Here at Catholic Social Services, we recently received a letter from a former client. At an unexpected crisis point in his life he found himself homeless and with nowhere to turn. He turned to the Brother Francis Shelter, but he came to us with low expectations and filled with fear of personal danger, as well as fear of being judged. His experience changed his view of shelters and of being homeless.
If you were a religious sister in the 1960s, garbed in a long black serge habit, tucked away in a Catholic community which revered you, you were treated with deference. But when Sister Hogan marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, the crowds of screaming protestors on the street near the Edmund Pettus Bridge told a different story. And the folks at the airport as she headed home to Detroit glared at her with eyes livid with contempt.
I happen to be writing this column shortly after gunmen stormed the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris and opened fire, killing 12 people in what French authorities are calling the worst attack in four decades. In my unbelief, I could only say September 11 all over again: another story of the struggle between faith and death, faith and violence.
As the Archdiocese of Anchorage recognizes Child Abuse Awareness Month in April, the Archdiocesan Office of Safe Environment invited a guest writer Marg Volz to show the connection between negative childhood experiences and consequences to emotional and physical health. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops encourages all dioceses to focus on this designation to learn how child abuse goes against the basic premise of Catholic teaching on the dignity human persons.
“I believe that children are our future.” Whitney Houston sang it, but I think we all believe it. There are stories in the 24-hour news cycle all the time about young people in our country and in our communities making a negative impact. My experience though, is different. Time and time again, young people in Anchorage have made a positive difference everyday. Here is one account of amazing Anchorage young people.
I’ve been thinking about community lately, because I realize how important it is to me and to all of us. We can’t get along without some kind of community of friends, and the quality of the community we form says a lot about how healthy we are as human beings and especially as Christians.
Out on the plains of North Dakota there once stood a church, a building of severe Gothic style that served my German-Catholic ancestors. It is gone now, demolished! Those who once worshipped there have gone elsewhere. I was deeply saddened when I learned of its passing, because it was on the very grounds of this modest sacred edifice that my faith took first root.
In Alaska, thousands of miles to west, a friend is up in his years and living out his last week on earth. He is sick and dying, and I’m using the pangs of hunger throughout the day as a reminder to send “positive intentions” his way — more commonly known as prayers. But I am reluctant to call them that, just then. I have been reading some “out there stuff.” I have also studied the faith of the Mormons and of Jehovah Witnesses, and been comparing the two with my philosophical anchoring in a Lutheran church. I am contemplating an exhaustive study of Buddhism next.
The goal in implementing the policies of safe environment is to promote the charity, love and strength of Jesus to and from everyone. I am specifically referring to one very sensitive issue. Parishioners and ministers alike ask me about the church’s policies when a parishioner or church minister or volunteer has been convicted of a serious crime, such as a sexual offense against a child or vulnerable person or child pornography. These offenses are clearly against charity and the dignity of the human person. They cause very deep, life long wounds.
In discussing the horrible Charlie Hebdo magazine massacre, the UK’s Daily Mail said the pope pointed at a friend, threw a pretend punch and said, “If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch.” My husband’s grandparents were all from Italy, and just recently I heard a fourth generation member of that family respond to the ultimate insult: “You disrespected my mother.” To an Italian, disrespect to a mother is free speech used despicably, so the pope’s point is taken. People who insult things that are sacred to you are likely to incite your ire.