February 6, 2009 - Issue #3
Local News | Opinion/Editorials | Letters to the Editor
Local News
Life issues on Alaska State Legislature docket
The Alaska State Legislature began its 2009 session with more than 200 bills under consideration. Several bills directly address life issues such as abortion, the rights of infants, genocide, suicide and the death penalty (see article on page 1). The following is a summary of several proposed bills. The 90-day legislative session ends April 19.
Senate Bill 44 deals with the safe abandonment of unwanted infants. This legislation would expand the time period, from 3 weeks to 60 days, during which a parent could legally abandon their infant child to proper authorities without being criminally prosecuted.
In February 2008, Gov. Sarah Palin signed Alaska’s first safe abandonment legislation, with hopes that the new law would reduce the likelihood of infant neglect or infant death resulting from parents who did not want their newborn child.
Legislators in both the state House and Senate have introduced identical bills that deal with Alaska’s abortion policy as it relates to partial-birth abortion. House Bill 34 and Senate Bill 5 would ban partial-birth abortions in Alaska, a procedure in which a baby is partially delivered before being killed.
In other abortion related legislation, House Bill 35 and Senate Bill 6 would require a minor seeking an abortion to first notify their parents. This bill contains provisions for cases in which a court determines that a minor is sufficiently mature to make a decision on her own. Additionally, there are also provisions for those cases when the minor’s parents have been abusive, sexually, physically or emotionally. In those situations, the proposed bill would allow a minor to seek a judicial bypass to obtain an abortion without notifying her parents.
The Alaska Supreme Court struck down a similar parental notification law in 2007.
Senate Bill 15, known as the “Fetal Pain Awareness and Prevention Act,” would require abortion practitioners to provide women seeking an abortion with complete information about the ability of their unborn child to feel pain. The proposed legislation would enable women considering an abortion to have the option to choose anesthesia that would alleviate or eliminate pain that the unborn child may feel during an abortion.
In an effort to combat the ongoing Sudanese government’s policy of genocide in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, the state House has proposed three bills and the Senate two, which would prohibit the state of Alaska from making investments with businesses that benefit from or encourage the genocidal activity.
The bills mandate targeted divestment and prohibits future investment of the state managed Permanent Fund Dividend and Pension funds in targeted companies that do business with Sudan. The overall objective of the proposed legislation is to economically pressure Sudan until it ends the genocide, which has resulted in more than 400,000 deaths.
In an effort to prevent suicide in Alaska, legislation has been introduced to extend the life of the Statewide Suicide Prevention Council. The council is set to expire this year, but Senate Bill 35 would extend it until 2013. The Suicide Prevention Council advises the governor and legislature on issues relating to suicide, while collaborating with faith-based organizations and public-private entities.
Senate Bill 16, known as the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act,” would recognize any living infant as a “human being.” The bill would define a “natural person,” “child,” “human being,” and “individual” to include infants who are born alive during either childbirth or an induced abortion. The bill would not confer any additional legal status or protection to unborn children, but would recognize them as human beings.
House Bill 2 addresses cases in which children who die in the womb are born stillborn. Current state practice does not grant these stillborn children a birth certificate. However, HB 2 would give parents the opportunity to request a certificate of birth for their stillborn child. The parents also could provide a legal name for the child, which would be on the birth certificate. “Stillbirth” would refer to an “unintended” fetal death after 20 weeks in the womb.
To learn more about bills currently under consideration by the Alaska State Legislature, visit www.legis.state.ak.us-/basis/start.asp. To search by subject matter, click on “Subject Summary” and learn about each bill’s sponsor, recent activity and information on how to participate in public testimony.
Ancient sounds echo in Anchorage
Gregorian chant gains momentum
On a recent Friday afternoon, amid the bustle of midtown Anchorage traffic, the sounds of Old World liturgical chant — deep baritones mixing with high alto voices — floated from a tiny chapel.
The dozen or so singers who attended the practice session last month come from all walks of life. They are part of a growing chorus of voices in Alaska and across the world who are drawn to the ancient Gregorian chant.
“This music makes me think of the angels and how they sing,”18-year old Patrick Klump mused during a recent choir practice.
“I love to sing, and with this I get to give glory to God at the same time,” Klump told the Anchor.
Fellow choir member Tim Main agreed.
“These hymns speak to me about faith,” Main said. “Sometimes it speaks simply, and sometimes profoundly, but either way it is an excellent way for me to pray.”
The group sings every Friday afternoon at Holy Rosary Academy, a K-12 Catholic school that operates independently of the Anchorage Archdiocese school system with permission from Archbishop Roger Schwietz.
Each practice session concludes with the chanting of Vespers. The group also sings for the Dominican rite Latin Mass at Holy Family Cathedral on the first Saturday of each month and occasionally for Masses at Blessed Sacrament Monastery in South Anchorage.
The newly formed choir is the realized dream of several local Catholics who sought for years to establish a Gregorian chant choir.
Originally a small group of staff and students from Holy Rosary Academy, the choir has since grown to include Catholics from a number of parishes in Anchorage.
The chanters got their opportunity to sing and perform publicly this past fall at the first annual Alaska Catholic Family Conference in Anchorage.
“From there, that’s where we decided that we wanted to get more active,” Mains said. “It got our feet on the ground and got us started.”
Choir member Angela Heaphy, a parishioner at St. Patrick Church, said she joined the group not only because of the singing, but also because it provides an opportunity to learn more about the rich traditions of the Catholic Church.
“It’s great to learn about the history of the church’s music,” she said. “I love the spiritual dimension and the camaraderie of praying in community.”
According to Dr. Stan Grove, a choir member and teacher at Holy Rosary Academy, the roots behind Gregorian chant reach far into history, even before Christ’s birth.
“It’s believed that its organic development came from synagogue chant,” he explained. “People of the Jewish faith would gather and sing the psalms in prayer.”
He added that many church historians believe the first Christian community most likely sang a form of this synagogue prayer.
Gregorian chant rose to prominence in the Catholic Church during the early Middle Ages, around the 6th and 7th centuries and has since reverberated from the inside of monastery and cathedral walls across the world.
Tradition holds that St. Gregory the Great compiled many of the chants that are a part of the Mass today.
Although chant has always had official support from the church, its usage waned in the years following Vatican II (1962-65), when the Roman rite Catholic Mass was opened up to non-Latin languages.
More recently, there are signs that chant is finding its place again. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI allowed for wider celebration of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass, which has created a natural setting for Gregorian chant choirs to flourish.
