Blessed Sacrament Church

Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl program aims to continue its 40-year Lenten tradition of supporting hunger relief — and one of its past beneficiaries is now a spokesman for the project.

“Many years ago when I was a hungry boy in Ghana and living without parents or family, the smell of food lured me to the village school. There I was nourished and lifted off the path of likely death,” Thomas Awiapo said Jan. 16.

Credit: Steven Depolo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

“That school food program existed because of the little box we call rice bowl.”

Awiapo was orphaned in his home country of Ghana before he was 10 years old. He credits a Catholic Relief Services-supported lunch program he discovered at age 12 with changing his life and the lives of his children.

“You can call me the poster child for CRS Rice Bowl, but we’d be closer to the truth if you called my children your poster children,” he said.

“They have never experienced hunger in their lifetime, and today they attend university, high school and secondary schools without missing a beat.”

Awiapo now works for Catholic Relief Services and trains community leaders throughout Ghana and is presently touring the U.S. to speak about the rice bowl program.

The mainstay of the program is a small cardboard box. Families and individuals, as well as parishes and schools, put in a small amount of money each day of Lent to help hunger relief around the world.

At present there are an unprecedented number of hunger emergencies in Syria, Iraq, Central African Republic and South Sudan, where war has caused interruptions to food supplies, unemployment and homelessness, forcing millions to live as refugees. Another food emergency is in West Africa, where the Ebola outbreak has been a major disruption to normal life.

Since its creation in 1975, CRS Rice Bowl has raised $250 million to fight hunger, the relief agency reports.

“CRS Rice Bowl offers families, schools and faith communities an opportunity to put their faith into action while learning about the lives and struggles of our brothers and sisters around the world,” said Beth Martin, the program’s director. “We’re encouraging people to reflect on what 40 years of CRS Rice Bowl has accomplished and challenging them to put one dollar for every day of Lent in their rice bowl.”

Last year the program added a new app to help people track their donations. The Rice Bowl app, available in English and Spanish, now has new Lenten reflections, integrated Twitter support and improved tracking for Lenten sacrifices.

Other new material for 2015’s rice bowl includes the “What is Lent?” video series. It will provide viewers with Lenten reflections from Catholics such as Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, and CRS President Carolyn Woo.

The CRS Rice Bowl Global Kitchen Video Series will feature television personality and cook Father Leo Patalinghug teaching how to cook five meatless recipes from the five countries in focus this year: Tanzania, Nicaragua, Niger, Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Catholic Relief Services has also prepared solidarity reflections to provide prayers and activities, for youth groups, high school classes, and young adults.

— Catholic News Agency / EWTN News

Lent is a journey of purification and penance, a movement that should bring one tearfully back to the loving arms of the merciful Father, Pope Francis said at an Ash Wednesday Mass that began with a procession on Rome’s Aventine Hill.

After walking from the Benedictine monastery of St. Anselm to the Dominican-run Basilica of Santa Sabina Feb. 18, Pope Francis celebrated Mass. He received ashes on the top of his head from Cardinal Jozef Tomko, titular cardinal of the basilica, and distributed ashes to the Benedictines, the Dominicans, his closest aides and a family of five.

Pope Francis uses incense during Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome Feb. 18. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

When a priest places ashes on one’s head or forehead, he recites: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” or “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

Both, Pope Francis said, are “a reminder of the truth of human existence: We are limited creatures, sinners always in need of repentance and conversion. How important it is to listen and accept these reminders.”

In his homily before the ashes were distributed, the pope encouraged Catholics to ask God for “the gift of tears in order to make our prayer and our journey of conversion more authentic and without hypocrisy.”

The day’s first reading, Joel 2:12-18, described the Old Testament priests weeping as they prayed that God would spare their people. “It would do us good to ask, do I cry? Does the pope cry? Do the cardinals? The bishops? Consecrated people? Priests? Do tears come when we pray?”

In the day’s Gospel reading (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18), Jesus warns his disciples three times against showing off the good works they do “like the hypocrites do.”

