Las posadas: Hispanic tradition keeps story of Holy Family alive

JACKSON – One of the most popular Latin American Christmas traditions is a nine-day celebration called “Las Posadas.” “Posada” means “inn” or “shelter.” This tradition is a reenactment of Mary and Joseph’s attempt to find lodging before the birth of Jesus. Posadas are celebrated in different countries, so there are variations within each respective culture.
Traditionally, las posadas begin the night of Dec. 16 and end on the night of Dec. 24, which commemorates Mary’s nine months of carrying Jesus in the womb. Eight families volunteer to host the posada at their home and the last night is hosted at the church. Each night, a nativity scene is carried by a group of people; they represent Joseph and Mary, along with a crowd of angels, shepherds and wise men. The group carries candles and sings an interactive song of begging for shelter outside of each of the houses. The group on the inside of the home represents the innkeepers and sing back, refusing to open the door.
Some of the dialogue of the song includes:
Outside crowd: In the name of Heaven I beg you for lodging, for she cannot walk, my beloved wife.
Innkeepers: This is not an inn so keep going. I cannot open, you may be a rogue.
Outside crowd: Don’t be inhumane; have mercy on us. The God of heavens will reward you for it.
Innkeepers: You can go on now and don’t bother us, because if I become annoyed, I’ll give you a beating.
Outside crowd: We are worn out coming from Nazareth. I am a carpenter, Joseph by name.

CANTON – In 2018, Geancarlo Ramires, Juana and Leslie Marroquin participate in a las posadas hosted by Sacred Heart church. (Photo courtesy of archives)


Innkeepers: I don’t care about your name. Let me sleep because I already told you, we shall not open up.
Outside crowd: I’m asking you for lodging dear man of the house. Just for one night for the Queen of Heaven.
Innkeepers: Well, if it’s a queen, who solicits it, why is it at night that she travels so alone?
Outside crowd: My wife is Mary. She’s the Queen of Heaven and she’s going to be the mother of the Divine Word.
Innkeepers: Are you Joseph? Your wife is Mary? Enter, pilgrims; I did not recognize you.
Outside crowd: May God pay, gentle folks, your charity, and thus heaven heap happiness upon you.
Inkeepers: Blessed is the house that shelters this day the pure Virgin, the beautiful Mary.
The song continues but during the last verse, the doors are opened and everyone makes their way inside. The song then transitions to a joyful song of welcoming. Usually, a Rosary is prayed once everyone is packed inside. Other times, the Bible is read and there is a time for reflection. The host family typically provides some type of drink or food that can range from a snack to a full meal. One popular choice is the atole; a hot drink made from corn or wheat flour and milk, but a local favorite is arroz con leche, a hot drink made with rice, milk and cinnamon.
“Celebrating las posadas is a beautiful tradition in the Latino/Hispanic culture and I am thankful that the opportunity to experience this tradition is available in towns throughout Mississippi,” says Daisey Martínez, Associate for Youth and Young Adult Ministry for Intercultural Ministry at the Diocese of Jackson.
Las Posadas is a time to draw attention to our own journey to find room for Jesus at Christmas as well as participate in and honor a rich tradition of Latinos.

(Daisey Martinez contributed to this story)

Hoping for a CURE

By Father Kent Bowlds
CLEVELAND – Having a relative who is in prison has made me very aware of the impact of incarceration upon whole families and things are not getting any easier. A growing trend, for example, is the replacement of families’ free onsite inmate visitation with video technology – where loved ones and their incarcerated members have to visit remotely through a television screen – at financial cost to the families and at the expense of a truly personal experience. Because the poor are especially affected by incarcerations, a situation like this has a very detrimental effect upon them and, in the end, upon all of us. As a society we say that prisons should not have revolving doors, that the return rate is much too high, but then we allow policies, such as exorbitant jail telephone rates, which foster repeat offenders by damaging the connections between families and their incarcerated loved ones. We don’t follow what the best research says will work toward reducing crime in the long run.
If prison reform is a concern close to your heart also, know that there is a way to advocate here in Mississippi on behalf of the affected families, the prisoners themselves, and anyone who is interested in our prisons being more than very expensive warehouses to which the inmates are likely to return. CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) is a nonprofit national grassroots organization with chapters many states. It speaks to issues on a national level, but even more importantly to local and state matters. The Mississippi chapter of CURE has not been active for several years and needs to be rebuilt and reenergized. It is not a religiously affiliated organization, but certainly has at heart the words which Jesus Christ will say to us someday – “When I was in prison, you visited me.”
A practical example of recent CURE effort is their advocacy for the national reinstatement of college Pell grants for prisoners. These particular grants were eliminated in 1994 and have since been offered again only on a very limited experimental basis by the U.S. Dept. of Education. Expanding this opportunity, such as through the newly proposed bipartisan REAL Act, would allow inmates to continue college studies behind bars and give them a better chance for life changing employment after release. This would help former offenders become contributing tax-paying citizens, a benefit for all of us.
A Mississippi CURE chapter, made up of constituents from all over the state, would let our state and U.S. legislators know in an official way what they think about such legislation. Their united voice would carry unique weight because of their personal experience and a strong desire for effective reform.
You can learn more at the website for CURE (www.curenational.org), which says:
“CURE consists of people who are passionate about seeking improvements in the criminal justice system. CURE’s members [include] prisoners, ex-prisoners, and family members and friends of prisoners. The vast majority of CURE’s funding comes from membership dues and contributions of members. Because our members often come from the ranks of the lower economic strata, annual dues are relatively inexpensive and may be waived for the indigent. The budgets for CURE Chapters are typically very small. The work is done by volunteers, with little or no paid staff.”
(If you would like to be involved in reestablishing Mississippi CURE, contact Father Kent Bowlds at Our Lady of Victories Cleveland, (662) 588-5868 or email: frkentb@icloud.com.

