Our summer immersion trip is nearing its end and we are all working to continue to progress in our capacity for Spanish. The experiences here continue to be unique and rich.
For the Fourth of July, we were invited to cook traditional American cuisine and we all chipped in to buy fireworks and enjoy a great show in the evening. Deacon Tristan cooked the best gumbo I have ever had (maybe it’s because I haven’t been in my home country for six weeks, but it was amazing nonetheless) and we had a great evening.
One of the best aspects of this program is that our teachers stay at the monastery with us. They eat meals with us and we get to know them and their families. At the Fourth of July party, the families of all the teachers were invited. It was a great evening and a great witness to the teachers and their families of the joy of the priesthood and the joy of our seminarians. I was able to give an in depth lesson on how to play cornhole (I never knew how many rules their were to that game until I had to describe them all in Spanish!)
CUERNAVACA, Mexico – Seminarians Will Foggo and Grayson Foley can be seen in the choir for Mass on the Feast Day of St. Benedict. (Photos courtesy of Father Nick Adam)
As the program nears its end I am very excited to get home. It’s been a lot of work and there are many challenges that come with living in a different country for a long period of time. The message that continues to come to me in prayer is that I need to embrace the uncomfortable. It is good, sometimes, to be uncomfortable because it helps us to stretch ourselves and become who God wants us to be, not just who we are comfortable being. I believe this experience has helped me, and our seminarians, learn that lesson, and this will be a great gift for the rest of our lives.
Many times this summer we have been faced with a choice: we could either turn back to a place of comfort, or keep going. This happened in the classroom, during conversations at meal time, and on excursions. We went on a long hike a little while back that we weren’t expecting to be too arduous, but an hour in we realized that the terrain was going to be really tough. But we kept going, and the beautiful scenery made it all worth it.
Every time we kept speaking Spanish instead of retreating back into English was a moment of grace. Every time we kept trying to listen to the homily even when we didn’t think we’d understand any of it was a moment of growth. Every time we kept walking because that is what the Lord wanted us to do was a moment to grow closer to him and to grow in humility and trust. I learned a lot of Spanish this summer, but I think my reliance and trust in Jesus Christ grew the most.
– Father Nick Adam, vocation director
CUERNAVACA, Mexico – Deacon Tristan Stovall cooks up some “traditional” American fair during a language immersion trip to Mexico. Father Nick Adam and seminarians celebrated the Fourth of July with gumbo and fireworks, along with their teachers.
DUBUQUE, Iowa – Sister Nona Meyerhofer, OSF, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis, celebrated her
Double Diamond Jubilee (70 years) on Sunday, June 18, at Mount St. Francis Center in Dubuque.
Sister Nona served as a teacher and educator in Iowa and Illinois and served from 1999 – 2009 at Excel, Inc., Morton, Mississippi, as director and teacher. In June of 2009 Sister Nona retired to Mount Saint Francis Center in Dubuque, Iowa.
Sister Rita Goedken, OSF, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis, of Dubuque, celebrated her Diamond Jubilee (60 years) on Saturday, June 17, at Mount St. Francis Center in Dubuque.
Sister Rita is the daughter of Alfred and Loretta (Koch) Goedken and is blessed to be one of their 12 children. She attended SS. Peter and Paul School in Petersburg, St. Boniface High School in New Vienna, and Briar Cliff College in Sioux City, Iowa. Later she did graduate work at Central Michigan University and at St. Bonaventure University in Olean, New York. Over the years, she taught at Aquin Elementary School, Cascade, Iowa; St. Joe, Bode, Iowa; St. Paul School, Eugene, Oregon; and Our Lady Help of Christians School, Saginaw, Michigan. She has served in parish ministry at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in
Chesaning, Michigan, St. Patrick Parish in Palms, Michigan and at St. Victor Parish in Monroe, Wisconsin. After serving on the Sisters of St. Francis’ leadership team, she traveled to Morton, Mississippi, and served as the program coordinator for the Learning Center. Now living at Mount St. Francis Center, Sister Rita continues to be immensely grateful for a life of rich blessings.
“God is good all the time. All the time, God is good!” said Sister Rita on the occasion of her Jubilee.
Cards can be sent to Sister Nona and Sister Rita at 3390 Windsor Ave., Dubuque, IA 52001.