“When we do something good, almost instinctively the desire is born in us to be esteemed and admired for this good action, to get some satisfaction from it,” the pope said. But Jesus “calls us to do these things without any ostentation and to trust only in God’s reward.”

“Do you know something, brothers and sisters, hypocrites do not know how to cry,” the pope said. “They have forgotten how to cry. They don’t ask for the gift of tears.”

The Lenten call to conversion, he said, means returning “to the arms of God, the tender and merciful father, to cry in that embrace, to trust him and entrust oneself to him.”

During the 40 days of Lent, he said, Christians should make a greater effort to draw closer to Christ, which is why the church recommends the tools of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

But, he said, “conversion is not just a human work. Reconciliation between us and God is possible thanks to the mercy of the Father who, out of love for us, did not hesitate to sacrifice his only-begotten son.”

In the reading from Joel, the prophet calls people to “interior conversion,” the pope said, a conversion that requires a return to God “with your whole heart.”

“Please,” the pope said. “Let’s stop. Let’s pause a while and allow ourselves to be reconciled with God.”

Lent, he said, is time “to begin the journey of a conversion that is not superficial and transitory, but a spiritual itinerary” that goes straight to a person’s heart, the focal point “of our sentiments, the center in which our choices and attitudes mature.”

What is more, he said, the reading makes clear that the call is addressed to the whole community, which is to “proclaim a fast, call an assembly; gather the people, notify the congregation; assemble the elders, gather the children.”

Pope Francis prayed that Mary would accompany Christians in their “spiritual battle against sin” and would accompany them in their Lenten journey so they could exult with her at Easter.

— By Cindy Wooden / Catholic News Service

A variety of resources to help Catholics observe Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday, this year February 18, is being provided by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

With the theme “Raise Up. Sacrifice. Offer,” resources include video reflections on Lenten themes, a downloadable Lenten calendar with quotes from Pope Francis’ Message for Lent and other teachings and suggestions for taking an active approach to the three traditional pillars of Lenten observance: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Catholics are encouraged to raise up the needs of the world in prayer, to sacrifice by giving up food and material wants, and to offer time, talent and treasure as good stewards of their God-given gifts.

The website also includes facts about saints whose feast days or memorials fall within Lent, a reflection on fasting and information on rediscovering the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.

In his general audience Feb. 11, Pope Francis spoke during his weekly general audience about societies that are selfish and unwilling to have children. His comments are making waves in the media, so as always, it's a good idea to hear what he had to say for yourself. A short video from Catholic News Service will help you do just that.

A nationwide measles outbreak that began at an amusement park in Southern California has fostered an ongoing debate about people's social obligation to have themselves and their children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella and other diseases.

According to the latest figure from the Centers for Disease Control, the current outbreak has resulted in 121 cases in 17 states and the District of Columbia and raised anew concerns about parents who won't immunize their children for a variety of reasons.

Over the years, the Catholic Church has raised moral concerns about vaccines manufactured with human cell lines derived from voluntarily aborted fetuses.

It has urged Catholics to push for the development of morally acceptable vaccines, but in the absence of such alternatives has said Catholics must not reject immunizations and “sacrifice the common good of public health” or their children’s well-being.

Just six weeks into the new year, the United States already had a sixth of the total number of reported measles cases for 2014 — 644. The statistic is even more striking when compared to the number of reported cases from 2001 to 2011: The median number was 62.

The CDC’s website states that “in 2000, the United States declared that measles was eliminated from the country” as the result of “a highly effective measles vaccine, a strong vaccination program that achieves high vaccine coverage in children and strong public health system for detecting and responding to measles cases and outbreaks.”

But the drop in coverage could contribute to a possible re-establishment of measles in the U.S., according to the CDC. The drop could be caused by people who forget to get vaccinated, people who don’t know they need to be inoculated, or those who refuse to get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or MMR, and other vaccines “for religious, philosophical or personal reasons.”

“There are a lot of concerns regarding vaccines,” Dr. Paul Braaton, immediate past president of the Catholic Medical Association, told Catholic News Service. “Some of them may be overblown. The link with autism we now know came from some bad science and manipulated research out of England, but the problem is that the pharmaceutical companies didn’t adequately address these concerns as they came up.”

