Blessed Sacrament Church

With the state House of Representatives switching to Republican control after last fall’s elections and the Senate and governor’s office still in DFL hands, one might expect a fair amount of gridlock during the 2015 legislative session.

But the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy voice of the state’s Catholic bishops, sees possibilities where others may see only potential polarization.

“It’s an opportunity to be a bridge-builder,” Jason Adkins said. “I think that’s one of the church’s vital responsibilities in the public arena: to help legislators and the public to transcend that partisan divide and look for opportunities where we can work together to advance the common good.”

The MCC started the session, which began Jan. 6, with a focus on several issues that aren’t receiving much media attention, he said, but they are issues on which the church can provide leadership as well as demonstrate the wide range of its social teaching.

The following are among the MCC’s legislative priorities this year:

Giving parents more choice in education

“A lot of our schools are failing. A lot of kids are trapped in failing schools, and they need an opportunity to find a school that best serves their needs,” said Adkins. “We also need to help close the achievement gap.”

The MCC will advocate in favor of two education initiatives:

— A tax credit bill: This would allow individuals, organizations and corporations to contribute to a scholarship-granting organization and receive a tax credit for the contribution. The SGO would then award scholarships to students that would offset tuition expenses at the schools of their choice. To qualify for a scholarship, the income of the student’s family would need to be at or below 300 percent of what qualifies for participation in the federal school lunch program. Eighty percent of the donation would qualify for the tax credit. The entire program is capped at $80 million.

— Educational savings accounts for children with disabilities: “Children with special needs especially need opportunities to find the resources and institutions that best serve them,” Adkins said. This proposal would essentially give parents a “debit card” to use state dollars designated for their child for educational opportunities that best serve him or her. “Some might think that both of these educational programs would cost the state money, but they’re actually going to save the state money,” Adkins said. “So this is a win-win for everybody.”

Creating a Legislative Surrogacy Commission

In the last few years, the MCC has opposed attempts to legalize surrogate birth contracts in the state. Commercial surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman carries to term a child, who is not hers biologically, for the intended parents. Such contracts often take advantage of women in financial need, Adkins said.

Efforts to legalize commercial surrogacy continue. As a result, the MCC is supporting the creation of a legislative commission that would take more time than the normal committee process to study the issue of surrogacy and its impact on children, women and society.

“We need to get beyond a People magazine approach to this issue that is dominated by feel-good propaganda and instead really explore the issue in sufficient detail before we make Minnesota an epicenter of the surrogacy business,” Adkins said. “We think there are significant challenges and problems with surrogacy arrangements, particularly when they are done for money.”

Places that have convened such commissions, including New York and Canada, have ended up banning commercial surrogacy and the sale of reproductive material, he said.

Providing information and resources to women who receive adverse diagnoses in prenatal testing

The MCC is working with major disability advocacy groups in favor of a bill requiring doctors to provide pregnant women whose babies are diagnosed with certain chromosomal conditions with accurate information from a state Department of Health website, including resources such as support networks.

The bill would cover diagnoses for Trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome), Trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) and Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome).

“Oftentimes, people are told information, even by doctors, about short life expectancies and low quality of life in these cases,” Adkins said. “But, in fact, these lives can be beautiful lives that are a great gift to families and others. We want to make sure that people who receive these diagnoses aren’t overly discouraged, that they have the accurate information they need to deal with these difficult situations.

“It also combats what Pope Francis calls a ‘throwaway culture,’ in which people are deemed ‘inconvenient’ if they have high health-care costs or disabilities, whether it’s at the beginning of life or end of life,” he said. “We really want to push back on that. We believe it’s important to uphold the sanctity of life at all stages, even in difficult situations, and to protect people with disabilities.”

Restoring voting rights to ex-offenders

The MCC supported efforts during last year’s legislative session to restore voting rights to Minnesotans with past felony convictions who are no longer incarcerated. Those efforts will continue during this year’s session.

This effort “is about restoring people to the community and giving them opportunities for responsible citizenship,” Adkins said. “You and I might take voting for granted. But for people who have committed crimes and who have been denied the opportunity to vote because of that, having that opportunity to vote again is a powerful way in which they feel restored to the community.”

The MCC also is concerned about related issues such as education, housing and employment opportunities for ex-offenders, which is why it supported “ban-the-box” legislation a few years ago, prohibiting employers from asking a prospective employee about his or her criminal history until the applicant is selected for a job interview.

