise of civic obedience. After a papal

bull in 1570 excom-municated Elizabeth I, the sense of threat grew and, consequent-ly, the arm of the crown grew longer. A suspected Catholic could be followed, his house searched, and he could be fined 20 pounds at a time when

that could easily represent half a man’s annual income. Know-ing that people such as these — ones who might fear being followed home after a perfor-mance and having their Catho-lic testament found under a floor board in the kitchen, or a priest discovered living in the hollow wall behind the fireplace — were Shake-speare’s audience, how might they connect to a character such as Viola from “Twelfth Night,” a woman who is in distinct jeopardy and must hide her identity for her own safety and disguise herself as a man? Inevitably, Viola finds that, while her disguise keeps her safe, it forces her to hide a love she cannot speak. Such a story in such a context might make quite an impact, mightn’t it? “Concealment,” says Viola disguised as Cesa-rio to the man whom she loves but cannot tell, is like “a worm i’the bud” and “feeds upon her damask cheek.”

Jennifer Pierce is a pa-rishioner of Corpus Christi in East Sandwich, where she lives with her husband Jim and three children.

the prominence of disguise

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781-545-1080

look at what I am doing and why I am doing it; where is God in it all? Where does God show up in my life? Anyone who is seri-ous about his faith really wants to look at his life and see if he is fulfilling that call that God has given.”

During Lent, La Salette is of-fering its annual retreat with this year’s focus on discernment, giv-ing attendees some time to think about the stage of life they are currently in, and for those “who need to make different, life-changing decisions. We provide them with tools to help make those decisions through prayer discernment. We give different approaches,” said Father Mat-tathilanickal.

The annual weekend retreat is expected to draw 35-40 people, and will begin on Holy Thurs-day and end on Easter Sunday. Taking time to engage in prayer helps Christians continue to build a relationship with God.

“Our goal is mainly to bring

about renewal,” said Father Mat-tathilanickal. “There are people who have been coming for more than 30 years. The reason is this is their time to spend with God and renew their life, and look back on what is going on with them in different stages. A lot of it is healing and reconcilia-tion with issues, so we try to ad-dress some of them during this retreat.”

Encountering Christ in Others (ECHO) sets aside a weekend to focus on the Lord, to worship and pray, and to find fellowship with young people, usually ju-niors and seniors in high school. ECHO was founded in 1968 at the request of Bishop James L. Connolly and was originally de-signed for seniors at then-Coyle High School in Taunton. Now its purpose has broadened to in-clude all area youth in the Fall River diocese but continues to help young people deepen their relationship between Jesus and the Church.

Christ the King Parish in Mashpee holds its ECHO re-treats at the Craigville Confer-ence Center in Centerville, and board member Jean Giddings has been part of program since 1986.

“The kids share their faith, share their journeys and the things that are going on in the world. They build a community and that’s what keeps ECHO go-ing,” said Giddings.

With the number of candi-dates around 30 per weekend, the genders are split between a boys-only and a girls-only re-treat. Talks are given and group discussions are key to sharing in groups within the retreat. Over the years the design of the re-treat has been modified. When Giddings first started, Saturdays were spent talking about the peo-ple of God with Sunday having talks on the Church in the world.

“The people of God were from the Bible, and who are the people of God? The Church in the world is, you are the Church and you make up the body of the Church,” explained Giddings. “Because of all the things, the trouble and the issues that kids were having, the Saturday afternoon talk was changed to ‘Today’s Issues’ and talks about the issues that kids face. They moved the people of God to Sunday and combined it with Church in the world.”

“Today’s Issues” was later changed to “Choosing a Chris-tian’s Life,” a talk that has be-come “more about their choices and what they’re doing instead of focusing on today’s issues, which focused a lot on ‘this is wrong; that is wrong,’” said Gid-dings, adding the change flows better in a weekend full of kids trying to understand that it’s OK to make mistakes, “but then you have the choice to go back to Church, follow your faith and do

whatever you need to do. It’s al-ways your choice.”

As Giddings talked about the types of youth who attend, she explained how the young people run the gamut of backgrounds — some kids are blessed and come from wonderful homes while others have issues to sort through.

“We have had several kids who have come on weekends who were in foster care, that weren’t Catholic, were strug-gling, and it turned their life around. We’ve had several kids become Catholic because they realized that this was what was missing in their lives,” said Gid-dings. “We’ve had kids who have been hanging out with the wrong crowds and getting into trouble,

that went on an ECHO and said, ‘What am I doing?’ and slowly pulled themselves away from the kids who were influencing their wrong choices.”