He was referring to a now-debunked — and retracted — study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism in young children. That report, issued in 1998, led to a growing number of parents who refused to vaccinate their children against measles.

Apprehension about challenges posed to young children’s immune system by the “vaccine load” — the battery of injections suggested by a typical vaccination schedule — has prompted some parents to either space out immunizations or opt out of having their children immunized.

“It sounds scary when you think about it by itself,” said Dr. Andrew Bonwit, a specialist in pediatrics and infectious disease at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago.

“It is an immune challenge, but we face a host of immune challenges every single day, just by virtue of the world we live in,” Bonwit said, calling such apprehensions “an illogical concern.”

“The thing to remember is that these pathogens will never be removed from this world; they will continue to exist,” he continued, “so really it’s pretty much the difference between a parent who tries to teach their child to swim by throwing them in the deep end of the pool and hoping for the best and one who starts on the shallow end and works them to the other side gradually.”

Bonwit explained that “what people want is a 100 percent guarantee of something, but that doesn’t exist in science and medicine.”

Regarding accounts of children having adverse reactions to the battery of immunizations, he said that has happened in “extraordinarily rare circumstances.”

Compared to the “vast numbers of people who have been immunized with no adverse effects and the vast numbers whose lives have been saved,” he said, “the numbers are clearly and overwhelmingly in favor of vaccines.”

Still, there remains a legitimate ethical conundrum for Catholics regarding vaccines manufactured with human cell lines derived from voluntarily aborted fetuses.

In 2005, the Pontifical Academy for Life released a study titled “Moral Reflections on Vaccines Prepared From Cells Derived From Aborted Human Fetuses” to assist those struggling with the moral implications of getting such vaccines.

The use of such vaccines, it said, carries out “a form of very remote mediate material cooperation” with evil, however practicing Catholics are permitted to use the vaccines, it said, in the absence of ethical alternatives.

The academy said Catholics have a responsibility to push for the creation of morally just, alternative vaccines, but it also said they should not to sacrifice the common good of public health and the well-being of young children and pregnant women because there is no substitute.

The academy finds “a proportional reason, in order to accept the use of these vaccines in the presence of the danger of favoring the spread of the pathological agent, due to the lack of vaccination of children” and that the “burden of this important battle” against injustice in the pharmaceutical industry “cannot and must not fall on innocent children and on the health situation of the population — especially with regard to pregnant women.”

The National Catholic Bioethics Center concurs with this position in a statement on its website.

“Upon use, one should register a complaint with the manufacturer of the products as an acceptable form of conscientious objection,” the statement says. “This signals opposition to the wider, morally reprehensible practice of using the unborn as little more than research material for science.”

“There is no moral obligation to register such a complaint in order to use these vaccines,” it says, adding that “it should be obvious that vaccine use in these cases does not contribute directly to the practice of abortion since the reasons for having an abortion are not related to vaccine preparation.”

In 2006, following a major mumps outbreak in the Midwest, Robert Saxer, then executive vice president of the Catholic Medical Association, said that “the bottom line is that vaccines derived from abortions should mainly be avoided and used only when alternatives are unavailable.”

“But there is really no reason why those alternatives should be unavailable,” he said. “The pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the vaccines have the ability and know-how to produce versions of these vaccines which do not depend on cell lines from aborted fetuses. ... They should be pressured to develop those vaccines to meet the health needs of those who have religious and ethical objections to abortion.”

However, the outlook for the creation of vaccines that would avoid such moral and ethical questions doesn’t look promising at the moment.

Dr. Kevin Donovan, pediatrician and director of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University, said vaccines currently under development “are not being developed with that in mind.”

“Yes, there is a degree of material cooperation” with evil in the case of these vaccines, he said, “but it’s still sufficiently small and the benefits from immunization are sufficiently great” for the human person and the common good “that the person is morally justified in receiving immunization until such an alternative can be developed.”

Braaton echoed Donovan’s remarks, telling CNS: “Of course, if there is no other alternative to an unethically created vaccine, one can choose to use that vaccine, but that is the big concern. There has been no development of an alternative from the pharmaceutical industry.”

