'Look up to the Lord with gladness and smilel your face will never be ashamed' (Ps 33:6).

'Look up to the Lord with gladness and smile; your face will never be ashamed' (Ps 33:6). Communion antiphon for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Blessed Mother Teresa

From 1 to 8 February I'll be giving a retreat to some junior professed sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Please keep them and me in your prayers. I probably won't be doing much, if any, blogging.

Jao Resari, a Columban Lay Missionary from the Philippines in Taiwan

Columban Father Joseph Bradley who died in Manila 28 October 2008.

Photo taken after the stroke that led to his death.

Ana Kristina Macasaet Arce, Deaf Magna Cum Laude College Graduate

Columban pioneer in Mindanao

Fr Michael Sinnott and his sisters on his arrival in Dublin after being kidnapped in Mindanao, Philippines

A young friend who prayed her heart out for the release of Father Michael Sinnott

Dr Zilda Arns, a Brazilian, with a young friend. Dr Arns, who devoted her life to mothers and children, died in the earthquake in Haiti.

'Concessions on abortion are no cause for rejoicing' - Bishop Robert Vasa

The Adoration of the Shepherds, El Greco

When I was young and still living in Ireland many were advocating a change in the law that labelled children born outside of marriage as 'illegitimate'. Some coined the slogan 'There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents'. The law was eventually changed.

Those advocating the change rightly pointed out that children should not be punished or stigmatized because of the sins or their parents. Nobody would advocate going back to the old days on this particular issue.

But at a more basic level many do want to regress to the past in a more radical way. They want to prevent 'unwanted' children from being born. Even in the old days nobody advocated that 'illegitimate' children should be killed. Not only are many advocating that 'unwanted' children should not be born, but they are advocating that the mother has the 'right' to have her pre-born child killed.

Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon, USA, faces this in his weekly column in Catholic Sentinel, the Catholic weekly in the state of Oregon, dated 21 January. He writes in the context of the ongoing debate in the USA about the Health Care Reform Bill. Here is Bishop Vasa's article. I have highlighted some parts of it and made some [comments].

Concessions on abortion are no cause for rejoicing

By Bishop Robert Vasa

BEND — There has been a bit of jubilation over the claim that the Health Care Reform Bill would not use federal dollars to pay for abortion except in those very rare cases of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. Whether abortion funding will be limited to these remains to be seen. While including restrictions on federal funding for abortion except in these cases sounds very much like a Pro-Life victory it is important for us to recognize that it is not a victory at all. In truth, these exceptions are concessions which deserve no rejoicing at all. I am a realist and I recognize that the concession of these more difficult situations may be deemed necessary in order to gain a law which protects at least some of the pre-born community but such a concession is no cause for rejoicing.

Consider the cases of the following women. Woman A is with child, she is married but she and her husband find the timing for the child to be inconvenient. Woman B is with child, she is not married and she and her boyfriend never intended the child. Woman C is with child and the child’s father is also the child’s grandfather. Woman D is with child and the child’s father is her rapist. Woman E is with child and she is very ill with a pregnancy-related illness. Woman F is with child and her husband has unexpectedly become critically ill.

Which of these children can we sacrifice on the altar of political expediency?

It is common and expected to focus on the plight and anxiety of the women in these cases and the situations are undeniably heart-rending. The key question, however, is: “How are these children different from one another?” All of these children, without exception and in all that essentially matters, are identical. Each of these children is a human being. Each of these children is vulnerable. Each of these children is entirely dependent. Each of these children is completely innocent. Each of these children is beloved of God. Each of these children, without exception, possesses a human dignity. Each of these children has a God-given right to live. Each of these children has a soul. Each of these children is an entirely unique and irreplaceable member of the human family. The external circumstances under which these children were conceived certainly vary but those circumstances do not, in any way, touch the dignity or worth of the child. No one of these children should be viewed or treated any differently from any other of them. There is no justifiable reason to view the children conceived by rape or incest as somehow less worthy of protection than any other child. The Church, with its preferential option for the poor, cannot ever give even the slightest appearance of having abandoned or neglected these poorest of the poor.

The late Stephen Cardinal Kim Sou-Hwan of Korea with a young friend. The cardinal's paternal grandparents were sentenced to death during a persecution in Korea. His grandfather was killed but the persecutors spared his grandmother because she was pregnant. The child in her womb was the Cardinal's father.

