Catholic Hotdish

Msgr. Jerome Boxleitner, left, talks with Catholic Charities CEO Tim Marx at the Dorothy Day Center Community Breakfast May 2 in St. Paul. (Photo courtesy of Catholic Charities)

A small child walks by a church holding her dad’s hand.

“That was a nice bed we had last night,” she tells him. “Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

“I don’t know,” her dad says.

The conversation was overheard not long ago by Susan Vento, who works at Assumption Church in downtown St. Paul, just a stone’s throw from Catholic Charities’ Dorothy Day Center, where thousands of homeless people go each year for basic needs, like a place to sleep for the night.

It’s the kind of conversation that breaks your heart. No child — indeed, no one at all — should have to worry about whether they will sleep on the street because they have no bed and no home to sleep in.

Vento’s experience was one of the stories — some sad, some inspiring — told during a breakfast May 2 commemorating the center’s 31 years of service to the community’s poor and homeless. Mayor Chris Coleman was in attendance and read a proclamation declaring it Dorothy Day Center Day in the City of St. Paul.

The need for the center after three decades is as great as ever and, sadly, is even increasing.

Meeting the need

After Archbishop John Nienstedt offered an opening prayer, speakers like former St. Paul Mayor George Latimer talked about the center’s history, including how it began in the early 1980s, during another recession, thanks to the collaborative efforts of church, city and business leaders who refused to turn a blind eye to the growing numbers of people in need of assistance.

Doug Baker, CEO of Ecolab and the morning’s keynote speaker, noted the intentional decision the leaders made to put the Dorothy Day Center in the middle of town so the challenge of poverty wouldn’t be hidden away in a corner of the community — out of sight and out of mind.

It’s a decision that still carries an important message. “We can’t live in glass towers” and ignore what else goes on in the community, said Baker, whose Ecolab employees — many of whom work downtown — are among the center’s volunteers.

The dedication of the center’s staff and volunteers has been steady over the years, but much has changed as well, including the types of services offered.

On its first day three decades ago, the Dorothy Day Center served coffee and day-old rolls to 50 men. Today, it provides hot meals, mental health services and medical care to more than 6,000 clients annually. While chemical dependency and mental illness are associated with homelessness, clients coming to the center today often don’t fit the stereotypes associated homeless. They are once-properous individuals and families who have fallen on hard times because of the faltering economy and housing foreclosure crisis.

One of the people who helped lay the foundation for the center attended the breakfast — Msgr. Jerome Boxleitner, a former executive director of Catholic Charities. While reminiscing about the center’s history, he also reminded those in attendance that simple charity isn’t enough.

Feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless are extremely important, he said, but we must also work for justice, including public policies that can help put an end to the spiraling cycle of poverty once and for all — efforts that all too often seem “muted these days.”

Get involved

If you’re willing to speak up and take action to help end homelessness, Catholic Charities has a few ideas that it listed in handouts distributed at the end of breakfast. Among the suggestions:

• Stay informed: You can learn more about people who are experiencing homelessness by visiting the websites of Heading Home Minnesota and the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

• Keep the conversation alive: When you share a meal with people you respect, ask them about the homeless in the community. What are the community’s values regarding how the homeless are helped back to self-sufficiency wherever self-sufficiency is possible?

• Advocate: Help build support for programs that provide permanent solutions for homelessness by contacting Catholic Charities’ Office for Social Justice at osj@cctwincities.org or 612-204-8393.

• Don’t blink: Even if you don’t give money to a person who is begging, you can recognize their humanity by smiling and wishing them a good day. Remember, sometimes people sitting next to you at school or waiting on you at a restaurant are experiencing homelessness.

• Be a catalyst: Educate and encourage community groups, congregations and workplaces to address the issue.

• Volunteer: Connect with Catholic Charities at volunteer@cctwincities.org or 612-204-8435.

• Pray: Keep the needs of the poor and vulnerable in your thoughts and prayers.

Meghan Wenger (Photo courtesy of Convent of the Visitation School)

Thanks to places like the Pontifical North American College and the University of St. Thomas Catholic Studies program in Rome, seminarians and students with Minnesota connections are sometimes invited to participate in papal Masses.

Today, for example, Meghan Wenger, a 2009 grad of Convent of the Visitation School in Mendota Heights, will read at the Easter Vigil Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

Meghan, who is studying this semester with the UST program and whose home parish is St. Thomas More in St. Paul, is a junior at Boston College. The Mass will be televised today at 2 p.m. central time on EWTN.