In Anchorage, the introduction of the Dominican rite Latin Mass has also provided a liturgical context for the new Gregorian chanters.
Grove speaks about the importance of preserving this sacred music and points to church teaching on the matter, including writings from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
“I would be in favor of a new openness toward the use of Latin,” wrote Cardinal Ratzinger in his book “God and the World,” which was published in 2002.
Cardinal Ratzinger continued: “If even in the great liturgical celebrations in Rome, no one can sing the Kyrie or the Sanctus any more, no one knows what Gloria means, then a cultural loss has become a loss of what we share in common.”
As pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI has continued to encourage a renewal of sacred music throughout the world.
It is a cause that U.S. bishops also addressed in a document called “Sing to the Lord.” The document states that Gregorian chant “should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”
The Anchorage chanters believe their choir is one avenue for local Catholics to realize the universal church’s desire to rekindle Gregorian chant.
For Heaphy, chanting has benefits that extend far beyond the choir loft.
“It’s great to have the music of the church stuck in my head,” she said. “Often times I find myself humming at home in the kitchen. I get far more out of it than I can contribute.”
Catholics join others in opposing death penalty bill in Alaska
The first session of the 2009 Alaska Legislature is barely out of the starting gate, but already a bill making capital punishment available in Alaska for certain murder convictions has been introduced in the state House.
Representative Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, introduced House Bill 9, which is co-sponsored by Representative Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks.
The proposed bill will likely face stiff opposition, particularly since polls show capital punishment losing credibility with Americans, said Sue Johnson, executive director of Alaskans Against the Death Penalty.
Even Ramras was surprisingly candid about the future of the proposal.
“This bill has zero percent chance of passing the Alaska Legislature this year or next,” he told the Anchor.
Ramras said he believes there are “some crimes horrible enough to merit the ultimate penalty.” But, he added, on the Senate side there are many who are “just as adamantly opposed to it — and they have their good reasons, too.”
As head of the House Judiciary Committee, Ramras said his committee will give the bill a hearing.
Johnson said Alaskans Against the Death Penalty is prepared to fight the measure and travel to Juneau for public testimony if need be. National guest speakers have also been invited.
In local Catholic circles, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Anchorage plans to host Chaplain Carroll Pickett the weekend of March 7-8. Pickett is a former death row chaplain who accompanied more than 90 men to their deaths and recorded their final words.
Eventually, Pickett came to believe that the death penalty was wrong. A 2008 film about his story, “At the Death House Door” has been recognized in several national film festivals and shown across the country. It is scheduled to come to Anchorage.
After his visit to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Pickett travels to Juneau to meet with state legislators.
Although there has been speculation that Governor Sarah Palin would be willing to sign a death penalty bill, the governor’s communications director Bill McAllister told the Anchor “the governor has said in principle that she might support the death penalty for child murderers. But she is withholding judgment on the issue overall to see how it develops in the legislature.”
Dominican Father Vincent Kelber, parochial vicar at Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage and a participant in anti-death penalty rallies, was disappointed to learn that a capital punishment bill had been introduced.
“What’s our motive?” he asked. “Is this about revenge?”
Some people feel it is an easy way to bring healing to those left behind after a murder, but there are better ways to bring victims peace, the Dominican said. And today, knowing how often innocent people have been sent to death row, he asked, “How rigorous, how careful, how much surety of guilt” could the option of death offer?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says “the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” However, Pope John Paul II said those cases in which the execution of an offender is justified in modern society “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have come out in strong opposition to the death penalty. In a 2005 statement called, “A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death,” they said, “We renew our common conviction that it is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life.”
On the national level, a new Catholic initiative called “The Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty” was launched Jan. 25. According to Catholic News Service, it represents a lay initiative at the grassroots level to commit to the documents and statements of the U.S. bishops over the last several decades.
John Carr, executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the network will reach out to the young and to Hispanic Catholics. It received its seed money from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille, Sister Helen Prejean’s order.
Sister Prejean is a well-known death penalty opponent whose book, “Dead Man Walking,” was made into a motion picture.
The last time Alaska considered a death penalty, Sister Prejean came to Anchorage for several appearances, including a well-attended presentation at the Performing Arts Center.
Before statehood, the Territory of Alaska abolished the death penalty in 1957, in part, because of perceived racial bias in the administration of the law.
Between 1900 and 1957, eight men were legally executed under territorial law, but according to attorney Averil Lerman, whose research has been published in the Alaska Justice Forum, the last five men executed were either Alaska Natives or African Americans, and a sixth man was from Montenegro and considered “foreign.”
Young adults find their niche
Through young adult groups in the Anchorage Archdiocese, Catholics are meeting God and others — and finding their life’s vocation in the process.
Theology and Brew is one of the oldest on-going young adult groups in the Anchorage Archdiocese. The now five-year-old monthly speaker series invites young adults — Catholic and non-Catholics — to local restaurants and pubs for talks on faith-related topics. The lay-led organization operates out of Anchorage, Wasilla and the Kenai Peninsula.
It was through mutual friends from the Anchorage group that Monica and Chris Kinney met.
In 2006 they married, but the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parishioners continue to join friends for the gatherings — now with a new baby in tow.
Other groups also have cropped up in recent years, all with an aim to meet the needs of young adults, a group which often finds connecting to a church difficult.
At St. Patrick Church in Anchorage, young adults — single, engaged and married — gather twice a month for Bible studies, faith-themed movies, meals, parties and other social activities.
Coordinator Amy Medlock said it is “good to find people with similar faith backgrounds” and it “helps to have people to bounce ideas off of” — especially when it comes to discerning a vocation.
“Most wouldn’t be able to talk to secular friends about becoming a priest or nun,” she added.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church also hosts well-attended young adult gatherings, including a new movie, dinner and discussion series.
Anchorage’s Holy Family Cathedral, too, is now providing “more opportunities for young adults to connect with Christ, with the church and with each other,” said young adult organizer Tara Clemens.
Under the direction of Dominican pastor Father Francis Le, Clemens and others are organizing activities like “Christ in the City,” an hour of eucharistic adoration on Friday evenings.
Many young adults are “really hungering to learn more about their faith, for something profound,” Clemens observed.
The Holy Family group also hosts discussions on the Scriptures and church teaching, focusing on issues that are especially relevant to young adults.
Topics include: relationships, the integration of faith into daily life and how to discern a vocation to marriage or the religious life. Each event includes an opportunity for socializing, as well.