It may be politically expedient and even necessary to recognize that we may not be able to exclude rape, incest or the life of the mother from an insurance plan but we must never concede these or broker a deal with the children in these situations as the pawns. I am not suggesting that we adopt an all or nothing modality, only that we never rejoice over sacrificing one to save more. It is especially important that we never glibly dismiss the children with less than desirable beginnings or still worse, rejoice that we had to sacrifice only these unfortunates in order to save others. The politically expedient decision to carve out these exceptions belies the foundation of our Pro-Life stand. We are not Pro-Life because the circumstances surrounding a child’s conception are voluntary or societally acceptable. We are Pro-Life because every child has a right to life and the circumstances of his or her conception are irrelevant. [When people worked to get rid of the category of 'illegitimate children' they did not make any exceptions, recognising the dignity of each child.]

I want to repeat that: In terms of a child’s right to life, the circumstances of his or her conception are irrelevant!

This in no way implies that the woman’s distress or confusion are irrelevant in themselves. They are only irrelevant in that they in no way affect the humanity of the child.

There is also a danger in seeming to accept the exceptions. When these exceptions are incorporated into law, seemingly with ecclesial approval, then the impression is given that a woman’s individual circumstances determine whether abortion is morally justifiable or not. Each woman is then, in effect, given permission to determine if her circumstances are difficult enough to justify an abortion because abortion then is focused on the woman’s circumstances rather than on the individuality and personal right to life of her child. The circumstances of rape, incest and life of the mother are certainly factors which tend to cloud the ability to see and recognize the child as a unique “other” but these circumstances change nothing about that unique otherness of the child.

Baby born after Haiti earthquake

There is an ongoing educational initiative known as “No child left behind.” This same commitment certainly under girds the thoughts and efforts of all in the Pro-Life Community. Abortion is a tremendous source of and cause for extreme grief in our country. Recent efforts to improve the nature of health care in the United States shows a certain degree of appropriate concern for the underserved, the uninsured and those with compromised health. The pre-born children in every one of the examples I cited above need and deserve good pre-natal care. It is unconscionable that some of them are deemed worthy of health care while others of them, due solely to a circumstance entirely beyond their control, should be marked for death. Insult is added to injury when we consider that these left behind children are not only marked for death but marked for death at government, translated our, expense. [In what way is the policy of using state money to kill children different from that of the Third Reich where the taxes of the German people were used to exterminate Jews and other 'undesirable'? One difference is that the scale of killing is far worse in the USA and in some other countries that it was under Hitler. Close to 50,000,000 pre-born Americans have been legally killed since Roe v Wade in 1973, many of them during the process of birth.]

Anyone who rejoices that a health care bill may be achieved and that its achievement may only cost the lives of the pre-born children conceived in rape or incest fails to properly value human life. I hope that some good can come from this massive health care reform work but I have great reservations for a number of reasons the major of which is that, at its very foundation, the effort fails to take full account of human worth and dignity. It was intended to cover every abortion as a right and Pro-Life efforts got that reduced but the lack of reverence for life has not changed. Any law which excludes, intentionally leaves behind or, God forbid, pays for the killing of any child, is not a cause for rejoicing.

Three young witnesses to the faith

Last evening I celebrated Mass with the Sisters and girls and young women at Holy Family Home here in Bacolod City. You can read about Holy Family Home here, here and here. We were celebrating the feast of Blessed Laura Vicuña about whom I posted yesterday. This was our third year to do so. Blessed Laura is the patron of those who have suffered from abuse.

I link the celebration with that of St Agnes, whose feast was the day before, and who was martyred at the age of 12 or 13. Blessed Laura, who died exactly 1600 years and one day after St Agnes, was just a few months short of 13. Two years before her death she had offered her life to God for the conversion of her mother. God listened to her prayers.

St Agnes, El Greco (detail)

As I was telling the stories of these two young girls who had given their lives to God, I recalled what had happened in the life of the great Thérèse of Lisieux when she was 14. The website of the Apostleship of Prayer gives this account of the story which the saint recounted in her autobiography, Story of a Soul:

St. Therese joined the Apostleship of Prayer on October 15, 1885 when she was twelve years old. The practice of the Daily Offering planted the seeds for her great spiritual doctrine known as "The Little Way." In her autobiography, she wrote that she had great desires: to be an apostle, a missionary, even a priest, and a martyr. But how could she fulfill these desires? She was a cloistered Carmelite nun. She wrote:

MY VOCATION IS LOVE! Yes, I have found my place in the Church and it is You, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized. But how will she prove her love since love is proved by works? Well, the little child will strew flowers, she will perfume the royal throne with their sweet scents, and she will sing in her silvery tones the canticle of Love. Yes, my Beloved, this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love.