The ultimate success story comes in the form of a young man in his 20s who is currently a youth advisor and active member of his parish, but spent his teen years being the complete oppo-site of who he is today.

“It has changed his life. If he didn’t make that choice many years ago, he probably would have ended up in jail because that’s where a lot of his friends that he was hanging out with ended up,” said Giddings. “There are a lot of stories like that.”

It helps that there is a follow-

Catholic retreats: Time for renewal and refreshingcontinued from page one

Turn to page 17

Campion Renewal Center319 Concord RoadWeston, Mass.(781) 419-1337www.campioncenter.org

Foyer of Charity74 Hollett StreetScituate, Mass.(781) 545-1080www.foyerofcharity.com

CONNECTICUT

St. Edmund Ender’s Island99 yacht Club RoadMystic, Conn.(860) 536-0565www.endersisland.com

Immaculata Retreat House289 Windham RoadWillimantic, Conn. (860) 423-8484www.immaculataretreat.org

My Father’s House Retreat Center39 N. Moodus RoadMoodus, Conn.(860) 873-1581www.myfathershouse.com

Holy Family Passionist Retreat and Conference Center303 Tunxis RoadWest Hartford, Conn.(860) 521-1929www.holyfamilyretreat.org

Our Lady of Calvary Retreat Center31 Colton StreetFarmington, Conn.(860) 677-8519www.ourladyofcalvary.com

NEW YORK

Bethany Spirituality Center, Inc.15 Bethany DriveHighland Mills, N.y.(845) 928-2320www.bethanyspiritualitycenter.org

retreat centers, sites and contact information

MASSACHUSETTS

Sacred Hearts Retreat Center226 Great Neck RoadWareham, Mass.(508) 993-2442www.sscc.org/wareham

National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette Retreat Center947 Park StreetAttleboro, Mass.(508) 222-8530www.lasaletteretreatcenter.com

His Land Bethany House17 Loon PondLakeville, Mass.(508) 947-4704www.his-land.com

Arnold Hall Conference CenterRandall StreetNorth Pembroke, Mass.(781) 826-5942www.arnoldhall.com

Miramar Retreat Center121 Parks StreetDuxbury, Mass.(781) 585-2460www.miramarretreat.org

Espousal Retreat House and Conference Center554 Lexington StreetWaltham, Mass.(781) 209-3120www.espousal.org

Glastonbury Abbey16 Hull StreetHingham, Mass.(781) 749-2155www.glastonburyabbey.org

St. Joseph Retreat Center339 Jerusalem RoadCohasset, Mass.(781) 383-6024www.csjretreatcenter.org

Betania II Marian Center154 Summer StreetMedway, Mass.(508) 533-5377 x104www.betania2.org

15 March 9, 2012 The Anchor

upcoMing eventSMar. 9 - aSh WeDneSDay: “The Greatest of These(Wed.) 10aM-3pM is Love” (1Cor. 13-13) Presenter: Father Mike McNamara Mar. 19 - A tiMe fOr heAling: “Healing Our Hidden Self(sat.) 10aM-1:30pM Though the Power of Jesus’ Perfect, Unconditional Love and Forgiveness” (ephesians 3:14-22, Luke 22:33-34) Presenter: Dr. Hugh Boyle Jr., ed.D, Christian Psychologist

Mar. 26 - A dAy Of recOllectiOn: “Seek Wisdom”(sat.) 10aM-3pM (Wisdom 6:12) Presenter Barbara Wright

apr. 6 - prAise And WOrship: (WeD.) 10aM-3pM Presenter: Fr. Tom DiLorenzo apr. 16 - A tiMe Of inner heAling: “Healing the Hurts of (sat.) 10aM-3pM the Heart” Presenter: Dorothea Degrandis-Sudol

May 21 - A tiMe fOr heAling: Presenter: Dr. Joseph(sat.) 10aM-1:30pM Coyle, PhD, Christian Psychologist May 28 - A dAy Of recOllectiOn: “Living in the(sat.) 10aM-3pM Moment” Presenter: Barbara Jacobbe

June 26 - A tiMe fOr heAling: “Angels are Real”(sun.) 2pM Presenter: Maria Rocha

Bring a lunchtea anD coffee Will Be ServeD

for required registration and for further information, please call 1-508-947-4704

if you register and discover you cannot attend, please call to cancel so that a replacement may be found.

"

VATICAN CITy (CNA/EWTN News) — Christ’s 40 days in the desert teach Christians that temptations can be overcome in life if we stay close to Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI said recently.

“Man is never wholly free from the temptation but with pa-tience and true humility we be-come stronger than any enemy,” the pope said in a Sunday An-gelus address, quoting Thomas à Kempis’ famous 15th-century devotional work “The Imitation of Christ.”