As young adults find greater connection to the church and to each other, it is Clemens’ hope that vocations will become clearer.
“Would marriages come out of that? I would certainly hope so,” she said, adding, “just as I would hope that vocations to the religious life would come out of it, as well.”
While marriage matches would be a welcome consequence of young adults coming together for eucharistic adoration, “it’s not the purpose,” she said. “If you’re coming with the intention that I’m going to meet someone and you’re not allowing yourself to be open to what God might do during that time, you may very well miss a precious gift that God would otherwise have for you.”
The church should not turn into some sort of “dating service,” Chris echoed.
Instead, young adults should “pursue good things,” he said.
Having done that and now happily married, Monica said she treasures the gift of sharing her soul with someone who believes in God as she does. When putting God first, Monica said, “things happen.”
St. Benedict parishioners Megan and Sven Walsted also met through a local, albeit ad hoc gathering of young adult Catholics.
With no thoughts of marrying, Megan left her hometown in Kansas to pay off student loans and have an adventure in Alaska. But once in Anchorage, she went with a group of Catholic young adults to breakfast at the Millennium Hotel after Sunday Mass. Sven – a California transplant — also attended the breakfast.
When the two shook hands, Megan recalled, “My first thought was, ‘this guy’s got really cold hands’ and my second thought was ‘you’re going to marry this man.’”
This, from a woman who “could never really see myself as being married.”
Now a mother of four children, Megan sees her meeting with Sven as an answer to prayers — she had been asking God to send her a friend.
Finding that friend “to stand on the same ground with” intellectually and spiritually — and building a family — had begun by first surrendering to God, Megan explained. “Everything fell into place as soon as I stopped looking.”
The Catholic Church in Alaska at statehood
Catholicism was flowering in Alaska at the time of statehood.
As Alaska transitioned 50 years ago from a territory to the 49th state of the Union, Catholic parishes, missions, hospitals and schools already existed in more than 60 communities from the far north to the state’s Southeast Panhandle. Some of these still exist, many others have cropped up, and some have vanished into history.
The only diocese in existence at the time of Alaska’s statehood was the Juneau Diocese, formed in 1951 and encompassing not only the Panhandle but also most of Southcentral Alaska.
The rest of the state was still in the early stages of missionary development with Jesuit Bishop Francis Gleeson serving the vast region out of Fairbanks.
In the late 1950s, Alaska’s Catholics in Juneau were not heavily advocating issues of Catholic import, such as education or the right to life, recalled then Juneau Associated Press correspondent Bill Tobin and current associate publisher of the Catholic Anchor.
Still, everyone knew that the Territorial Governor Mike Stepovich belonged to the tiny wooden church: the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral, Tobin explained.
“(The Stepovich family) took up two or three pews at that little church,” he said in a recent interview with the Anchor. “They were very good Catholics; they were old country Catholics.”
Stepovich regularly attended daily Mass and he often was an altar server.
But Stepovich wasn’t the only influential Catholic in Alaska politics then. William Egan, the first state governor and lead delegate to the Alaska State Constitution Convention, and Hugh Wade, first secretary of state, also were Catholic.
“Wade even gave the first State of the State address,” Tobin said, recalling that Egan was quite ill for the first part of his term. “So I guess from that standpoint, the Catholic presence was there in Juneau politics.”
Tobin has fond memories of parish life in Juneau in the late 1950s. His oldest son was born in St. Ann’s Hospital, and Tobin regularly enjoyed parish bingo and Friday night beads.
He recalled how Bishop Dermot O’Flanagan would have breakfast at the lunch counter of the Baranof Hotel almost daily.
Juneau was a “very small town” and the Catholic population there was even smaller, Tobin recalled.
“(The cathedral) would fit in the entry way of some cathedrals,” he said. “It was always kind of fun, it was so tiny.”
George Shaw was a civilian worker for the Army in Whittier at the time of statehood. He recalls having military chaplains in Whittier – which held a much larger population at the time – but does not recall seeing any diocesan priests in the area.
During the 1950s and 1960s while working on tugboats, Shaw didn’t get to attend Mass unless he was ashore.
“If you weren’t at a port, you couldn’t go to church,” he recalled. “And like now in the Bush, you couldn’t always find a priest even then.”
Shaw was actually at port in Portland, Oregon when the U.S. Congress passed the Alaska Statehood Act in 1958. He was home in Whittier when President Dwight Eisenhower signed the act into law on January 3, 1959, but does not recall much celebration.
“There were so many military people there, and they didn’t really seem to care,” he said.
Much of the Kenai Peninsula was in the same boat as Shaw’s Whittier.
Seward and Kenai were the only communities in Southcentral with a parish building, and Seward was the only community with a resident priest, Jesuit Father Arnold L. Custer — though Kenai was sometimes served by Army chaplains.
Father Custer would travel around the Peninsula visiting various mission stations such as Homer, Soldotna, Ninilchik and Seldovia and offering Mass in homes and schoolhouses.
Kodiak, not unlike today, was its own little Catholic community island, where the Sisters of Gray Nuns of the Sacred Heart ran the Griffin Memorial Hospital and a parochial school.
Anchorage, on the other hand, was beginning to see the Catholic community take hold around the time of statehood, and even experienced a few growing pains.
Holy Family Church (not yet a cathedral) was already on its second building. Providence Hospital had outgrown its L Street facility so much that the Goose Lake property where Providence Medical Center now sits already had been purchased. Holy Family welcomed a new priest in 1959: Monsignor G. Edgar Gallant replaced Father Harley Baker. Baker was transferred to Juneau to serve as chancellor of the Juneau Diocese.
The entire community of Anchorage also was in the welcoming stages of a new parish: St. Anthony Church had only been in existence for two years by 1959, though it wasn’t blessed and dedicated by the bishop until 1960. Also on the scene, just outside of city limits in what is now Spenard, was St. Juliana Chapel — also built just two years earlier. St. Juliana was later moved to the Jewel Lake area, and eventually it became St. Benedict Church in 1966.
As one traversed farther north in the late 1950s, the Catholic presence seemed to grow. Fairbanks’ Monroe Catholic High School graduated its first senior class in 1959, and there were several mission schools scattered throughout the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta.
While very few of the communities the church served were accessible by road, many people, especially Alaska Natives, were reached by the Jesuits and religious sisters from the Sisters of St. Anne and the Order of St. Ursuline.