“We’re urged to put pressure on the companies to develop morally acceptable alternatives,” he added, “but I don’t know why they haven’t done that yet. Maybe there’s not enough public pressure; maybe it’s more beneficial to use the cell lines, I don’t know.”

Braaton said the Catholic Medical Association will continue to push for development of moral and ethical vaccine alternatives.

“We have grown and become better organized over the years as an organization,” he said, “and with that growth we can work better with other groups to put more effective public pressure on these companies. This issue will mostly likely be on the docket at our upcoming meeting in Dallas.”

“I also want to clarify that nobody at the Catholic Medical Association is against vaccines,” Braaton added. “We think that vaccination is a moral good, that it’s good for patients, and that it has benefited society greatly. We have a responsibility as moral agents to protect the common good and to immunize ourselves and our children against communicable disease.”

— Nate Madden / Catholic News Service

Years ago one of my seminary professors cited a study listing the most well-attended Masses of the year. The first two were obvious -- Christmas and Easter -- but the third and fourth most attended Masses were a bit of a surprise to me at the time. They were Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday.

I cannot remember the details of the study or who performed it, but after years of experience I must say I concur. My teacher followed up with a cynical comment, saying more people come to those Masses because they get something, namely palms on Palm Sunday and ashes on Ash Wednesday.

Father Richard Kunst Apologetics

I am not sure that is completely true, but I would not be surprised if it is. Ash Wednesday is not even a "holy day of obligation," but don't tell nonreaders that!

Since Ash Wednesday is later this month, it might be good to look at the use of ashes and their history in our Catholic faith.

Jewish roots

Certainly our use of ashes comes from the Jewish faith, as so many of our practices do. We can look back at the Old Testament and see many examples of their use, and when they were used it was to signify one of two things, our mortality or penance for sins committed.

The distribution of ashes in our Catholic faith reflects this reality. Consider the two formulas we can choose when applying them to the faithful's forehead: The person distributing the ashes can say either "repent and believe in the Gospel," which has the theme of penance, or "remember, you are dust and to dust you will return," which represents our mortality.

Mortality has long been a theme in our Catholic tradition and art. As I have mentioned before, some of the most prominent decorative characteristics in old European parishes are skulls, crossbones and full skeletons. Imagine if your pastor were to have a large skeleton painted on the wall of your parish! But that is a very popular decoration in Europe. The purpose is to remind us of what the ashes remind us of today: We are dust.

The ordinary minister of the distribution of ashes is either the priest or a deacon. If necessary, a layperson is also permitted to distribute. The ashes used are either from the previous year's blessed palms or from an olive tree.

The Catholic Church has used ashes in its liturgy since at least as early as the tenth century, and of all the rich symbols we have in our faith, the ashes we apply on the first day of Lent are among the most powerful. But Ash Wednesday is only the start. This powerful symbol ushers in the holy season of Lent, which gives us a great opportunity to rely more on God and to get closer to him.

Add instead of give up?

During Lent, many if not most of us will "give something up" as a small penance to get into the spirit of the season, and that is completely laudable and even expected of us. But sometimes our energy in that direction can be misguided.

I once knew someone who quit eating all solid foods during the whole of Lent and only drank malts and energy drinks, all along making a big show of it. That is certainly not the purpose of the season or the fast.

Giving up something like sweets or soda can become an issue of pride or even bragging, which becomes counter-productive to what we are about during this time of year. If we are to use Lent to get closer to God, there might be a better way.

Adding things to our life and spirituality might be better than taking them away. It would be far better to have more people go to weekday Mass than to have fewer cookies eaten. It would be better to have more people go to the Stations of the Cross than to have less pop drunk.

We should be looking for extra things to enrich our faith during this time. Certainly our parishes offer more opportunities.

This is the busiest time of the year for us priests. I would challenge you not to have Ash Wednesday Mass be the only extra thing you do all Lent. Easter is the greatest and most beautiful day of the year on the Christian calendar. It becomes even more so when we put a lot into our Lenten observance.