“Those who have been disenfranchised have told us that if we don’t give people opportunities to become stakeholders and participate in society as responsible citizens, we shouldn’t be surprised if they offend again,” Adkins said.

Supporting provisional driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants

The MCC supports efforts to provide provisional driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants who meet certain criteria as a way to strengthen families and communities and create a safer driving environment for everyone in the state. Similar legislation has been passed in other states.

“This is a challenging conversation right now, but we need to give immigrants, including working families, the opportunity to attend church, take their kids to school and go to their jobs without the fear of being stopped and deported,” Adkins said. “It makes sense from a public safety standpoint but also from an insurance and justice standpoint. It’s about giving people the transportation access they need to do the basic things in life.”

Ongoing education efforts needed

In addition to the work it does at the State Capitol, the Minnesota Catholic Conference also is involved in educational efforts to help Catholics and others gain a better understanding of important issues with public policy ramifications.

Jason Adkins, MCC executive director, identified three topics that need further attention from Catholics around the state:

Gender-related issues

“We have to have a proper understanding of the human person,” Adkins said. “There is a gender ideology that is getting more and more aggressive in trying to assert in public policy that gender is essentially malleable, an identity a person can choose to put on and take off at will. . . . It adds an incredible amount of confusion to who we are as persons.”

Adkins said, “The rational defense of our positions on the human person is vitally important for preserving religious liberty.”

The ‘throwaway culture’

Adkins points to what he calls the “inevitable push” in Minnesota to allow for assisted suicide legislation. “We really need to talk about the dignity of life, even in difficult circumstances,” he said. The MCC is currently developing an end-of-life care guide as a practical resource for Catholics.

Environmental stewardship

Pope Francis’ upcoming encyclical on ecology, due out sometime in the spring, will give Catholics an opportunity to talk about a wide range of environmental issues, including how they impact the world’s poor. The MCC is organizing a Catholic event on climate change and environmental stewardship this fall in light of the encyclical.

“Being pro-life means we also need to be concerned about the air children breathe, the food they eat and the world they play in,” he said. “This is part of developing a consistent ethic of life.”

— Joe Towalski

When St. Michael Church in Duluth completed a major construction project, the parish wanted a way to get one particular group in the mix. “We wanted to find a way for the teens and the younger people in our youth group to be involved in some way,” said Jake Nelson, youth minister and pastoral associate of the parish.

Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross Jake Nelson, youth minister and pastoral associate at St. Michael in Duluth, joined members of the parish youth group to obtain holy water from all 83 parishes of the Diocese of Duluth for the new St. Michael’s baptismal font.

The beautiful idea proposed by the parish’s pastor, Father William Graham, was to have them go out to all the parishes in the Diocese of Duluth and collect holy water which would then be put into the new baptismal font. The idea was to symbolize the unity of the church in every part of the world.

It all came together at a Mass in the parish with Bishop Paul Sirba celebrating the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord on Jan. 11.

“We had all 83 parishes,” Nelson said — and more. As people started hearing about the project, there were gifts of water from other places, One person gave water from Ireland. Father Richard Kunst of St. John in Duluth gave water from the Jordan River, where Jesus himself was baptized.

A big undertaking

“When Jake first sent out the email, I was like, ‘Oh, boy,’ ” said Sam Likar, a high school junior and one of the students who ended up collecting several bottles of holy water. She said people were very apprehensive and didn’t know how it would all get done, but Nelson encouraged them, and Likar also got support closer to home.

“My mom was my main motivator,” she said.

She not only encouraged, she assisted. “She drove me and two of my good girlfriends, because we’re terrible with directions,” Likar said.

The longest trip for her was to Tower and Ely, and along the way they encountered dense fog and were on the road until past dark. Every parish they tried was a little different, sometimes with Mass or something going on but more often with no one at the church, and the students looking to find the right door.

“It was fun,” she said. “It was an adventure.”

She said her friends were laughing the whole way, and they kept things fun with a couple of classic rock CDs and a CD of motivational music her mom played when they struck out at a couple of parishes.

Likar said she also got a few bottles around Duluth.

Nelson said about a dozen students participated to varying degrees, and he agreed that at first the students were a bit overwhelmed at the task, but once they got going and the work got divided up, it seemed less daunting.