St. Mary’s Mission Boarding School had already moved from Akulurak to the Andreafsky River by 1959. During this time, the mission also was home to a small sisterhood of Alaska Native women, the Oblates of St. Ursula. Though in existence for less than a decade, the sisters were well received among their own people, and regularly sought out by priests serving other Yupik Eskimo communities.
A religious movement that would soon spread across the rest of the United States was forming in Alaska at the time of statehood. Copper River School in Glennallen opened a few years before statehood, and volunteers from three Catholic colleges were there teaching in the late 1950s.
In 1959, these volunteers formed together as the Lay Apostolic Mission Board, or LAMB. Nowadays it is simply the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, an international Catholic lay volunteer program and a household name in Catholic homes far beyond Alaska.
Alaska is now home to three dioceses in Juneau, Fairbanks and Anchorage. The Catholic population, too, has grown. While still less than 10 percent of the state, Catholics comprise the largest single religion in Alaska with more than 55,000 members statewide.
And while many remote communities still are only accessible by plane or boat, the information age has forever changed northern Catholic communities with widespread plane travel, cell phone coverage, satellite, television and Internet.
At the time of statehood, neither Shaw nor Tobin remember much direct influence from Rome.
Tobin laughed when he said “I think we ran our own church.”
Now, with nearly instant communication in most parts of the state, Vatican news and decrees come to Alaska at the click of a button.
Last month, when the Vatican announced that Msgr. Edward Burns would become the fifth bishop of Juneau, the world knew within minutes as notices were posted on blogs and Catholic news Web sites across the globe.
Editor’s note: “Alaskana Catholica: a History of the Catholic Church in Alaska,” by Father Louis L. Renner, S.J., was a reference for this article.
Indulgences still possible in celebration of the Year of St. Paul
Catholics still have five months to celebrate the Year of St. Paul and secure a plenary indulgence in the process.
An indulgence is a special grace, which according to the Catholic Catechism is “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.”
A plenary indulgence — as opposed to a partial indulgence — is the complete remission of temporal punishment. An indulgence is applicable to oneself or another who is alive or in Purgatory.
The Catholic Church teaches that after God forgives sin in the sacrament of penance, the damage done through sin can be remedied by prayer, fasting or almsgiving — or by way of an indulgence.
For instance, after a victim has forgiven a robber, the robber is still obliged to return the stolen goods. As the victim can dismiss the thief’s material debt, God alone — the Father of mercies — can dismiss the spiritual debt of a sinner through his loving indulgence.
During the Year of St. Paul — designated by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 2,000th anniversary of the saint’s birth — Catholics who make a pilgrimage to Rome can secure the plenary indulgence. The Year of St. Paul ends on June 29.
The indulgence also is available to those who cannot travel but who participate in certain local events, and those who are too ill or are otherwise prevented from participating in person.
In general, to receive an indulgence requires certain conditions and works of piety, charity or penance — for whose completion the person must be in a state of grace.
In addition, the person must be interiorly, completely detached from sin, even venial sin, go to confession and Holy Communion and pray for the pope’s intentions.
In order to obtain the jubilee year indulgence in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, Catholics must fulfill these requirements and, in the state of grace, complete each of three the following works of piety:
1. Pray for a half hour at one of the following sites: Holy Family Cathedral, St. Bernard Church in Talkeetna, the shrine at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, the shrine at Cooper Landing, Holy Cross Church (which maintains a statue of St. Paul) or the outdoor Stations of the Cross at Holy Spirit Retreat Center. Those unable to make a visit in person because of distance can make a virtual visit, online, to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome at www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm;
2. Read one letter of St. Paul, found in the New Testament; and
3. Pray the following prayer:
Glorious St. Paul
Most zealous Apostle,
Give us deep faith,
A steadfast hope,
A burning love for the Lord;
So that we can proclaim with you,
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ
Who lives in me.”
Help us to become apostles
Serving the Church with a pure heart,
witnesses to her truth and beauty
Amidst the darkness of our days.
With you we praise God our Father:
“To him be the glory, in the Church
And in Christ now and forever.”
Amen.
According to the Vatican decree on the jubilee year indulgences, the faithful may secure an indulgence as many times as they fulfill the requirements, but no more than once a day.
During the jubilee year, Catholics in the Anchorage Archdiocese are recommended to study the life and teachings of St. Paul. For more information on indulgences, visit www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm
-Catholic Anchor report
Former Anchorage Catholic ordained in Rome
On Nov. 28, 2008, former Anchorage resident Kristian Jaloway was one of 49 men ordained by Cardinal Angelo Sodano as a priest with the Legionaries of Christ, an order that now has 800 priests worldwide.
According to a press release from the Legionaries, the ordination took place in Rome at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
Father Jaloway was born in Texas in 1975 but grew up in Anchorage, where he studied at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School, Hanshew Jr. High and Seton Home Study School. He entered the novitiate of the Legionaries of Christ in Cheshire, Connecticut in 1994 at age 19.
With a master’s degree in philosophy and a bachelor’s in theology from the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum College in Rome, Father Jaloway currently serves as vice-rector at the Legionary novitiate and minor seminary in Novara, Italy.
In a written account of his vocation story, Father Jaloway said his family’s devotion to the Catholic faith was instrumental in his decision to become a priest. The third of five children, Father Jaloway also attributes the positive influence of priests who showed him that a call to the priesthood was something to seriously consider.
Web sites increasingly connect Catholic singles
Catholic singles’ Web sites are becoming a standard place for marriage-minded Catholics to meet.
AveMariaSingles.com is one such site. According to the group’s founder Anthony Buono, the Web site is for “100-percent” practicing Catholics who are eligible for sacramental marriage and interested in a deep relationship with Christ and a serious vocation to marriage.
The mission of the Web site is to put practicing Catholics around the world in touch with each other.
“For better, for worse, people are not meeting locally,” Buono observed in a phone interview with the Anchor.
Ave Maria Singles is not a typical dating Web site. Member profiles contain much more than a person’s likes, dislikes, favorite foods and eye color. They also cover the member’s Mass attendance, “thoughts on children” and “view on contraception.”
Members can post photos, correspond with others on the site, have real-time, one-on-one chats and participate in discussion boards.
Launched 10 years ago, Ave Maria Singles now has 13,819 members and reports that 1,627 have found a spouse through the Web site.
Another site, CatholicMatch.com – a decade old, too – also has “thousands” of members, said one of the site’s founders, Brian Barcaro. The vast majority are Catholics. A few are Orthodox or Protestant and looking into the Catholic faith. And he said, “a success story” – meaning an engagement or marriage sparked by a meeting on the site – “comes in each day.”