Scripture tells us that in this life we have no lasting city. True enough. But, it seems, we also don’t have a lasting house, school, neighborhood, town, zip code address, or most anything else. Eventually nothing lasts.
Perhaps my case isn’t typical, but a lot of things in my life haven’t lasted. My grandparents were immigrants, Russian-Germans, moving to the Canadian prairies and being among the first farmers to break the soil there at the beginning of the 1900s. They were young, so too was life then on the prairies, and their generation planted new farms, schools, towns and cities across the great plains of Canada and the USA. I was born into the second generation of all that – but just as urbanization and other changes were already beginning to cause the disappearance of a lot of what they had built.
So, here’s my story of having no lasting city. The elementary school I went to closed after I’d finished the sixth grade. We were bused to a bigger centralized school and our old school building was carted away. Nothing remains today to indicate there once was a school there. The new school I attended closed several years after I’d graduated. The building itself was razed and today the entire former campus is part of a farmer’s field with only a small plaque to indicate there once was vibrant life there, with hundreds of young voices filling the air with energy. That school was a couple of miles out of a small town and that town itself has now completely disappeared, without a single building left.
I went from high school to an Oblate novitiate house situated in the heart of the Qu’Appelle valley, a beautiful stately building on a lake. Several years after I’d graduated from there, the building was sold and soon afterwards was destroyed in a fire. Only an empty stretch of prairie sits there now. From there, I moved to another seminary, a magnificent old building (formerly the Government House for the Northwest Territories) and spent six wonderful years there. Again, several years after I’d graduated, the building was abandoned, and it too was eventually destroyed by a fire.
Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
From there I moved to Newman Theological College in Edmonton where I spent the next fifteen years. Newman College had a beautiful campus on the outskirts of the city, but several years after I’d left, the campus was expropriated by the city to build a ring road and all its buildings were razed. From there, I moved to a wonderfully homey building, the Oblate Provincial residence in Saskatoon. Several years later, after I’d moved out, that building too was razed and nothing remains where it once stood. And, while all this was happening, the little town to which our family was connected (for mail, for groceries, for services, for identity) became a ghost town with no inhabitants, all its buildings shuttered. Eventually, I moved to Oblate School of Theology in Texas to live in a welcoming little house designated for the president of the school. However, after a few years, the land it was on was needed for a new seminary and that house too was razed. Finally, most painful of all, two years ago, our family house, our home for more than 70 years, was sold and the new owners (sensitive enough to ask our family’s permission to do so) burned the old house to the ground.
That’s a lot of roots disappearing: my elementary school, my high school, the town our family was connected to, both seminaries from which I graduated, the college where I first taught, both Oblate houses I’d spent wonderful years within, and the family house – all gone, razed to the ground, nothing left to go back to.
What does that do to you? Well, there’s nostalgia, yes. How I would again love to walk into any of those buildings, feel what they once meant to me and bask in memories. None of that can happen. Each of these is a mini death, leaving a part of my soul rootless. On the other hand, more positively, all that unwanted letting go is helping prepare me for an ultimate letting go, when I will be facing my own death, and not just some haunting nostalgia.
As well, this has taught me something else of substance. Buildings and houses may disappear, but home is not contingent on them. Rene Fumoleau, a poet among the Dene tribes, shares how he once visited a family the day after their house had been destroyed by fire and had this conversation with a young girl:
The next day I visited the burned out family. What could I say after such a tragedy? I tried with the ten-year old daughter: ‘Joan, you must feel terrible without home.’ The young girl knew better: ‘Oh, we still have our home, But we have no house to put on it.” (Home – Here I Sit) Yes, we can still have a home even without our former house on it.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)
By Justin McLellan VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Only by shedding feelings of personal greatness and regaining a sense of wonder in God’s love can people welcome Jesus into their hearts and lives, Pope Francis said. With some 15,000 visitors gathered to pray the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square July 9, the pope reflected on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew in which Jesus praises God the Father for hiding “things” from the wise and revealing them to the childlike.
Those things, Pope Francis explained, refer to Jesus’ miracles – restoring sight to the blind and healing lepers – which are “signs of God acting in the world” that are overlooked by the prideful. God’s love, as reflected through Jesus’ miracles, “is not understood by those who presume to be great and manufacture a god in their own image: powerful, unyielding, vengeful,” he said.