The pope addressed thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Pe-ter’s Square giving a reflection on St. Mark’s Gospel account of Christ’s 40 days in the desert when He was tempted by Satan.

Pope Benedict, citing his fifth-century predecessor St. Leo the Great, suggested that Jesus “will-ingly suffered the attack of the tempter to defend us with His help and to teach us by His example.”

The desert can be a place of “abandonment and loneliness” where temptation becomes stron-ger, he said. However, it can also indicate “a place of refuge and shelter, as it was for the people of Israel who escaped from slav-ery in Egypt.” The desert is a place “where we can experience the presence of God in a special way.”

The patience and humility re-quired to defeat “the enemy” come by following Christ every day and from “learning to build our life not outside of Him or as if He did not exist, but in Him and with Him, because He is the source of true life,” the pope continued.

In contrast to this is the tempta-tion “to remove God, to order our lives and the world on our own, re-lying solely on our own abilities.”

This is why in Jesus “God speaks to man in an unexpected way, with a unique and concrete closeness, full of love,” because God has now become incarnate and “enters the world of man to take sin upon Himself, to over-come evil and bring man back into the world of God.”

In return for this “great gift” Jesus asks that each person “re-pent and believe in the Gospel.”

This request, explained the pope, is “an invitation to have faith in God and to convert our lives each day to His will, direct-ing all our actions and thoughts towards good.”

Lent is the perfect season to do this, he concluded, as it provides the ideal opportunity to “renew and strengthen our relationship with God” through daily prayer, acts of penance, and works of fra-ternal charity.

Pope says stay close to Jesus to

conquer temptation

16 March 9, 2012Youth Pages

getting the pOint — Students in pre-kindergarten at St. James-St. John School in New Bedford recently learned a Portuguese story about a hat with three points.

pilOt prOgrAM — The students in grades three to five at St. Mary’s Pri-mary School in Taunton were enthralled and engaged in the historical full-life portrayal of Amelia earhart presented by Historical Perspectives For Children. earhart’s character was vividly dramatized from early childhood through adult-hood, emphasizing how she developed the character qualities needed to achieve her dreams and goals, as well as reinforcing the importance of family, respect for others and individuality.

hAnd-WArMers — The fifth-graders at Holy Name School in Fall River are learning about adaptation — traits that organ-isms have to meet their basic needs to survive in their environ-ment. Animals that live in a cold environment have thick fur and blubber to keep them warm. Here, students put their hands in two plain baggies and then two baggies that contain Crisco — “fat” and immersed them in ice water. The students agreed that the “blubber mitts” kept their hands warmer.

cAvity fighters — St. John the evangelist School in Attleboro parent and dental hygienist Margaret Quigley recently spoke to the kindergarten students about dental health.

scOuts’ hOnOrs — Cub Scouts from Pack 51 chartered by St. Francis Xavier Parish in Acushnet recently received their Religious emblems from Msgr. Gerald O’Connor at the “Scouts at Mass.” Lucas Correia (on left) received his Light of Christ Religious emblem and Jacob Correia, Dakota Chix-arro and Austin Avelar received their Parvuli Dei, Webelos Scout Religious emblem Award.

17 Youth Pages

Be notAfraid

By Ozzie pacheco

March 9, 2012

Picture this: some morn-ings you wake up and

the outside world is blan-keted with a fog. Looking out your window all you see are outlines of the houses across the street. The details of your surroundings are not clear at all. This is what living with anxiety and fear is like. They create a fog in your mind and heart that keeps you from seeing Christ clearly. But, just as the sunlight burns away the morning fog, Christ’s light chases away the fog of fear and anxiety. All you need to do is to tell Christ your fears and anxieties and leave them with Him. Don’t take them back again! But, unfortunate-ly that’s easier said than done.

Let’s go back a few weeks to Ash Wednesday. Why did you receive those ashes? What did the words, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel,” said during the imposition of ashes, mean to you? Those ashes are really meant to be an outward sign of

24/7 conversion trackour inner resolve as a people of promise. We should be a people in action, living out our baptismal promises daily. There is no need to make new promises, but only to do good by the ones we have already made. As a people in action we must be on a 24/7 conversion track.

During this Lent, journey with Jesus into the desert to fast and pray. Our desert is not really a physical place but a spiritual reality. It’s a place of silence, a place of encoun-ter. Long ago it was the place where God led the chosen people to freedom, where the Spirit led Christ to prepare for His saving mission. Now, it is where we go to hear God’s Word in the silence of our hearts.