Typically, online couples start with great distances between them, Buono explained, with 80 percent of married people in the U.S. coming from two different states.
Since it is particularly difficult to find a devout Catholic spouse, Buono said people should be open to meeting others, even if they are separated by long distances.
“It’s not that there isn’t someone out there for them,” he added, it is just that they might not be living next door.
While, “distance makes some shudder,” said Buono, Catholics need to take on such obsticles and be “heroes.”
It takes “heroic virtue to understand reality and act on it, in the name of a higher good,” he said, namely, “marriage, children, vocation, the glorification of God.”
News & Notes
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Parish profile series St. Joseph Church Editor’s note: This is part of a series on parishes and missions in the Anchorage Archdiocese. Number of parishioners: There are 62 families with about 95 individuals regularly attending Mass. Pastor: Oblate Father Thomas Killeen has been pastor since his arrival in Cordova in 2002. History: Jesuit Father Matthias Schmitt arrived in the area of Cordova in June 1908. According to Father Killeen, Father Schmitt “found the materials and workers” to build and open a church by December of that year. As the last stop on the railroad to the copper mine at Kinnecott, Cordova was growing. St. Joseph Church, situated on the side of a steep hill, lasted until 1946 when the steeple blew over. The parish moved down hill and built a Quonset hut chapel that lasted until 1964. After that, Father John Lunney built a “very functional” church, hall and rectory. At St. Joseph, Father David Melbourne was the longest-residing priest. His name, Father Killeen said, “graces many pages in the baptismal records.” Dominican Sister Peggy Glynn managed the parish for 10 years repairing the roof and drainage system. Best-kept secret: According to Father Killeen, the parish’s best-kept secret is “that Father Killeen actually does some things.” St. Joseph’s director of faith formation Debbie Collins told the Anchor that she thinks Father Killeen, himself, “is our best kept secret.” Outreaches: Through St. Joseph Church, Mass is celebrated weekly at the local nursing home. Also, each week, the parish sponsors religious education classes for grades K-12. Confirmation preparation is available every other year, and RCIA is available on request. St. Joseph’s parishioners participate in community service led by the Cordova Pastoral Alliance. And St. Joseph’s youth group helps Covenant House and sells coffee from Guatemala to support Oxfam. Regularly, St. Joseph’s sends a group of youngsters to the yearly Alaska Catholic Youth Conference, which Father Killeen called “very effective.” Devotional practices and celebrations: On Tuesdays after Mass, St. Joseph’s parishioners pray the rosary. The parish begins Lent with a soup and pretzel dinner after Ash Wednesday Mass, and through the season, parishioners participate in the Stations of the Cross. Twice a year, the sacrament of the sick is administered after Mass. And on St. Valentine’s Day, married couples renew their vows at church. Especially successful programs: Father Killeen considers the children’s participation in parish life especially successful. For instance, they serve as readers and singers and help take up the collection at Mass. Learn more: For more information about St. Joseph Church, call (907) 424-3737, or email stjoecor@gci.net. |
Young adults meet second Sundays
Every second Sunday of the month, young adults are especially invited to the 5:30 p.m. Mass at Holy Family Cathedral. Following is a social — a pre-planned event or an impromptu gathering for dinner at a local restaurant.
The next second Sunday get-together is Feb. 8. For more information, contact hfcyoungadults@gmail.com.
Dominican sisters host meetings
Every third Wednesday, the Adrian Dominican sisters of the Archdiocese of Anchorage host an evening of prayer and discussion for women between the ages of 18 and 50 who seek to deepen their faith and spirituality. The gatherings take place at 7 p.m. at the sisters’ home. The next one is Feb. 18. For more information and directions, call 770-7675.
Catholic Native ministry continues
Especially for Native newcomers to the Archdiocese of Anchorage, the Catholic Native Ministry sponsors a Native Mass and potluck at St. Anthony Church every third Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The next Mass is Feb. 21.
Also, for patients at the Native Hospital and their families, Mass is celebrated at the hospital every Sunday at 11 a.m. And the Native Kateri Circle meets every Thursday at 11 a.m. at St. Anthony in the parish hall – for a prayer circle, faith formation and potluck.
For more information, contact Pearl Chanar at 245-2024.
Sunday for Sudan combats genocide
On Feb. 22, Save Darfur Anchorage is hosting “Sunday for Sudan” — to alert Alaskans to the genocide underway in Darfur – the western area of Sudan in Africa.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been tortured, raped and murdered under the direction of the Sudanese government. A number of refugees from Darfur have escaped and immigrated to Alaska.
On Sunday for Sudan, Alaskans are asked to “say a prayer, light a candle” and “write a letter” to support divestment of Alaska’s state funds from foreign corporations that are “complicit with the genocide.” According to Save Darfur Anchorage, 27 states have adopted divestment policies.
While divestment legislation failed to pass the Alaska legislature in 2008, Governor Sarah Palin supports divestment. For more information, contact Debbie Bock 345-6611 or visit http://savedarfur-ak.blogspot.com.
Young adult Mass seeks volunteers
Once a month, beginning Feb. 28 at 5:30 p.m., Our Lady of Guadalupe Church will host a special young adult contemporary Music. Musicians and singers are encouraged to contact Will Triplett through email at willtriplett@acsalaska.net. Those interested in helping with the liturgy should contact Sister Lorraine at 248-2000 x205.
Raffle to support pregnancy services
Volunteers of Catholic Social Services’ Pregnancy Support & Adoption Services soon will be traveling to parishes to sell raffle tickets for a handmade, queen-size quilt with a design commemorating Alaska’s 50th anniversary as a state. Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20. All proceeds benefit Pregnancy Support & Adoption Services. The winning ticket will be drawn at the Quilt, Fiber & Wearable Arts event on Mar. 7 at the ConocoPhillips Atrium. For more information, contact Katie Bender at 222-7338 or kbender@cssalaska.org.