A world without nuclear weapons is possible, pope says in Japan

By Cindy Wooden
HIROSHIMA, Japan (CNS) – Saying it is “perverse” to think the threat of nuclear weapons makes the world safer, Pope Francis urged a renewed commitment to disarmament and to the international treaties designed to limit or eliminate nuclear weapons.
Pope Francis began his first full day in Japan Nov. 24 with a somber visit in the pouring rain to Nagasaki’s Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park, a memorial to the tens of thousands who died when the United States dropped a bomb on the city in 1945. In the evening, he visited the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, honoring the tens of thousands killed by an atomic bomb there, too.
“The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is today, more than ever, a crime not only against the dignity of human beings but against any possible future for our common home,” Pope Francis told several hundred people gathered with him in Hiroshima.
“The use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral, as I already said two years ago.” he said. “We will be judged on this.”

Pope Francis prays as he visits the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park in Nagasaki, Japan, Nov. 24, 2019. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)


“Future generations will rise to condemn our failure if we spoke of peace but did not act to bring it about among the peoples of the earth,” the pope said. “How can we speak of peace even as we build terrifying new weapons of war? How can we speak about peace even as we justify illegitimate actions by speeches filled with discrimination and hate?”
A policy of nuclear deterrence – counting on mutually assured destruction – to keep the peace makes no sense, the pope said. “How can we propose peace if we constantly invoke the threat of nuclear war as a legitimate recourse for the resolution of conflicts?”
The pope spoke in Hiroshima after listening to the horrifying stories of two survivors of the blast: Yoshiko Kajimoto, who was 14 in 1945; and Kojí Hosokawa, who was 17. Almost everyone they knew then is gone.
Kajimoto was working in a factory when the bomb was dropped. She was buried under timber and tiles, but eventually managed to get free. “When I went outside, all the surrounding buildings were destroyed,” she told the pope. “It was as dark as evening and smelled like rotten fish.
Helping evacuate the injured, she saw “people walking side by side like ghosts, people whose whole body was so burnt that I could not tell the difference between men and women, their hair standing on end, their faces swollen to double size, their lips hanging loose, with both hands held out with burnt skin hanging from them.”
“No one in this world can imagine such a scene of hell,” she said.
Hosokawa, was not able to attend the ceremony with the pope, but his testimony was read: “I think everyone should realize that the atomic bombs were dropped, not on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but on all humanity.”
“War,” he wrote, “makes people crazy, and the ultimate craziness is the atomic bomb that negated human existence.”
The pope began the day honoring victims of the Nagasaki bombing, laying a wreath of flowers at a memorial to the 27,000 people killed instantly the day the bomb was dropped and the tens of thousands who died over the next five months from burns and radiation sickness, the pope prayed silently. Then he lit a peace candle.
The Atomic Hypocenter Park is near the ruins of the city’s Catholic cathedral, which was the largest church in east Asia until the bomb destroyed it. The ruins, including a damaged wooden statue of Mary, are reminders, the pope said, of “the unspeakable horror suffered in the flesh by the victims of the bombing and their families.”
Thinking that developing, stockpiling and modernizing nuclear weapons is a deterrent to war provides only a “false sense of security,” the pope said. What is more, it feeds fear and mistrust, which hinder dialogue.
“Convinced as I am that a world without nuclear weapons is possible and necessary,” the pope said, “I ask political leaders not to forget that these weapons cannot protect us from current threats to national and international security.”
Pope Francis warned of the risk that the international arms control framework is being dismantled. The Vatican has expressed increasing concern about U.S. President Donald Trump’s continuing delay in beginning talks with Russia on extending or renewing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and for allowing the U.S.-Russian treaty on intermediate-range weapons to expire.
“A world of peace, free from nuclear weapons, is the aspiration of millions of men and women everywhere,” the pope said in Nagasaki.
The use of nuclear weapons is not the only threat the arms pose, he said, pointing to the billions of dollars spent each year on maintaining nuclear stockpiles and developing new weapons when millions of people are starving and dying in poverty.