This is the place where we take the time to affirm and strengthen the promises we have made and do good by

them: rejecting Satan, and all his works and all his empty promises; believing in God, the Father Almighty; believing in Jesus Christ, His only Son; believing in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church,

the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resur-rection of the body and life everlasting.

Living these promises throughout the day, everyday, is saying to God, “Please be more in me. Change me to be what you desire. It might not be success as the world sees it, but what you see for me in my life.”

Have the want to be con-

verted. This is what Lent is really about. It is about your conversion and my conver-sion. It is our transformation to be the person that God wants and sees that we can be. It’s living each day and

making it better than the last. A friend of mine introduced me to a poem that helps me remind myself of my need to be on the conversion track 24/7. It is titled, “Each Day Brings A Chance To Do Better,” by Helen Steiner Rice:

“How often we wish for another chance

to make a fresh beginning,A chance to blot out our

mistakesand change failure into

winning —And it does not take a spe-

cial timeto make a brand-new start.It only takes the deep desireto try with all our heartTo live a little betterand to always be forgiving

And to add a little ‘sun-shine’

to the world in which we’re living —

So never give up in despairand think that you are

through,For there’s always a tomor-

row” — and a chance to start anew.

Change, conversion begins by seeking forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is not a one-time Sacra-ment because we are not one-time sinners. This is the reason for the need to be on this conversion track 24/7. Remember, Jesus wants you to trust Him and He wants to help you handle everything that happens — nothing sur-prises Him. Count on Christ. Let His light chase away the fog of fear and anxiety. Then, go out and live your day in the sunshine and in His love. Have a happy Lent!

Ozzie Pacheco is Faith Formation director at Santo Christo Parish, Fall River.

up program, said Giddings, with reunions that meet weekly: Tues-day night at Christ the King Par-ish and Thursday night at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Cen-terville. ECHO takes the youth away from the technology-over-load that inundates their senses and gives them a chance to fo-cus on what is most important in their lives.

“Some parents send their kids and think, ‘Oh good. This is go-ing to change them,’” said Gid-dings, adding the truth is closer to, “It’s going to help them see who they can be, and if they are trouble-makers, maybe it will give them insight and think twice before they do something.”

Cursillo (pronounced ker-see-yo) began in Spain in 1939 and has spread throughout the world. Meaning “little course,” Cursillo is literally a little course in Chris-tianity and is geared towards an older audience of men-only or women-only retreats. Weekends play host to a series of talks, cel-ebration of the Sacraments and fellowship.

Led by a team of laymen or laywomen, the most current Cursillo held by the Office of Worship and Spiritual Life for the Archdiocese of Boston had 25 women participate and pro-vided “an experience of spiritual renewal and evangelization” for those who attended, said office co-director Mary Ann McLaugh-lin.

“As we learn the language of faith, we are more able to articu-late it to one another — in other words, evangelize. Evangelize sounds so intimidating and it ba-sically is a very simple sharing of faith with another person, and introducing Christ to the other person,” said McLaughlin. “I do think that we, as Catholics, need to learn how to share our faith with one another. The Cursillo, I think, helps us to evangelize. It provides an environment, which is a microcosm of the Church. It presents what the Church teach-es, over the course of a weekend, and then asks people to share their faith in small groups around what has been presented.”

The purpose of the retreat is to facilitate an encounter with Christ during the weekend by lis-tening to the Gospel and through various talks that are given. Cur-rently using the Campion Center in Weston as its current location, McLaughlin noted that locations have changed over the years due to centers closing their doors.

“It’s interesting because it’s been called a ‘movement’ and in some ways, that’s true,” said McLaughlin. “People move with whatever needs to be done. I do think that Christ is reveal-ing Himself through this group of people who volunteer. This is not a funded operation; people volunteer their money and their time. While it’s overseen by the archdiocese, it is something in

which people are very gener-ous.”

McLaughlin went through the letters she received from the most recent Cursillo: “I wanted to deeply thank you for such a wonderful weekend,” read McLaughlin. “It was spiri-tual and fun … it was healing to laugh so much too.”

While responses vary, McLaughlin’s most rewarding moment came when her own daughter wrote to her: “She said to me how much it meant to her to learn about her faith in that way — she was on the team — and how Cursillo not only taught her about her faith but she thanked me for helping her to know how to be a mother,” said McLaughlin.

The Emmaus retreat program is open to all men and women, ages 19 and over, and is a co-ed weekend that gives Christians, regardless of their level of faith and practice, an opportunity to set aside time for personal reflec-tion and grow in a relationship with Christ.

