Monthly Newspaper • DIOCESE OF BRIDGEPORT

Seventeen years ago, when the clergy sex abuse crisis began hitting the news, a prison chaplain at the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution approached Father Lawrence Carew about developing a healing retreat for victims of abuse, to help lead them out of the darkness from what seemed were wounds that could never be healed.

Father, who had a healing ministry in the prison system, undertook the project with Methodist minister Dr. Gail Paul. What they created was a six-session retreat titled, “Disregarding the Shame, Reaching Out for the Joy,” which has touched hundreds of victims of not only sex abuse, but also physical and emotional abuse, and is being used in Latin America and other parts of the United States.

The retreat is based on a simple creed that says: “Jesus Christ is not only able to heal the wounds and scars of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, but longs to, right here, right now.” In this moment. And whenever he gives the retreat, Father Carew has seen evidence Jesus is doing just that.

“The healing ministry of Jesus, which he exercised during his three years of ministry and also in the early church with the apostles and missionaries, was always meant to be a central part of the mission of the Church,” Father Carew said. “From time to time, healing prayer gets lost in Church tradition, but then it gets renewed and revived. We live in a period where it is getting renewed and revived.”

That means Jesus is today healing people of what some consider “ineradicable wounds.”

“Starting in 1996, the Lord brought me into some experiences of his healing presence, which left me with a whole new trust in his desire to bring deep and lasting healing in the lives of the sexually and emotionally abused in the here and now,” Father Carew said.

Father Carew, a native of Boston, grew up in Stamford and was ordained in 1966. He then went on to serve as parochial vicar at St. Peter Church in Danbury, St. Theresa’s in Trumbull, St. Joseph’s in Danbury and Christ the King in Trumbull, where he was pastor until his retirement in December 2016.

He has been active in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal since 1971 and was named spiritual adviser to the renewal in 1997. He has also served in several leadership positions in the national Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Father Carew says that through healing prayer we invite Christ to the places inside of us that are in pain, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is based on a trust that the Lord cares about those things and that there can be a solution through our relationship with him.

Father said that an estimated 90 percent of inmates were seriously abused in childhood and that the majority of cases he has encountered were not abused by clergy but teachers, Scout masters, people in authority and family members.

“When I meet with victims of abuse, I will talk with them about how healing prayer is a part of Christ’s help and I will pray with them, and they almost always have a sense that the Lord is there, blessing them, and that something good is happening inside of them.”

At the end of the session, he tells them that he has no power of himself but he is asking Christ to use his prayer and the touch of his hands on their head to be a conduit of his healing love. He also encourages them to spend five or ten minutes every day to talk to the Lord about their hurt and ask him to pour his healing power more deeply into them.

The retreat, which is on DVD, is based on six talks, followed by six healing prayer exercises, a period of music and opportunities for individual prayer.

“This retreat is part of the answer to the wounded Church,” he says. “Father Carew’s talks are inspiring for anyone. When people hear the talks, there is a sense that this is really medicine for a broken heart. The Lord works through him, and it is a healing balm for those who experienced abuse.”

(The “Disregarding the Shame, Reaching Out for the Joy” retreat will be held August 3 and August 10 from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm at the Oratory of the Little Way at 8 Oratory Lane in Gaylordsville, Conn. For more information, call 860. 354.8294.)

David D’Andrea believes God has blessed him with miracles in his life. He was cured of polio as a child. He overcame the trauma of clerical sex abuse. And he survived stage 3 cancer, which was diagnosed in 2014.

He credits his recovery to Our Lady of Lourdes through the efforts of his cousin, Monsignor Joseph Giandurco, pastor of St. Patrick’s in Yorktown Heights, NY, who celebrated a healing Mass for him and brought holy water from Lourdes to bless him when he began his treatment for cancer.

D’Andrea still has that bottle of holy water and continues to share it with others who are suffering or ill. And while he has never gone on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, he knows Our Lady was instrumental in his recovery.

For those who need a physical or spiritual healing but cannot travel to France, D’Andrea reached out to bring the Lourdes experience to the Diocese of Bridgeport. A “Lourdes Virtual Pilgrimage Experience” will be held Saturday, September 21 at 1 p.m. at St. Mary Church on 566 Elm Street in Stamford. Bishop Frank J. Caggiano will attend and offer a Eucharistic blessing.

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers will coordinate the program, which will feature a candlelight rosary, holy water from the shrine and rocks from the grotto at Massabielle, where the Blessed Virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old peasant girl, in 1858.

Every year, 6 million pilgrims travel to Lourdes, one of the most revered Marian shrines in the world, to pray to Our Lady. Many go in the hope they will receive a healing at the spring the Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Bernadette. In the 160 years since the apparitions, thousands of people have been healed in the waters, and 70 have been recognized as miraculous cures by the Church.

The volunteers of the Lourdes Hospitality association bring seriously ill and disabled people to the shrine and also share the message of Lourdes by conducting the Virtual Pilgrimage for those who cannot travel to France. Their mission is “To extend the invitation of the Immaculate Conception as given to Bernadette in the Grotto at Lourdes, to serve the sick and suffering at Lourdes and at home, following the loving example of St. Bernadette in simplicity, humility and obedience.” More than 3,000 members of the North American Volunteers have served at Lourdes.

The Virtual Pilgrimage experience, which lasts about two hours, is held at parishes, schools, prisons, nursing homes, universities and convents. Since it began in 2004, more than 165,000 people have taken part in 44 states and 19 countries. The Virtual Pilgrimage began in Kansas, when three pilgrims brought it to Holy Spirit Church in Overland Park. Those who participate will receive a plenary indulgence granted by papal decree of Benedict XVI.

The event will recreate a pilgrimage to Lourdes. “This experience draws pilgrims nearer to God in the company of Our Lady as they are guided through a prayerful visit to the Grotto, the experience of water, prayer in a rosary procession and a Eucharistic blessing,” organizers say.