Youth news

High fives for fire safety

MERIDIAN – Firefighter Lee Bohl, with the city of the Meridian Fire Department, gives a “high five” to kindergarten student Kayleigh Johnson on Oct. 22 at St. Patrick School. Preschool and kindergarten students learned about fire safety and got a close up view of a fire truck. (Photo by Celeste Saucier)

Fun times in Vicksburg

VICKSBURG – students are ready for the Spooky Sprint 1-mile fun fun to start. (Photos by Rebecca Weatherford)

Chess masters in training

SOUTHAVEN – Lucas Delgado participated in the Sacred Heart School chess tournament on Saturday, Nov. 2. Lucas’s older brother Diego was the tournament champion. (Photo by Sister Margaret Sue Broker)

The Saints go marching

COLUMBUS – Annunciation sixth graders observed All Saints Day by presenting their Hall of Saints project to other students and visitors. Students worked on their Saints project for several weeks, learning about the lives of these special people in history. (Photo by Katie Fenstermacher)

Bearing Gifts

GREENVILLE – Students at St. Joe Greenville celebrate All Saints Day Mass with Father Aaron Williams. (Photo by Nikki Thompson)

Festivities around Diocese

MERIDIAN – On Nov. 2, St. Patrick School held their annual Variety Show fundraiser. The event was organized by Dr. Danny and Rory Santiago and featured many talented acts from the catholic community. Shown are members of the St. Patrick School staff from left, Montse Frias, principal, Helen Reynolds, Celeste Saucier, Lauren Walker and Sharon Shipman performing a routine to the song “I Will Follow Him” from the movie “Sister Act.” (Photo by Wade Saucier)
JACKSON – The St. Richard annual CardinalFest was a rockin’ hit on Oct. 27, with the Fondren Guitars students Rock Band performing. Pictured is former St. Richard student, Amelia Haydel singing and playing guitar, and Seamus Priest on drums. The Fondren Guitar Band is led by St. Richard alum and parent Patrick Harkins. (Photo by Tereza Ma)
GREENVILLE – The men of Sacred Heart fried fish for their annual Harvest Festival fundraiser on Saturday, Nov. 2. (Photo by Maurice Mosley)

MERIDIAN – Father Augustine in the Halloween spirit at his parish’s celebration. (Photo courtesy by St. Patrick)

COLUMBUS – Annunciation students trick or treat through classrooms. (Photo by Katie Fenstermacher)

JACKSON – On Oct. 29 school development directors met with chancery staff members Rebecca Harris and Joanna King. The team talked about strategy and upcoming events. (Photo by Tereza Ma)

Priest delivers powerful testimony during Homeland Security hearings

By Berta Mexidor
JACKSON – Father Odel Medina tugged at heartstrings as he read a letter written by a child pleading for his father’s freedom after being jailed since the federal agent raids on Mississippi last summer.
Missionary Servant Father Medina, pastor of St. Therese Kosciusko and St. Anne Carthage, was among the many people presenting testimonies and stories and expressing concerns during public hearings Nov. 7 in Tougaloo before U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security members.
Committee members attending the hearing included Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Rep. Al Green (D-TX.) Also on hand was Rep. Steven Cohen (D-TN), who heads up the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Looking back. More than 600 federal agents raided chicken processing plants across Mississippi Aug. 7 resulting in the arrests of 680 people. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid was the largest statewide workplace operation in U.S. history with a price tag of $1.3 million so far according to reports.
For the most part, those arrested were not dangerous criminals, but rather workers in many cases outstaying their visas. There were six more serious charges involving domestic violence and two cases of battery that were reported but details were unclear. One recent report indicated that 300 are still living in detention.
In the aftermath of the raids, many are calling the operation inhuman and unnecessary. During hearings, Jere Miles, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security investigation office in New Orleans, was questioned on the project’s costs. Other questions directed at him focused on the timing and execution of operations that took place on the first day of school when children were heading back to classes after the summer break.
According to reports, only county school districts were contacted about the raids. Communications with other schools were lacking and left educational facilities in crisis management at the end of the day when the parents were not there to pick up their children. Reports say that ICE provided 11 phones for the more the 680 detainees to use on that day to get in touch with loved ones and to seek help.