“These presumptuous ones fail to accept God as Father; those who are full of themselves, proud, concerned only with their own interests: these are the presumptuous ones, convinced that they need no one,” Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis gives his blessing to visitors at the St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican after praying the Angelus July 9, 2023. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
The childlike who are open to receiving God’s love, however, “have hearts free from conceit and self-love,” the pope explained.
“The childlike are those who, like children, feel needy and not self-sufficient; they are open to God and let themselves be astonished by his works,” he said. “They know how to read his signs, amazed by the miracles of his love.”
Pope Francis urged Christians to ask themselves whether they let themselves stop and be amazed by how the signs of God are working in their lives or if they notice them only in passing.
“Our lives, if we think about it, are full of miracles, full of signs of love, of signs of God’s bounty,” he said. “Before these, however, our heart can also remain indifferent and become set in its ways, strangely unable to be amazed.”
Pope Francis suggested that Christians draw attention to the signs of God’s love in daily life in by “photographing” them in their minds and “printing” them onto their heart to then develop them in their lives through positive actions, so that the “photograph” of God’s love “becomes brighter in us and through us.”
After praying the Angelus the pope recalled “with pain” the recent bloodshed in the Holy Land, where on July 3 Israeli forces launched a two-day ground and aerial attack on the city of Jenin in the West Bank. The Palestinian government reported that 12 Palestinians were killed in the raid and at least 120 were wounded.
“I hope that the Israeli and Palestinian Authorities can resume a direct dialogue in order to end the spiral of violence and open paths of reconciliation and peace,” the pope said.
As my mom grew older, she became less mobile. When we’d visit the mall she wouldn’t walk to the parking lot; we’d find a secure bench outside a store, and she would wait there for us to bring the car around.
Often, when we’d drive up, Mom would be engaged in conversation with someone, sometimes another elderly person sharing the bench. Mom would tell us what she’d learned of that person’s life, and we’d chuckle about her uncanny ability to extract information from strangers – and cringe a little to imagine what she might have shared about us.
Most of us have seen that television commercial where an insurance company, tongue in cheek, explains how new homeowners shouldn’t become their parents. Funny, yes, but I detect a whiff of ageism as the millennials need help not becoming the kind of people – like their boomer parents – who chat up someone in an elevator or attempt to help some stranger find a product on the store shelf.
Admittedly, the ad is a little exaggerated, but is friendliness such a bad thing?
When I visited my daughter on the East Coast, I would often travel along a busy river walk near her home. It was striking to me how no one spoke. Everyone looked determinedly straight ahead. I thought perhaps I’d been a native Midwestern and an Alaskan for too long.
Effie Caldarola
Then, I moved to a small eastern town. Everyone walks here and, almost to a person, everyone says hello. I’ve had 15-minute conversations with strangers who stop to chat. A person I’d never met introduced herself and gave me a treat to feed her little dog. A nanny stopped with her stroller and pointed to a house where she noticed Amazon packages had sat for several days. Should we call in a wellness check? A young man stopped to converse about a house for sale on my block.
What was going on here? In this town, an historic town with lots of big old houses, the population seems racially homogeneous, fairly prosperous and similar in many ways. Does this make people feel safer and more open? The river walk, on the other hand, was a much more diverse mix, from different neighborhoods. And in all fairness, those on the river walk were perhaps more focused on exercise than the neighborhood walkers.
Still, what are the barriers to our friendliness?
I thought about this at Sunday’s greeting of peace at Mass. Still in no-touch COVID mode, people turn, give a little wave and mouth the word “peace.” I smile, but despite our split-second attention to each other, I know that when I leave Mass I won’t know those folks any better.
Coffee and donuts, anyone?
I assure you, I’m not the person who starts a conversation on an airplane. I say hello and pull out my book. I do not chat people up on elevators.
But neither do I want to create a shield to protect me from others. I want to be aware of the person who needs help, who appears ill, or who just needs a friendly smile. I don’t want to fear diversity, or become that person who mutters, “I don’t want to get involved.”