“I feel honored and humbled to have been asked. I am looking forward to being able to participate in the Mass in a special way,” Meghan said in an email.

Two other students in the UST Rome program also have roles in Easter Triduum liturgies at the Vatican.

• Evan Beacom of St. Augustin parish in Des Moines, Iowa, participated in the Good Friday liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica.

• John LoCoco of St. Mary’s Visitation parish in Elm Grove, Wis., will read at the Easter Sunday Mass.

Judges Cheryl Peterson and Klondike Kate sample some of the fare. (Photos by Joe Towalski / The Catholic Spirit)

Where better to write about the results of The Catholic Spirit’s St. Joseph’s Day hotdish contest than at CatholicHotdish.com?

Contestants from the staff of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis competed March 19 in three categories: Hotdish, salads and desserts. Three winners were named in each category for best tasting entry, best appeal and best use of local fare.

Staffers enjoy the dishes after the judging.

The winners, by category, were:

Salads

Best taste: Grape salad, Joan Place, accounting services manager.

Best appeal: Pasta salad, Dale Hennen, Parish Services Team.

Best use of local fare: Minnesota Spring Salad, Cathy Cornell, Catholic Schools Office.

Hotdish

Best taste: Venison Tamale Pie, Lynette Forbes Cardey, Parish Services.

Best appeal: Italian Sausage Penne Paste, Mary Jo Jungwirth, administration and finance.

Best use of local fare: Wild Turkey Wild Rice Casserole, Dave Hrbacek, The Catholic Spirit

Desserts

Best taste: Chocolate Irish Creame Cake, Laurie Acker, Catholic Schools Office.

Best appeal: Fruit Torte, Rose Anne Hallgren, Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women.

Best use of local fare: Apple Crisp, Ana Ashby, Office for Social Justice.

Catholic Spirit staffers Caron Olhoft, left, and Mary Gibbs tally the scores.

A heaping plate of thanks goes to our judges: Peggy Sweeney Junkin, a member of St. Patrick in Inver Grove Heights better known as Klondike Kate of the 2012 St. Paul Winter Carnival; and Cheryl Peterson of the Catholic Charities Office for Social Justice.

Thanks also to Catholic Spirit staff members Mary Gibbs and Caron Olhoft who organized the day and tallied the scores.

Congratulations to all for the great food and great lunchtime conversation! Watch for a future post for the recipes.

Bishop John Quinn of Winona, principal celebrant at Mass at the Altar of the Tomb in St. Peter's Basilica, was joined at the altar by his brother bishops March 9. (Joe Towalski / The Catholic Spirit)

Thirteen bishops recently traveled to Rome to meet with the pope and deepen their bonds of communion with the universal church. As I followed them to churches from one end of the Eternal City to the other for stories and photos, I found my own bonds of communion with the church strengthened and my own faith getting a lift.

The bishops — from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota — were making their periodic “ad limina” visits, which always feature stops at the city’s major basilicas, including the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.

It was at St. Peter’s Basilica one morning, down in the crypt area by the Altar of the Tomb, that the specialness of where I was standing struck me. All the bishops were gathered around the altar with their backs to a glass partition, behind which — not very far away — was the tomb of St. Peter himself.

What could it have been? Maybe 20 yards separating us from the earthly remains of the “rock” on which Jesus built his church some 2,000 years ago?

I felt a very tangible connection to history inside that crypt. So did Bishop Lee Piché of St. Paul and Minneapolis who was making his first “ad limina” visit to Rome. He told me later that he got “goose bumps” praying at the “confessio,” an area above the apostle’s tomb where the bishops sang the Nicene Creed before coming down for Mass.

Foundations of faith

Our stop at St. Peter’s reminded me of visiting the Holy Land, where people talk about the “living stones” — the Christians who live in the place where Jesus walked and where the apostles laid the foundations of the church. Those “living stones” connect us to our spiritual heritage in a unique way.

Pilgrims from around the world come to Rome to visit churches, like St. Peter's Basilica, above. (Joe Towalski / The Catholic Spirit)

Rome has stones, too — stones that make up the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, the great evangelizer of the gentiles. Stones used to construct magnificent churches, some of which date back to the first centuries of Christianity. Stones that have seen two millennia of joy and heroic witness to the faith as well as the church’s struggles, challenges and persecutions.

The sweep of church history within those walls is an awesome one. But so is the sense of the universal, worldwide church you experience — whether you have an opportunity to visit with Pope Benedict XVI (as our bishops did) or stroll around the basilicas and their squares, where in the week I was in Rome I heard people praying in Italian, English, Polish, Spanish and a few other languages I didn’t recognize. It was an important reminder that we are part of a faith much bigger than what we experience in our home parishes and dioceses.