Miles defended his agency saying that his office was incompliance with the law, and as a result of the raid, 400 cases of illegally use of SSN or identity theft were found. When Mississippi Catholic questioned Miles about the outcome of the raids, he said, “After this hearing and each raid, the agency tries to learn how to improve this kind of operation. We are taking all the suggestions, but there are some things we cannot change because we need to take care of our country,” he explained about the administration’s press on immigration and security and enforcement efforts.
Several Catholic communities of the Diocese of Jackson have been facing the consequences of the immigration raids over the past months. In emergency response and social justice efforts, the diocese has been working with parishes to provide assistance to families faced with hardships struggling to pay rent, buy food and pay bills after heads of households lost work due to the raids.
Father Medina is heading up long-term recovery efforts at crisis centers established as part of the diocese’s humanitarian aid efforts in coordination with Catholic Charities and other community organizations joining in the outreach. Help including financial assistance and legal advice is offered as part of outreach to families in the parishes and also residents living within the community-at-large touched by the raids.
Father Mike O’Brien, pastor of Sacred Heart in Canton, and Father Roberto Mena, Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity and pastor of St. Michael Parish in Forest, are also part of the diocese’s humanitarian aid initiatives.
During the Tougaloo hearing, Father Medina gathered with community leaders who one-by-one shared their testimonies and concerns. They included Scott County Sheriff Mike Lee; Lorena Quiroz Lewis of Working Together Mississippi; Canton Mayor William Truly; Clift Johnson, director of MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law and Attorney Constance Slaughter-Harvey, president of the Board of Legacy Education and Empowerment Foundation.
One of the most troubling aspects of the raids on the minds of many speaking at the hearing is the difficult situations of the families, who are struggling to make ends meet. According to records, about 1,000 children are affected by the raids including the minors now without both parents and the ongoing psychological, economic and social effects. The language barrier between Guatemalan detainees, who speak Mam, a Mayan language, is also a concern that calls for special translators.
Monserrat Ramirez and Roberto Tijerina, members of Southerners on New Ground (SONG), broadcasted the hearing on the Facebook page of Mississippi Resiste, a grassroots organization dedicated to helping the immigrant community.
SONG’s activists from Mississippi and other states are uniting forces with South East Immigrant Rights Network. Together, they are creating a network of individuals including lawyers, local authorities and Catholic lay and priests giving time and talents to help families in need of assistance and to get back on their feet.
During hearings, Father Medina talked about the generous support received from people everywhere after the raids. Donations poured into Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Jackson from 40 different states and several organizations reflecting the compassion and concerns that the people of the United States of America have for the immigrant families of Mississippi now in crisis and seeking social justice, guidance and help.
Father Medina thanked members of the committee for his opportunity to speak on the behalf of people in the diocese’s family of parishes and to read the letter of the child from his own parish family hurting and traumatized in the aftermath of the raids. “I assure you of my prayers. God bless you,” said the priest with a heavy heart, as he closed his talk.

(Linda Reeves contributed to this story.)

40 Years of Our Lady of Guadalupe

December features two significant Marian holidays: The Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8 and Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12. Bishop John Joseph Chanche, first bishop of the Diocese of Jackson had a special devotion to Immaculate Conception and helped bring the devotion to the United States.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is Patroness of the Americas. The feast celebrates Maria’s appearance to San Juan Diego.
The Diocese of Jackson has hosted observance of this feast since 1979, when the Bishops Joseph Brunini and William R. Houck and father Mario Vizacaino of SEPI celebrated the first Spanish Mass. The Guadalupe celebrations will include processions, the Holy Rosary, Mass, a dramatization of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe, “Mañanitas” (traditional Mexican birthday song).
Posadas is a Latin tradition to recreate the trip Joseph and Mary undertook seeking refuge. Many communities will organize multi-day Inns as part of the Advent season.
Here is a list of Guadalupe celebrations throughout the diocese. For more details and schedules of Posadas, please contact your parish.