“We’ve had people in their 80s and their 70s attend these. We open it up to everybody,” said Dave Roderick, coordina-tor for the Emmaus program and member of Corpus Christi Par-ish in East Sandwich. “The rea-son why we did that is because we felt that everybody should be able to grow in his or her faith and to be open this type of pro-gram. We invite anyone who is a

Christian.”There are currently 20 candi-

dates signed up for the upcoming retreat this month, and they will listen to talks during the week-end and share in groups to talk about each presentation.

“That’s how they start form-ing that community — that fami-ly — and that continues through-out the weekend,” said Roderick, adding that having a group that ranges in ages is a benefit be-cause all bring something com-pletely different to the table. “you don’t think they can re-late, but to see that they all have something in common and they grow in their faith — those life experiences and sharing them are pretty powerful.”

As it so often happens for those who participate, life-chang-ing moments can be traced back to attending a retreat as Roderick shared an inspiring story.

“There was one individual who came — and I hate to use these words — who had a chip on his shoulder and didn’t want any part of the weekend, and to see the transformation of this person was remarkable,” said Roderick. “By Saturday night, after Reconciliation, which is a very powerful part of the pro-gram, he changed. you could see the glow on his face.”

Reconciliation was key, as the young man felt forgiven and re-newed, helping him reestablish a relationship with God.

“He is so involved in his par-ish and in his faith and prayer life,” said Roderick. “I see him every now and then thriving in his faith and he says, ‘If it wasn’t for Emmaus, I wouldn’t be where I am today.’”

Each candidate is asked at the end of the Emmaus retreat when they felt Jesus and close to God during the weekend and often Reconciliation is at the top of the list for answers given.

“I would recommend for everyone to take an Emmaus weekend,” said Roderick. “It is so powerful and it brings people closer in their faith and to God. I’m very passionate about this program and everyone should experience an Emmaus week-end.”

The La Salette Retreat Center will be celebrating its 50th anni-versary in 2013 and will kickoff a year-long celebration with a series of events and bringing in well-known individuals for re-treats and conferences. Everyone should make a point to attend an annual retreat within his or her community, said Father Mat-tathilanickal, who said he also attends an annual retreat that of-fers him time to reflect in silence and renew his vocation.

“A year without a retreat is like I am not doing my duty for God,” he said. People should at-tend because a retreat will “bring you closer to God. To be still, and know that God is there.”

Catholic retreats: Time for renewal and refreshingcontinued from page 14

18 March 9, 2012The Anchor

in your prayers Please pray for these priests

during the coming weeksMarch 12

Rev. Aurelien L. Moreau, Pastor, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1961

Rev. Adrien E. Bernier, Pastor, St. Mathieu, Fall River, 1989

Rev. George I. Saad, Retired Pas-tor, Our Lady of Purgatory, New Bedford, 1991

March 16Rev. Francis J. Maloney. S.T.L.,

Pastor, St. Mary, North Attle-boro, 1957

Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, CSC, 2006

ACUSHnET — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Francis Xavier Parish on Monday and Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Evening prayer and Benediction is held Monday through Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.

ATTLEBORO — The National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette holds eucharistic adoration in the Shrine Church every Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. through November 17.

ATTLEBORO — St. Joseph Church holds eucharistic adoration in the Adoration Chapel located at the (south) side entrance at 208 South Main Street, Sunday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

BREwSTER — Eucharistic adoration takes place in the La Salette Chapel in the lower level of Our Lady of the Cape Church, 468 Stony Brook Road, on First Fridays following the 11 a.m. Mass until 7:45 a.m. on the First Saturday, concluding with Bene-diction and Mass.

BUzzARDS BAy — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Margaret Church, 141 Main Street, every first Friday after the 8 a.m. Mass and ending the following day be-fore the 8 a.m. Mass.

EAST FREETOwn — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. John Neumann Church every Monday (excluding legal holidays) 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady, Mother of All Nations Chapel. (The base of the bell tower).

EAST SAnDwiCH — Eucharistic adoration takes place at the Corpus Christi Parish Adoration Chapel, 324 Quaker Meeting House Road, Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday, 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Also, 24-hour eucharistic adoration takes place on the First Friday of every month.

EAST TAUnTOn — Eucharistic adoration takes place in the chapel at Holy Family Parish Center, 438 Middleboro Avenue, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. On First Fridays, eucharistic adoration takes place at Holy Family Church, 370 Middleboro Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. until 7:45 p.m.

FAiRHAVEn — St. Mary’s Church, Main St., has eucharistic adoration every Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to noon in the Chapel of Reconciliation, with Benediction at noon. Also, there is a First Friday Mass each month at 7 p.m., followed by a Holy Hour with eucharistic adoration. Refreshments follow.