Although it was a semester-long project, “most of it probably got done in about the last month,” he said.

In fact, Nelson went to eight parishes himself, including some of the really difficult ones people were having trouble getting. He estimates he logged about 1,000 miles himself. Among everyone involved he guessed there were “probably several thousand miles of driving.”

The blessing

At the Mass, the students processed to the new baptismal font and brought all the water they collected with them, pouring them in one bottle at a time.

Likar said it was a little beyond what she expected, but it ended up being “really nice.” She said each bottle brought back a memory of what it took to get it. Each student was noted in the parish bulletin, along with the parishes from which they had collected holy water.

“It seems like a simple thing, but they all said they enjoyed that experience,” Nelson said. “... It was a fitting way to kind of sum up the project, I think.”

Nelson and Likar said parishioners were happy about the project and happy to see young people involved in parish life.

The font itself was made of marble in Morgan Park and designed so that a catechumen can step into it to be baptized.

Nelson said the project is only one part of a larger renovation project just completed that was initiated by the late Father Tom Radaich and carried through with energy and vision by Father Graham. It included an elevator, a redone roof and other improvements.

“The parish really came together to make it happen,” Nelson said.

He said that while the physical project is complete, the spiritual project to which it is connected, of growing parish life, is ongoing.

— Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross

By Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross — Oblate Archbishop Roger Schwietz, the seventh bishop of Duluth and now archbishop of Anchorage, Alaska, said it was a “strange feeling to be back here in this pulpit.”

“It’s so good to be with you,” he added, as he began his homily at a Mass celebrating the 25th anniversary of his episcopal ordination at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth Feb. 2.

Kyle Eller / The Northern Cross Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz presides at Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary Cathedral in Duluth, where he was ordained a bishop 25 years ago. Joining him at the anniversary Mass were Bishop Paul Sirba and priests of the Duluth Diocese and Alaska.

He was joined by Bishop Paul Sirba, by a priest and seminarians who traveled with him from Anchorage and by a small group of diocesan clergy. (Many priests from the Duluth Diocese were on retreat.)

Archbishop Schwietz, who served as bishop in Duluth from 1990 to 2001 and has served Anchorage for the past 15 years, said the day’s reading from the prophet Malachi, which promised that the Lord would come to his own Temple, must have seemed difficult to understand.

“So God in his own marvelous way creatively fulfills the prophecy,” he said, with the Lord becoming “one of us, taking on our human nature.”

This was for a purpose: to suffer and die for us and thus to conquer death. But the mystery continues, the archbishop said, in that he chose the Twelve Apostles — weak, ordinary men — to continue his work, and even more mysteriously that he continues to carry on that mission of shepherding and guiding the church in ordinary people today.

“The magnitude of that trust of the Lord, that mystery of God continuing to work the work of the Good Shepherd through ordinary human beings, really hit me when I received the call from the apostolic nuncio on the 12th of December in 1989 informing me that I had been chosen by Pope John Paul II to shepherd these people in this local church, the Diocese of Duluth,” he said.

“Of course at first I didn’t believe him,” he added. “I thought it was one of my brother Oblates pulling my leg.”

He said the magnitude of that trust hit him in an even more profound way in the Cathedral in Duluth when he was ordained, and in the days leading up to it as he reflected on how his service as a priest at St. Thomas in International Falls and at the West End parishes that became Holy Family in Duluth had been God’s preparation, along with his work alongside previous bishops Paul Anderson and Robert Brom.

“And I’ll never forget when Archbishop Roach poured the Chrism over my head and down my neck and all over me that indeed was a great act of God, that God was here,” he said.

He said that something similar is working out in each of our lives.

“As we look back at our lives, we realize more and more that there are no surprises for God, there are just different ways that he works in us and through us, in a very careful and loving way,” Archbishop Schwietz said.

He said his heart was filled with gratitude and asked for prayers that he will continue in his ministry of “fidelity to the truth and compassion toward God’s beloved people.”

“And I pledge my prayers to you always,” he said.

On the outside, the Red Bull Crashed Ice course enveloped the Cathedral of St. Paul. On the inside, thousands of prolifers thanked God for the gift of life and pleaded for his mercy and forgiveness at the annual Prayer Service for Life.

The day was Jan. 22. The March for Life continues.

Bishop Paul Sirba Fiat Voluntas Tua

For me, the day of the march and the days leading up to it are days of reflection, prayer and action for life.