A lifelong Greenwich resident and parishioner at St. Roch Church, D’Andrea approached Bishop Caggiano with the idea of bringing the Virtual Pilgrimage to Stamford and received his support. Father Gustavo Falla, pastor of St. Mary’s, agreed to host the event at his church, which can seat up to 900.

“We are reaching out to people who need God’s help and a blessing from Mother Mary,” D’Andrea said. “This will be a significant event for our diocese. I have seen miracles in my life, and I’m trying to pay back for what I have received. There is going to be a miracle on that day, I am sure.”

There is no fee although a free-will offering is requested. For more information about the volunteers, visit www.LourdesVolunteers.org. To learn about the Stamford event, call David D’Andrea at (203) 918-9089.

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By Joe Pisani

Washington D.C., Jul 25, 2019 / 03:15 am (CNA).- Churches, shrines, and monasteries in the Middle East are not only pilgrimage destinations, but also places of sanctuary, identity, and hope for local Christians who are suffering existential threats, local religious leaders said.

“Christ dwelt among us in Bethlehem, in Egypt, in Galilee, and, of course, in Jerusalem. And by His Holy Spirit, he has continued to be present down the ages in Jerusalem, the Middle East, and to the very ends of the earth,” Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem said. “Our holy sites tell the stories of God’s history with us.”

“Few can deny that this region, the place of divine-human encounter in sacred history, is in fact the center of the earth,” the patriarch stated of the Holy Land at a side event of a global religious freedom gathering in Washington, D.C. last week.

Patriarch Theophilus III addressed an audience of priests and civic and religious leaders at an event on “Christian Holy Sites and Holy Places in the Middle East” on the side of the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, hosted by the U.S. State Department from July 15-19 in Washington, D.C.

The Ministerial was attended by religious and civic leaders from around the world, including delegations from 106 countries, meeting to discuss religious persecution and strategies to advance religious freedom.

Thursday’s event on the “Holy Sites” was sponsored by the International Community of the Holy Sepulchre and the Hudson Institute’s Working Group on Christians and Religious Pluralism in the Middle East.

Speakers focused not only on the spiritual significance of pilgrimage sites throughout the Middle East, but on their central importance to the Christians who live there.

Patriarch Theophilus is the 141st patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, the most senior Christian leader in the Holy Land. At last week’s event, he warned that “attacks from radicals on Church properties in Jerusalem continue,” and that the groups “know only too well that every attack against a holy site poses another threat to our Christian identity.”

The holy sites are threatened on multiple fronts, he said, including vandalism, “intimidation from radical settlers,” and hostile policies in Israel’s Knesset legislature.

These policies would allow the municipal taxation of church-owned property in Jerusalem like hospitals and schools, which could “bankrupt” the churches, the patriarch said; another bill would have allowed the state to confiscate land sold by churches to private groups supposedly for the defense of the tenants.

These policies were at the heart of the decision by Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian leaders to temporarily close the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in February of 2018.

“Enough was enough, and it was time to draw the line,” the Patriarch said of the closure. “Forces beyond our control threatened the sanctity and integrity of our holy sites.”

“To keep just one pilgrim” out of the church “is a tragedy,” he said, but he added that the solidarity of millions around the world with the churches was heartening.

The church was reopened after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intervened in the efforts to impose the tax policy, and the city backed off on the proposals. When the “solution was found,” the patriarch said, “the light of the Resurrection shone bright.”

The Patriarch stated his gratitude to Netanyahu and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin for their efforts to protect the Holy Sites, as well as “the continued and faithful custodianship over the holy sites” of King Abdullah II of Jordan, and legislators in the U.S. and the UK for their support.

He drew attention to the July 11 prayer vigil attended by other patriarchs and heads of churches at Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate, in the wake of the Israeli supreme court ruling against the Greek Orthodox Church in a controversial land deal that dates back to 2005.

The deal involved the sale by the Church, later disputed, of hotels just inside the Christian Quarter of the city to Israeli settlers, a transfer of property that the patriarch said could affect the “integrity” of the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem, and possibly impede access of pilgrims to the holy sites.

A joint statement of the patriarchs and heads of local churches in Jerusalem called the deal “underhanded” and said it threatened the Status Quo agreement of the city.

Patriarch Theophilos said he has asked local officials to join in support of Netanyahu and his work “to keep the pilgrim route open to all, and to maintain the historic, multiethnic, multicultural and mutireligious fabric of our great city Jerusalem.”

Preservation of holy sites in the Holy Land as well as Syria, Iraq and Egypt was discussed at last week’s event.

Fr. Alexi Chehadeh of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, told of how holy sites “all over Syria” have been destroyed during the country’s ongoing civil war. Hundreds of churches and monasteries have been fully or partially destroyed, with billions of dollars needed to rehabilitate or reconstruct them.

The symbolic importance of the reconstruction of holy sites cannot be ignored, he and other Christian leaders insisted.

Many holy sites of the Patriarchate are churches dating back to the second or third century, he said. To rebuild them is “caring for the roots of Christianity,” Fr. Chehadeh said, but it would also be “a sign of a peaceful environment” for Christians to return to Syria. Around half of Syria’s Christian communities left Syria during the civil war.

Cardinal Louis Raphael I Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, gave orders to start the rebuilding process in Iraq’s Nineveh region by focusing on the homes of the Christian genocide survivors, Fr. Salar Kajo, a priest in Teleskov, Iraq, said.

Yet “the people insisted to start with the holy places, the churches and the monasteries,” Fr. Salar said. “This is the only sign of hope that we have, and we will return because of these places.”

In Egypt, after the 2011 overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood: “came after the churches,” Nermien Riad, founder of the group Coptic Orphans, said.