“Our faith is such an amazing thing. It makes us — who are so very different — really strongly one. That has been a great source of renewal for me,” Bishop Piché told me on our last day in Rome.

It was a great experience of renewal for me, too. I hope some of the stories and photos about the trip that we printed in The Catholic Spirit and online at TheCatholicSpirit.com and on the newspaper’s Facebook page have helped in a small way to convey the deeper connection to the universal church that we in Minnesota share with fellow Catholics around the world.

If you’ve never been to Rome, put it on your spiritual bucket list of things to do. The “stones” and pilgrims there will no doubt reaffirm and recharge your faith — and you may experience a few goose bumps of your own.

The chaplains were honored with a commemorative stamp in 1948.

Flags are flying at half-staff in Minnesota Feb. 3, but it isn’t because of a recent military casualty. It’s in memory of the heroic sacrifice made exactly 69 years ago by four Army chaplains on a troop transport ship torpedoed in the icy North Atlantic in the middle of World War II.

Gov. Mark Dayton has proclaimed Feb. 3 Immortal Four Chaplains Day in the state of Minnesota to honor the men and their interfaith spirit.

A Catholic News Service story from 2002 recalled the tragic, yet inspiring, story of the four chaplains — Father John Washington, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J.; the Rev. Clark Poling, a Dutch Reformed minister; Jewish Rabbi Alexander Goode; and the Rev. George Fox, a Methodist.

Gone in 18 minutes

On Feb. 3, 1943, a German U-boat fired three torpedoes at the Dorchester. One of them hit the ship’s boiler room, and it started to sink quickly.

David Fox, a nephew of Rev. Fox, told the story:

After the torpedo hit, “the chaplains were the first on board to calm the men. [They] found the lockers with lifejackets in them, handed them out and, when they ran out, witnesses said that … the chaplains simply removed their own and placed them on the men. They never asked, ‘What religion are you? What race are you?’ It didn’t matter to them. It was simply an action of compassion and love they extended to their fellow human being.”

Fox said the four men “were last seen, as the ship rolled onto its side, standing on the hull of the ship. All joined hands together — with heads bowed — praying together, each in their own way, as the ship went down with 672 men.” It was the third largest loss of life at sea for the United States during World War II.

The Dorchester sank in just 18 minutes about 100 miles off the coast of Greenland. Although it resulted in a huge loss of life, the chaplains’ actions are credited with helping to save the lives of 230 men.

The chaplains’ story is forever linked with their actions on the Dorchester, but they also changed lives before that fateful day.

Father John Washington

A niece of Father Washington, Joanne Brunetti, spoke in the same CNS story about her uncle, who “knew from the time he got out of grammar school that his calling was to be a priest.”

She remembered him as a “friendly, outgoing, fun-loving” man with a great sense of humor and a love of music who enjoyed working with youths.

“He ran the CYO and ran the youth groups in the parish. He took young teen-agers who had never been to a Broadway show to matinees just to open up their minds. He was just always trying to do something to make things better for someone else … and bridge the gap of the generations.”

Not forgotten

Today, the chaplains’ memory lives on in sculptures, plaques and chapels around the country, including at nearby Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel, which features a stained glass window of the men.

The Immortal Chaplains Foundation was created in 1997 to perpetuate their legacy. Its website features a video and other resources about the men and their service to others.

Today, after reading those words of David Fox, I can’t get them out of my mind: “They never asked, ‘What religion are you? What race are you?’ It didn’t matter to them. It was simply an action of compassion and love they extended to their fellow human being.”

If only we heeded those words more often in our own lives, particularly when it isn’t easy and when the cost may be great. That’s the legacy the chaplains leave us — an example that we should never forget and that we should always try to emulate.

A woman reads the new words for Mass prayers from a pew card Nov. 26. (Dianne Towalski / The Catholic Spirit)

With the implementation of the new Roman Missal this weekend at parishes across the United States, I was curious how worshippers at my parish’s Saturday evening Mass would adapt to the changes to the words of many prayers.

While no one seemed too flustered, autopilot did kick in for many people, including a gentleman sitting behind me who was having trouble remembering that the response “And also with you” — previously spoken five times during the Mass — had now changed to “And with your spirit.” He ended up being one for five.

My parish, like most others, provided worshippers with pew cards highlighting the changes, and the priest who presided at Mass briefly held up a card each time a new response was coming up.