I hosted dinner at my house earlier in the week to support the tremendous work of our Women’s Care Center. After the March, I had the privilege of attending the fourth annual Together for Life Banquet supporting the work of Guiding Star.

Lee Stuart, the executive director of CHUM, invited me to tour the new Steve O’Neill apartments and witness your generosity for the homeless firsthand. The MCCL March for Life at the State Capitol has been a mainstay for me pretty much since 1973, missed only in favor of the March for Life in Washington, D.C., or factors beyond my control.

Why do I and why do you, as Catholics, support all efforts on behalf of life? Because “life is good!”

Bishop Lee Piché of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis led us in prayer and told the story of a fifth-grader who had recently sent him a letter. The theme and title of a book, “If I Had Not Come,” was the topic of the fifth-grader’s letter and Bishop Piché’s meditation.

He asked us to imagine a world in which Jesus Christ had not come. The thought is terrifying: “Where would we be if Christ had not come? And yet, the Gospel tells us that when he did come, when he was about to be born in Bethlehem, ‘there was no room for them in the inn’ ” (Luke 2:7).

How we answer that question should cause us to reflect on how we answer the question with respect to every human life. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. What would our world be like if this one or that one of us had not come?

Our society has changed

We see the immense consequences of the answer to that question and why legalized abortion has inflicted such a great wound on our society, because it has turned us “from a people who make room for others into a people who say to a brother or sister, ‘It is better for us if you do not come,’” to quote Bishop Piché.

In the examination of conscience, I was moved to repent of the times I have ever looked at a brother or sister and, for whatever reason, considered them to be a burden instead of a precious gift. I begged forgiveness for thinking negatively about a brother or sister instead of imagining their tremendous value and worth and potential for good as an image of God.

However we choose to remain active in the witness to and work on behalf of life, we pray that God might use us as a voice for the voiceless unborn. From there we move to defend and uphold our brothers and sisters enslaved by human trafficking, racism, the immigrant, the elderly, the homeless and the poorest of the poor.

Our pro-life family

For me, the March for Life is like a family reunion.

I had the opportunity to thank Leo LaLonde, MCCL’s president and a parishioner of St. Joseph’s in Grand Rapids, for his longtime work on behalf of life.

I greeted Peter Kostecka and Kaleb Quast, two of our seminarians who attend Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona and were attending the March with their fellow seminarians.

I also had a short visit with Sister Amata Marie, a Duluth native and a member of the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, on the plaza in front of the State Capitol building. To all of you who marked the day with prayer, reparation and witness, I thank you!

In the afternoon, my family celebrated my mother’s 91st birthday. I delighted as my siblings, their children and grandchildren, and an ever-growing family celebrated her life. If she had not come, none of us would be here.

Bishop Paul D. Sirba is the ninth Bishop of Duluth.

Entire diocese invited to witness to and celebrate Catholic faith

The Northern Cross

Celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Diocese of Duluth, which kicked off last October, will end in a big way, with all the faithful of the diocese invited to join together in a public Eucharistic Procession through the City of Duluth on Sept. 12.

The event, which will end with Mass and a celebration at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, is meant to be both a public witness to the faith and a celebration of it. Diocesan officials have also revealed a theme for the anniversary: “Celebrating 125 Years: Our Story, Our Faith.”

This large closing celebration for the whole church is still in the planning stages, but in the meantime there are still anniversary events taking place in other parts of the diocese, by deanery.

The Virginia Deanery gets things rolling first, on March 1 at 3 p.m. The event will take place at St. Martin in Tower and include Mass and a history presentation.

On its heels is the Hibbing Deanery. There will be a holy hour and history presentation at St. Joseph Church in Grand Rapids March 8, beginning at 5 p.m.

The Cloquet Deanery is next, with prayer, a meal and a history presentation at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, at Queen of Peace Church in Cloquet.

The Brainerd Deanery’s event will inclue a holy hour, a blessing of volunteers, a meal and more at St. Francis Church in Brainerd Sunday, Aug. 16, in the afternoon.

Pope Leo XIII established the Duluth Diocese in 1889 and named its first bishop, James McGolrick, a few months later. Celebration of the anniversary began last October with Bishop Paul Sirba, the diocese’s ninth bishop, transferring the diocesan patronal feast, Our Lady of the Rosary, to Oct. 5 and celebrating Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth.