Why did they target the churches? “We recognize that there’s a gradual shrinking of public space for Christians in Egypt,” Riad said, as extremists want to remove public icons and statues; the exclusion of Christians from public spaces has reportedly even reached sports, as Christians have reported discrimination in joining soccer clubs and in making the national soccer team.

Thus, “churches have become the nucleus of the Christian community,” she said, and “serve as a vital support center” for Christians and a “place of refuge” for them “from the insidious messaging” of them as “second-class citizens.”

“Most importantly,” she said, “it is the last remaining vestige that we exist.”

By Matt Hadro | CNA

WASHINGTON—The July 25 announcement by the Justice Department that it is reinstating the federal death penalty for the first time in 16 years was unwelcome news for Catholic leaders who have advocated against capital punishment.

“The United States’ death penalty system is tragically flawed. Resuming federal executions—especially by an administration that identifies itself as ‘pro-life’—is wrongheaded and unconscionable,” said Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that champions restorative justice and an end to the death penalty.

The execution of five inmates on federal death row will take place from December 2019 through next January.

Attorney General William Barr said in a statement: “The Justice Department upholds the rule of law — and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”

The last time there was a federal execution was in 2003.

In 2014, President Barack Obama directed the Bureau of Prisons to conduct a review of federal capital punishment cases and issues surrounding the use of lethal injection drugs. According to the July 25 announcement, that review is complete and the executions can proceed.

Currently, there are 62 inmates—61 men and 1 woman—on federal death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Most of the federal death-row prisoners are at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Inmates in the group include convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Charleston, South Carolina, church shooter Dylann Roof.

In a July 25 statement released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said that Pope Francis in 2015 called for “the global abolition of the death penalty,” which he said the U.S. bishops also have supported for many years.

“In light of these long held and strongly maintained positions, I am deeply concerned by the announcement by the United States Justice Department that it will once again turn, after many years, to the death penalty as a form of punishment, and urge instead that these federal officials be moved by God’s love, which is stronger than death, and abandon the announced plans for executions.”

Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph of Medaille, who is a longtime opponent of capital punishment, tweeted a brief reaction to the July 25 announcement saying that as she was about to “board a plane to Alaska to join the celebrations of 62 years without the death penalty in that state” when she learned “the federal government plans to restart executions later this year after a 16-year hiatus.”

“The DOJ regresses as the rest of our country evolves,” she added.

Other church leaders also reacted on Twitter to the announcement.

In a July 25 tweet, Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich called Barr’s announcement “gravely injurious to the common good, as it effaces the God-given dignity of all human beings, even those who have committed terrible crimes.”

He also pointed out that last year that Pope Francis ordered a revision to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to say that capital punishment is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

The Sisters of Mercy called the Justice Department’s decision “tremendously disappointing” and said in a July 25 tweet that they would continue to uphold Catholic social teaching regarding the dignity of human life with education and advocacy efforts to “continue to work for the death penalty’s abolition.”

In a statement released the afternoon of July 25, Sister Prejean described the Justice Department’s announcement as a “seemingly measured statement,” which “belies the fact that this is a rush to kill: They plan three executions in one week using a new, untested—and not yet approved—lethal injection protocol.”

She also said it is “disheartening that the administration has chosen to follow the death road, when the life road calls us to work for justice for all.”

Sister Prejean, echoing a message she has said before, added: “The death penalty is deeply flawed, with a terrible history of racism in its implementation and an equally terrible history of errors, resulting in many innocents on death row. We also know that it does not offer the healing balm to victims’ families that is promised.”

Federal death penalty cases are authorized by the Department of Justice in consultation with local U.S. Attorney Offices.

Vaillancourt Murphy said in her July 25 statement that in the 16 years since the federal government executed a death-row prisoner, the American public has changed its collective thinking on the death penalty. Last October, she said 49% of Americans said they believed the punishment is applied fairly and currently, 25 states have distanced themselves from the death penalty in some capacity, most recently, California, with its governor-imposed execution ban in March and New Hampshire’s repeal of capital punishment by legislative veto override in May.

Hannah Cox, national manager of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, offered a similar response saying the reinstatement of federal executions “goes against the trend we have seen in states across the nation, where executions and sentences are at historic lows.”

She also pointed out that a growing number of conservative state lawmakers “realize that capital punishment goes against their principles of valuing life, fiscal responsibility and limited government, and that the death penalty does nothing to make the public safer.”

Vaillancourt Murphy reiterated that the Catholic Church’s teaching is very clear on capital punishment, noting the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls it “inadmissible” in all cases “because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

She said the Justice Department’s announcement “flies in the face” of American values of equality and fairness “and for Catholics, above all, a belief in the sanctity of all human life.”

She said the decision also “promotes a culture of death where we so desperately need a culture of life.”

FAIRFIELD—Last year was the inaugural year for the Catholic Charities Rugby Cup. The event was the idea of Board Member Pete Maloney who was looking for a fun and unique way to raise money for the agency’s programs and gain awareness from a new population of supporters. Pete turned to Mike Pappa from Fairfield Yankees Rugby for assistance. Together they came up with the idea for a charity rugby tournament.

This year’s event was even more successful than last year. The Catholic Charity Rugby Cup took place on June 15 within Rafferty Stadium on the Fairfield University Campus. In addition to Fairfield University, the event was sponsored by the Friends of Fairfield Rugby Club, OKC Automation, O’Keefe Controls Co., Ryan Dental, Soccer & Rugby Imports, Grace O’Malley’s Fairfield and Sacred Heart University.

The end result of a long Round Robin Tournament produced the following victors: Fairfield U12, Westport PAL U14, Staple High School, New Haven won the Women’s Division, and Fairfield Yankees won the Men’s Division.