Amory, St. Helen –Thursday, Dec. 12
Canton, Sacred Heart – Sunday Dec. 15, 9:30 am
Carthage, St. Anne – Saturday, Dec. 14, 10 a.m.
Cleveland, Our Lady of Victories – Thursday, Dec. 12, 5:30 p.m.
Corinth, St. James de Less – Saturday, Dec. 14, 6 p.m.
Forest, St. Michael – Thursday, Dec. 12, 6 p.m. and Guadalupana at Krudop Center, Sunday, Dec. 15, 11 a.m.
Greenville, Sacred Heart – Thursday, Dec. 12, 6 p.m.
Greenwood, St. Francis – Thursday, Dec. 12, 6 p.m.
Hazlehurst, St. Martin – Mañanitas, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 7-9 p.m. and Mass, Thursday, Dec 12, 6.30 p.m.
Holly Springs, St. Joseph – Thursday, Dec. 12, 7:30 p.m.
Houston, Immaculate Heart of Mary – Mañanitas, Dec. 12, 5 a.m., and Mass, 7 p.m.
Jackson, St. Peter Cathedral – Sunday, Dec. 8, 11:30 a.m.
Jackson, St Therese – Mañanitas, Thursday, Dec. 12, 8-10 p.m. and Mass, Sunday, Dec. 15, 12:30 p.m.
Kosciusko, St. Therese – Sunday, Dec. 15, 1 p.m.
Meridian, St. Patrick – Sunday, Dec. 8, 2:30 p.m.
New Albany, St. Francis – Sunday, December 15, 6 p.m.
Olive Branch, Queen the Peace – Thursday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m.
Oxford, St. John – Mañanitas and Guadalupana Mass, Thursday, Dec.12, 4:30 a.m.
Pearl, St. Jude – Saturday, Dec.14, 7 p.m.
Pontotoc, St. Christopher – Wednesday, Dec. 11, 6 p.m. Mañanitas, Thursday, Dec. 12, 5:30 a.m.
Ripley, St. Matthew – Bilingual Mass, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 7 p.m.; Mañanitas at midnight; Mass, Thursday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m.
Senatobia, St. Gregory – Thursday, Dec. 12 at 5:30 pm
Southaven, Christ the King – Mañanitas, Thursday, Dec. 12, 5:30 a.m. and Mass at 7 p.m.
Tupelo, St. James – Sunday, December 15, 11 a.m.

The sisters of Holmes County, integral to community

By Dan Stockman
LEXINGTON – It’s a Wednesday, and three teenagers are in Sr. Sheila Conley’s tiny office, learning about finances.
Less than a block away, Sr. Mary Walz, a social worker, is at the Lexington Medical Clinic, running a diabetes education program.
Down the road in Durant, Sr. Madeline Kavanaugh is working on a statewide re-entry program for people being released from the state prison system.
The three sisters are continuing the ministries of Sr. Paula Merrill, a member of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky, and Sr. Margaret Held of the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee. Held and Merrill were murdered Aug. 25, 2016, after working in the area for six years and ministering to those kept poor for some 30 years, mostly in Mississippi. They were nurse practitioners and both worked at the Lexington Medical Clinic.
On Nov. 20, 2017, Kavanaugh, Conley and Walz moved into the house Merrill and Held had shared and started their own work in the area. Their arrival “meant a new beginning, a fresh start. It meant that we were going to survive,” says Sam Sample, a parishioner at St. Thomas Church in Lexington and a friend of all five sisters.
Conley’s students have already completed the Career Ready 101 class at the Lexington Multi-Purpose Complex, which consists of 200 hours of learning how to be employable, such as understanding you have to show up to work, on time, every day.
“There’s a great vocational school where they can become an electrician or be certified to drive a forklift,” Conley, a Sister of Charity of Halifax, Nova Scotia, says later. “But they don’t know how to keep a job.”
Today, the subject is credit: credit cards, credit scores, credit card bills. They know there are credit cards and debit cards, but the only difference between them they know about is that a debit card needs a PIN; they don’t know one operates on credit and the other requires money in the bank.
The classes that provide real-world lessons existed before Conley got here, but they were only online, and the students didn’t have much success afterward. Now, they have Conley, a no-nonsense sister with a sharp wit, lots of stories and experience, and a mission to change their lives.
Since so many patients at the Lexington Medical Clinic have some form of diabetes, Walz, a Daughter of Charity, comes in contact with almost all of them.
“It gives you access to people who would never consider talking to a social worker,” Walz says. “There are so many social aspects to diabetes. The doctors say, ‘Lose weight, eat right, blah blah blah,’ and it just overwhelms them. But one-on-one, you can really address the issues, from poverty to transportation to healthy cooking.”
Like many rural areas, Lexington has few grocery stores and little fresh produce. Most people don’t know how to make healthy food choices, she says. They can’t find healthy food to buy and don’t know how to prepare it if they find it.
Walz also helps patients navigate the often-bewildering world of public assistance and nonprofit programs to cover co-pays, find transportation, or get expensive hearing aids.
“The staff told me, ‘They’re calling you the Diabetes Lady,'” Walz said. “I told them, ‘I’ve been called worse.'”
Kavanaugh, a Daughter of Charity, works with Marvin Edwards, a Secular Franciscan, on the prison re-entry program, the Mississippi Association for Returning Citizens (MARC). The program, “Getting Ahead While Getting Out,” is designed to help people get out of poverty.
“They learn a lot of self-evaluation skills — how to evaluate their anger and their personality,” Kavanaugh says. “It’s very strong on studying the financial reality of the country so they can understand how it works and how to get ahead. Before they leave prison, they have to have a plan. Not just a plan for the first 72 hours, but a plan for life.”
Plans often go haywire, and none of the three sisters had ever planned on ministering in rural Mississippi. But it didn’t take long for them to realize they are exactly where God wants them to be.
Though it had been more than a year since Held and Merrill died, the community they served was still reeling when Conley, Kavanaugh and Walz moved in.