FALL RiVER — SS. Peter and Paul Parish will have eucharistic adoration on March 30 in the parish chapel, 240 Dover Street, from 8:30 a.m. until noon.

FALL RiVER — Espirito Santo Parish, 311 Alden Street, Fall River. Eucharistic adora-tion on Mondays following the 8 a.m. Mass until Rosary and Benediction at 6:30 p.m.

FALL RiVER — Notre Dame Church, 529 Eastern Ave., has eucharistic adoration on Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the chapel.

FALL RiVER — St. Anthony of the Desert Church, 300 North Eastern Avenue, has eucharistic adoration Mondays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

FALL RiVER — Holy Name Church, 709 Hanover Street, has eucharistic adoration Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Our Lady of Grace Chapel.

FALL RiVER — Good Shepherd Parish has eucharistic adoration every Friday fol-lowing the 8 a.m. Mass until 6 p.m. in the Daily Mass Chapel. There is a bilingual Holy Hour in English and Portuguese from 5-6 p.m. Park behind the church and enter the back door of the connector between the church and the rectory.

FALMOUTH — St. Patrick’s Church has eucharistic adoration each First Friday, fol-lowing the 9 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 4:30 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

HyAnniS — A Holy Hour with eucharistic adoration will take place each First Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church, 347 South Street, beginning immediately after the 12:10 p.m. Mass and ending with adoration at 4 p.m.

MASHPEE — Christ the King Parish, Route 151 and Job’s Fishing Road has 8:30 a.m. Mass every First Friday with special intentions for Respect Life, followed by 24 hours of eucharistic adoration in the Chapel, concluding with Benediction Saturday morning followed immediately by an 8:30 Mass.

nEw BEDFORD — Eucharistic adoration takes place 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, 233 County Street, with night prayer and Benediction at 8:45 p.m., and Confessions offered during the evening.

nEw BEDFORD — There is a daily holy hour from 5:15-6:15 p.m. Monday through Thursday at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 1359 Acushnet Avenue. It includes adora-tion of the Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy of the Hours, recitation of the Rosary, and the opportunity for Confession.

nORTH DARTMOUTH — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Julie Billiart Church, 494 Slocum Road, every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m., ending with Benediction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is available at this time.

nORTH DiGHTOn — Eucharistic adoration takes place every First Friday at St. Nicholas of Myra Church, 499 Spring Street following the 8 a.m. Mass, ending with Benediction at 6 p.m. The Rosary is recited Monday through Friday from 7:30 to 8 a.m.

OSTERViLLE — Eucharistic adoration takes place at Our Lady of the Assumption Church, 76 Wianno Avenue on First Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and every Friday from noon to 5 p.m., with Benediction at 5 p.m.

SEEKOnK — Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish has eucharistic adoration seven days a week, 24 hours a day in the chapel at 984 Taunton Avenue. For information call 508-336-5549.

TAUnTOn — Eucharistic adoration takes place every Tuesday at St. Anthony Church, 126 School Street, following the 8 a.m. Mass with prayers including the Chap-let of Divine Mercy for vocations, concluding at 6 p.m. with Chaplet of St. Anthony and Benediction. Recitation of the Rosary for peace is prayed Monday through Saturday at 7:30 a.m. prior to the 8 a.m. Mass.

wAREHAM — Every First Friday, eucharistic adoration takes place from 8:30 a.m. through Benediction at 5:30 p.m. Morning prayer is prayed at 9; the Angelus at noon; the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3 p.m.; and Evening Prayer at 5 p.m.

wEST HARwiCH — Our Lady of Life Perpetual Adoration Chapel at Holy Trinity Parish, 246 Main Street (Rte. 28), holds perpetual eucharistic adoration. We are a regional chapel serving all of the surrounding parishes. All from other parishes are invited to sign up to cover open hours. For open hours, or to sign up call 508-430-4716.

wOODS HOLE — Eucharistic adoration takes place at St. Joseph’s Church, 33 Millfield Street, year-round on weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No adoration on Sundays, Wednesdays, and holidays. For information call 508-274-5435.

eucharistic Adoration in the diocese

HICKSVILLE, N.y. (CNS) — Catholics have a duty as American citizens to bring faith-inspired convictions to politics, and they can never allow poli-tics to trump principles articu-lated by the bishops in their role as official teachers, according to Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New york. Informed political action is a particular charism of the laity, he said in the keynote address March 3 in Hicksville at the annual Public Policy Con-vention of the Diocese of Rock-ville Centre.