Despite the fact that in our country, people have been shot for turning up the wrong driveway, or for being a Black person shopping for groceries, I want to be with those who notice and care about each other, and act with friendliness. I think this is part of our faith commitment, our seeing Christ in each person we encounter.
Perhaps I am becoming my mother, after all. And you know what? That’s a good thing.
(Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Seattle University.)
This time of year families travel to vacation destinations, hoping to occupy their days away from work and school with plenty of fun-filled activities and relaxation. While away, they seek distraction in various forms of entertainment, especially novelty, something unavailable in the locale where they reside. At vacation’s end, many of them, if they are honest with themselves, are actually eager to return to the familiar surroundings of that special place they call home. Whenever I’ve been away for an extended period, I too have been happy and excited when the time came to leave and go back to my family.
Home holds precious memories and evokes a powerful sense of place and of belonging. Everyone sooner or later hears and responds to its irresistible call. Every year at homecoming alumni return to college campuses to renew old friendships and show support for their alma mater. And during the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, family members inevitably converge on their parents’ or grandparents’ house, as if drawn there by a magnet.
We all have a location of one sort or another we can go back to. It may be our birthplace or where we were raised. It may be where we have lived the longest or even where we currently reside. In any case, it’s that specific spot to which we feel deeply connected, the place we love that grounds us and sustains us. It’s where we feel at ease – comfortable, safe and loved. It’s our center, a geographical area we might even refer to as God’s country. As the saying goes, home is where the heart is. Perhaps this is why so many people desire to return to the land of their birth to be buried.
Born and raised in Jackson, I called the Capitol City home for most of my early life. After graduating from college, I moved away and lived for about ten years in several other states before returning to Mississippi and settling in Oxford, where I have resided for the last 40 years. Mississippi is where I’ve spent most of my life and career. It’s where my wife, children and grandchildren live. It’s home, a term that surely must be on the short list of the most beautiful words in our language.
When I fill out forms that ask for my permanent address, I write the location of the house my wife and I live in. But my domicile is not really permanent in the strict sense of the word because this world and everything in it is transitory; it’s slowly but surely passing away. However, one thing will not pass away, and that’s the church.
As members of the Mystical Body of Christ we can all say that our real home in this world is the church. When we’re in God’s house praying along with our brothers and sisters in Christ, uniting our worship with that of the saints in heaven, and receiving communion – the Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord – it’s heaven on earth!
But we can take it a step further because our ultimate dwelling place is the one our Blessed Lord has prepared for us. We believe this because of His promise: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions … I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there you also may be.” (John 14:2-3) No one knows what it will be like, but it will surely be more beautiful and wonderful than anything we can imagine: “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him.” (I Corinthians 2:9)
So, what does this strong impulse to return to one’s point of origin mean? Is it part of a ritual of self-discovery and a search for the meaning of life? Does it signify an archetypal journey back to the source – to God, our Creator and the source of our being? Is it a longing for heaven? Whatever the case may be, in the meantime we remain here in a world dominated by the philosophies of materialism, hedonism, relativism and all the other “isms” that run counter to the Kingdom of Heaven. As C. S. Lewis noted in Mere Christianity, “we are living in … enemy-occupied territory – that is what this world is.” But then he goes on to say “I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death … I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”
As I get older, I find myself thinking more and more about my ultimate destination. Maybe it will be like Lewis’ beautiful description of Aslan’s country at the conclusion of The Last Battle, the seventh and final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia. Near the end of the book, one of the characters, upon arriving there, remarks: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”
I love these lines because they perfectly summarize the way I felt when I was received into the Catholic Church. That day, after many years of searching and seeking, I finally reached the end of my journey to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus Christ. I found the fulfillment of my deepest longings and rest for my restless heart. It was like coming home. And as Dorothy says in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”
(Melvin Arrington is a Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages for the University of Mississippi and a member of St. John Oxford.)
TUPELO – For many years Knights of Columbus council #8848 has supported the local crisis pregnancy center, Parkgate Pregnancy Center. Parkgate offers high quality, confidential services. The center has an outstanding, dedicated staff including supportive counselors and a sonographer to guide their clients along the way. All services are free of charge made possible by generous community members, including the Knights of Columbus.
