The turning of the calendar to February means Lent is just around the corner. This also means it is the time of year when I will again ask you to make a gift to the Annual Appeal in support of the many charitable works of our Archdiocese.

Recently I have received a number of questions about our parish pastoral council. Let me pose some of those questions now and supply some answers based on the Archdiocese of Washington Parish Pastoral Council Policy and Implementation Guide issued in 2013.

On Friday, January 21, 2022, a seventeen year old student shot a fifteen year old student at Colonel Zadok Magruder High School. This has been a very traumatic event for the Magruder community of which includes many families from this parish. I was reading through guidelines produced by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and thought that I would share a few of their tips of things that we can do for ourselves and things that we can do for our children after experiencing a school shooting.

Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, Director of the Vatican Observatory, is someone whom I have followed now for a number of years. Smart and witty, he has written a number of articles and given a number of addresses that I have consistently found helpful. Recently I saw that Carol Glatz wrote in Catholic News Service about an article he had published in the Italian Jesuit Journal La Civiltà Cattolica. In that article Brother Guy stating that those who were stubbornly skeptical of science and those who eagerly embrace science as infallible both have a dangerous misunderstanding of the nature of science. This is the temptation to turn science or faith into a fortress against the basic and human fear of uncertainty.

Last October Cardinal Gregory celebrated a Mass at St. Matthew’s Cathedral to mark the opening of the Archdiocesan Synod that will be held over the next several months as part of the preparation for a Synod of Bishops that will be held in Rome in October 2023. You may be wondering: Why are we doing this? The answer is that Pope Francis wants to hear from the local Church about what is happening in local parishes. He and the bishops want to know what individuals think we should be doing to help make our parishes better. The Holy Father is proposing that we do this through a synodal process. Synod comes from a Greek word that means being on the road together or perhaps better, being on a journey together. This journey involves listening to the Holy Spirit and to each other in order to discern the path we are called to walk together.

January is Poverty Awareness Month. Pope St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical On Social Concern (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis), no. 38 a useful description of Solidarity. There he said that “[Solidarity] is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself of the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”

The 55th World Peace Day was celebrated yesterday. Pope Saint Paul VI instituted the World Peace Day, which is celebrated on January 1, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. It has become the custom of the Holy Father to provide a message for this occasion that is sent to foreign ministers around the world. In the message for this year Pope Francis states that he wants to promote a dialogue between generations, education, and work because there are tools for building lasting peace. Pope Francis would like to see a new alliance between the young and the elderly to address the problems of isolation and self-absorption heightened by the corona virus pandemic. Pope Francis notes that the wisdom and experience of the elderly is needed by young people. At the same time the young can provide support, affection, creativity, and their dynamism to our senior citizens. He would also like to see a “hearty politics” become the driving force of a new dialog between generations.

The Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours for today quotes from an address that Pope Saint Paul VI gave when he visited Nazareth on January 5, 1964. The Holy Father said on that occasion that Nazareth was a kind of school where we could discover what the life of Christ was like and even to understand his Gospel. At Nazareth we can observe and ponder the simple appeal of the way the Son of God came to be known, profound yet full of hidden meaning.

My mother had a beautiful rose garden in the backyard of our house when I was growing up. When I got to be old enough she would ask me to help her pull the weeds in the rose garden so that the roses would thrive. I didn’t particularly enjoy weeding but I saw that we had to be persistent with it. Otherwise the weeds would overrun the rose garden. I think that this is a good analogy for what we need to do with Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS): keep weeding it out of our lives. It looks like PAS is going to be an issue in the coming session of the Maryland General Assembly. Activists from outside the State will be back again trying to persuade our legislators to pass a Physician-Assisted Suicide bill. On February 28, 2020, I went to Annapolis to testify against the “End of Life Options Act” (Senate Bill 701/House of Delegates Bill 643). Since this issue is likely to be taken up again by the Maryland General Assembly, let me go over some of the reasons why I think physician-assisted suicide is a really bad idea. I am relying on some points provided by the Maryland Catholic Conference to make this point. Here are some things we should consider:

We have experienced many cancelled events and disappointments during this time of pandemic. For the second year in a row Saint Nicholas has had to cancel his customary visit to our parish. He would have been expected to come last Sunday, December 5, the Second Sunday of Advent because it is the day before his actual feast day. Perhaps because Saint Nicholas (known by some by the nickname Santa Claus) had to cancel his travel plans last year and this year as a precaution owing to restrictions in international travel, some of the children of the parish might be asking the question that Virginia O’Hanlon asked the editor of a New York newspaper many years ago. In anticipation of Christmas, which we will celebrate in less than two weeks from now, I want to print what is probably the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language. In 1897, the New York Sun received a letter to the Editor from Virginia O’Hanlon, who was eight years old and a resident of New York City. Her letter was only a four sentences long:

Last Friday, December 3, we celebrated the International Day of Persons with Developmental Differences. Pope Francis had an important message for those with developmental differences. I want to present today two points that he made in that address and also provide his commentary on those points. My source for this is the Vatican website.