"Without God, all that remains of man's greatness is that little pile of dust, in a dish, at one side of the altar, on Ash Wednesday. It is what the Church marks us with on our forehead, as though with our own substance." -- J. Leclercq, "A Year with the Liturgy"

Father Richard Kunst is pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Duluth and St. Joseph in Gnesen. Reach him at rbkunst@q.com.

Catholic News Service -- The new movie "Fifty Shades of Grey" is "a direct assault on Christian marriage and on the moral and spiritual strength of God's people," Cincinnati's archbishop told pastors in his archdiocese.

"We need to inform our people about the destructive message of this movie and to highlight the beauty of God's design for loving relationships between a husband and a wife in the bond of marriage," Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr said in an early February letter.

"The story line is presented as a romance; however, the underlying theme is that bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism are normal and pleasurable," he added.

Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson star in a scene from the movie "Fifty Shades of Grey." The Catholic News Service classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. (CNS photo/Universal Pictures and Focus Features)

Archbishop Schnurr's letter echoed the sentiment expressed by several Catholic and other religious leaders and organizations that have criticized the film, hitting theaters Feb. 13.

It is based on the first book in a trilogy by E.L. James that features an erotic and sadomasochistic story line about a young college student who agrees to become a sex slave to a business tycoon.

The chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth in a letter to his fellow bishops urged them to alert Catholics to such an objectionable film, which he said is being promoted as a romantic story but is a "graphic portrayal of a young woman agreeing to be abused and degraded in a sexual relationship."

"Remind the faithful of the beauty of the church's teaching on the gift of sexual intimacy in marriage, the great dignity of women, and the moral reprehensibility of all domestic violence and sexual exploitation," wrote Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, New York.

John Mulderig, Catholic News Service's assistant director for media reviews, said in a Feb. 11 review that "Fifty Shades" -- about Anastasia Steele, a "socially awkward" college student who becomes involved with an "intimidating business tycoon" named Christian Grey -- has "a pornographically narrow focus and a potentially dangerous message."

The couple's "uncommitted pleasure" displaces a spiritual union "for the sake of a disordered exchange of possession and surrender," Mulderig wrote.

The CNS classification is classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

In mid-January when the MPAA announced the film would have an "R" rating, Morality in Media criticized that decision, saying the rating "severely undermines the violent themes in the film and does not adequately inform parents and patrons of the film's content."

The story of "a childlike, mousey, young woman" becoming the "target of a powerful, intimidating, older man ... glamorizes and legitimatizes violence against women," the organization said in a statement.

It warned women "lining up to see this film" that "there is nothing empowering about whips and chains or humiliation and torture. Women as a group will not gain power by collaborating with violent men."

Founded in 1962, Morality in Media describes itself as the leading national organization opposing pornography and indecency by educating the public and urging vigorous enforcement of the law.

"The contrast between the message of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' and God's design for self-giving and self-sacrificing love, marriage and sexual intimacy could not be greater," said the Religious Alliance Against Pornography in its statement criticizing the film.

The movie's main message, the alliance said, is that "bondage, dominance and sadomasochism are normal and pleasurable."

In the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, Bishop R. Walker Nickless in a Feb. 9 memo to priests and deacons spoke out strongly against the book and movie.

"This book is a vile and vicious piece of pornography of the worst sort, promoting not merely promiscuity and marital infidelity, but also violent and degrading views of and sexual behavior against women," he said.

Bishop Nickless particularly pointed to the immorality of pornography, "its objectification of both men and women."

"When that objectification is combined with masochism and other forms of violence in the sexual act, as in this case of 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' the harm it does to women, and thus also to families and children, is immensely greater," he said.

Bishop Nickless applauded clergy who have already preached about the book and movie "for their pastoral energy, awareness, and initiative."

"I encourage all of you to help me to share, again and again, the truths of God's plan for marriage and family, and the grave harm that pornography does to women and children, and likewise to those who use it," he said. "We must not be silent in the face of such debilitating cultural mores, but bring the saving light and grace and truth of our Lord to those who need it most."

