Author Archives: Tereza Ma

Emergency expansion lights up St. Dominic campus

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By Maureen Smith
JACKSON – St. Dominic Hospital is expanding and updating its emergency department. Hospital leaders sponsored a celebration of the project Tuesday, Feb. 12. Work has already begun, so organizers had to get creative with this event. In lieu of a groundbreaking, hospital, community and diocesan leaders were invited to light up twirling red emergency lights as an official kick-off to the overall project.
The department has gone from seeing 45,000 to 60,000 patients annually in a few short years. The expansion will sit in a space once occupied by the original chapel and an office building. When opened in mid-2020, it will feature, 20 patient rooms, two trauma treatment areas, an exam room, onsite imaging and rooms specifically for mental health. Once the expansion is ready, the existing department will be renovated to match the layout and flow of the new center, adding another 16 rooms and one more exam room.

JACKSON – Work has already started on an expansion to the St. Dominic hospital emergency department.(Photo by Maureen Smith)

The current location had some challenges such as a lack of a dedicated emergency traffic lane and parking. These will be addressed with the expansion. Work is well underway. Those gathered for the celebration could see out of the tent onto a deep hole where infrastructure for the new building will be put into place.
St. Dominic Health Services president Claude Harbarger outlined the project in his opening remarks and welcomed the dignitaries on hand including Bishop Joseph Latino, Bishop Emeritus for the Diocese of Jackson, who blessed the site and the people who will work there. Sister Dorothea Sondgeroth, associate executive director for the St. Dominic Health Services Foundation gave the invocation.
The foundation has raised $7.5 million, but continues to seek $2.5 million for the $10 million it will take for the whole project. Donors can use the St. Dominic donation page on its website, https://payment.stdom.com, and select the Emergency Department Campaign to give to the project.

Pope calls on world leaders to eradicate poverty, hunger

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By Junno Arocho Esteves
ROME (CNS) – Sustainable development in rural areas is key to making poverty and hunger a thing of the past, Pope Francis said.
In an address to members of the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s governing council Feb. 14, the pope said that while achieving such a goal “has been talked about for a long time,” there has not been enough concrete action.
“It is paradoxical that a good portion of the more than 820 million people who suffer hunger and malnutrition in the world live in rural areas, are dedicated to food production and are farmers,” he said at the council’s opening session at the Rome headquarters of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
The two-day meeting of the organization, commonly known as IFAD, was devoted to the theme: “Rural innovation and entrepreneurship.”
Before addressing the gathering, the pope presented a gift to the organization: a sculpture by Argentine artist Norma D’Ippolito, titled “Ecce Homo” (“Behold the Man”) depicting the hands of Christ bound with ropes.
In his speech, the pope said he came to bring the “longings and needs of many of our brothers and sisters who suffer in the world.”
“They live in precarious situations: the air is polluted, natural resources are depleted, rivers are polluted, soils are acidified,” he said. “They do not have enough water for themselves or for their crops; their sanitary infrastructures are very inadequate; their houses are meager and defective.”
While society has made advances in other areas of knowledge, he added, little progress has been made in helping the rural poor. Winning the fight against poverty and hunger requires using scientific and technological advances for the common good.
“Being determined in this fight is essential so that we can hear – not as a slogan but as a truth – ‘Hunger has no present and no future. Only the past,’” he said. “In order to do this, we need the help of the international community, civil society and all those who have the resources. Responsibilities cannot be evaded, passed from one to another, but must be assumed in order to offer concrete and real solutions.”
Pope Francis said that today’s challenges cannot be resolved “in isolation, occasionally or ephemerally” but instead require a joint effort that affirms “the centrality of the human person.”
Those who are suffering, he added, must be directly involved in the fight against hunger and not viewed as “mere recipients of aid that may end up generating dependencies.”
He also encouraged the members of IFAD to continue along the path of innovation and entrepreneurship to achieve the goal of eradicating malnutrition and promoting sustainable development.
“It is necessary to promote a ‘science with a conscience’ and truly put technology at the service of the poor,” the pope said. “On the other hand, new technologies should not be in opposition to local cultures and traditional knowledge, but rather complement them and act in synergy with them.”
After his speech, the pope met with delegates from 31 different indigenous groups present from Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific.
Alessandro Gisotti, interim director of the Vatican press office, said in a statement that the pope’s meeting with the delegates lasted nearly 20 minutes.
“The pope greeted each person present; several of them gave Pope Francis a handmade stole,” Gisotti said.
Speaking to the delegates, the pope said that indigenous people are “a cry for hope” that remind the world of the shared responsibility in caring for the environment. While certain decisions have “ruined” the earth, he added, “it is never too late to learn the lesson and learn a new way of life.”
Indigenous people, he said, know how “to listen to the earth” and to live in harmony with it.
“Let us never forget the saying of our grandparents: ‘God always forgives, men sometimes forgive, nature never forgives,’” Pope Francis said. “And we are seeing this through its mistreatment and exploitation. You – who know how to dialogue with the earth – are entrusted with transmitting this ancestral wisdom to us.”

(Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju)

Celibacy – a personal apologia

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Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
As a vowed, religious celibate I’m very conscious that today celibacy, whether lived out in a religious commitment or in other circumstances, is suspect, under siege, and is offering too little by way of a helpful apologia to its critics.
Do I believe in the value of consecrated celibacy? The only real answer I can give must come from my own life. What’s my response to a culture that, for the most part, believes celibacy is both a naiveté and a dualism that stands against the goodness of sexuality, renders its adherents less than fully human, and lies at the root of the clerical sexual abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Church? What might I say in its defense?
First, that celibacy isn’t a basis for pedophilia. Virtually all empirical studies indicate that pedophilia is a diagnosis not linked to celibacy. But then let me acknowledge its downside: Celibacy is not the normal state for anyone. When God made the first man and woman, God said: “It is not good for the human being to be alone.” That isn’t just a statement about the constitutive place of community within our lives (though it is that); it’s a clear reference to sexuality, its fundamental goodness, and its God-intended place in our lives. From that it flows that to be a celibate, particularly to choose to be one, comes fraught with real dangers. Celibacy can, and sometimes does, lead to an unhealthy sense of one’s sexual and relational self and to a coldness that’s often judgmental. It can too, understandably, lead to an unhealthy sexual preoccupation within the celibate and it provides access to certain forms of intimacy within which a dangerous betrayal of trust can occur. Less recognized, but a huge danger, is that it can be a vehicle for selfishness. Simply put, without the conscription demands that come with marriage and child-raising there’s the ever-present danger that a celibate can, unconsciously, arrange his life too much to suit his own needs.
Thus celibacy is not for everyone; indeed it’s not for the many. It contains an inherent abnormality. Consecrated celibacy is not simply a different lifestyle. It’s anomalous, in terms of the unique sacrifice it asks of you, where, like Abraham going up the mountain to sacrifice Isaac, you’re asked to sacrifice what’s most precious to you. As Thomas Merton, speaking of his own celibacy, once said: The absence of woman is a fault in my chastity. But, for the celibate as for Abraham, that can have a rich purpose and contain its own potential for generativity.
As well, I believe that consecrated celibacy, like music or religion, needs to be judged by its best expressions and not by its aberrations. Celibacy should not be judged by those who have not given it a wholesome expression but by the many wonderful women and men, saints of the past and present, who have given it a wholesome and generative expression. One could name numerous saints of the past or wonderfully healthy and generative persons from our own generation as examples where vowed celibacy has made for a wholesome, happy life that inspires others: Mother Teresa, Jean Vanier, Oscar Romero, Raymond E. Brown, and Helen Prejean, to name just a few. Personally, I know many very generative, vowed celibates whose wholesomeness I envy and who make celibacy credible – and attractive.
Like marriage, though in a different way, celibacy offers a rich potential for intimacy and generativity. As a vowed celibate I am grateful for a vocation which has brought me intimately into the world of so many people. When I left home at a young age to enter the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, I confess, I didn’t want celibacy. Nobody should. I wanted to be a missionary and a priest and celibacy presented itself as the stumbling block. But once inside religious life, almost immediately, I loved the life, though not the celibacy part. Twice I delayed taking final vows, unsure about celibacy. Eventually I made the decision, a hard leap of trust, and took the vow for life. Full disclosure, celibacy has been for me singularly the hardest part of my more than fifty years in religious life … but, but, at the same time, it has helped create a special kind of entry into the world and into others’ lives that has wonderfully enriched my ministry.
The natural God-given desire for sexual intimacy, for exclusivity in affection, for the marriage bed, for children, for grandchildren, doesn’t leave you, and it shouldn’t. But celibacy has helped bring into my life a rich, consistent, deep intimacy. Reflecting on my celibate vocation, all I may legitimately feel is gratitude.
Celibacy isn’t for everyone. It excludes you from the normal; it seems brutally unfair at times; it’s fraught with dangers ranging from serious betrayal of trust to living a selfish life; and it’s a fault in your very chastity – but, if lived out in fidelity, it can be wonderfully generative and does not exclude you from either real intimacy or real happiness.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Parish event calendar