Director of Development Bob Donahue hopes this event will continue next year stating “The proceeds raised from this year’s event will benefit both the Thomas Merton Center in Bridgeport and our Behavioral Health services.” The event raised $4,500.

(If you are interested in learning more about becoming involved in next year’s Rugby Cup, please contact Bob Donahue at rdonahue@ccfc-ct.org.)

BRIDGEPORT—Reducing hunger and providing nutrition to those in need is central to Catholic Charities’ mission. As the largest social service agency in the diocese, their soup kitchens serve those most in need, as Fairfield County ranks first nationally in income inequality when compared to the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas and where the cost of living is high.

Two of the agency’s largest initiatives are The Thomas Merton Center in Bridgeport and New Covenant Center in Stamford. The soup kitchen at the Thomas Merton Center offers breakfast, lunch and a day shelter to about 300 people Monday through Saturday. Its Eat Smart Marketplace Food Pantry serves over 600 families from inner-city Bridgeport monthly. New Covenant Center operates the only soup kitchen in Stamford, open every day of the year and the city’s largest food pantry. The soup kitchen serves breakfast, lunch and dinner to approximately 350 daily. The food pantry serves over 525 households monthly. Last year, New Covenant Center served 3,600 unduplicated individuals and over 600,000 meals. There is an urgent need for these programs.

Recently, both programs were beneficiaries of a grant through Bank of America to introduce a food education initiative at their sites—the Food Insecurity Education Program.  “As the relationships among diet, health and disease prevention have become clearer, nutrition education and the promotion of healthy eating behaviors and lifestyles continue to receive increased attention,” says Bill Colson, operations manager at the Thomas Merton Center. New Covenant Center Executive Director John Gutman states, “Many factors influence behavior and successful nutrition education uses a systematic approach and strategies that include a variety of activities to help make behavior changes. Effective nutrition education and promotion includes multiple components such as skill-building and integrated initiatives to build personal and community support. It helps consumers select and consume healthy and enjoyable foods by improving awareness and motivation.”

It is with this understanding that the Thomas Merton Center and New Covenant Center initiated the Food Insecurity Education Program (FIEP) to meet the nutritional awareness needs of their respective communities. This program focuses primarily on the school-age population and seeks guidance and development from local dieticians or nutritionists based out of local colleges such as Sacred Heart University, Fairfield U or the University of Bridgeport, with other options including professionals from the local public school systems, or local chefs or culinary teachers/students. The programs can also access additional partners to including secure food providers such as CT Food Bank, Food Rescue, Trader Joe’s, Reservoir Community Farm, Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County and Fairgate Farm. In addition to young families of both the Thomas Merton Center and New Covenant Center, the target audience is drawn from local parishes, schools and community youth groups, as well as students currently involved in volunteer opportunities at each site. Programming is based on monthly workshops or clinics designed to educate using both hands-on, and presentational, formats involving such topics as: learning the language of the kitchen, touring a food provider facility, preparing healthy and nutritious meals, and planning, planting and harvesting a working outdoor garden.

Each program worked separately at their individual sites during the grant cycle with their own cohort groups following the Food Insecurity Education Program. They prepared sustainable gardens, learned about healthy and nutritious meals, worked in the gardens and harvested vegetables. The groups ended the grant cycle preparing a healthy and nutritious dish from the vegetables the harvested and shared the meal during a celebration. Catholic Charities is looking forward to continuing its relationship with Bank of America and growing this program at both the Thomas Merton Center and New Covenant Center.

When Christine Paine was 8, she took lessons in baton twirling at Christ the Redeemer Parish. One afternoon she broke away from the group and snuck inside. It was her first time in a Catholic church, and when she saw the red altar lamp, she realized immediately that she was in the presence of God.

It had a profound influence on her and marked the beginning of a life journey that would lead to the Catholic faith.

“I still remember seeing the red candle, and I was amazed that God was right there with me, and I was in awe,” she recalled.

Christine, who has been development director at Caroline House in Bridgeport since 2011, said, “The Church has given me a real conscience. It is perfect for me. Everything used to be gray, but I know now there are absolutes and that natural law is written on my heart.”

Caroline House, begun in 1995 by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, is committed to immigrant women and children and helps them reach their full potential by educating them in the English language and life skills.

Christine was raised Episcopalian and attended St. Andrew Church in Milford, which had been her father’s parish as a young man. From an early age, she was attracted to spirituality and religion. Her parents, Frank and Claudia Matthews, sent her to Catholic schools, beginning with St. Gabriel’s elementary school, where the sisters instilled a love of God and Our Lady in her.

“I remember walking into the church for the first time and turning around and seeing a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I cried,” she said. “I fell in love with the nuns, and I fit in because all my friends were Catholic.”

She also remembers standing in line to receive Communion at Mass, when a sister stopped her because she wasn’t Catholic. The incident upset her although she later realized it was the right thing to do.

When her parents suggested that she attend Lauralton Hall high school, she didn’t resist because her friends were going there. The Sisters of Mercy had a decisive effect on her. Years later, she named her fourth daughter “Madeline” in honor of the late dean of students, who was a tough but kind woman that Christine grew to love — although her adolescent antics often led to conflicts between the two of them.

“I was brutal to poor Sr. Madeline, so I guess there was some guilt on my part,” she says. “But she was a beautiful woman who dedicated her life to Christ, and I loved her.”

The Sisters of Mercy had an enduring influence on Christine and represented another step in her journey to the Catholic faith.

“I would spend a lot of time praying in the chapel,” she recalls. “I had an inner longing for something more. I had a wonderful family and went to good schools, but there was a holiness that I just couldn’t find.”

Even though she was immersed in the Catholic faith at Lauralton, she was fighting the call for her to convert. “I loved the Church but there were so many reasons I thought it was wrong,” she recalls. “As an adolescent, I would sing from the rooftops, ‘If only the Catholic Church would get it together!’”