St. Therese tells the story of Pranzini, a man who had murdered two women and a young girl and had been sentenced to death. All reports were that he was going to his death angry and bitter and unrepentant. Therese, only fourteen at the time, committed herself to praying and offering up sacrifices for his conversion. The day after his execution she secretly read the newspaper account of his death. Here is how she wrote about it:


Pranzini had not gone to confession. He had mounted the scaffold and was preparing to place his head in the formidable opening, when suddenly seized by an inspiration, he turned, took hold of the crucifix the priest was holding out to him and kissed the sacred wounds three times! Then his soul went to receive the merciful sentence of Him who declares that in heaven there will be more joy over one sinner who does penance than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance!


Young Therese called Pranzini her "first child."


This is "The Little Way" of St. Therese which Blessed Mother Teresa also followed: to do everything as an act of love for God, to offer all the little (and big) hardships of life for the conversion of sinners.


Imagine St. Therese arriving in heaven after her death at the age of twenty-four. Who do you think was the first person to meet her? Her mother Zelie? Her father Louis? Perhaps the first person to meet her on her arrival in heaven was a man with a big smile on his face who could hardly wait to thank her for the role her prayers and sacrifices played in getting him there... a murderer named Pranzini.

St Thérèse as a child

I told the girls, many of whom have suffered deeply, about the sacrifices of these girls, the same age as many at the Mass, had freely made for the sake of others. They showed that our suffering, in whatever form it comes, doesn't have to be wasted but can bring life - eternal life - to others. I could see that they were listening intently.

Though I rarely ask any of the girls about what they have been through - they get proper professional help - they are very much aware that I know something of their suffering.

The three young girls whom we remembered at our Mass last evening are persons who can bring hope into the lives of so many today. They also had a deep sense of the reality that God calls each of us to be a saint, incuding every child. I remember how the words of St Paul, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Col 1:24), once hit me like an arrow through the heart after a retreat many years ago. They have been words of hope to me ever since.

I thought I'd include the full painting by El Greco, which he did between 1597 and 1799, from which the detail of St Agnes above is taken. It's called The Virgin and Child with St Martina and St Agnes. St Martina was a Roman virgin martyred in 226. There are many stories about her but not much, if any, factual history.

St Agnes, whose name is a Greek word meaning 'chaste' is associated, as in El Greco's painting, with lambs, as the Latin word for lamb is agnus. Yesterday, the feast of the saint, as happenes every year, the pope blessed the lambs the wool of which will be used to make the palliums that are given to newly-consecrated metropolitan archbishops on the Feast of St Peter and St Paul.

'A Poem of Purity: Blessed Laura Vicuña, patron of those who have been abused

Today is the feastday of Blessed Laura Vicuña, patron of victims of abuse. In the January-February 2008 issue of Misyon, the Columban online magazine in the Philippines that I edit, we published an article on this young girl by Fr John Murray, a parish priest in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The article first appeared in The Sacred Heart Messenger and was used with permission. As today is her feastday and since there are still so many young people, both boys and girls, being abused by adults, we are posting the article again. I also posted it on this blog a year ago.

This evening, as I began doing two years ago, I will celebrate Mass at Holy Family Home here in Bacolod where so many of the girls and young women there have suffered from abuse by adults. We link the feast of Blessed Laura with that of St Agnes, a girl of the same age, martyred in 304, whose feast was yesterday.

I first became aware of Blessed Laura while giving a retreat in a Salesian retreat house near Manila some years ago.

Although she was only twelve when she died, Laura Vicuña had grown to a maturity of faith well beyond her years. Fr John Murray sees the life of this young girl whose feast is 22 January as an inspiration.

Throughout his pontificate, Pope John Paul II endeavored to offer to the Church and the world at large, models for Christian living: people we can imitate and learn from, as we try to make our own way through the maze and pitfalls of life. In an age of sexual license, when often girls and young women can be at the mercy of sexual predators, the life of Laura Vicuña has something to say in our own day.

Painful experiences

Laura was born in Santiago, Chile, on 5 April 1891.Soon after her birth, her father had to flee the country because of political upheavals, and when she was only three he himself passed away. Bereft of support, her mother, Mercedes, sadly entered into a relationship with a local ranch owner, one Manuel Mora.

He offered to pay for the care and schooling of her children at a Salesian boarding school, if Mercedes became his mistress. Laura attended the Salesian mission school with her sister, Julia. With a maturity beyond her years, Laura often helped the younger children with their tasks, and acted almost like a mother to them, combing their hair and mending their clothing.

Even then, Mora would try to molest her, especially when he was drunk. She made her First Holy Communion when she was ten, but was always afraid of Mora, because of his lewd desires on her. When she fought off his first assault, the ranch owner refused to pay for her school tuition, but despite that the Sisters continued to educate her.