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SPIRITUAL ENRICHMENT

BROOKSVILLE The Dwelling Place, Seven Last Words of Christ, March 22-23. The retreat will examine selected reflections by several prominent voices within the church, among them Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Bishop Robert Barron and Father James Martin. Presenter: Melvin Arrington, parishioner of Oxford St. John and a retired professor of Spanish. He is a student of the life and writings of Venerable Archbishop Sheen. Begins with dinner at 6:30 Friday and concludes mid-afternoon on Saturday. Donation: $100. Details: (662) 738-5348 or email dwellpl@gmail.com for more information.
COVINGTON, Louisiana, Married Couples Retreat, March 16-17, at St. Joseph Abbey Christian Life Retreat Center. Come away for rest and spiritual strength and nourishment. Going on a Married Couples Retreat does not mean that something is failing but rather it is a falling into the graces of our Lord. Suggested donation: $275 per couple. Details: www.faithandmarriage.org or call (504) 830-3716.
CULLMAN, Alabama, Benedictine Sisters Retreat Center, Flannery O’Connor: suffering and redemption in the life and literature of a great world writer, Tuesday, March 12. In the more than 50 years since her death from Lupus at the age of 39, Flannery O’Connor’s literary and spiritual legacies have continued to grow. The retreat will acquaint newcomers with a complete overview of her life and work. Presenter: David King, professor of English and Film Studies at Kennesaw State University. He has published and presented widely on Catholic artists and writers and enjoys sharing the richness of the Catholic aesthetic and intellectual tradition. Cost: $30, includes lunch. Details: (256) 734-8302, retreats@shmon.org or www.shmon.org.
METAIRIE, LA, the Southern Regional Conference of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, “The Spirit of Truth: Signs Wonders and Miracles” on Friday-Sunday, March 29-31 beginning at 7 p.m. and concluding with 11 a.m. Mass. It will be held at the Copeland Tower Suites and Conference. All priests, religious brothers and sisters, deacons and their families are invited to attend at no charge, but pre-registration is requested. Details: (504) 828-1368 OR info@ccrno.org or www.ccrno.org.

PARISH, SCHOOL AND FAMILY EVENTS

AMORY St. Helen, Book Discussion Group will read The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright Monday, March 11, at noon in the parish hall. Everyone is invited to read the book and plan to join the discussion. Details: church office (662) 256-8392.
FLOWOOD St. Paul, Women’s Guild Lenten Day of Reflection, “Refreshing the Body, Mind and Soul” Saturday, March 23, 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Deadline to register is March 18. No cost, suggested donation for Domestic Violence Shelter. Details: wgstpaul@gmail.com or Renee Gosselin (601) 966-5452; Linda Rainey (601) 212-9802; Cheryl Marsh (860) 823-7878 or Renee Carpenter (601) 214-9457.
GLUCKSTADT St. Joseph, Yoga Classes continue each Tuesday evening at 6:00 p.m. in the Parish Hall. The cost is $7 each class and is donated back to the parish. Details: Teresa Speer at (769) 233-1989.
GRENADA St. Peter, Lenten Retreat, Saturday, March 16, begins at 9 a.m. and ends with 6 p.m. Mass. Bishop Sam Jacobs, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Houma Thibodaux, will be the special speaker. Details: church office (662) 226-2490.
JACKSON St. Richard, Yoga classes focused on basics through foundation poses to promote flexibility, balance and a more relaxed body. This session will have a special focus on awareness of the core muscles. Classes continuing to meet Fridays from 9 – 10:15 a.m. in the Chichester Room on the following dates: March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, and April 5. The cost is $8 per class. Proceeds go to the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Richard. Checks can be made out to St. Vincent de Paul. Details: claudiaaddison@mac.com or (601) 594.3937.
MADISON St. Francis of Assisi, Fat Tuesday Pancake Supper, Tuesday March 5, at 5:15 p.m. in the Family Life Center. Youth are needed to cook and serve. All monies raised will go to benefit their youth group activities. Details: church office (601) 856-5556.
MERIDIAN Catholic Community of St. Joseph and St. Patrick, Mardi Gras Party hosted by Knights of Peter Claver and Servants of Mary, Saturday, March 2, 6-10 p.m. Adults only please. Details: church office (601) 693-1321.
NATCHEZ St. Mary Basilica, Adult Sunday School is currently studying Robert Barron’s series The Mass. Details: Karen Verucchi at (601) 870-5388.
PEARL St. Jude, Women’s Retreat, Saturday, March 9, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Retreat Directors: Fran Lavelle, diocesan director of Faith Formation, and Father Lincoln Dall. Morning prayer, adoration, and the sacrament of reconciliation will be a part of the day. Forgiveness, reconciliation, and learning from the saints will be our themes. All women are invited. Details: Call the parish office to register in advance: (601) 939-3181.
SOUTHAVEN Christ the King, Mark’s Gospel live, Friday, March 15 at 7 p.m. A first century story of love and healing. Solo performance by Father Joseph Morris. Details: church office (662) 342-1073.
TUPELO St. James, North Mississippi Journey of Hope with special guest Father Burke Masters. Meet and greet Thursday, April 25, luncheon, Friday, April 26, 12–1 p.m. Father Masters is a former Mississippi State baseball player and current chaplain of the Chicago Cubs. This free luncheon will showcase the great work that Catholic Charities does in Mississippi. Meet and greet is $25, luncheon is free, but reservations are required. Details: To be a table captain for the event, go to https://catholiccharitiesjackson.org/joh/ or (601) 326-3714 or (601) 326-3758.
YAZOO CITY St. Mary, course on the Book of Revelation, Thursdays from 1-3 p.m. in the Parish Office. Please remember to bring your Bible to class. Details: (662) 746-1680.