About this time, she met her future husband, Frank Paine, at a school mixer. He went to West Haven High School and was a Catholic. Years later, they would marry in the chapel at Lauralton.

After graduating in 1988, she entered the University of Rhode Island, where she majored in marketing; however, college life dampened her spiritual enthusiasm.

“By now, my faith was non-existent,” she said. “My goal was to get rich and that was it. I wanted to be rich and popular so I joined a sorority,” she recalls. “I still felt a spiritual yearning, but to satisfy it, I started studying comparative religions and developing my own philosophy for the perfect faith, which I would preach it to anyone who would listen. God was cutting me a lot of slack.”

After graduating from college, she had several jobs, first with a computer firm and then a telecom company. Even though her career was successful, she was suffering from a longing that she couldn’t satisfy. She realizes now the longing was for Christ.

During those years, Christine looked for fulfillment in self-help programs, physical training and her group of friends, but nothing could supply what she needed spiritually. “At 23, I just felt empty,” she says. “In order to find any kind of happiness, I knew I had to convert.”

She eventually started to attend Mass at Church of St. Mary in New Haven.

“I loved the pageantry, and I loved the Mass. The mystery was dazzling to me,” she said. “And it’s still dazzling to me to know that Jesus Christ is truly present on the altar.”

Before her conversion, she joined the pro-life movement, which she believes was a gift from the Holy Spirit, because her group of Catholic friends kept pushing her toward the Church and asking, “Are you going to commit or not?”

“I was dancing around making a decision; I was attending Mass but not receiving Communion,” she said.

Finally, she decided to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, and in 1993 she received First Communion and Confirmation. She and Frank started dating again, and were married at Lauralton Hall in 1996.

They wanted to have children but Christine couldn’t get pregnant, so they began an intense appeal to Our Lady, and in 2000, they were blessed with twins, Katherine, who is now a student at the University of Connecticut, and Frankie, who is studying at Bowdoin College. In the years that followed, they had more four more children — Abigail, Madeline, Michael and Caroline. All six have received Catholic educations, and the Paine family attends Mass together, prays together and volunteers together.

“Part of their life has been to help people who are poor and have special needs,” she said. “Every service hour they’ve done has been at Caroline House.”

Caroline House, which is located at 574 Stillman Street in Bridgeport, educates and empowers underserved women and children. It offers a literacy program for the women and provides on-site care for their children. There are also lessons in computer skills, counseling, networking services, tutoring for children and citizenship classes. One of the major goals is to “break down the barriers of social and physical isolation that have kept low-income immigrant women from building better lives.”

“What differentiates Caroline House from other ESL programs is the welcoming and homelike environment we provide for our students,” she says. “Most importantly, we help our students create their own social network that can help them with jobs, childcare and friendship. I have witnessed true sisterhood that transcends cultural boundaries.”

Christine is known for her enthusiasm about her Catholic faith. “It is the most wonderful religion there is,” she says. “There are rules and beautiful devotions. There are steps I can follow that will help me and my family get to heaven. And when I ask God for forgiveness, he shows me his mercy all the time.”

She also has a very personal relationship with the Blessed Mother, whom she has held near to her heart every since the time as a child when she first saw her statue at St. Gabriel’s.

“When I ask her to help me, she always does, and I believe she led me to where I am today.”

By Joe Pisani

After Christina Skelley graduated from Washington University, it seemed like her life had fallen into place. Years of searching led her to the Catholic Church … and the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. She became active in campus ministry and then landed her dream job, working for the Chicago Symphony.

She got an apartment with her best friend in Chicago and was dating a young man. She loved city life and at lunch would walk to a nearby church for daily Mass. Jesus had indeed blessed her. Everything seemed perfect … but then something changed.

“I felt a nagging sense that I was living my second-best life,” she recalled. “When I came across the passage from Scripture that said, ‘I remember how you loved me as a bride’ in Jeremiah, I got the sense that Christ wanted more, he wanted me to marry him in religious life.”

She immediately pushed back and thought, “How could I, an only child, do this to my parents, who weren’t even Catholic?”

Thus began months of searching along a path she started on as a little girl, a little girl who was looking for something more … and that something more was Jesus.

The search for God

Christina grew up outside of Chicago, the only child of two high school teachers, James and Susan, who loved her dearly and gave her a strong sense of the importance of education, although they rarely talked about religion. “As a teenager, I became skeptical of any faith that went beyond scientific proof,” she recalls. “And yet I occasionally attended church with my paternal grandparents, Burton and Barbara, who were faithful Protestant Christians. I felt a longing for something deeper that I couldn’t push away.”

They gave her a children’s Bible, which she read, and her grandmother taught her to play the piano, which became a form of prayer for Christina.

“As a child, I had an openness to the faith even though I didn’t know a lot,” she said. “I knew the Christmas story, but didn’t know about the cross or much of anything else.”

Although the thought of becoming Christian was in the back of her mind, as a teenager she resisted the idea of joining a religion that would tell her what to do or “would say who would and would not go to heaven.”

However, her lifelong best friend Eleanore was a Catholic, and when Christina visited her family, she was exposed to grace before meals and prayers including the Hail Mary. “Even though I didn’t think I wanted to be Catholic,” she recalls, “there was something about the way they lived that was a strong power of example.”

In high school, she had considered pursuing a career in science; however, when she enrolled in Washington University in St. Louis, she entered the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities and minored in French and music.

A rational and logical thinker, she spent her teen years searching for proof of God’s existence, until finally conceding, “The answers are bigger than I can understand. I wanted rational proofs but the meaning of the universe was not going to fit into my little brain.”

“After my first year at Washington University, my beloved grandmother died suddenly, and my quest to figure out my beliefs became more urgent,” she recalled. “I longed to be a self-sufficient adult, yet I was beginning to realize that I desperately needed God and other people.”