Services include pregnancy tests, ultrasound sonography, and counseling. Parkgate also provides the Empower program, a relevant, real-life class for students in grades 7-12 teaching healthy decision making, sexual risk avoidance and more. Other services include parenting for first time parents; mentor programs to support new parents. Parkgate also connects clients with other resources in the community.
The unique location of the pregnancy center provides visibility to potential clients in an underserved community. The nearest abortion clinic is in Memphis about 100 miles away. There are two major universities and a U.S. Air Force base within 60 miles of the center.
Parkgate’s needed to replace their aging, leased ultrasound machine and the Supreme Knights of Columbus Ultrasound Program was a natural fit. The program has well defined parameters and criteria. With the support of Knights of Columbus supreme and state officers, the local council was able to successfully navigate through the process. Ultimately, Parkgate Pregnancy Center formally qualified for the ultrasound program after a thorough survey on Dec. 6, 2021 by the Diocese of Jackson.
The Tupelo Knights of Columbus council’s major fundraiser event, the 6th Annual Charity Concert Gala, took place on Aug. 13, 2022, at St. James Catholic Church in Tupelo. The concert featured extremely talented musicians from the region. There were over 200 concert goers from the parish and community. Ultimately, about $11,000 was raised at the event. The Mississippi council generously contributed $7,000 for a total of $18,000 raised. Supreme Knights of Columbus ultrasound program added the other 50% of funds for a grand total of $36,000 for the final purchase of the GE ultrasound machine. Collaboration among the Pregnancy Center, the Diocese of Jackson, then local, state, and supreme Knights of Columbus council was been inspiring. This was truly a blessed project.
TUPELO – Staff at Parkgate Pregnancy Clinic, various Knights of Columbus and St. James parishioners gather for a photo after dedicating new ultrasound machine on May 23. (Photo courtesy of Jacob Eftink)
The local ultrasound program officially concluded with a dedication ceremony on May 23, 2023 at Parkgate Pregnancy Center. Parkgate staff, board members, parishioners from St. James Catholic Church, and Knights of Columbus members were in attendance to enjoy the celebration.
One of the highlights was when the sonographer, Stacy Armstrong, demonstrated the new machine and the images of unborn babies it produces. She commented the new machine’s quality is a marked improvement over the old one. We agreed the ultrasound room is sacred space where decisions for life are made every day as a direct result of mothers seeing the images of their unborn children.
(Jackob Eftink served as chairman for the ultrasound program for the Father Reitmeier Knight of Columbus Council #8848 in Tupelo)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis has appointed more than 450 participants, including dozens of religious men and women and laypeople from around the world, to attend the first general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality in October.
And that list is not even complete, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, told reporters at a Vatican news conference July 7. More names are going to be added to the list of nonvoting members, such as experts and representatives of non-Catholic Christian communities, he said.
For now, the list of voting members is complete, numbering 363 cardinals, bishops, priests, religious and lay men and women — a first in the history of the synod. Pope Francis made significant changes to who can be a voting member of the synod on synodality and he gave women the right to vote in the synod.
Out of the 364 members who can vote, which includes the pope, 54 are women — either lay or religious; the number of cardinals appointed as members also is 54.
More than a quarter of all the voting members, that is 26.4%, are not bishops, according to the 21-page list of the appointments released July 7 by the Vatican.
Those the pope appointed to take part in the Oct. 4-29 synod include 169 cardinals or bishops representing national bishops’ conferences; 20 cardinals or bishops representing Eastern Catholic churches; five cardinals or bishops representing regional federations of bishops’ conferences; and 20 heads of Vatican dicasteries, which includes one layman, Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication.
This is the official logo for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Originally scheduled for 2022, the synod will take place in October 2023 to allow for broader consultation at the diocesan, national and regional levels. (CNS photo/courtesy Synod of Bishops)
The bishops appointed to attend from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are: Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas; Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota; and Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.
The pope also appointed five religious men and five religious women to represent the International Union of Superiors General and the Union of Superiors General.
There are an additional 50 papally appointed members, the majority of whom are cardinals and bishops, but they include 11 priests, religious and 1 layman and 1 laywoman. Those from the United States include: Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington; Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego; Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston; Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle; and Jesuit Father James Martin.