YOUTH BRIEFS

JACKSON St. Richard, The St Richard Special Kids Parish Ministry will be hosting a Spring Art Show on Saturday, April 6, from 5-7 p.m. in Foley Hall. Pieces from the “Through Their Eyes” photography collection, a new series of saint icons, candles, as well as ceramic pieces will be available for purchase. Details: church office (601) 366-2335.
MADISON St. Francis of Assisi, Movie night, Friday, March 1. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the movie “I Can Only Imagine” starts at 6:45 p.m. Bring your favorite tailgating chair. Pizza, popcorn and nachos will be provided. Details: church office (601) 856-5556.

40 Days founder to speak at Mississippi kickoff event

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JACKSON – Shawn Carney, the national president of the peaceful, prayerful, effective 40 Days for Life project, will tell the story of this groundbreaking effort in Jackson on March 6. Carney will be speaking at 40 Days for Life Kickoff, which is set for 6 p.m. at 2903 North State Street in Jackson, the site of the state’s last abortion clinic.
“People in Jackson have made extraordinary sacrifices to expose the abortion industry and to protect pre-born children and their mothers from abortion,” Carney said. “I’m honored to be able to join these folks in prayer. Their efforts illustrate why we’re seeing historic changes – more mothers choosing life, more abortion workers experiencing conversions and leaving the abortion industry, and more abortion centers closing their doors for good.”

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin – Shawn Carney, president and founder of 40 Days for Life, at right in stocking cap, speaks at a 2018 event. Carney will speak at the kickoff to the prayer vigil to end abortion in Jackson on March 6. (Photo courtesy of 40 Days for Life)

“We are tremendously pleased that Shawn will be here to support our 40 Days for Life effort,” said Barbara Beavers, spokesperson for the local 40 Days for Life campaign in Jackson. “He’s an energetic, enthusiastic speaker and we know he will be an inspiration.”
Jackson is one of 6,020 communities around the world conducting simultaneous 40 Days for Life campaigns from March 6 through April 14.
40 Days for Life is an intensive campaign that focuses on 40 days of prayer and fasting for an end to abortion, peaceful vigil at abortion facilities, and grassroots educational outreach. Since 40 Days for Life began, 15,256 mothers have chosen life for their children; 186 abortion workers have quit their jobs; and 99 abortion centers where 40 Days for Life vigils have been held have gone out of business.
Carney led the first-ever 40 Days for Life campaign outside a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Bryan/College Station, Texas in 2004 and has helped coordinate more than 20 national 40 Days for Life campaigns that have engaged communities coast to coast – and internationally.
Planned Parenthood recognized the effectiveness of Carney’s efforts when it labeled Bryan/College Station “the most anti-choice place in the nation.” Following more than a dozen 40 Days for Life campaigns at that location, Planned Parenthood closed that abortion center in the summer of 2013.
To learn more about 40 Days for Life, visit: www.40daysforlife.com. For information about the Jackson campaign, visit: www.40daysforlife.com/Jackson-2
For assistance or for more information, please contact Barbara Beavers at plm@prolifemississippi.org or 601-956-8636.