“What happened was catastrophic to this town,” says Sample, a real-estate agent who helped the three new sisters rent Held and Merrill’s house.
Held and Merrill had been stabbed to death in their bedrooms in a breaking-and-entering. Rodney Earl Sanders of Kosciusko, a town about 18 miles east of Durant, was convicted of two counts of murder and is serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 30 years for burglary and stealing one of the sisters’ cars.
Sam Sample says he stood dumbfounded in front of the house, which was surrounded by police tape, when he got the news, unable to process it. When he called his wife, Jamie to tell her, she collapsed. She was so distraught, she was unable to drive.
“Our little world just crashed,” he says.
Cardell Wright, city manager for the City of Durant, says he didn’t know Merrill and Held personally, but it is impossible to escape their reputation.
“They exemplified holiness,” Wright says. “Something that tragic — it shook the community. When something like that happens to people of that caliber, it has a big effect on society.”
Today, the work of Conley, Kavanaugh and Walz is having a big effect, as well.
“When you see them, you know what they stand for. You know what they embody,” Wright says. “They’ve changed my own mentality of what I thought sisters were. I thought they were isolated and stayed off by themselves. The sisters here are invested in our community, and especially our young people. They’ve been very instrumental and one of our biggest donors and supporters.”
For example, Walz helped Wright organize a project for the Mayor’s Youth Council. The teens collected hundreds of pounds of plastic bottle caps, and Walz put them in touch with Green Tree Plastics in Evansville, Indiana, which makes benches out of the material. She then arranged for Wright to stay with the Daughters of Charity in Evansville so he could deliver the plastic and pick up the completed benches.
“We collected 950 pounds of plastic, and the Daughters of Charity donated another 300 pounds to us. They had sisters around the nation sending them in,” Wright says. “They’re unstoppable.”
The project resulted in several benches now installed around Durant, but more importantly, Wright says, it showed the teens how to follow through on a project and accomplish something.
Even more meaningful, though, was when students held a protest against gun violence after the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting, and Wright spotted the sisters joining the march.
“Just to see their involvement — they support us,” he says. “It made my day to see one of the sisters come out and march with us. They were right there, talking about protecting our kids.”
Wright marvels at the sisters’ creativity and resourcefulness.
“It’s the connections. It’s about uplifting one another,” he says. “They want the community to progress.”
Though none of the three sisters had lived in Mississippi before, when the Sisters of Charity Federation asked for sisters to consider serving in Durant, they each answered.
Conley, who works with the youth programs in Lexington, had a career in education. Kavanaugh, who works on the re-entry program, spent 17 years serving in Bolivia, four years in the Cook Islands and three years as the pastoral administrator of a parish in tiny Georgetown, South Carolina. Walz, now at the Lexington Medical Clinic, had a career that included 25 years in social work and three years developing health and social service centers for people who live in poverty. She worked for 14 years in rural Gould, Arkansas.
Holmes County, though, is a challenge: 41% of the population lives in poverty, and the median income is $20,330 a year, less than half the median income for Mississippi and the second-lowest in the nation. The national median income is $57,652. The unemployment rate is 12.2%, more than triple the national unemployment rate of 3.7%. Twenty-five percent of those over 25 do not have a high school diploma.
“It’s generational poverty. You have children having children, and it’s the third or fourth generation of that,” Kavanaugh says. “Now, we’re hearing about job opportunities, but people don’t have the skills to get them or keep them.”
There’s a new plastics factory opening soon — a big deal in a county of 17,622 where businesses only employ 1,981 people — but there is no public transportation. Holmes County Central High School ranks 228th out of 233 high schools in Mississippi. Wages in the area are low, so even those with jobs often struggle.
Conley says people living in poverty don’t have stable lives, so they often lose Social Security cards and birth certificates, the documents needed to apply for jobs, job training or almost anything else.
“There’s a lot of discouragement,” Walz says. “There’s so many parts of their lives that are out of their control, whether it’s financial or transportation or housing.”
Walz says the sisters know they won’t change Holmes County overnight, but it’s important they make an effort, and their ministry makes an important statement about the church and women religious.
“It’s our little attempt to be present. The county was traumatized by [the murders]. Durant was traumatized by this event,” she says. “It’s that sense that sisters haven’t given up on them because of this tragedy.”
Walz says people often ask if she is afraid to live in the home where two sisters were killed.
“Not for one second,” she says. “It’s like holy ground.”