Another novelty is a large group of non-bishop voting members who represent the “continental assemblies” and are named “witnesses of the synodal process.” There are 10 members in each group divided by continent: Africa; North America; Latin America; Asia; Eastern Churches and the Middle East; Europe; and Oceania, for a total of 70 individuals who are all priests, religious or lay men and women.
The group for North America includes: Richard Coll, executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the USCCB in Washington; Cynthia Bailey Manns, the adult learning director at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community in Minnesota; Catherine Clifford, a theology professor and expert on the Second Vatican Council; Canadian Sister Chantal Desmarais, a Sister of Charity of St. Mary; Father Iván Montelongo of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas; and Sister Leticia Salazar, chancellor of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California.
Among the 16 who are part of the synod’s ordinary council include: U.S. Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey; Canadian Cardinal Gérald C. Lacroix of Québec; and Australian Archbishop Anthony C. Fisher of Sydney.
Nine members will serve as delegate presidents of the assembly and they include: Bishop Flores of Brownsville; Coptic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak; one priest, Italian Father Giuseppe Bonfrate; one nun, Mexican Sister of St. Joseph María de los Dolores Palencia; and one consecrated laywoman, Momoko Nishimura of Japan. Pope Francis will serve as president and Cardinal Mario Grech as the synod’s secretary-general.
The list of nonvoting members is not complete, Cardinal Grech said.
That list released July 7 included two spiritual assistants: British Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe and Italian Benedictine Mother Maria Ignazia Angelini. All synod participants will be expected to attend a three-day retreat before the synod begins in early October.
All of the 57 nonvoting “experts and facilitators” listed as of July 7 are priests and religious and lay men and women. They include: U.S. Sister Maria Cimperman, who is a member of the Society of the Sacred Heart; Jesuit Father David McCallum; and Australian theologian Tracey Rowland.
The theme of the synod is: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission,” and synod members will be called upon to continue to carry forward a “process of spiritual discernment” that was begun in 2021 and continue with a second synod assembly in 2024.
(OSV News) — Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial in Massachusetts on charges that he sexually abused a teenage boy nearly 50 years ago, according to the prosecution’s expert brought in to examine the now 92-year-old.
On Thursday, Norfolk County Assistant District Attorney Lisa Beatty submitted the state’s report to Dedham District Court Judge Michael Pomarole, which stated that the Commonwealth’s medical examiner found MCarrick not currently competent to participate in the criminal trial. A defense expert made the same assessment in February. This could result in the dismissal of the charges in this case, in which McCarrick faces three counts of indecent assault and battery of a person over the age of 14.
The prosecution’s report itself is not being made public, and Pomarole has yet to make the final decision on McCarrick’s status. It is unlikely there are medical treatments that can restore McCarrick to competency, given the claims he has dementia.
Former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick wears a mask during arraignment at Dedham District Court in Dedham, Mass., Sept. 3, 2021, after being charged with molesting a 16-year-old boy during a 1974 wedding reception. A medical expert consulted by Massachusetts prosecutors says McCarrick is not competent to stand trial. (OSV News photo/David L Ryan, Pool via Reuters)
Pomarole will consider both the prosecution and defense reports at an upcoming Aug. 30 hearing.
If convicted, McCarrick could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison on each individual count. McCarrick pleaded not guilty in September 2021.
McCarrick was recently charged with sexual assault in Wisconsin over an alleged incident that took place in 1977. It’s not clear if the eventual Massachusetts decision on his ability to stand trial will impact the Wisconsin case.
Even if he is determined to be unable to go to trial on the criminal charges, that does not end the legal jeopardy for a man once considered to be the one of the most powerful clerics in the American Church.
Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents the Massachusetts victim, still plans to pursue civil lawsuits filed in other states against McCarrick. The alleged victim is reportedly disappointed with the prosecution’s report.
Garabedian said he does not believe McCarrick being found incompetent will prevent the civil cases from proceeding. “By proceeding with the civil lawsuits my client is empowering himself, other clergy sexual abuse victims, and making the world a safer place for children,” he said.
McCarrick’s lawyers, Barry Couburn and Daniel Marx, first raised the competency issue in February when they filed a motion to have the charges dismissed based on a report from a medical expert they hired. The defense attorneys claimed McCarrick was incompetent to stand trial due to advancing and irreversible dementia.