She tried to understand the Resurrection from a rationalist perspective but eventually realized there was no rational explanation for Jesus’ rising from the dead because it went beyond science. By the end of her sophomore year, she began to explore different religions and attended services in her pursuit of God. Her parents accepted her decision and told her, “If that’s what makes you happy.”

When she returned to college in the fall, she started to going to Mass, partly because her mother had been raised a non-practicing Catholic. Soon, she was given a deep sense of the reality of the Eucharist and says, “I realized how much I wanted to be a part of that, of receiving his Body in the Eucharist.”

The call of the Catholic Church

“After searching and praying for guidance, I awoke one morning with a clear sense that God was directing me to the Catholic Church,” she said. “I got up the nerve to go to the Catholic Student Center and was introduced to the sister who was the RCIA director.”

In 2006, she received the sacraments at Washington University and became part of the community at the center, and at the end of her senior year, she was accepted for a post-graduate year of service in campus ministry.

During this time, she began to have an inkling that she might be called to the religious life; however, she accepted what she thought was her dream job in arts administration with the Chicago Symphony.

“I had been in Chicago for a year when I started to get a sense that I was living my second-best life,” she said. “I had everything I could want at this point, so why was I having this sense of looking for something else, for something more?”

She was attending daily Mass, she was active in her parish, and she was praying regularly. The thoughts about religious life persisted, but she tried to push them out of her mind for almost a year.

“God was getting through to me, and I knew I would not be at peace on another path, so I said, “OK, God, I’ll look into it.”

She reached out to several religious, including Sister Virginia Herbers, ASCJ, who had worked with her in campus ministry at the Student Center, and Sister asked her, “Is this search more about what you do or who you are?”

“Who I am,” Christina responded immediately.

She also met Sister Colleen Smith, then vocation director of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and currently Director of Mission Advancement. They got together for lunch at a Chipotle in Chicago and discussed her discernment.

A Bride of Christ

Christina still had hesitations but agreed to visit Clelian Heights School for students with special needs in Greenberg, Penn. After a few days, she concluded, “I could see myself here. The Apostles were deeply prayerful and down-to-earth joyful people, and their prayer and relationships with Christ flowed out into the rest of their lives.”

“My heart had been searching so long, and then I felt at home. It was like God was telling me, ‘This is it,’” she recalled. “Like God was proposing to me.” She accepted the proposal.

Christina entered the formation program in August 2012 and made her first vows in 2015 in Hamden. She eventually got a master’s degree in teaching from St. Louis University and went on to teach fifth grade and music at St. Joseph School in Imperial, Missouri.

On July 26, Sister Christina Skelley, ASCJ, is renewing her vows at Mount Sacred Heart in Hamden. For her parents, it required a period of adjustment. “This was hard for them,” Sister Christina said. “They never saw me doing anything like this. It meant moving away from my family and not having a family the way they had imagined, but the community has been extremely warm and welcoming to them.”

Looking back on the road that led to her conversion and entering the Apostles, Sister Christina says, “God can find anybody. My favorite Gospel is the one about the Good Shepherd, who has to go after the lost sheep. That is what God did with me. He did a lot of work to find me, and I can only respond with gratitude … and my life. Now, when I pray for people and see the struggles in their lives, I’m reminded to never give up on what God can do for someone.”

The audacity of the thing was matched only by the unseemly speed of its arrival.

It took humanity thousands of years to go from Icarus and Daedalus and other myths of human flight around the world to the first breathless, fleeting steps into the world of powered, heavier-than-air flight: a pioneering ascent in 1903 lasting less than 15 seconds and rising no more than 10 feet off the ground.

But it took just under 65 years to go from Orville Wright’s historic flight to Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins strapping into the Apollo 11 command module Columbia atop the Saturn V launch vehicle and preparing for the three-day trip through space that would end with Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the airless surface of the moon.

Competition and geopolitical rivalry helped to fueled the race to the moon, but when those two American men left their footprints in the dust on the lunar surface, they did so on behalf of all mankind. It was a mythic achievement, and, after a mere 50 years, given the brevity of transit between the Earth and our nearest neighbor and the relative closeness to home of subsequent space travel, it has taken on a quality of legend.

Pope St. Paul VI, an avid space-travel enthusiast, spent many evenings watching NASA film footage of the missions that culminated in the Apollo program, obtained for his viewing pleasure by his friend Franco Zeffirelli via a contact at NASA.

“Honor, greetings and blessings to you, conquerors of the moon, pale lamp of our nights and our dreams!” Paul VI exclaimed in his July 21 message to the astronauts on the day after the lunar landing. “Bring to it, with your living presence, the voice of the spirit, the hymn to God, our Creator and our Father.”

The footage that so captivated Paul VI was a tiny fraction of the many thousands of hours of NASA film materials that documentary filmmakers have sorted through over the decades, producing more than a dozen nonfiction films on the Apollo program alone, beginning with the 1969 release Footprints on the Moon.

Of all these films, perhaps the most visually stunning use of that footage is the most recent, the 2019 documentary Apollo 11, directed by Todd Douglas Miller, still in theaters around the country and streaming from Amazon and other services.

A crucial part of what makes Apollo 11 so essential is the rediscovery of a cache of hundreds of neglected large-format film reels, only recently hauled out of the National Archives, containing never-before-seen high-definition images from the mission.

These include breathtaking views of the Saturn V rocket, the immense NASA crawler-transporter carrying the Saturn V rocket into place on giant caterpillar treads, and the throngs of spectators, from celebrities to parents with young children, assembled to witness the launch.

The recovery of these historic images is well served by the purity and sensitivity of Miller’s approach. Apollo 11 is in-the-moment documentary filmmaking, constructed almost entirely of archival footage, without voice-over commentary or talking-head interviews. Only a few explanatory line-drawing animations and onscreen titles offer context on what we’re seeing.