(Reprinted with permission by Global Sisters Report, visit GlobalSistersReport.org).

Death of retired Bishop Morin ‘a sad day’ for Biloxi diocese

Bishop Roger Paul P. Morin of Biloxi, Miss., is seen in this undated photo. He died Oct. 31, 2019. He was 78. (CNS photo/courtesy Gulf Pine Catholic)

By Terry Dickson
BILOXI – Bishop Roger P. Morin, the third bishop of Biloxi, died Oct. 31 at age 78. He was returning to Biloxi after vacationing with his family in Massachusetts and died during his flight from Boston to Atlanta.
“This is a sad day for our diocese. I was shocked to hear the news,” Biloxi Bishop Louis F. Kihneman III said in a statement.
“Bishop Morin was a kind and gentle man who truly embodied his episcopal motto as one who walked humbly and acted justly,” he said. “When I was named bishop of Biloxi in 2016, Bishop Morin was most gracious and accommodating. I am forever grateful for his support, wise counsel and, most of all, his friendship. He will be sorely missed.”
Bishop Morin was named to head the Diocese of Biloxi by Pope Benedict XVI March 2, 2009, and was installed in April at the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the late Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, and Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile, Alabama.
His episcopal motto was “Walk Humbly and Act Justly.” He retired in 2016 at age 75.
A native of Dracut, Massachusetts, he was born March 7, 1941, the son of Germain J. and Lillian E. Morin. He has one brother, Paul, and three sisters, Lillian “Pat” Johnson, Elaine (Ray) Joncas and Susan Spellissy.
After high school and college studies, he earned a bachelor’s in philosophy in 1966 from St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, Massachusetts and continued theology studies at St. John’s for two years of graduate school. In 1967 he went to New Orleans to work in its new summer Witness program, conducted by the archdiocesan Social Apostolate.
When he returned to New Orleans in 1968, he became director of The Center, a neighborhood social service organization run by the Social Apostolate. He enrolled at Notre Dame Seminary, studying in the evenings and on Saturdays in addition to his full-time position at The Center. He earned a master’s of divinity degree in theology at the seminary.
He was ordained to the priesthood by New Orleans Archbishop Philip M. Hannan April 15, 1971, in his home parish of St. Therese in Dracut. His first parish assignment was at St. Henry Parish in New Orleans. In 1973, he was appointed associate director of the Social Apostolate and in 1975 became the director, responsible for the operation of nine year-round social service centers sponsored by the archdiocese.
Bishop Morin had a master of science degree in urban studies from Tulane University and in 1974 completed a program as a community economic developer. Bishop Morin was the founding president of Second Harvest Food Bank.
In 1978, he was a volunteer member of Mayor Ernest “Dutch” Morial’s transition team dealing with federal programs and then accepted a $1 a year position as deputy special assistant to the mayor for federal programs and projects.
Then-Father Morin served the city of New Orleans until 1981, when he was appointed New Orleans archdiocesan vicar for community affairs, with responsibility over nine agencies: Catholic Charities, Social Apostolate, human relations, alcoholics’ ministry, Apostleship of the Sea, cemeteries, disaster relief, hospitals and prisons. He was named a monsignor by St. John Paul II in 1985.
He was in residence at Incarnate Word Parish beginning in 1981 and served as pastor there from 1988 through April 2002.
One of the highlights of his priesthood came in 1987 when he directed the New Orleans Archdiocese’s preparations for St. John Paul’s historic visit to New Orleans. The visit involved thousands of community volunteers and coordination among national, state and local religious and political leaders.
He also coordinated the events of the bicentennial of the archdiocese in 1993. In 1995, Bishop Morin received the Weiss Brotherhood Award presented by the National Conference of Christians and Jews for his service in the field of human relations.
St. John Paul named him an auxiliary bishop of New Orleans Feb. 11, 2003; his episcopal ordination was April 22 of that year. He was vicar general and moderator of the curia for the archdiocese 2001-2009.
Bishop Morin was a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development 2005-2013, and served as chairman 2008-2010. During that time, he also was a member of the Domestic Justice and Human Development and the National Collections committees.
Bishop Morin’s funeral Mass was held at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral on Thursday, Nov. 7 in Biloxi.