Archbishop’s Calendar Feb. 6, 6 p.m., Mass and Worldwide Marriage Encounter celebration, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church Feb. 7, 6 p.m., Confirmation Mass, Holy Cross Church Feb. 10, 7 p.m., Holy Spirit Center board meeting, Holy Spirit Center Feb. 12, 11 a.m., Pastoral Day, Brother Francis Shelter Feb. 12, 6 p.m., St. Francis Awards dinner, Sheraton Anchorage Hotel Feb. 13, 8 a.m., Mass, Blessed Sacrament Monastery Feb. 15, 10 a.m., Confirmation Mass, Our Lady of the Angels, Kenai Feb. 17, 5:30 p.m., Providence Hospital board meeting, Providence Hospital Feb. 20, 6 p.m., Lumen Christi Mardi Gras Gala, Egan Center
Note: Events are in Anchorage unless noted. Community Calendar Feb. 6, Catholic Social Services Quilt, Fiber & Wearable Arts exhibit, Sugarspoon café Feb. 8, 5:30 p.m., Young adult Second Sunday Mass and social, Holy Family Cathedral Feb. 11, 7 p.m., Young adult talk on relationships, Our Lady of Guadalupe Feb. 21, 5:30 p.m., Native Mass and potluck, St. Anthony Church Feb. 22, 6 p.m., Youth Mass and “hunger banquet,” St. Anthony Church Feb. 28, 5:30 p.m., Young adult contemporary Mass, Our Lady of Guadalupe
Note: Events are in Anchorage unless noted. |
Adoption workshop begins soon
Apr. 17-19, Catholic Social Services is hosting a biannual adoption workshop. Attendance at one of the conferences is required for those seeking to adopt through CSS. It is open, as well, to anyone exploring the possibility of adoption. The workshop is $300 a couple. Workshop materials, lunch and snacks are included. For more information, call Liz Burke at 222-7314.
Greece and Turkey pilgrimage is still taking travelers
The public is invited to walk “in the footsteps of St. Paul” during a two-week pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey departing May 4. Pilgrims will visit the locales to which St. Paul wrote his letters, such as Corinth and Ephesus, as well as Athens, Mycenae, Patmos, Rhodes, the cities of the Apocalypse, Bursa, Nicaea and Istanbul (Constantinople).
Mass will be celebrated every day at historical sites. The trip will cost about $4,500, including airfare, land transportation, hotel accommodations and daily breakfast and dinner. The pilgrimage, which takes place in the Jubilee Year honoring the Apostle Paul, is cosponsored by the Anchorage Archdiocese and the Cardinal Newman Chair of Catholic Theology at Alaska Pacific University.
For more information, contact Dr. Regina Boisclair of APU at 564-8274.
Help for pregnant moms in crisis
Pregnant mothers in crisis can find help at the Option Line at 1-800-395-HELP or pregnancycenters.org. Option Line refers callers to a local crisis pregnancy center that provides free pregnancy tests, information and counseling. Option Line’s services are free and confidential.
CATHOLIC VOCABULARY
Hypostatic union (noun):
The union of two natures — human and divine — in the one divine person of Christ. Each nature retains its own properties, and they are united in one substance or “hypostasis.”
According to Catholic Encyclopedia, hypostasis is “that which lies beneath as basis or foundation.” Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, used the term to denote “reality as distinguished from appearances.”
At the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), the Catholic Church formally expressed the dogma of the hypostatic union — and answered a number of heresies that asserted Christ was not truly divine or fully human. Today, some biblical scholars still hold to variants of those old heresies.
Editorial
In Alaska, life and death hang in the balance
Politics are certainly — and thankfully — far from everlasting. Eternal truths, however, find expression or outright contempt in our public policy.
Varying degrees of justice or injustice may reign for a time based on the decisions of lawmakers and those who win their attention.
As you read these lines, there are 40 state representatives and 20 state senators who, between them, have introduced more than 200 bills and resolutions in the Alaska State Legislature.
The hysteria of national and local elections is over, but the real drama now unfolds.
Laws are being made, either for good or ill. The future direction of our state is being hammered out in the halls of the Alaska Capital Building.
Many of the bills that have been introduced will never splash across the television set or the front page. Many will pass quietly into oblivion or into law.
And yet, certain pieces of proposed legislation deal with issues of great moral concern – laws that would affirm the life and dignity of human beings or undermine it by degrees.
In this issue, we highlight a handful of state bills that address life and death issues, the rights of infants, the unborn and parents. Other bills would strengthen efforts to combat suicide in Alaska and put economic pressure on the government of Sudan to stop the genocide in that country.
Then there is an ominous piece of legislation that would establish the death penalty in Alaska.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Other bills deal with health care for women and children and those who cannot afford a simple trip to the doctor. Whether these bills are truly life affirming or denying will depend on the details.
Will the legislation support the genuine health and life of Alaskans, or will the fine print also include provisions for procedures and provisions that undermine the health of the aged, the vulnerable and the unborn?
In the months leading up to last November’s elections, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a teaching called “Faithful Citizenship.” Here, they urged Catholics to stay involved in public policy, beyond the ballot box. Voting is only the very beginning. What follows from the voting booth truly matters — the laws and legislation that impact our lives.
The current 90-day legislative session ends on April 19. Until then, state legislators are a call or email away. Their bills are online for the reading, and every citizen is invited to weigh in at public hearings – either by phone or in person.
Let us not sit idly by, hoping that someone will take up the good fight in our place. History does not speak well of apathy – either personal or civic.
— Joel Davidson, editor
To get involved, in the Alaska State Legislature, visit www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/start.asp
Columns
There is still time to stand for life
Editor’s note: This essay was the winning entry from the annual Respect Life Student Essay Contest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Anchorage. Carson Evans is a junior at South Anchorage High School. The essay was edited for length.
There are many threats facing our world. We are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are fighting against crime, drugs, racism and slavery. We live in a world full of hatred, fear and pain. No threat, however, is more detrimental and damaging to our civilization than abortion.
The merciless execution of innocent children is so far beyond anything that is ethical or decent, and is the single most damaging deed that can be committed by humanity.
Currently, there is a piece of legislation that is making its way through the U.S. Congress that would eliminate each and every restriction currently placed on abortion. This legislation is called the Freedom of Choice Act.
If enacted, this bill would eliminate every restriction placed on abortion nationwide.
The most recent wording of the bill states that, “a government may not (1) deny or interfere with a woman’s right to choose — (a) to bear a child; (b) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or (c) to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.”
This would mean that every state law on parental involvement, partial-birth abortions and other such restrictions would be done away with entirely. This change would be particularly detrimental to teens, who are reported to have a much lower abortion rate due to the passage of parental involvement laws and the use of ultrasounds.
The Freedom of Choice Act would prohibit any restrictions on abortions in any facility capable of them no matter the circumstances.
The legislation states that, “a government may not … discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth ... in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.”