Among the activities of the recently concluded meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was the agreement on November 17, 2021 that the sainthood causes for three laypeople from the United States should be advanced by their perspective dioceses. Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel of Lafayette, Louisiana presented the causes of Auguste Robert “Nonco” Pelafigue and Charlene Richard. Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu presented the third cause, that of Joseph Dutton. In 2007 the Vatican issued a document Sanctorum Mater (Mother of Saints) requiring a diocesan bishop promoting a sainthood cause to consult with the body of bishops on the advisability of pursuing the case. That is why Bishop Deshotel and Bishop Silva made these presentations at the recent USCCB meeting. The bishops affirmed advancement of all three causes via voice vote with no audible dissent. All three sainthood candidates have the title “Servant of God,” given to them when their causes officially opened. I want to devote the rest of this Flocknote to Brother Joseph Dutton, as he has been informally called.

November is National Black Catholic History Month. As part of our observance of this important annual event I want to continue our survey of American Leaders of African Descent on the road to sainthood. This week we will look at three saintly individuals: Venerable Augustus Tolton, Servant of God Julia Greeley, and Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA.

November is National Black Catholic History Month. One way that I thought we could observe that was to look at the six African American people whose cause for canonization is advancing. We’ll look at three individuals on the road to sainthood this week. We’ll look at the other three next week. I am going to base my remarks on the reflections of each of the six that have been provided by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Before I present the first three candidates for possible canonization, let me give a quick explanation of terms. Servant of God is the title of a person who died “in the odor of sanctity” and into whose life and virtues the Church has instituted an inquiry for the purpose of having the person declared Blessed, which will bring with it the right to receive liturgical celebrations. Venerable is the title of a Servant of God whose cause or beatification has been introduced and whose heroic virtue or martyrdom has been officially established. However, those who have been declared Venerable cannot yet receive public liturgical veneration. We will look now at the six candidates in chronological order: three this week and three next week.

Today marks the beginning of National Vocation Awareness Week, which will continue until Saturday, November 13, 2021. National Vocation Awareness Week (NVAW) is an annual week-long celebration of the Catholic Church in the United States dedicated to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life through prayer and education. During this week we renew our prayers and support for those considering one of the vocations. NVAW began in 1976 when the U.S. bishops designated the 28th Sunday of the year as a week to promote vocation awareness. In 1997 the bishops moved the celebration to coincide with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, but in 2014 they moved it once again to the first full week of November.

During the month of October we have been celebrating Respect Life Month. I want to talk today about a specific issue assaulting the right to life: Physician-Assisted Suicide. The next Maryland legislative session will open in January. Powerful out-of-state activists will try to bring physician-assisted suicide to Maryland. It is important for us to realize why this matters for us and our families. To answer that I am going to reproduce here and slightly adapt some points made in a Parish Resource Kit prepared by the Maryland Catholic Conference.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In support of this annual observance I am presenting in this column some material developed under the guidance of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. Catholic Charities Domestic Violence Priest Advisory Committee, of which I am a member. One message that our committee wants to communicate is this: You Don’t Deserve to be Abused!

Last weekend Pope Francis invoked the Holy Spirit on us as the People of God so that we will able to move forward together, to listen to each other, and discern our times in solidarity with the struggles and aspirations of all humanity. The Holy Father celebrated a solemn Mass in St. Peter’s Square in Rome last Sunday, October 10. Dioceses around the world will begin the synodal journey today. The Archdiocese of Washington has developed a pastoral plan to implement the Synod Pope Francis is convoking. The Archdiocese has provided priests with some briefing materials. They will be my source for the rest of this column.

October is both Respect Life Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month. There is certainly an important connection between the two events. In observance of both events I am finishing the overview of Domestic Violence that is based on an important statement entitled When I Call for Help. This statement was issued several years ago by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. At the end of the column I am including the statement for Respect Life Month by Archbishop Joseph Naumann.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I am going to devote both this week’s and next week’s column to presenting an overview of Domestic Violence that is based on an important statement entitled When I Call for Help. This statement was published several years ago now from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.