In ordinary and extraordinary times

In ordinary and extraordinary periods, by God’s grace, we are to persevere in loving all that is holy, good and worthy of praise, to do justice and to walk humbly with our God.

Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz

By Bishop Joseph Kopacz
The Word of God at our Saturday evening and Sunday celebrations in late autumn and early winter challenges us with a spirit of urgency to consider our daily choices and the impact they have on our relationships with God, others and ourselves. The Lord Jesus, in last Sunday’s Gospel addressed the trauma of natural disasters and the inevitable persecutions and martyrdom that will crash in upon many of his faithful disciples. Are these the telltale signs of the end times? Not really, Jesus responds, but be assured that the Holy Spirit, the pledge of eternal life, dwells within you and “by perseverance you will save your lives.” The prophet Malachi boldly pronounces that “for those who fear the name of the Lord, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.” Our sung or spoken response followed, “The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.” Indeed! Meanwhile, Saint Paul, in harmony with the Lord’s Gospel teaching on perseverance, instructed his beloved brothers and sisters in Thessalonica, living in anticipation of the second coming, that daily life has a righteous pattern right up to the moment when the Lord comes again, or comes to take each one of you. “In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat … We hear that some are conducting themselves among you in a disorderly way, by not keeping busy but minding the business of others.” In ordinary and extraordinary periods, by God’s grace, we are to persevere in loving all that is holy, good and worthy of praise, to do justice and to walk humbly with our God.

Returning from the annual Bishops Conference in Baltimore, I mulled over the range of urgent matters that were addressed in the course of four days. My three year term on the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People is now complete and I am grateful for having had the opportunity to serve with laity, priests and bishops from around the country who are committed to the promise to protect and the pledge to heal all who have experienced the crime and suffer through the trauma of sexual abuse as minors. Likewise, I am proud of the dedication throughout our diocese for all who embrace this just cause and remain vigilant, as our recently completed audit confirmed.

During the Conference, Bishop Robert Barron offered a clear-cut path for evangelization in our post-modern culture, an urgent matter, especially in light of the heavy attrition away from religious faith among the younger generations. What is the urgent response? His research attests that works of justice, the beauty of our liturgies and church architecture, music and art, the depth and height and breath of our intellectual tradition, and the wise and savvy engagement of social media are, individually and collectively, avenues to invite those on the margins of religious faith to encounter the crucified and risen Lord. The ultimate good, beauty and truth, after-all, is a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and a life in service of God’s Kingdom. It is a way of life marked by purpose and promise, but it also invites rejection, hostility and persecution.

Bishop Barron offered this reflection through the lens of last Sunday’s Gospel from Saint Luke. “Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus describes the world’s violent resistance to the establishment of God’s kingdom. From the earliest days until the present, the community of Jesus Christ has been the focus of the world’s violence. The old principle of “killing the messenger” applies here. The Church will announce until the end of time, that the old order is passing away, that a new world of love, nonviolence and life is emerging. This announcement always infuriates the world of sin — always. The twentieth century proved this by being the bloodiest on record and the century with the most martyrs.”

Therefore, in ordinary time we witness, through service, worship, teaching and by employing the latest in communications. In extraordinary times, we die for the faith, knowing that the blood of the martyrs, more than all other efforts of evangelization combined, will guarantee that the Church, the Body of Christ, will endure to the end of time. In the vast landscape in which the church lives and moves and has its being, both in longevity and in our manifold mission, there is potentially a home for many at the banquet of life. A personal faith that sees the urgency of a life well lived in the Lord can manifest itself in his mandate to make disciples through Word, Worship, Service and Social Justice, from the foundation of life in the womb until eternity dawns through the door of death. Along with Bishop Barron, Bishop Nauman, the Chair of the Committee on Pro-Life spoke eloquently about the commitment to create a culture of life where every unborn child can find a home. Likewise, Bishop Mark Sis and Bishop Shelton Fabre addressed the urgent necessity for just immigration reform and a nation free of the scourge of racism.

There are many forces that work to undermine perseverance in the faith, but there are many paths that lead to life. The greatest assurance for the believer is the promised Holy Spirit whose loving power endures forever. May the crucified and risen Lord grant us a season of refreshment and hope, individually, in our families, and in all of our communities of faith, a spirit of perseverance that will enable us to save our lives.