In Virginia, a week before the premiere of "Fifty Shades," the Arlington Catholic Herald diocesan newspaper had a ticket giveaway for a showing of "Old Fashioned," described as a wholesome romance about a former frat boy and a free-spirited woman who embark on an old-fashioned courtship in contemporary America.

The tickets were provided by Carmel Communications.

"Going up against big-budget, blockbuster competition that offers a dark take on love, 'Old Fashioned' puts romance and respect in the heart of relationships," producer Nathan Nazario said in a statement.

He said audiences were responding to the movie's "simple message that chivalry is not dead, and real love is worth waiting for."

Teresa Tomeo, an author and syndicated Catholic talk radio host, noted that the "Fifty Shades of Grey" book trilogy "continues to bring in the big bucks -- breaking book sale records wherever the 'Mommy porn' fictional novels are available."

The film, she said, was also "expected to be a cash cow at the box office."

"Women make up the majority of this particular and very sad market and, unfortunately, also can't seem to get enough reminders of the abusive relationship between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele," Tomeo wrote in a widely circulated commentary.

Women are "snatching up" all manner of accessories tied to the books and film, she noted. "So far the collection features everything from candles, bed sheets, earrings, chokers and bracelets in the form of handcuffs."

The Catholic Church in its teaching "couldn't be clearer when it comes to why pornography, any type of porn, is a grave offense," she said, adding that "secular family study experts are now agreeing that pornography poses great danger to women and to relationships in general. It's unhealthy in a myriad of ways -- physically, emotionally and spiritually.

"It is also highly hypocritical to cry foul when cases of abuse involving actions similar to those exhibited in 'Fifty Shades' ... make headlines," she added. "We can't have it both ways."

Contributing to this story were Joanne Fox in Sioux City and Mary Stachyra Lopez in Arlington.

The fourth annual Together for Life Banquet, hosted by Guiding Star Duluth, brought in a national speaker, gave Hibbing's Gail Checco of Blessed Sacrament its annual pro-life award and, for good measure, dropped news on a major new pro-life initiative in the region.

The annual Together for Life event has served as a fundraiser for a variety of pro-life organizations in the region, in keeping with Guiding Star's mission of helping various groups with different focuses to work together in support of a Culture of Life.

Beautiful adoptions

Supporters of Guiding Star Duluth listen as speaker Dan Kulp shares his experiences growing up in a family that adopted special-needs children and how he and his wife adopted three special-needs children, two from China and one from Ukraine. (Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross)

Dan Kulp, lead singer of the rock group The Dig Project and a comedian, writer, actor, radio host and youth pastor, told the story of how he and his wife adopted three special-needs children, two from China and one from Ukraine, and about his own family growing up, where he was the eighth of nine children and four of his brothers and sisters have Down syndrome, three of them adopted.

He said his first child, Simon, was believed to be the first child with Down syndrome adopted from China. He had been abandoned as an infant in the woods in the middle of winter, probably not because of the Down syndrome but because of other problems like a club foot. His life was saved a second time in the first weeks of life when a British doctor told the family that found Simon about an imperforate anus.

When they went to adopt him, they were the subject of stares because of his differences in a place where people with Down syndrome are often sent to an institution to be forgotten. The experience brought back memories.

"I can remember going out with my family to dinner, with my brothers and sisters, and everybody in the restaurant in our own country would be staring at us, because we looked different," Kulp said.

He said his mother would tell them to just ignore it, but she sometimes took a more direct approach. Once she invited a bunch of kids who had been picking on Kulp's brother Matthew to their house.

"She basically told those kids he is such a blessing to us, we want him to be a blessing to you, too," Kulp said.

It worked. When Matthew was hit by a car, the kids organized a fundraiser and sought donations to help.

"That same group of kids that used to pick on my brother, they ended up making money to help with his hospital bills, and it was all because my mom would rather make allies instead of enemies," he said.

His late father had a different personality. He didn't like attention. When Kulp's brother was born with Down syndrome, family and friends advised the parents to put him in an institution and forget him.

"My parents didn't like it that much, so they went out and adopted three more kids with Down sydrome, because he was such a blessing to the family," Kulp said.

The family even became the subject of a two-page National Enquirer spread.