The film’s artistry lies in the curation and construction of visual and audio elements. Often Miller creates diptych, triptych or mosaic split-screen images, highlighting the multifaceted complexity of an endeavor involving hundreds of people working in concert, in which there is never just one thing worth looking at.

The rich sound design includes audio of Walter Cronkite’s live reporting, chatter from scores of Mission Control technicians, period music and a largely ambient synth-driven score created by Matt Morton with the conceit of using only period instruments and effects.

Among conventional talking-head documentaries, perhaps the most memorable is David Sington’s In the Shadow of the Moon (2007), which includes spectacular archival NASA imagery but is distinguished by the reminiscences and insights of 10 of the Apollo astronauts, including Aldrin, Collins and Jim Lovell. (Of then-surviving Apollo astronauts, only the famously reclusive Armstrong, who died five years later, is absent.)

Here, too, filmmaking restraint and discipline are key to the film’s success. The astronauts’ voices are the only ones we hear; there’s no narrator, no interviewer questions.

Awe, humility, humor, anxiety and exhilaration run together as the now-elderly men who traveled to the moon reflect on the cultural and political context of their great project, caught between Vietnam-era shame and guilt, Cold War urgency and Space Age optimism.

Notably, In the Shadow of the Moon reflects on the failures of the Apollo project as well as its successes, from the 1967 Apollo 1 launch-pad fire that killed three astronauts to the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission that could have killed three more.

Perhaps the absence of Armstrong allows In the Shadow of the Moon to give due attention to Collins, who rejects the characterization of his experience orbiting the moon alone as one of unparalleled loneliness (“Not since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins,” a NASA commentator remarked). Instead, Collins describes his experience as one of “exaltation.”

Other voices go further, evoking the spiritual overtones of journeying in the heavens. One speaks of an experience of unity with the cosmos; another, Charlie Duke, talks about finding God on Earth after returning from space (“My walk on the moon lasted three days; my walk with God lasts forever”).

Finally, splitting the difference between the two approaches, Al Reinert’s 1989 masterful For All Mankind keeps the focus visually on stunning images of the Apollo program missions, but allows the astronauts to speak in voice-over.

Commentary notwithstanding, Reinert’s film, like Apollo 11, is more of a sensory and visceral experience than a traditional documentary, weaving together footage from all six successful Apollo missions into a single cinematic journey, scored by Brian Eno. The astronaut voice-overs contribute to the mood and experience, but Reinert offers no onscreen text identifying the speakers.

“If we fail, it won’t be because of me,” a voice repeats — a mantra traced to an engineer talking to astronaut Ken Mattingly about the one element of the project within his scope of responsibility. The line speaks to the recurring theme of the overwhelming scope of an endeavor too complex for any one person even to fully understand, let alone take responsibility for.

We all know that in a vacuum the effect of gravity on a feather is the same as a hammer; it’s something else to see David Scott actually drop the feather and the hammer together and watch them land on the lunar surface at the same time. As an experiment, it was a foregone conclusion … but the experience goes beyond its experimental significance.

Which is, perhaps, the point of the whole of Project Apollo. Whatever scientific knowledge we brought back from the moon, whatever technological innovations we pioneered to get there, were perhaps secondary to the pursuit of a kind of transcendence. However brief our stay, that “pale lamp of our nights and our dreams” is now a human world, touched by “the voice of the spirit.”

I suppose few would have predicted when the Apollo program came to an end in 1972 that a half-century after men walked on the moon the human race would have stayed thereafter so close to home. Mars continues to beckon, and it seems NASA may finally be rising to the challenge.

It’s possible, of course, to cross-examine the whole enterprise of space travel. Robots and probes can tell us all we need to know about distant worlds without the difficulty, danger and expense of transporting fragile human beings there and back.

Meanwhile, terrestrial crises both perennial and modern — violence and war, environmental challenges, poverty and hunger — demand our attention.

A theme running through all the Apollo documentaries is the idea that this American endeavor in some way fostered a sense of global unity. The moon landing wasn’t just an American achievement, but a human achievement.

Could a renewed space program contribute in some way to greater human unity? If we do go to Mars, what will we find there? Perhaps more importantly, what will we bring to it?

Steven D. Greydanus is a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and the Register’s film critic.
From ncregister.com

WASHINGTON – A group of Catholics were arrested at the Russell Senate Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday during a peaceful protest organized as a “Catholic Day of Action.” The group, including priests, religious sisters, and lay people, sought to draw attention to the situation at the southern border of the United States and the detention of children in particular.

“We felt like it was time for something more significant, and needing to take more of a risk to raise the consciousness of Catholics across the country,” demonstrator Maggie Conley told CNA during the demonstration, held July 18.

Conley, who works with the justice team of the Sisters of Mercy explained that she would like to see immigration reform presented as a pro-life issue, and expressed hope that Catholic members of Congress and the Trump administration will offer a more public witness on Catholic teaching and immigration.

“It’s challenging when we don’t hear [a call for action] coming from the pulpit as often as we want, and as integrated as some of the rituals of our faith,” said Conley.

Religious orders present included the Sisters of Mercy, the Bon Secours Sisters, the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Jesuits, and Franciscan friars. There were also several men at the protest wearing clerical collars, who did not appear to be part of any order.

Members of the group who intended to provoke arrest wore yellow bracelets, and many wore signs with pictures of migrant children who had passed away in U.S. custody and the date of their deaths. Five people laid in the center of the Russell Senate Building rotunda, forming the shape of a cross.

Among those arrested included Sr. Pat Murphy, age 90, a member of the Sisters of Mercy. Sr. Pat has worked in immigration and migrant advocacy in the past, and has held a weekly prayer vigil outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Chicago for over a decade.