By Kyle Eller
The Northern Cross

The diocesan men’s conference is on its fourth year and the women’s conference on its third, and both are moving to Marshall School in Duluth this year.

The Duluth Catholic Men’s Conference is set for Feb. 21 and will feature two speakers, Deacon Ralph Poyo and, for a session in the afternoon, youth minster Nic Davidson.

Deacon Poyo, a national speaker who founded New Evangelization Ministries and is sought for Steubenville Youth Conferences, will give sessions on Jesus, discipleship and pornography. He is coming from North Carolina.

“He is passionate about helping others to make Catholicism more a way of life, rather than just a religious identity,” said Deacon John Weiske, one of the conference organizers.

Davidson, a Duluthian now living in New York, will give a talk on Theology of the Body, a subject on which he speaks nationally.

Deacon Weiske said there will be one change in format.

“Having enough time for confessions has been a challenge,” he said. So in the morning Deacon Poyo will be repeating one of his sessions, allowing organizers to invite half of the men to go confession the first time and the other half the second.

“We’re hoping this will allow all the men who want to go to confession to go to confession,” he said.

He said the facilities at Marshall seem excellent for the expected 400 to 450 attendees, including more accessibility, with no stairs needed to get to the auditorium.

As usual, the conference will include lunch and Mass with Bishop Paul Sirba.

Women’s turn in March

The women’s conference on March 7 will be focused on the “Joy of the Gospel,” a major theme of Pope Francis, and the first 400 guests registered will receive of copy of Pope Francis’ document on the subject, said Betsy Kneepkens, director of marriage and family life for the Duluth Diocese.

This year the conference features two speakers: Hallie Lord, author, editor and founder of the Edel Gathering, speaking on the beauty of the church’s teaching on the vocations of marriage and authentic womanhood, and Kelly Wahlquist, assistant director of the Catechetical Institute for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Lord is from South Carolina. “Hallie is a wife, mother of six children, and she’s a convert to Cathlicism,” Kneepkens said.

Wahlquist, she said, weaves personal stories and gives practical advice to live the joy of the Gospel with missionary zeal. She is also founder of WINE: Women In the New Evangelization, and a contributing writer for catholicmom.com and The Integrated Catholic Life.

As in years past, there will be Mass, confession, adoration and the opportunity to pray the rosary, with a welcome by Bishop Sirba. Benedictine Sister Lisa Maurer of St. Scholastica Monastery will be the emcee. Kneepkens said the conference has also expanded the vendors to include items like jewelry.

“We anticipate well over 400 participants,” she said.

Both conferences have early registration dates coming up. For the men’s conference, priority registration ends Feb. 9. After that date, the fee rises from $25 to $35.

For the women’s conference, the cost is $30, and registration closes Feb. 20. Lunch and materials are not guaranteed after that date.

More registration information about both conference is available at the diocesan website, www.dioceseduluth.org.

For the men’s conference, registration forms are also available from parish offices.

The Vatican’s continued efforts to help the homeless of Rome have expanded beyond showers and bathrooms at St. Peter’s Square, with a barber shop set to open soon.

“Our primary concern is to give people their dignity,” Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, head of the Office of Papal Charities, told the Italian news agency ANSA.

Construction begins on new showers inside the public restrooms just off the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square, Nov. 17, 2014. (Photo by Daniel Ibáñez/CNA)

In November, construction started on new showers and bathrooms for the homeless under the colonnades of St. Peter’s Square. The archbishop, who oversaw the project, set aside space for a barber.

He noted the difficulty that the homeless face in washing themselves, which in turn helps cause others to reject them — or causes them to fear rejection.

“A person needs to keep their hair and facial hair tidy, also in order to prevent diseases,” the archbishop said. “This is another service that homeless people do not have easy access to. It is not easy for them to enter a normal shop because there may be a fear of customers catching something, like scabies for example.”

The initiative will also help “the good of the city,” since homeless people often take buses and the subway and come into contact with others.

The Poland-born Archbishop Krajewski is the papal almoner, who conducts acts of charity for the poor and raises money to fund the charitable work. When the archbishop was appointed, Pope Francis urged him not to stay at his desk but rather to be an active worker for the benefit of the poor.

Many barbers have volunteered with enthusiasm, including two barbers from the national Italian organization that transports the sick to Lourdes, France and other international shrines. Other volunteers are finishing their final year in barber school.