Cardinal Dolan said Catho-lic involvement in the public square is based on Catholic so-cial teaching, which articulates bedrock principles and the ac-tions that logically follow from them. “We root for the underdog in Catholic social justice,” he said. The innate dignity of the human person is the central te-net of Catholic social teaching, Cardinal Dolan said. Each per-son is a reflection of God and a “spark of the divine,” he said, and human life is unquestion-ably sacred and deserves protec-tion and respect.

More than 700 people par-ticipated in the program at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville. Cardinal Dolan, introduced by Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Cen-tre, spoke on the event’s theme, “Catholics in the Public Square: Our Role in Shaping Public Pol-icy.”

“We are called to construct a society of virtue and respon-sibility where human dignity is sacred and human life is re-vered,” the cardinal said. “Thus, informed political action is a duty. It is not some tawdry dis-traction.” Catholic teaching is based on natural law, “which is hard-wired into us as part of our moral DNA” and provides the basics of right and wrong el-ementary, which human beings disregard at their peril, he said.

Catholic laity urged to bring convictions to public square

Courage, a welcoming support group for Catholics wounded by same-sex attraction who gather to seek God’s wisdom, mercy and love, will next meet tomorrow 10 at 6 p.m. (please note change

in start time). For location and further information, call Father Richard Wilson at 508-992-9408.

The next meeting of the Catholic Cancer Support Group will be at Our Lady of Victory Parish in centerville on March 13. The meeting will begin with Mass and Anointing of the Sick at 6 p.m. in the church,

followed by speaker Father Mark Hession in the parish center. For more information call Mary Lees at 508-771-1106 or email maryplees@comcast.net.

St. Mary’s Parish in New Bedford is hosting the Stations of the Cross according to Mary on March 13 at 7 p.m., followed by a small coffee and dessert bread reception in the parish center.

The Cape and Islands Prayer Group Deanery is sponsoring a Day of Recollection on March 15 at the Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham. For more information or to register call 508-349-

1641 or 508-759-2737.

Catholic Social Services’ Citizenship Services Program offers Nat-uralization Workshops at which its legal staff assists people with the N-400 Application for Naturalization. The contact is Ashlee

Reed, email: areed@cssdioc.org or 508-674-4681. The next workshop will be held on March 15 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Catholic Social Services, 261 South Street in hyannis.

The Ladies Guild of St. Mary’s Parish in south dartmouth will spon-sor a Corned Beef and Cabbage Dinner on March 17 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the parish center. entertainment will be provided by Voic-

es in Time and seating is limited. For reservations or information, call 508-993-9441.

The Daughters of Isabella will reconvene for fellowship and fun on March 20 at 7 p.m. at Holy Name of the Sacred Heart of Je-sus Parish, 121 Mount Pleasant Street in new Bedford. The local

chapter of Hyacinth Circle welcomes all past and present members to come and join them for a reflection night to discuss the old and welcome the new.

The Respect Life Ministry of Christ the King Parish in Mashpee will sponsor a Lenten program on end-of-life issues on March 23 at 11:30 a.m. in the parish hall. Father Michael Fitzpatrick, former

chaplain at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and current parochial vicar at Corpus Christi, will speak on how to live fully, even at the end of life. A “poor man’s lunch” will be served prior ot the talk. For reservations or more information call 508-759-2737.

The St. Mary’s Council of the Knights of Columbus will celebrate a special Mass for the Unborn Child on March 24 at 4 p.m. at St. Mary’s Church, 1 Power Street, norton. In addition to the Mass,

there will be a baby shower where people will have the opportunity to donate items for unwed mothers with infants. These can include clothing, diapers, lotions, furniture, and toys. The baby shower will extend to all the Masses on Sunday as well. All are invited to attend and donate.

A Healing Mass will take place at St. Anne’s Church, 818 Middle Street, fall river, on March 29. The evening begins with the Ro-sary at 6 p.m., followed by Mass, Benediction and healing prayers.

A three-part Lenten series entitled “I have come that they may have life ... abundantly” and led by Anna Rae-Kelly will begin April 1 at 4 p.m. in the Welcome Center at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La

Salette, 947 Park Street in Attleboro. The series will resume on April 2 and 3 at 7:15 p.m. in the Reconciliation Chapel. All are welcome. For more information see www.annaprae.com.

Holy Trinity Women’s Guild will host a Spring Penny Sale on April 15 at 1 p.m. in the church basement on the corner of Tucker Street and Stafford Road in fall river. There will be raffles, door prizes

and a luncheon menu including Chow Mein, sandwiches, chourico and peppers, pastries and more. For information call 508-679-6732.