Catholic Nun led out of Russell Senate Office Building after she was arrested by Capitol Police for protesting the conditions at the U.S. southern border. #CatholicDayOfAction https://t.co/Mv5UAjV4d9

— Chris Marquette (@ChrisMarquette_) July 18, 2019

Sr. Judith Frikker, a member of the Sisters of Mercy, was not one of the people who got arrested, but was still present at the protest “to stand in solidarity with my sisters, and more importantly, with immigrants.” This was not Sr. Judith’s first time participating in demonstrations of this kind, and she told CNA that she believes that “immigrants, detainees, their families–especially children–are being treated in a way that violates their human rights.”

Sr. Judith told CNA that she believes the crisis at the southern border is not about immigration itself but about how immigrants are received into the country as they try to enter.

“The crisis isn’t the people coming in, the crisis is what is happening to the people when they try to enter,” she said. “They’re seeking to live with dignity. Many people are seeking asylum and their rights are being denied. We have to act against that.”

Frikker said that she advocates for policy options to address immigration, asylum processing, and detention at the border which do not require changes to infrastructure.

“Instead of building a wall, I would increase our judicial system [in a way] that would allow the processing of immigrants and their asylum cases so they could enter here,” she said.

Katie Murphy, a local resident and Catholic, said she was attending the event out of “concern for the children, and also for the character of our nation, the soul of our nation.”

“I feel that the way we treat the most vulnerable is who we are, is like our character. I am deeply saddened and distraught over what our nation is doing. We have a crisis on the border, and we need to address that crisis in a way that dignifies the values that we stand for.”

The demonstration occurred just days after the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference publicly denounced action by the Trump administration to tighten rules on asylum seeking at the southern border, and to enforce court-ordered removals against thousands of people who had exhausted their legal appeals to remain in the country.

On Tuesday, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo issued a statement condemning a newly-announced rule which requires that those seeking asylum along the U.S. southern border first apply for asylum in any country they may pass through along the way.

“The rule adds further barriers to asylum-seekers’ ability to access life-saving protection, shirks our moral duty, and will prevent the United States from taking its usual leading role in the international community as a provider of asylum protection,” DiNardo said.

The cardinal also spoke out against a recent series carried out by ICE in cities across the United States.

“Enforcement actions like those anticipated this week by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency separate families, cause the unacceptable suffering of thousands of children and their parents, and create widespread panic in our communities,” said DiNardo.

“I condemn such an approach, which has created a climate of fear in our parishes and communities across the country. I recently wrote the President asking him to reconsider this action.”

By Christine Rousselle/CNA

BRIDGEPORT—On Saturday, August 3, seventeen-year-old Trumbull resident Julia Nevins and members of the Trumbull Pisces will take turns swimming 15.5 miles from Port Jefferson, New York, across Long Island Sound, to Captain’s Cove Seaport in Bridgeport in the 32^nd Annual SWIM Across the Sound Marathon.

Marking her fourth consecutive year participating in the Marathon, Julia and her relay team “Pisces Pride” are eager to get back into the water. Julia will be swimming in honor of Matt Marshall, a family friend currently battling a cancer diagnosis. “I’ll be thinking of him throughout this swim, along with Edna Borchetta, a ‘swim mom’ who has become a family friend and is recovering from breast cancer,” Julia explained. “Each year I try to choose a different person to swim for.”

Along with “Pisces Pride,” the swim club is also being represented by a second relay team, Pisces Strong. Comprised of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen-year-olds, Julia describes the Pisces teams as committed. “Since there are more kids on our club team than there are spots available for the Marathon teams, we all have to write letters to our coach about why we want to swim. I think that speaks for itself about the kind of dedicated swimmers we have.” Julia went on to share more about her experience. “Most kids are new to the Marathon so, as someone who has gone through it, it has been fun to pass down advice and stories to make them even more excited!”

Julia, who has been swimming since she was ten years old, is motivated by her commitment to the cause and her love for the team. “I swim to help the families in a way that couldn’t be more direct,” she said. “I am so thankful that I can participate in the SWIM marathon because I know the affect it will have on the people who need it. It’s not even so much an opportunity to help others; it’s an honor. If swimming for eight hours means giving families who have been hit with cancer an easier time, I’m all in without thinking twice!”

She is also inspired by her mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when Julia was 12. “All is well and good with my mom now, but the silver lining is that I now understand the urgency of building support systems for those who have been diagnosed, and the SWIM does just that.”

The Trumbull Pisces swim club has participated in the Marathon for the last 7 years. “Everyone is in this with their whole heart, ready to brave the Sound and make a difference in people’s lives.”

There are several ways you can support Julia and the Trumbull Pisces. Donate online at https://give.stvincents.org/ and join the excitement live, on Saturday, August 3, 2019, at Captain’s Cove in Bridgeport as the swimmers cross the finish line.

About St. Vincent’s SWIM Across the Sound

St. Vincent’s SWIM Across the Sound is a charitable not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization run by the St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation of Bridgeport, Conn. Since 1987, the SWIM has had a unique niche helping individuals and families struggling through the difficult changes that cancer brings with it.  The SWIM serves approximately 30,000 people annually by providing over 45 programs, including cancer education, screening, prevention and support programs at low- or no-cost for the uninsured and underinsured. In addition, the SWIM helps individual cancer patients on a case-by-case basis with specific financial assistance, funding of wigs and prostheses, medication assistance, free transportation to treatments and appointments, day-care scholarships, support groups and more.

(For more information, contact the St. Vincent’s Medical Center Foundation at 203.576.5451 or visit www.SwimAcrossTheSound.org.)

NORWALK—St. Philip’s in Norwalk is proud to announce its annual Family Fall Festival to be held on Saturday, September 21 from 9 am-4 pm. The event will take place rain or shine and admission is free for all.