The barber service will be open on Mondays, when barber shops in Italy are traditionally closed. It is scheduled to open in several weeks.

— Catholic News Agency/EWTN News

By Andrea Gagliarducci / Catholic News Agency — Effectively exiled from his friary in Mosul by the Islamic State last year, Dominican Father Najeeb Michaeel is working to preserve Christian manuscripts through digitization, recording a memory of Iraq’s Christian past.

Father Najeeb Michaeel is an Iraqi native who studied in the U.S. and founded in 1990 the Center for the Digitization of Oriental Manuscripts to foster the collection and recording of ancient manuscripts which he had started in the 1980s.

A Syriac manuscript from the Monastery of St. Catherine, Mt. Sinai.

Over the years, Father Michaeel has collected some 750 Christian manuscripts in order to preserve them and to make them available for study by making digital copies.

The archives of the Dominican order in Iraq are a testimony to the Christian presence in Iraq, which stretches nearly 2,000 years in cities such as Mosul and Bakhdida, which are now controlled by Islamic State.

Mosul had had a Dominican friary since the 1750s, with both friars and the Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena. The friary amassed a large library of thousands of ancient manuscripts, as well as more than 50,000 more modern volumes.

When an Islamist insurgency hit Mosul in 2008 following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Dominicans smuggled their library to Bakhdida, a city populated primarily by Syriac Catholics, only 20 miles away.

Then in 2014, the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State seized Mosul in June. A month later Christians were effectively exiled from the city, and Islamic State continued to expand across Iraq’s Nineveh province.

Father Michaeel collected some 1,300 manuscripts from the 14th to the 19th century and put them in two large trucks in the early morning, transferring them to a secret location in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where they have been kept safe. They include not only Christian works but manuscripts on the Quran, music and grammar.

“We passed three checkpoints without any problem, and I think the Virgin Mary [had] a hand to protect us,” Father Michaeel said Jan. 26 in an interview with National Public Radio.

The library of 50,000 modern books was left behind in Bakhdida, and the city was seized by Islamic State on Aug. 7.

Father Michaeel has been joined in Erbil by Benedictine Father Columba Stewart, who is executive director of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, which is participating in the preservation of the Syriac manuscripts.

Islamic State have destroyed belongings of the non-Sunnis who have fled their territory, showing no regard for historical preservation. Convents and monasteries have been destroyed or requisitioned for their own use. In Mosul, a mound over the tomb of the prophet Jonah, on top of which a mosque was built, was destroyed with explosives in July.

Dominican Father Laurent Lemoine works with Father Michaeel. He told France 24 last October that “we’re trying to save these cultural artifacts because in northern Iraq it seems that everything is on the road to destruction — people of course, but also our cultural heritage. The artifacts were almost destroyed several times.”

“Across the region, Christianity is in the process of being swept away. Mass has been celebrated in Mosul for 1,600 years. This year was the first time that there hasn’t been a Mass in all that time.”

By Catholic News Service — The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review the use of lethal injections in carrying out executions is a welcome move, said the chairmen of two U.S. bishops’ committees.

The court said Jan. 23 it will review the drug protocols of lethal-injection executions in the state of Oklahoma and consider whether such procedures violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

“I welcome the court’s decision to review this cruel practice,” said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

“Our nation has witnessed through recent executions, such as occurred in Oklahoma, how the use of the death penalty devalues human life and diminishes respect for human dignity. We bishops continue to say, we cannot teach killing is wrong by killing,” he added.

Archbishop Wenski made the comments Jan. 27 in a joint statement issued with Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities.

The court will consider the case of Glossip v. Gross, brought by three death-row inmates in Oklahoma. Last year, prison officials botched the execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma using lethal injection. Lockett writhed in agony for 40 minutes before being unhooked from the drug dispenser in the prison’s death chamber and died soon afterward of apparent heart failure.

Oral arguments in the case are to be heard by the court in April.

“Society can protect itself in ways other than the use of the death penalty,” said Cardinal O’Malley. “We pray that the court’s review of these protocols will lead to the recognition that institutionalized practices of violence against any person erode reverence for the sanctity of every human life.”

“Capital punishment must end,” he added.

The U.S. bishops have been advocating against the death penalty for more than 40 years. In 2005, they initiated the Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty and continue to work closely with state Catholic conferences, the Catholic Mobilizing Network and other groups to abolish the death penalty in the United States.