Mississippi moves toward more restrictions while other states expand abortion

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By Jacob Comello
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Since the end of January, the legislatures of New York, Virginia and other states have made headlines by approving or introducing policies that relax abortion restrictions, even in the third trimester and during labor.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Mississippi passed a pair of bills that would prohibit abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected — which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant indicated earlier this year he would sign such a bill into law.
Similar bills are making their ways through the legislatures in five other states, mostly in the Southeast.
Last year the state passed one of the most restrictive laws in the nation to ban abortions after 15 weeks, but that ban was halted by a federal judge. State Attorney General Jim Hood said at that time he would appeal to have the law reinstated.Pro-Life Mississippi immediately praised the passage of the bills. “We thank all our representatives and senators who helped on the Mississippi Bill HB732 and SB2116 to ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected. We pray that others will check their heart and see the importance of saving lives in Mississippi,” organization president Laura Duran wrote in a press release.
Now New Mexico is one step closer to passing a similar bill that loosens the state’s already liberal abortion laws and would erase virtually all abortion restrictions in the event that the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade is overturned.
The “Decriminalize Abortion Bill,” or H.B. 51, has now made its way through the New Mexico House of Representatives, receiving the body’s overall approval in a 40-29 floor vote Feb. 6 after being confirmed by several committees. It is now headed for the Senate, where it will be the subject of further debate and another vote.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican daily newspaper, there are three main parts of New Mexico’s pre-Roe abortion law that would be invalidated by the act: a prohibition that makes abortion a felony; language that permits abortions in some circumstances as determined by a physician, such as rape or threat to a mother’s life; and an opt-out provision for hospitals or providers that register moral or religious objections to performing the procedure.
Most of these were invalidated already by Roe v. Wade or the New Mexico Court of Appeals, giving New Mexico some of the laxest abortion policy in the country.
But if Roe v. Wade is eventually overturned, this state law would ensure that abortion would be available on-demand in New Mexico.
In multiple statements, the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops has condemned the bill and urged Catholics in the state’s three dioceses to take action against it.
In one statement released before H.B. 51 had passed the House Judiciary Committee, the bishops criticized the bill as a whole but especially the portions that would be in effect even without a Roe v. Wade repeal. For example, as per the Jan. 31 release, “H.B. 51 guarantees that parents will NOT be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion,” which the bishops see as extremely damaging and opening the door to abuse.
Additionally, in that statement the bishops lamented the lack of protections for doctors who object to abortion on moral or religious grounds: “H.B. 51 strips away the only explicit conscience protection for doctors and other medical professionals that protect them from being forced to participate in abortions. … Medical professionals should not have to worry that the state of New Mexico and private companies could have the power to force them to choose between their faith and their profession.”
The statement included statistics collected from the New Mexico Alliance for Life, which seemed to demonstrate that the principles of the bill are not attuned to New Mexican opinion. Included were claims that “67 percent of New Mexicans support parental involvement in a minor’s abortion” and that “70 percent of New Mexicans oppose allowing abortions after five months up to birth.”
After H.B. 51 had cleared the House, the bishops released another statement, again denouncing the elimination of religious protections, which would be enforceable without a Roe overturn: “Two parts of the statute are not void by the U.S. Supreme Court and are enforced. We oppose H.B. 51 and urge our legislators to protect the conscience of our health care workers and protect women by maintaining the conscience clause and requirement of the doctor.”

McCarrick removed from priesthood, convicted of abuse

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By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has confirmed the removal from the priesthood of Theodore E. McCarrick, the 88-year-old former cardinal and archbishop of Washington.
The Vatican announced the decision Feb. 16, saying he was found guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.”
A panel of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty Jan. 11, the Vatican said. McCarrick appealed the decision, but the appeal was rejected Feb. 13 by the congregation itself. McCarrick was informed of the decision Feb. 15 and Pope Francis “recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accord with law,” making a further appeal impossible.

Former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, arrives for the Jan. 1, 2017, installation Mass of Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J. On Feb. 16, 2019, Pope Francis confirmed the removal from the priesthood of McCarrick. Even though the decision was not unexpected, the news cast a somber mood over the faith communities in the dioceses and archdioceses where he had served. (CNS photo/Bob Roller)