This addition would require all institutions able to perform abortions, including faith-based hospitals and health care facilities, to do so without restriction. The goals of the legislation are to essentially provide an extension of the freedoms granted in Roe v. Wade and provide women with unrestricted options, while clearly disregarding the total hypocrisy and lack of logic behind abortions and the effect they have on society.
We, as Catholics, think of life as a miracle and an amazing gift from God. The proposed Freedom of Choice Act goes against everything we believe by allowing women to make the decision to end one of those precious lives that our Lord created for a specific purpose.
In the book of Psalms we read, “but thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou are my God from my mother’s belly.”
This passage expresses our belief and, hopefully, the belief of all other Christians: that from the moment we are created inside our mother’s womb we are living because of God and for him. This being said: Who are we, as lowly and ignorant humans, to decide which of God’s creations is allowed to live or not simply because we have the technology to do so?
Even if we are to ignore religious reasons for opposing abortion, we still cannot support FOCA for moral reasons and the drastic effect that this legislation could have on our civilized society. It is widely accepted that there are very few situations in which it would be just or moral to end the life of another without a serious motive or circumstance.
Why then does our society allow abortion?
Fetuses are alive with functioning bodies and the ability to feel pain, yet we somehow justify their murder by illogically claiming that it is a matter of choice for a woman whether or not she wants to give birth.
Mother Teresa once said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”
Despite current debates about whether President Barack Obama will sign FOCA right away, it is quite possible that it could take some time for this act to be passed. A new Congress is instituted every two years, and all pending bills have to be reintroduced. In order for Obama to sign FOCA it has to be re-introduced, passed by Congress and then sent to him, which gives the pro-life community plenty of time to act and prevent this from happening.
The first step is to educate the American people about the dangers of being pro-choice. A society where we kill innocent children is unjust and without strong morals, and this point must be reiterated to all of those who are for the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act.
The second step is to encourage the pro-life community to unite, for as a group working together for a common good we are much more powerful than a number of individuals working separately. It is not impossible, however, for one person to make enormous differences while acting on their own.
The most important thing any one individual can do is to spread awareness. Educating others and explaining the harms of FOCA can go a long way in preventing its enactment. Teenagers suffer one of the highest rates of abortion, and FOCA would increase that rate. As a teenager myself, I could personally make an effort to change those statistics by reaching out to my peers and explaining why I believe in being pro-life.
The proposed legislation is a danger to our world and a threat to our Catholic beliefs. It is our obligation to fervently oppose the enactment of FOCA and promote a culture of life.
Who do we exclude?
I have often wondered what it must be like to live a hermit’s life. There have been moments when that vocation sounded rather inviting, but after considering the implications, I swiftly set the thought aside.
Truly, I have great respect and reverence for the great hermits of the first and second centuries, living alone in the Egyptian desert, praying, weaving mats from palm branches and giving advice to potential applicants. I have equal respect for the Carthusians and other eremitic communities. Notice, however, they also choose to live in community.
It does seem to me that living absolutely alone, as a way of life is somewhat unnatural. From the moment of human creation, Genesis tells us, our first parents clung to one another, lest they be cast into a life of loneliness.
There is a line from Dorothy Day — one of my favorite some-day saints — that has always fascinated me. The last line in her autobiography reads: “We have all known the long loneliness and we have found that the answer is community.”
True enough, it seems so natural; if we do not have it, we will search for it until some form of it satisfies us. At the same time, as anyone who has ever belonged to a community knows, it “ain’t” easy, this living together. Groucho Marx has this famous line where he says: “I would never want to belong to any group that would have me as a member.” The point of that remark, of course, is that most likely no group would have us unless we could assure them that we had something to offer them.
The Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 10:31, 11:1 Mark 1:40-45 |
So, what is behind this eternal “longing for belonging?” I think it has to do with the fear of exclusion, of being kept out, cast out, considered by someone else’s standards as being unclean, unworthy. Can there be anything more humanly devastating than that?
We have just such a situation described for us in the Scriptures for this Sixth Sunday in the liturgical calendar. The issue in the passage from the book of Leviticus and Mark’s gospel is the disease of leprosy, a dreadfully communicable disease in those times.
As we might imagine, there was no way to protect a community from the spread of such an illness, except by way of excluding the infected people from the others. A cruel decision, obviously, but they had no other medical option. The feelings of the individual’s loneliness and segregation were of no great concern to religious and civil authorities. You have it, you live with it!
When we read of the same situation in the Gospel, however, Jesus simply says: “Well, let’s see what we can do about that?” He understands this man’s agony and loneliness, cures him and tells him to get it recorded with the authorities.
Leprosy, today, of course, is less a medical issue. There are, however, people who still feel “leprous,” excluded, unwanted, kept out. Our country and, indeed, even American churches have not had a very admirable record regarding the inclusion of people who have come to join us, merely seeking the human right to respect and the opportunity to belong.
At the same time, I’m sure all of us could cite personal instances of our own experience where individuals were not welcomed in our little group, our community and our neighborhood. Rarely, of course, would we want to be considered biased or bigoted. Nonetheless, we all have feelings toward others that we keep hidden. Too embarrassing to mention.
So, who are the lepers in our acquaintance, who the excluded? Tough questions but we need to ask them.
The writer formerly served the Anchorage Archdiocese as director of pastoral education. He now lives and writes in Notre Dame, IN.
My days are numbered
News Year’s resolution: “Teach us O Lord, to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart…” (Psalm 90: 12)
It’s the New Year and we want to number our days aright. If we live to say 70 or even 80, if we are strong as the Psalm also says, we live around 30,000 days. I have lived just about 21,000 days. That means, well, my days are numbered.
I have not many days left. Just for example change 30,000 days into dollars. 30,000 dollars doesn’t go that far anymore. Our days and dollars are numbered. It is a fact. The question that comes to me: “How can we live a life worthy of the gift that life is?”
My answer is too simple, of course, and has many nuances. But mostly it means to keep before us this truth: life, all life, is a gift from God.
All life is sacred. Unborn life is sacred and we should, of course, count our days plus nine months because we are alive in our mother’s womb before we are born into the world. Terminally ill life is sacred. As the psalmist says, there will be suffering and trial. As Christians we can share in the sufferings of others and nothing is wasted in the spiritual life, especially our suffering.
Life is also sacred for those who are handicapped, the young and the old. The church teaches that the homosexual’s life is no less sacred than heterosexuals’ life.