For the longer prayers, people took the cues and read accurately from the cards, although they noticeably stumbled over still-unfamiliar words like “consubstantial” and “incarnate.” When it came to the quick, brief response, “And with your spirit,” however, people forgot to glance at their cards and there was a noticeable mix of old and new responses. To his credit, our priest didn’t seem to stumble over any of the newly worded prayers he was responsible for speaking.

My parish offered a great deal of catechesis about the changes in bulletin inserts over the last several months. So did The Catholic Spirit, through a six-month series on the changes and a special edition focused on the new Roman Missal (see TheCatholicSpirit.com/newromanmissal).

Still, change is never easy, and no one should expect a perfectly smooth transition to new prayers the first week after 40 years of having different words ingrained in our minds and hearts. People will inevitably acclimate themselves to the new language in the coming weeks and months.

How did the changes go in your parish on this first weekend?

Souvenir from Maracay: An Aragua Tigers cap

Baseball in Venezuela has been getting a lot of media attention lately, but the news hasn’t been good. Earlier this month, Washington Nationals catcher and former Twins player Wilson Ramos was kidnapped at gunpoint outside his family’s home in the city of Valencia and held for ransom. Security forces rescued him unharmed two days later from a remote mountain hideout.

Father Greg Schaffer, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who serves at the archdiocesan mission in the Venezuelan Diocese of Ciudad Guayana, says kidnappings happen throughout the country, although those involving the families of Major Leaguers get the most press coverage.

The Ramos incident was a bit unusual because more often it’s the family members of ballplayers who are targeted for kidnapping, with the players expected to dip into their deeper pockets to pay the ransom.

According to Father Schaffer:

“Many of the baseball players who play in the United States in the major and minor leagues are from working class families or from families struggling to makes ends meet. When these players return home to visit family during the offseason they stay with their families — many of which live in neighborhoods affected by violence and delinquency. Consequently, the ballplayers and their families become targets. Last year, Luis Rivas, who used to play second base for the Minnesota Twins, was in Venezuela during the offseason visiting family, and he was shot in the leg as guys stole his car.

“Most of the well-known baseball players have bodyguards for themselves and their families. When I baptized the son of [former Twins pitcher] Johan Santana a couple of years ago in his hometown of Tovar, which is a small town in the western part of the country in the mountains, I saw he had six bodyguards at that time that rotated to protect him and his family. I asked one of the bodyguards what was the hardest part of his job and he said protecting Johan’s father, Jesus.”

Before Santana signed a Major League contract, Father Schaffer said, the pitcher’s father loved visiting with people as he traveled around town selling bread for his in-laws. Today, when Jesus returns for visits, he still enjoys visiting with townspeople. But now, because of his son’s fame and fortune, Jesus’ outgoing personality creates a security challenge.

Pumped up fans

Many other ballplayers and their families face similar challenges, and it’s hard to imagine the stress this causes. Currently, 164 Major Leaguers hail from Venezuela, according to the Baseball Almanac, including Minnesota Twins pitchers Lester Oliveros (Maracay) and Jose Mijares (Caracas).

It’s a sad situation for a country that loves baseball — a love I was able to experience firsthand several years ago.

Back in January 2005, my wife and I traveled to the city of Maracay for the priesthood ordination of one of our Venezuelan friends. The Diocese of Maracay, located in the state of Aragua in the north-central part of the country, has been in a partnership since the mid-1960s with the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minn., where I used to live.

When we visited, Maracay’s residents were buzzing with excitement about their hometown team — the “Tigres de Aragua” or Aragua Tigers (the same team that Wilson Ramos had returned to play for). The Tigers were competing with a team from Caracas in Venezuela’s version of the World Series.

Hours before the start of the series’ deciding game, Tigers fans had already filled the streets, creating a tailgate party of sorts that lasted all the way until game time. That night, my wife and I settled into our room to watch the game on TV — which we did, until the power went out in the stadium and the surrounding area.

We waited for hours along with fans across the city for the power to return before we eventually drifted off to sleep.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of people yelling and horns blowing. I half-joked that Venezuela must be undergoing another coup attempt. I say half-joked because a former bishop of St. Cloud — now Archbishop Jerome Hanus of Dubuque, Iowa — was visiting Maracay in the early-1990s when rebels did, indeed, attempt a coup.

In our case, it was the neighborhood celebrating a Tigers victory that came late in the night after the power finally returned.

“Venezuelans love baseball,” Detroit Tigers outfielder Magglio Ordonez, a native of Caracas, told kids a few years ago when he announced a new scholarship to help young people from southwest Detroit go to college. Many other Venezuelan players have also given much back to their communities — both their home communities in Venezuela and their new homes in the U.S.