By ordering McCarrick’s “dismissal from the clerical state,” the decision means that McCarrick loses all rights and duties associated with being a priest, cannot present himself as a priest and is forbidden to celebrate the sacraments, except to grant absolution for sins to a person in imminent danger of death.
The only church penalty that is more severe is excommunication, which would have banned him from receiving the sacraments. The other possible punishment was to sentence him to a “life of prayer and penance,” a penalty often imposed on elderly clerics; the penalty is similar to house arrest and usually includes banning the person from public ministry, limiting his interactions with others and restricting his ability to leave the place he is assigned to live.
McCarrick’s punishment is the toughest meted out to a cardinal by the Vatican in modern times.
McCarrick’s initial suspension from ministry and removal from the College of Cardinals in 2018 came after a man alleged that McCarrick began sexually abusing him in 1971 when he was a 16-year-old altar server in New York; the Archdiocese of New York found the allegation “credible and substantiated” and turned the case over to the Vatican.
At that point, in June, then-Cardinal McCarrick said he would no longer exercise any public ministry “in obedience” to the Vatican, although he maintained he was innocent.
In late July, the pope accepted McCarrick’s resignation from the College of Cardinals and ordered him to maintain “a life of prayer and penance” until the accusation that he had sexually abused a minor could be examined by a Vatican court.
In the weeks that followed the initial announcement, another man came forward claiming he was abused as a child by McCarrick, and several former seminarians spoke out about being sexually harassed by the cardinal at a beach house he had in New Jersey.
Since September, McCarrick has been living in a Capuchin friary in rural Kansas.
The allegations against McCarrick, including what appeared to be years of sexual harassment of seminarians, also led to serious questions about who may have known about his activities and how he was able to rise to the level of cardinal.
At least two former seminarians reported the sexual misconduct of McCarrick to their local bishops as far back as the 1990s. The Archdiocese of Newark and the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton made a settlement with one man in 2005, and the Diocese of Metuchen settled with the other man in 2007.
A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Metuchen told Catholic News Service in August that both settlements were reported to the Vatican nuncio in Washington. The two archbishops who held the position of nuncio in 2004 and 2006 have since died.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served as nuncio in Washington from 2011-2016, made headlines in mid-August when he called for Pope Francis to resign, claiming the pope had known of allegations against McCarrick and had lifted sanctions imposed on McCarrick by now-retired Pope Benedict XVI.
The former nuncio later clarified that Pope Benedict issued the sanctions “privately” perhaps “due to the fact that he (McCarrick) was already retired, maybe due to the fact that he (Pope Benedict) was thinking he was ready to obey.”
In an open letter to Archbishop Vigano released in October, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops since 2010, said that in 2011, “I told you verbally of the situation of the bishop emeritus (McCarrick) who was to observe certain conditions and restrictions because of rumors about his behavior in the past.”
Then-Cardinal McCarrick “was strongly exhorted not to travel and not to appear in public so as not to provoke further rumors,” Cardinal Ouellet said, but “it is false to present these measures taken in his regard as ‘sanctions’ decreed by Pope Benedict XVI and annulled by Pope Francis. After re-examining the archives, I certify that there are no such documents signed by either pope.”
Cardinal Ouellet’s letter was published a few days after the Vatican issued a statement saying that it would, “in due course, make known the conclusions of the matter regarding Archbishop McCarrick.”
In addition, Pope Francis ordered “a further thorough study of the entire documentation present in the archives of the dicasteries and offices of the Holy See regarding the former Cardinal McCarrick in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively.”
The Vatican statement said it is aware “that, from the examination of the facts and of the circumstances, it may emerge that choices were made that would not be consonant with a contemporary approach to such issues. However, as Pope Francis has said: ‘We will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead.’ Both abuse and its cover-up can no longer be tolerated, and a different treatment for bishops who have committed or covered up abuse, in fact, represents a form of clericalism that is no longer acceptable.”
McCarrick had been ordained to the priesthood in 1958 for the Archdiocese of New York. James, the first child he baptized after ordination, claimed that from the time he was 11 years old and for some 20 years, McCarrick sexually abused him.
In 1977, McCarrick was ordained an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of New York and, in 1981, St. John Paul II named him the first bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey. Five years later, he became the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and in November 2000 St. John Paul named him archbishop of Washington, D.C., and made him a cardinal early in 2001. McCarrick retired in 2006.
At least three other cardinals have been accused of sexual abuse or impropriety in the past 25 years. In the 1990s Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer was forced to step down as archbishop of Vienna and eventually to relinquish all public ministry after allegations of the sexual abuse and harassment of seminarians and priests; he died in 2003 without having undergone a canonical trial.
Pope Benedict XVI forced Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien to step down as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh in early 2013; after an investigation, Pope Francis withdrew his “rights and duties” as a cardinal, although he retained the title until his death in March 2018.
Australian Cardinal George Pell, facing charges of abusing minors, has been on leave from his post as head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy since mid-2017; he reportedly was found guilty of some charges in December, but the court has imposed an injunction on press coverage of the trial. Pope Francis told reporters he would not speak about the case until the court proceedings have run their course.