Offering up her life

Despite her young age, Laura was conscious that her mother was not living as God would want, and she had already decided to offer her life to God for her mother’s conversion.

At this stage, her own health was delicate, and in the winter of 1902 Mercedes left the Mora’s hacienda in order to care for her ailing daughter.

At this time, they were living in Argentina.However, in January 1904, Mora arrived on their doorstep to demand that Laura surrender to his lusts. When she refused him, he whipped and kicked her, and then threw her brutally across the saddle of his horse to carry her back to his ranch. Aware that the local people were watching him, he dumped her body in a ditch and left. Laura lingered on until 22 January, when she died of severe internal injuries.

Just before she died, she told her mother that she had given her life to bring about a conversion in her. ‘Mama,’ she said. ‘I am dying, but I’m happy to offer my life for you. I asked our Lord for this’. After Laura’s death, Mercedes made a good confession, left Mora, and became a devout Catholic again.

Beatification

In September 1988, Pope John Paul II beatified Laura, calling her a ‘Eucharistic flower . . . whose life was a poem of purity, sacrifice and filial love’. In many ways, her life parallels that of St Maria Goretti, whose life and death may be better known to many people. She too fought off the advances of a young man with lustful desires.

Maria died but was able eventually to achieve the conversion of her murderer, and when she was later canonized in 1950, he was present at the ceremony. (Note: I saw a TV documentary on St Maria Goretti on EWTN recently and it stated that he wasn't present, though he was still alive at the time and living in a Capuchin friary in Italy as a member of the Capuchin Third Order.)

Like Maria, Laura did not let the sordidness of Mora destroy her innocence, nor did she allow her heart to become embittered. Instead, she prayed for her mother and also for her lover. We can but hope that Mora too experienced the conversion which Laura prayed for her mother. Her life is a testimony to the words of St Paul: ‘However much sin increased, grace was always greater’ (Rom 5:20).

Fr Loughlin Campion SSC

1930 - 2010

Fr Loughlin Campion died suddenly while visiting his sister in Kilkenny on 14 January 2010.

He was born on 20 March, 1930 in Bayswell, Johnstown, Co. Kilkenny. He was educated in Crosspatrick NS, and St. Kieran’s College, Kilkenny.

He came to Dalgan Park (the former Columban seminary in Ireland) in 1948 and was ordained on 21 December 1954. Lot, as he was better know among Columbans, was appointed to a war-torn Korea.

Following language studies in Seoul he was assigned to the southern diocese of Kwangju where he was to spend nearly all of the next fifty years.



Kwangju, Republic of Korea

The devastation of war meant that relief work and rebuilding were the order of the day. One of his earliest appointments was to the island of Cheju in 1958 but for the rest of his life he worked in developing parishes in many parts of the province of Chollanamdo.


From the beginning of the 80s the rebuilding effort was followed by mass urbanization of the population. In ten years the percentage of people living in towns jumped from 20 to 80 percent. The city of Kwangju, the provincial capital, grew rapidly to over four million inhabitants. This led to a change of focus from rural parishes to new areas on the edge of the cities and it turned out to one of the most significant contributions the Columban Society could have made to Korea. Poor, displaced, and disorientated families were gathered again into Christian communities and Columbans put in touch with the good and the bad of a tiger economy.

Kwangju City

Lot spent the last twenty years of his ministry in Korea developing these communities around the city of Kwangju. Areas like Kwangchondong, Ochidong, Unamdong owe much to his care and commitment. A newsletter of the time describes his Hwanggap, his 60th birthday in Unamdong like this: “Decked out in his colourful ‘hanbok’ (traditional dress) and armed with a two-foot long Korean pipe he looked so at ease one would assume that this was his costume when he went to primary school in Ireland”.


Lot had the gift of being comfortable in difficult situations. His calmness and patience stood him good stead in his final years when his deafness brought its own isolation yet never managed to dampen his spirit. His sudden death will be mourned both here and among the people he served so well in Korea.

May he rest in peace.

A little incident in Ireland that gives me hope

Fr Michael Sinnott

My Columban confrere Fr Michael Sinnott arrived back in Manila last Friday. I haven't met him yet. Indeed, it's almost a year, as far as I can recall, that our paths crossed and I'm not sure if it's almost two years. When He'll go back down to Pagadian City where he was kidnapped last October I'm not sure.

Our superior in the Philippines, Fr Patrick O'Donoghue, who travelled home to Ireland in December with Fr Sinnott, told us of an incident there that touched me and gives me hope. They flew to an Ireland that was reeling from the revelations of the Murphy Report on the abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin. This was only months after the Ryan Report on the abuse of children in institutions run by religious men and women, most of the children having been entrusted by the State to them.