He said adopting Simon allowed him to walk in his father's footsteps. "He endured all that for the love of his family," Kulp said. "The guy who wanted no attention was willing to endure that because he loved his kids, he loved his children."

Kulp and his wife felt called to adopt a second child from China a few months after getting home. Danielle was listed as having Down syndrome, but it turned out to be a false diagnosis. Instead she had the more rare Alif Sydrome, and Kulp said it's a blessing the diagnosis was wrong, because had the authorities known they may not have been able to adopt her at all.

About a year later, Kulp said his wife found another child, from Ukraine, with spina bifida. "Right about now I'm praying our computer would develop a virus," Kulp joked, saying he was concerned by the lack of time, money, energy and space it would take to adopt another child with medical issues.

But they adopted Shea, and shortly after committing to it they learned they were expecting a baby themselves. The two new arrivals came a few weeks apart.

"We gave her up for adoption," Kulp joked of Emily, now 3.

He said his wife got a heart for adoption from her own work in China as a physical therapist, where she had been one of the first Westerners in her province to encounter the "dying rooms," places where abandoned babies were taken if there was no room in the orphanage, where there was minimal care and children who died were taken out in garbage bags.

She made openness to adopting at least one such child a condition of marriage.

Kulp said his wife is his "superhero" for encouraging many people to adopt, and he extended the honor to his audience, too.

"I'm here tonight because you are my superheroes. I honestly mean that with all my heart," he said. "... I look up to you, and I thank you for your fight in the cause of life. I thank you for giving so generously."

An award and a new project

The evening's program also included the annual Father Crossman Culture of Life Award, given in recognition of someone who has done long-term pro-life work. This year, the award went to Gail Checco, of Blessed Sacrament in Hibbing, who was taken completely by surprise at the announcement.

Checco, who after some of her own life decisions got involved in post-abortion ministries like Project Rachel and Rachel's Vineyard, has brought those ministries to northern Minnesota and shown compassion, generosity and love, said emcee Niki Corbin.

After she made her way to the podium through a gauntlet of well-wishers offering hugs, Checco said, "As [Corbin] read, there's been a lot in my past, and I can only hope that God continues to use me in the Culture of Life," she said.

The award is named for a deceased Duluth priest who was a stalwart of the pro-life movement. Past honorees are Rosie Agnew and Jim Tuttle, both of Duluth.

The event closed with tantalizing news announced via video message by founder Leah Jacobson. Guiding Star Duluth's next project is to build a maternity house in Duluth geared to mothers in need and seeking life for an unborn child.

— Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross

Pope Francis once encouraged young people at World Youth Day to go out and make a holy mess, and one gets the clear impression he likes to do this himself, too -- especially when he gets onto an airplane with journalists.

His recent trip to Asia created at least two such moments, with comments creating world headlines and a little confusion. The one that occupied my mind most was his remarks about freedom of expression, made in response to a question from a French journalist.

Kyle Eller Mere Catholicism

"As for freedom of expression: each one not only has the freedom, the right but also the obligation to say what one thinks to help the common good. The obligation!" he said, citing the example of a legislator who would be failing in his duty if he didn't speak out.

Then he qualified it, saying there are "limits": "We have the obligation to say openly, to have this liberty, but without giving offense, because it is true, one cannot react violently. But if Dr. Gasbarri [the papal trip organizer who was standing beside him], a good friend, says a bad word against my mother, then a punch awaits him. But it's normal, it's normal. One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people's faith, one cannot make fun of faith."

This leaves a lot of questions, especially for Americans who value free speech so highly. Who sets the limits or determines what's offensive: the government, the aggrieved, the individual speaking? Was he speaking practically, politically, morally?

I understand the angst. I'm what we used to call an "ink-stained wretch": a writer, a newspaperman. Some of the million-plus words I've put in print over my career have caused offense, usually unintentionally but often in a way that was foreseeable.

Among my biggest heroes are people I admire in part for boldly speaking unpopular and even "illegal" truths.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan priest and martyr, was sent to Auschwitz in part for his anti-Nazi writing. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great dissident, was ostracized, persecuted and exiled for speaking out in Soviet Russia against the gulag and communism and for God.