Registration is now open for Project Bread’s 20-mile Walk for Hunger on May 6 in Boston. The effort will help fund hunger relief through emer-gency programs, schools, community health centers, farmers’ markets,

community suppers, home care organizations and other programs. For information or to register visit www.projectbread.org or call 617-723-5000.

Catholic Social Services offers Citizenship Instruction in formal classes and on an individual or small-group basis for clients who are not suited to the formal setting for a variety of reasons.

CSS is recruiting volunteer tutors to work with clients who need assistance in english, preparation for the citizenship interview, and/or study in U.S. History and Civics for the citizenship test. For information contact Lemuel Skidmore, email: lskidmore@cssdioc.org or 508-771-6771.

Adoption by Choice, a program of Catholic Social Services, pro-vides confidential, free, supportive pregnancy counseling to in-dividuals experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Their licensed

counselors are available to meet with individuals and their families whenever they might need someone to share concerns with about an unplanned pregnancy and the future of the baby. If you or someone you know might want to explore the agency’s services, call 508-674-4681 or visit the CSS website at www.cssdioc.org.

Around the Diocese

3/20

3/15

3/10

3/294/1

3/15

3/24

5/6

Misc.

3/17

3/13

3/23

Misc.

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to aDvertiSe in The Anchor, contact Wayne poWerS

at 508-675-7151 or eMail WaynepoWerS@anchorneWS.org

19 March 9, 2012 The Anchor

By dave Jolivet

My view from

the stands

It seems to be an every-week occurrence at Fenway Park

South this winter. Red Sox brass, players former players, family members, and the press corps gather before a podium set up with the Green Monster Jr. as a backdrop.

A familiar face, in unfamiliar garb, emerges from the monster and makes a bittersweet trek to his place near the podium. Clutching rolled-up sheets of paper, he is accompanied by children and a spouse.

It’s retirement day. Two weeks ago it was the venerable Tim Wakefield, the ageless knuckle-baller. Last week, it was the captain, Jason Varitek, a Fenway fixture as recognizable as the Pesky Pole.

Both men saw the writing on the wall, and actually read it. What was suggested was to gracefully exit the game with dignity before hanging on far too long, a-la the great Willie Mays and others who were a pathetic

shell of the athlete the good old U.S.A. grew to know and love.

In an age of egocentric, selfish, arrogant professional ath-letes, Wakefield and Tek were the consummate gentle-men and teammates. Both were respected on the field, and gave to the community off the field.

Wakefield was a Red Sox for the last 17 years, and Tek for the last 15. Any Sox fan in their early 20s and younger has grown up with the pair.

Following Tek’s retirement, my 32-year-old son lamented on Facebook about experienc-ing a Red Sox team without the stalwart duo.

At each ceremony, after receiving accolades from team owner Tom Werner, the star of the show walked up to the dais and began a litany of thank yous and expressions of apprecia-

tion to family members, former coaches, trainers, office person-nel, former teammates, hot dog vendors, ushers, and groundskee-pers. (I got carried away there,

but you get the picture.)When it came time to say the

actual words, “I’m retiring from the game of baseball,” both men choked up, as did their signifi-cant others and guests. The only ones seemingly left emotionless were members of the press, but that’s for another column.

Watching the events at home, I too, felt a wave of melancholy as they said goodbye to the game they loved so much. But after

Tek’s farewell, it hit me. They said goodbye to the GAME they loved so much.

All the fanfare of a retirement press conference and ultimately a

day at Fenway Park North was for individuals who played a game for a living.

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I truly like and respect both players, but I think I’d like to save my melan-choly for more appropri-ate events.

Both men have played baseball since they were lads — Little League, high school, college, the minor leagues and eventually the pros.

Sure, while stomping around the minors or as early major-leaguers, they may have worried about their hard-ball futures. But the alternative would have been to face reality and get a job in the real world. Like most of us. Like my dad who started working on farms and at ice houses as a boy

to help out his family, and my mom who raised my brother and me before heading out into the work force herself.

And like me who took what-ever jobs he could to be sure my family had food on the table and insurance coverage. And like my wife Denise who worked as a young girl in her father’s variety store, then as a teen got a job to help pay for the basics she needed, then stayed home with all our children as they grew, then headed back to work at the proper time. And like most of you out there who have sacri-ficed and toiled without making millions of dollars, ending up set for life at age 40.

yeah, it’s sad that they’ll miss their teammates and playing games, but the mood shouldn’t be sadness — it should be grati-tude for a blessed life. But that’s the way sports and entertainment tend to skew reality and those of us who live in it. It’s wise to keep things in perspective.

What reason for melancholy?

20 The Anchor March 9, 2012