“While he has a limited understanding of the criminal proceedings against him, his progressive and irreparable cognitive deficits render him unable to meaningfully consult with his counsel or to effectively assist in his own defense,” Coburn and Marx wrote.
The defense report, prepared by Dr. David Schretlen, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is also under seal.
Prosecutors responded to the Schretlen report by hiring their own medical expert. That expert flew to Missouri to examine McCarrick, and also reviewed his medical records, before coming to the conclusion he cannot go to trial.
The Massachusetts case started in 2021, when McCarrick was charged for the alleged assaults. According to court records, McCarrick was close to the victim’s family, celebrating Masses for them and even going on family trips. The victim told investigators that McCarrick abused him during trips out of state. It was also under the guise of providing spiritual direction to the victim that the abuse took place, according to the criminal complaint.
One incident allegedly took place in the 1970s at the wedding reception for the victim’s brother, which was held on the Wellesley College campus. McCarrick allegedly got the victim, 16 at this time, to go outside with him to talk about the victim not attending Mass. During this encounter, McCarrick fondled the victim, according to the criminal complaint.
Allegedly, the pair went back to the reception, where McCarrick told the victim he had to go to confession, using a closet for privacy. Then, using the sacrament as cover, McCarrick continued to abuse the boy, according to the complaint. McCarrick gave the boy three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary as penance, according to the complaint.
McCarrick, known for his charm and his fundraising prowess, has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of child and adult victims over decades, a scandal that finally became public in 2018. After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now dicastery) found McCarrick guilty of abuse in 2019, he was laicized by Pope Francis.
(Damien Fisher writes for OSV News from New Hampshire.)
NEW YORK (OSV News) – A pilgrimage to Lourdes provides the framework for the tender drama “The Miracle Club” (Sony Classics). By turns humorous and touching, director Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s delicate film will appeal to grown-ups and perhaps mature teens. But it’s neither aimed at nor suitable for kids.
In a hardscrabble neighborhood of 1967 Dublin, best friends Lily (Maggie Smith) and Eileen (Kathy Bates) excitedly prepare to journey to the sacred destination in the company of a third pal, Dolly (Agnes O’Casey). Dolly is hoping that the trip will cure the mysterious muteness of her young son, Daniel (Eric D. Smith), while Eileen is secretly worried about a lump on her breast.
The dynamics of their expedition are suddenly transformed, however, by the unexpected — and initially unwelcome — return of Chrissie (Laura Linney), a former member of the main duo’s social circle who’s been absent in America for 40 years. Chrissie’s reappearance has been prompted by the death of her estranged mother, with whom both Lily and Eileen were close.
Laura Linney and Mark O’Halloran star in a scene from the movie “The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. (OSV News photo/Jonathan Hession, Sony Classics)
The reasons for Chrissie’s exile are not immediately made clear, though a connection to the long-ago drowning death of Lily’s son, Declan, is apparent. Despite the fact that Lily and Eileen continue to shun her, Chrissie decides to join the tour to France which is to be presided over by Father Dermot (Stephen Rea), the wise and sympathetic, if not very forceful, local cleric.
What follows is a sensitive exploration of tragedy and spiritual healing as long-festering emotional wounds are laid bare and the possibilities of reconciliation and renewed relationships examined. Although the confessions of wrongdoing required to restore harmony and peace of mind are interpersonal, rather than sacramental, they are positive examples of moral honesty.
Questions are briefly raised in the dialogue about the authenticity of the apparitions to St. Bernadette Soubirous and the miracles attributed to Our Lady of Lourdes, and such skepticism may grate on believers’ nerves. They may also wince at the repetition of an all-too-common Irish expletive that at least approximates misuse of the Lord’s name.
As for viewers focused on the effectiveness of the tale, as penned by Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Joshua D. Maurer, they may feel it takes too easy a shortcut to forgiveness. Yet, in the age of the three-hour comic book adaptation, there’s something to be said for a modest, character-driven movie that comes full circle in a mere 90 minutes.
The film contains mature themes, including abortion, one direct and several oblique profanities, a rough term and occasional crude and crass language. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
(John Mulderig is media reviewer for OSV News. Follow him on Twitter @JohnMulderig1.)