Last October, Pope Francis called on Christians and all people of good will “to fight ... for the abolition of the death penalty ... in all its forms,” out of respect for human dignity.

By Cindy Wooden / Catholic News Service — When Pope Francis celebrates the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in June, he will set aside an element that has been part of the Mass for the past 32 years; the Vatican confirmed he will not confer the pallium on new archbishops during the liturgy.

Msgr. Guido Marini, the papal master of liturgical ceremonies, said Jan. 29 that the new archbishops will come to Rome to concelebrate the feast day Mass with Pope Francis June 29 and will be present for the blessing of the palliums, underlining their bond of unity and communion with him.

The actual imposition of the pallium, however, will take place in the archbishop’s archdiocese in the presence of his faithful and bishops from neighboring dioceses, he said.

The change will “better highlight the relationship of the metropolitan archbishops with their local churches, giving more faithful the possibility of being present for this significant rite,” Msgr. Marini said.

Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, who was installed in the archdiocese in November, is expected to be among the concelebrants in Rome.

St. John Paul II — who began many of the Vatican practices that now seem like venerable ancient traditions — first placed the woolen bands around the shoulders of metropolitan archbishops at the feast day Mass June 29, 1983.

A truly ancient tradition, dating back probably at least to the sixth century, will not change: The pope blesses the pallium and concedes its use by certain bishops. The current Code of Canon Law stipulates that within three months of their appointment or consecration all metropolitan archbishops (residential archbishops who preside over an ecclesiastical province) must request a pallium from the pope.

“The pallium signifies the power which the metropolitan, in communion with the Roman church, has by law in his own province,” it says. The code, however, does not specify that the pallium be received from the hands of the pope.

In 1982 on the eve of the feast day, Pope John Paul went down to the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica to pray before the tomb of St. Peter and bless the palliums that were to be given “to the metropolitan archbishops to be created by the Holy Father,” according to a description in Attivita della Santa Sede (Activity of the Holy See), an annual publication that includes a day-by-day description of the activities of the pope.

The next year, Pope John Paul made the change. After the homily, five archbishops who had been named in the previous year to archdioceses in Italy, Wales and Chile, approached the pope, knelt and received the wool bands marked with crosses. Other archbishops named during the year received their palliums from the nuncio or papal representative in their countries.

In his homily, Pope John Paul had explained, “during this celebration the blessing and the imposition of the pallium on certain, recently named archbishops will take place.”

The blessing of the pallium near the tomb of St. Peter and by his successor, the pope, “has always been seen ... as a participation in the ‘feed my sheep’ said by Jesus to Peter,” Pope John Paul said.

In fact, the woolen bands, which are about 3 inches wide and have 14-inch strips hanging down the front and the back, are tipped with black silk to recall the dark hoof of the sheep the archbishop is symbolically carrying over his shoulders.

Personally placing the palliums on the archbishops, Pope John Paul said, “signifies that the pallium imposed on you, dear brothers in the episcopate, is a symbol of privileged communion with the successor of Peter, principle and visible foundation of unity in the field of doctrine, discipline and pastoral work.”

At the same time, he said, the pallium should signify “a greater commitment to love for Christ and for souls. Such love for the flock of Christ, shepherd and guardian of our souls, will help you carry out your ministry of service,” he said. “The doctrine you offer will be fruitful if nourished with love.”

Already this year, Pope Francis has kept part of the tradition connected to the palliums. On the Jan. 21 feast of St. Agnes, he blessed two lambs raised by Trappist monks outside Rome. Benedictine nuns at the Monastery of St. Cecilia in Rome will use wool from the blessed lambs to make the bands, which will be kept by St. Peter’s tomb until the pope blesses and distributes them.

The change Pope Francis decided for 2015 was not a complete surprise given his suggestion that Argentine bishops and faithful not spend huge sums to come to Rome for his own installation as pope in 2013 — and that they use the money they would have spent for the poor — and his encouragement to new cardinals to keep celebrations of their new roles to a dignified minimum.

In June 2013, Archbishop Michael O. Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, was in the first group of archbishops to receive their palliums from Pope Francis. At the time, he told Catholic News Service, “To be quite honest, I was kind of hoping that maybe he would send the pallium by way of FedEx and say, ‘Save the money and give it to the poor.’”