It is sobering to think that in our country and in much of the Western world expressing certain Catholic beliefs is often seen as offensive or even "hate speech" by those in power. In some countries people have been hauled before tribunals over it.

Yet in practice we all agree there are limits. People can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, libel someone in the newspaper, post your medical records online, incite people to riot. These are basically moral limits on free speech imposed by civil law, and we're glad for them. That's to say nothing of the limits placed by social pressures.

Yet I think all of this kind of misses Pope Francis' point. I think he's pointing to something deeper in how we think about freedom.

As with many subjects, the Catholic view of freedom proposes something deeper than the popular view. Popular culture sees freedom as lack of outside constraints. Freedom is the ability to do as I please. The church's vision roots freedom in the duty to do the good. In other words, freedom is a means to an end; it's for something. For instance I have religious freedom so that I can seek the truth about God and follow it. I have economic freedom so that I can support my family and contribute to society.

I think we cannot fully understand a particular freedom until we understand what it's for. To what duties is it connected? What good does it enable me to pursue? Understanding this also helps us see what, if any, limits there might be on this freedom.

So what is freedom of expression for? The pope pointed to the answer at the beginning of his response. He said we have an obligation to say what we think -- or, to put it another way, to bear witness to the true, the good and the beautiful -- as a way of serving the common good, of society.

I think this makes the matter a lot clearer.

Hundreds of thousands of people gather for the March for Life every year to propose to society a deep conviction that a good society protects the innocent and respects the dignity of the human person. We could not remain silent about such a thing without failing in a duty we have to our fellow citizens.

Much the same applies to the people who disagree with us. Their views contradict the common good profoundly, but they nevertheless have the duty to speak their genuine convictions, and they serve the good by doing so, at least opening a path for dialogue and pursuit of truth.

When we think about it this way, the limits become clearer too. Things like libeling people or inciting riots or yelling "fire" in a crowded room contradict what freedom of expression is for in a way that even being sincerely and profoundly wrong doesn't. I would say the kind of deliberate insult and mockery the pope was talking about often falls in a similar category.

That doesn't directly answer all of the thorny questions people have raised on the level of policies. But it does help us think about how we exercise our own freedom of expression, and what kinds of expression by others we want to support and consume -- or don't.

Kyle Eller is editor of The Northern Cross. Reach him at keller@dioceseduluth.org.

The move to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States has inaugurated “a new time ... for encounter and dialogue” between the two countries and is cause for great hope, said the cardinal of Havana.

“The wall of distrust between the United States and Cuba seemed indestructible,” said Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega Alamino, referring to the 52-year-long U.S. embargo against Cuba.

“Nothing, however, is impossible with God, if we do not resign ourselves,” he continued. “Throughout the years, we did not lose hope.”

Cardinal Ortega was speaking at Rome’s Basilica of St. John Lateran Feb. 9 during a Mass to mark the 47th anniversary of the founding of the Sant’Egidio Community. The Italian lay movement, whose mission is largely among the poor, operates in more than 70 countries, including Cuba.

After 18 months of secret talks, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced in mid-December their decision to normalize diplomatic and trade relations. Both leaders credited Pope Francis with helping to secure the deal. The pope had been following and supporting the talks. He had also written personal letters to both leaders, and the Vatican hosted a secret meeting last fall.

In his homily, Cardinal Ortega said the pope’s “extraordinary initiative” brought about “the miracle of a thaw” in relations between the two countries and “the end of a time that seemed never-ending.”

“My heart is full of great hope for the future of the Cuban people and I am happy to share this joy with you this evening,” he told those assembled.

The cardinal also attributed this new period in U.S.-Cuba relations to “patience in weaving dialogue and perseverance in prayer.”

“Dialogue is the bearer of good for everyone,” he said.

He noted the ongoing conflicts worldwide, calling for prayers for the situations in Ukraine, Syria and Iraq. He said he hoped the sea change in relations between Cuba and the U.S. could “be contagious to the entire world” so that dialogue may be taken up where there is fighting.

— Laura Ieraci/Catholic News Service