Great expectations: Vatican abuse summit has key, realistic goals

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By Carol Glatz (CNS)
VATICAN CITY – All eyes and ears will be on the Vatican during an unprecedented gathering set for Feb. 21-24 to discuss the protection of minors in the Catholic Church.
When Pope Francis announced the international meeting in September, it sparked an optimistic note that the global problem of abuse finally would be tackled with a concerted, coordinated, global effort.
The breadth of the potential impact seemed to be reflected in the list of those convoked to the meeting: the presidents of all the world’s bishops’ conferences, the heads of the Eastern Catholic churches, representatives of the leadership groups of men’s and women’s religious orders and the heads of major Vatican offices.
But the pope tried to dial down what he saw as “inflated expectations” for the meeting, telling reporters in January that “the problem of abuse will continue. It’s a human problem” that exists everywhere.
Many survivors and experts, too, have cautioned that it was unrealistic to assume such a brief meeting could deliver a panacea for abuse and its cover-up.
So, what should people expect from the four-day meeting? The following five points hit the highlights:
1. It will be first and foremost about raising awareness, including that the scandal of abuse is not a “Western” problem, but happens in every country.
To make that point clear, the organizing committee asked every participating bishop to sit down with a survivor of abuse before coming to Rome and hear that “Me, too,” from a person of his own country, culture and language.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, who is moderating the meeting, said there would be between 160 and 180 participants. He told reporters Feb. 12 to expect the presidents of about 115 bishops’ conferences, a dozen heads of Eastern churches, prefects of Vatican congregations directly involved with Vatican norms regarding abuse and negligence, eight delegates from the men’s Union of Superiors General, 10 delegates from the women’s International Union of Superiors General, three members of the pope’s Council of Cardinals who are not presidents of their bishops’ conference and four members of the organizing committee.
Everyone invited will be expected to learn what his or her responsibilities are as a leader or a bishop and to know the church laws and procedures that already exist to protect the young.
2. Organizers hope that by listening to victims and leaders who have learned things the hard way, participants will be inspired to adopt a culture of accountability and transparency.
Hearing what abuse and negligence have done to people has the power to transform the listener, “to truly open the mind and heart,” Jesuit Father Hans Zollner told reporters Feb. 12.
Just to be sure those voices are heard, the meeting will also feature testimonies from survivors from countries where the reality of abuse is still largely ignored, said the priest, an abuse expert who is part of the meeting’s organizing committee.
He said the word “accountability” doesn’t even exist in many languages, which often means that culture might lack a clear or coherent understanding of this key concept.
For that reason, the summit will devote a day to discussing accountability and “what structures, procedures and methods are effective” and viable in the Catholic Church, he said.
Church leaders must know what the norms are, he said, but the meeting also will stress that the procedures themselves “will not magically solve a problem.”
For example, he said, it was “a source of delusion” for U.S. Catholics when the 2002 Dallas Charter did not fix everything.
In fact, the meeting will not be about producing any documents, but pushing people to take the needed steps toward greater transparency and accountability, Father Lombardi said.
Those steps already are spelled out, he said, in Pope Francis’ 2016 document, “As a Loving Mother,” on the accountability of bishops and religious superiors.
“It must be put into practice effectively,” he said, adding that he was “convinced and firmly hope that this meeting will give a push in that direction.”
3. There will be a kind of “parallel assembly” as large numbers of survivors and advocacy groups converge on Rome to call for greater accountability, action and reform.
A variety of events are planned, including an evening “Vigil for Justice” near the Vatican and a “March for Zero Tolerance” to St. Peter’s Square, but a major focus will be media outreach and getting the voice and recommendations of laypeople and victims – many who had gone unheard for years – listened to.
4. Pope Francis will be present throughout the meeting, which will include plenary sessions, working groups, prayer, a penitential liturgy and a closing Mass.
In letters to the bishops of Chile and the United States, Pope Francis has made clear what he thinks the church needs to do to respond to the abuse crisis.
Administrative solutions involving new policies and norms are not enough, he has said.
He told Chile’s bishops that abuse and its cover-up “are indicators that something is bad in the church body.”
Therefore, they must not only “address the concrete cases,” but also “discover the dynamics that made it possible for such attitudes and evils to occur.”
Those attitudes are driven by the temptation “to save ourselves, to save our reputation,” he told the Chilean bishops.
In his letter to the U.S. bishops, he warned against the tendency to play the victim, to scold, discredit, disparage others and point fingers.
5. Expect the meeting to be one critical step along a very long journey that began decades ago and must continue.
Further measures will be taken after the meeting, Father Zollner has said. For instance, a task force made up of child protection experts “will probably be instituted in the various continents” to help bishops create, strengthen and implement guidelines.
The different “teams” of the task force should be able to help “for years to come to measure the success of this exercise of realizing own’s own responsibility, even on the global level, in the face of public expectations,” he told the Vatican newspaper in January.
Even though the church is well aware of larger, related problems of abuses of power, conscience and abuse and violence against seminarians, religious women and other adults, the meeting will focus exclusively on protecting minors from abuse, Fathers Zollner and Lombardi said.
The idea is that the attitude and spirit needed to protect the most vulnerable of the church’s members are the same that will protect and promote respect for the integrity and dignity of everyone.
In fact, Father Lombardi said, “I see this as a test of the profundity of the reform” of the church called for by Pope Francis.
In other words, the pope wants people “to examine how we live out our mission, with what coherence and how we can convert our attitudes, both in regard to our attention and compassion for those who suffer, as well as our consistent witness to the dignity of children, of women, and so on.”

(Contributing to this story was Cindy Wooden in Rome.)

Greenwood Franciscans celebrate their order’s 150th anniversary

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By Maureen Smith
GREENWOOD – The Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity are celebrating 150 years as a religious community. The community is based out of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, but different sisters have served in Greenwood at St. Francis of Assisi Parish and School for 21 years.

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Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity collaborate with the Franciscan Friars of the Assumption of the BVM Province serving as teachers at St. Francis of Assisi School, as well as catechists, spiritual advisor to Secular Franciscans, organist, choir director, visitor to the elderly, and in other supportive parish leadership roles.
On Sunday, Jan. 27, the sisters currently serving in Mississippi – Sister Judith Norwick, Sister Annette Kurey, Sister Kathleen Murphy and Sister Maria Goretti Scandaliato – helped their students serve at Mass to kick off Catholic Schools Week. At the end of Mass, Father Camillus Janas invited the congregation to bless the sisters in prayer. Then they invited the congregation to the convent for an open house.
People were able to pray a house blessing in the sisters’ chapel as well as add a prayer intention to their prayer book. The sisters had historical photos on display of the mother house as well as photo books from the order’s service in Greenwood. Many attendees found themselves and their children in the photos. The parish has been publishing articles about their service in the community in the bulletin.