The church asks the same question that we all ask: “Can I live my life with its dignity and sacredness, honoring God’s purposes for my life and receiving it as a gift. How can I number my days aright according to God and his church’s teachings?
We must realize how few days we actually have. We don’t know how many days are left but we do know how many days we have lived. These are the days we are responsible for.
We must think about spending them wisely, and we must do it. We must make a resolution to do just this — to live more wisely for God and for yourself and for others.
We must offer our days to God and ask him to bless them with eternal significance.
You only have one life to live — don’t waste it.
A survey said the one problem most Christians have in time is that the “the busyness of life gets in the way of developing my relationship with God.”
We all have different levels of income. But we all have equal amounts of time in a day — 24 hours, no more, no less. This time is really not our own. It is God’s in as much as my life is not mine but a gift.
May God bless our minutes, hours, days, months and years and each life created and sustained by his love.
I really want to number my limited days now, aright, so I can live the unlimited time later with God for all eternity. Not a bad exchange.
The writer is pastor of the Church of the Nativity in Magadan, Russia. The church is a mission of the Archdiocese of Anchorage.
Editorial
Father Neuhaus asked ‘the embarrassing question’
A civil rights leader has died – Father Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor-in-chief of the journal First Things.
In the 1960s, then Lutheran pastor Neuhaus marched with his friend Martin Luther King, Jr. Later, he co-founded the group, Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam. And as Washington Post writer Michael Gerson noted in his tribute to the “Apostle of Life,” Neuhaus was a “founding theorist” of the modern pro-life movement.
Some might stop reading here. There are those who place pro-life concerns outside the realm of social justice and civil rights.
But what comes to mind when some humans decide other humans are less than “persons?”
According to columnist George Weigel, in the 1960s and ‘70s, some in society “were starting to talk about the ‘quality of life’ with high-sounding purpose” — namely, that a person was not valuable by virtue of his or her humanity, but by the experience of a certain degree of health, pleasure and success.
Father Neuhaus, who at the time was pastor of a poor, African-American church in Brooklyn, looked out on his congregants and “not a single one had ‘quality of life’ by this definition,” Weigel wrote. “So what to do? Should they be ignored? Eliminated?”
Father Neuhaus chose to see human beings as God sees them – precious, in and of themselves. Accordingly, he rejected the “unlimited abortion license” enshrined by the United States Supreme Court in 1973 – a policy that has resulted in the deaths of nearly 50 million unborn children.
And for the next three decades, until his death, Father Neuhaus “never ceased to ask the embarrassing question,” said Gerson – “How is it that contemporary American liberalism became indifferent to the weakest members of the human community?”
Even in one of his last articles for First Things, titled “The Pro-Life Movement as the Politics of the 1960s,” Father Neuhaus observed that the “pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States. Since the 1960s, citizen participation and the remoralizing of politics have been central goals of the left. Is it not odd, then, that the pro-life movement is viewed as a right-wing cause?”
Father Neuhaus observed that in defending the status quo, the culture of abortion is focused on “rights and laws” and on “maximizing individual self-expression.” In contrast, the culture of life, he said, is about “rights and wrongs” and about “reinforcing community and responsibility” — even when some members of the community are very small or hidden or dependent.
In which camp would you imagine the marchers of Selma?
Americans face another year of legalized abortion on demand — and now leadership in congress and President Barack Obama who — through the so-called “Freedom of Choice Act” — intend to quash any modest limitation of abortion, like the ban on partial-birth abortion.
May God give us the vision and courage of a civil rights leader like Father Neuhaus who saw that our brothers and sisters — however little in the eyes of the world — are worth demonstrating and caring for.
— Patricia Coll Freeman
Assistant editor
Letters to the Editor
Our first obligation is ‘do no harm’
Given President Obama’s nearly immediate restoration of millions of taxpayer dollars to organizations which promote abortion, I return to Christy McMurren’s Dec. 12 column, “Energy better spent on positive acts — like supporting foster children.”
Christy wrote, “Jesus offers us an alternative to the ‘thou shalt nots’ of the Old Testament: the ‘thou shalts’ of the New Testament.” She criticizes a South Carolina priest who told his parishioners to refrain from the Eucharist until they atone for voting for a candidate “of whom he disapproved” — Obama.
Maureen Radotich followed up (“Columnist was right on,” Jan. 9) stating her intention to “vote for (a candidate) who...will make a more positive influence ... overall.”
The Ten Commandments are not an alternative to the New Testament; they are its foundation. God’s promise was not to abolish them under the New Covenant, but to write them on our hearts. The Incarnate Word said of them, “Do this and you will live.” I truly applaud Christy’s call to pro-life works across the spectrum and agree that “we all get that ... abortion is a very grave sin.” However, many don’t get applying that truth in the voting booth. No amount of positive pro-life work excuses us from following the Fifth Commandment in the voting booth, and no amount of policies conducive to a good quality-of-life can make a candidate’s policy against human lives more positive overall.
True, if the South Carolina priest really accused those who voted for Obama of mortal sin, then he was wrong, because it is impossible to judge whether each person was educated enough to be responsible for violating the Fifth Commandment with their vote. Still, he’s right that the obligation to “first do no harm,” is so serious that we sever our friendship with the Lord if we knowingly refuse him even that minimum. If more folks understood that, we wouldn’t be facing the mighty task of undoing the negatives of Obama’s presidency, energy better spent — as Christy reminded us — on positive action.
Anchorage
Reader thankful for schooling at Holy Rosary Academy
In light of Catholic Schools Week, I want to express my profound appreciation to the faculty of Holy Rosary Academy. Our children have learned so much about their Catholic faith and they value their faith highly. This is due to the support and example they have received from the Holy Rosary teachers over the years. We are truly grateful for the role Catholic education and the role that Holy Rosary Academy have played in our family.
Anchorage
Editor’s note: Holy Rosary Academy is a K-12 Catholic school, which operates independently of the Anchorage Archdiocese School System, with permission of Archbishop Roger Schwietz.
Updated policy on Letters to the Editor
The Catholic Anchor welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be limited to 300 words and include the writer’s full name and city of residence. For verification purposes only, we also need contact information for each letter writer, which will not be published. Letters should not disparage the character of any individual but rather stick to the issues at hand and refer to articles, letters and opinion pieces that have been published in the Catholic Anchor. Letters may not endorse a specific political candidate or political party. Letters may be edited for length, taste and clarity. The Anchor does not publish letters that directly challenge clear and established church teaching.