Venezuelans do indeed love baseball, and it’s a tragedy that the players and their families increasingly face threats to their safety. Let’s pray that the successful rescue of Ramos sends a message that will discourage other would-be kidnappers and that Venezuelans throughout the country get to enjoy their national pastime in peace.

Archbishop John Nienstedt blesses one of two new human anatomy labs in the Henrietta Schmoll School of Health at St. Catherine University Sept. 19. (Dianne Towalski / The Catholic Spirit)

Archbishop blesses new anatomy lab at St. Catherine University — and yes, Catholics may donate their bodies to science

As far as unique events go in the life of an archbishop, this one might find a place near the top of the list: Blessing a lab where medical students will dissect human remains in the interest of science.

That’s what Archbishop John Nienstedt did this week at the invitation of St. Catherine University, which dedicated two new human anatomy labs in Mendel Hall on the school’s St. Paul campus.

The labs will be used by physical therapy students — who previously had to travel to the University of Minnesota to dissect cadavers — as well as eight other academic programs, including nursing and biology. More than 500 students are expected to participate in classes in the labs this semester.

Studying anatomy using real human bodies offers students an educational experience and research opportunity they can’t get from books and computer models alone.

But is it something the church approves?

Yes. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that if a person freely gives proper consent, “donation of organs after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as a manifestation of generous solidarity.”

And the U.S. bishops state in their “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” that “Catholic health care institutions should encourage and provide the means whereby those who wish to do so may arrange for the donation of their organs and bodily tissue, for ethically legitimate purposes, so that they may be used for donation and research after death.”

Bodies used for scientific research must be treated with reverence and respect and the remains properly interred afterward. St. Kate’s plans to start each semester with a religious service to give students an opportunity to express thanks for the gift provided by each donor.

The new labs are a place where faith and science meet — something that Archbishop Nienstedt noted at Monday’s blessing:

“In educational circles, one of the big themes today is the relationship between faith and science. So often people think that there is no relationship. What we are doing here today really is the highlight of the complementarity of these two forms of learning, these two forms of living — because it’s our faith that really gives us the profound reverence and respect that we have for each human person as a son or daughter of God. And the science helps us, it leads us to foster [and] promote the discovery of that human body — what makes it tick, what makes it run — and to promote, in the end, therapies for healing and discoveries that will give us new insights into how we can live better. And, so, it’s very appropriate it seems to me that we ask God’s blessings upon this work today because it really is the best of what we’re about, bringing faith and science together.”

Read more about the labs in next week’s issue of The Catholic Spirit.

A priest baptizes a boy during the Easter Vigil. (CNS photo/Karen Callaway, Catholic New World)

When I saw a Facebook link to a recent article in Forbes magazine about “The Ten Happiest Jobs,” I checked to see if “editor” made the list. It didn’t. But I also was happy to see that it didn’t make the other list, further down in the same article, of the “ten most hated jobs.” In my book, being the editor of a diocesan newspaper is a great job.

But the winner in the happiest jobs ranking? Clergy.

“The least worldly are reported to be the happiest of all,” the magazine said. Most of the priests and deacons that I know enjoy their “jobs” — really vocations. They love to serve God and his people, particularly at significant points in their lives: baptisms, weddings and funerals, among others.

The list of happiest jobs is mostly devoid of the ones that pay the most or enjoy the highest social status. You’ll find more of those on the “hated” list. Why? In the end, job satisfaction doesn’t hinge on money or prestige. People are fulfilled when they are doing something worthwhile — when they have a job they feel makes a difference in the world.

Where would you rank your job?

Paul Borghese stars in a scene from the movie "Vito Bonafacci." (CNS photo/Cavu)

The Catholic movie, “Vito Bonafacci,” currently showing at AMC Theatres in Maple Grove, did so well during its Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 run that it is being held over for another week. The story of Vito, a lapsed Roman Catholic in spiritual crisis, will now be showing through Sept. 8.

Showtimes for Sept. 2 through Sept. 8 are daily at 11:30 a.m., 2:15 p.m., 4:50 p.m., 7:20 p.m., 9:45 p.m.

AMC Arbor Lakes 16 is located at 12575 Elm Creek Blvd., in Maple Grove — north of the I-94/I-494/I-694 junction in the Arbor Lakes Mall area.

The Catholic Spirit recently ran a review of the movie and a commentary article featuring an interview with Paul Borghese, the actor who plays the title character.