Super Bowl Blues: When Atlanta rhymes with Mylanta

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By Peter Finney Jr.
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) – I get it when people tell us to just get over it.
That’s normally a therapeutic suggestion. Holding onto anger – like tightly clenching shards of glass in a balled fist – can become much more than a flesh wound to the soul.
Just open your hand and let the shards fall to the floor!
And yet …
There is something about what happened – or did not happen – in the NFC Championship Game Jan. 20 that has left citizens of the Who Dat Nation in shock, anger and denial, prompting spiritual leaders to pick up the pieces.
Father Joe Palermo, who spent many years as a spiritual adviser to young men studying for the priesthood at Notre Dame Seminary, became pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Metairie last July. Because he was free on weekends to celebrate Masses across the Archdiocese of New Orleans, he frequently received calls from pastors looking for a “supply priest” for the evening Mass on the first Sunday of February.
“The priest who needed the substitute never would call me personally – it was the poor, unsuspecting secretary who would have no clue and call in October or November,” Father Palermo said, laughing. “I would say, ‘Oh, he’s got a Super Bowl party to go to.’ And she would say, ‘Huh?’ I would tell her, ‘I’ll take the Mass.'”
In all of his years doing the Super Bowl evening Mass – kickoff for the game is 5:25 p.m. – Father Palermo barely was able to fulfill Jesus’ command: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
“Fifty is the most I’ve ever seen at a Super Bowl Mass,” Father Palermo said.
So when Father Palermo became a new pastor, he started thinking about his lonely, echo-inducing Super Bowl Sunday liturgy experience.
“There’s usually only a handful of people in the church, and you want to have a vibrant liturgy,” Father Palermo said. “The more I thought about it, I thought we might not have a Mass during the time of the Super Bowl. But, if the Saints were in the Super Bowl, we were absolutely not going to have it. We would have nobody in the church, and I would be missing the game.”
Father Palermo posted the cancellation notice in his Jan. 27 bulletin, which went to press a couple of days before the Jan. 20 NFC Championship Game between the Saints and the Rams.
Then, all larceny broke out in the Superdome.
The non-call heard round the world robbed the Saints of a near-certain berth in Super Bowl LIII – which, someone noted the other day, might forever be remembered as Super Bowl “LIIIE.”
“That was a game-changer,” said Father Palermo, who was at the game and saw the officials’ sin of omission face-to-face on the HD Jumbotron, not as a shadowy crime through a confessional screen.

Los Angeles Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman breaks up a pass intended for New Orleans Saints wide receiver Tommylee Lewis during the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Superdome Jan. 20, 2019. (CNS photo/Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters) See NFC-SAINTS-PIECES Feb. 1, 2019.

The next day, at morning Mass, Father Palermo encountered black-and-gold parishioners who were red-eyed and blue, hurting just as much as he was.
“It was clear that people had been hurt and that they were emotionally down,” Father Palermo said. “It’s funny, because even people who are not big Saints’ fans were telling me, ‘Father, this just doesn’t seem fair and just.’ So, I thought, rather than not have Mass on Super Bowl Sunday evening, we needed to have Mass to celebrate our unity as a community and celebrate all the good things that the Saints have done for us and brought to us – and pray for healing. All those things seemed very well-suited to a celebration.”
As Father Palermo reflected on what he would write for his “Pastor’s Corner” column for the Feb. 3 bulletin, he decided first that the parish would, in fact, offer a Super Bowl Sunday Mass at 5:30 p.m., and he invited everyone attending all five weekend Masses to wear black and gold and stay after Mass for Saints-themed hospitality.
But then, the muse in him could not sit still. In just a few minutes, he penned a new blues’ tune, which he titled, “Super Bowl Blues!”
At the end of Mass on Jan. 27 – during the announcements – he debuted his Casey Kasem Top 40 hit:
“I had my heart set on Atlanta/I’ve got the Super Bowl Blues/The ref’s blown call made me a ranter/I’ve got the Super Bowl Blues/Now I’m drinking straight Mylanta/To shake the Super Bowl Blues!
“I didn’t think anything could rhyme with Mylanta,” Father Palermo said. “That came from out of left field.”
The response? “Applause,” Father Palermo said.
In addition to the post-Mass pastries and coffee Feb. 3, Father Palermo also offered the blessing of the throats, courtesy of the feast of St. Blaise. Many throats were still raw from overuse injuries two weeks earlier.
In his Feb. 3 bulletin, Father Palermo recognized the unique bond between the Saints and the city, especially the team’s role in lifting spirits after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and then winning Super Bowl XLIV in 2010.
“Thanks be to God we have the Saints,” he wrote. “May we stand with them in this time of suffering, remembering that God didn’t promise justice in this life but victory for the Saints in the life to come. O Lord, bring healing to our grieving team and city, and, next year, help us to win a second Lombardi Trophy – with a heaping helping of Ram gumbo!”
Until then, I’m opening my clenched fist just enough to pick up a baby blue bottle – and swigging straight Mylanta.
A priest told me it would be good for the hole in my soul.

(Finney is executive editor and general manager of Clarion Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of New Orleans.)