Leinster House, Dublin

Before Christmas, Frs Sinnott and O'Donoghue visited Leinster House in Dublin where both the Dáil (parliament) and Seanad (senate) meet. They were warmly welcomed by members of all parties. It happened that a group of girls from a Catholic secondary school in Longford - where St Mel's Cathedral was burned in the early hours of Christmas Day - were on a field-trip to Leinster House. They recognised Father Sinnott, as many people on the streets of Manila had done after his release, and excitedly surrounded him, producing their mobile phones to have their photos taken with him. Father Michael, a humble man who has never sought the limelight and who turned 80 on 17 December, took all this in his stride.

A few days later this dedicated missionary priest received a package in the mail. It contained a personal card from each one of the girls he had met in Leinster House.

This little incident gives me hope. These young women were well aware of what was in the Murphy Report and of how some priests had so badly betrayed their Lord, had betrayed the children entrusted to them, and had shaken the faith and trust of so many good people, yet they clearly recognised the true face of the priesthood of Jesus Christ in this simple, prayerful man whose only desire was to return to Mindanao to serve the special children of Hangop Kabataan (Reaching out to the children), all of whom have disabilities, some being deaf, some with learning difficulties, and nearly all from a background of poverty, the mission he started when he was already moving into old age.

May the Lord continue to bless Father Michael and may the work he has begun flourish in the years ahead.

Pediatrician-sister of Cardinal Arns of Brazil dies in Haiti earthquake

Dr Zilda Arns Neumann

Zilda Arns, the 75-year-old sister of  Paulo Evaristo Cardinal Arns OFM, retired Archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil, was one of the victims of last Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti. She was the founder of International Pastoral da Criança (Pastoral of the Child).

Zenit reports the death of the doctor:

Nobel Nominee Killed in Haiti

Zilda Arns, an Expert in Reducing Infant Mortality

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, JAN. 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Zilda Arns, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of the International Pastoral da Criança, was killed Tuesday in the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti.

The 75-year-old Brazilian pediatrician and aid worker was killed while walking the streets of Port-au-Prince alongside two soldiers. She was in Haiti studying the implementation of her program -- which is one of the world’s most successful at reducing infant mortality -- on the island.

Born to German immigrants, Arns was the 12th of 13 children. Her brother, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, retired archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil, was one of five siblings who had priestly or religious vocations.

In a note, Cardinal Arns stated, "I received with sorrow the news that my very dear sister has suffered with the good people of Haiti the tragic effects of the earthquake."

He continued: "May God in his mercy receive in heaven those who on earth fought for children and the defenseless. It is not the moment to lose hope."

A mother of five and a widow since 1978, Arns dedicated her life to Christian charity. In 1983, shortly after she lost her husband, she started the pastoral care of children program at the request of the Brazilian bishops' conference.

The program has one of the greatest success rates worldwide in reducing infant mortality rates. It currently has some 261,000 volunteers in Brazil (the majority women), who take care of more than 1.8 million children (from birth to 6 years of age), and 95,000 pregnant women, in more than 42,000 communities and 4,066 municipalities.

In a previous interview with ZENIT, Arns explained that the program teaches families "very simple things -- they are generally people with very little education -- but indispensable for the children's health: nutrition of pregnant mothers, breast feeding, oral hydration, vaccinations."

She continued: "We take care of the education of 1.6 million children from birth to 6 years of age. Moreover, every year we teach 32,000 adults, almost always mothers, to read and write."

Legacy

Due to the program's success, representatives from other countries visited Brazil to learn about its methods in order to develop a similar model for their own homelands. The International Pastoral da Criança network now includes 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean that have implemented the program. (The website of the International Pastoral da Criança notes that the Philippines is one of the countries that has introduced a smiliar programme).

She had been visiting Haiti to discuss plans about implementing the program in the poor communities there.

Arns also helped the bishops' conference develop a pastoral program for AIDS victims, which currently cares for 100,000 patients, supported by 12,000 volunteers from 579 municipalities in 141 dioceses of 25 Brazilian states.

In response to Tuesday's tragedy, the conference sent its secretary-general, Bishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, to Port-au-Prince.

In 1997, Arns received the Humanitarian of the Year prize from the Lions Club International. She was honored by Rotary International with the "Paul Harris" medal in 2001. The following year she was chosen by the Pan American Health Organization for the "Public Health Hero of the Americas" prize.

Dr Zilda Arns Neumann

May this wonderful woman, whom I had never heard of until now, rest in peace and may her work for mothers and children flourish.