Fit For Mission Marriage to be used in Rome Seminar

The Pontifical Council for the Family is to present the Diocese of Lancaster’s Marriage Preparation Course, Fit for Mission? Marriage, to participants at an International Seminar to be held in Rome (10th-11th September 2009) on the theme, ‘The Family as the subject of Evangelisation’.

For more information, go here.

A day for reflection on 9/11

Let me begin at the beginning.

This morning we concelebrated at different Masses at the nearby St Francis Franciscan Church, as we have been doing every morning since arriving in New York. The friars have made us very welcome.

This "National Shrine of Saint Anthony" is situated at 135 West 31st Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues. There is also an entrance on 32nd Street but if you enter by the 31st Street entrance in the morning you will find a large number of men being fed and provided with tea/coffee. I learnt that this provision of food and drink has been going on every day since 1929 without a break.

There is a very devotional atmposphere amongst the faithful. The morning Masses are well attended. On Monday and Tuesday mornings the Friars bless the people with the relics of St Anthony and St Jude respectively and all the people line up to have the relics placed on their forheads.

There is all-day exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the crypt chapel and many people pop in and kneel before Our Eucharistic Lord, some raising their hands, others praying more modestly.

This shrine is also the place where Father Mychal Judge, the friar chaplain to the NY Fire Department who lost his life on 9/11, lived. One of the Friars, Fr Tom, told me that he knew Fr Mychal when he (Fr Tom) was still a teenager. West 31st Street has been named after Fr Mychal:


There is also a memorial to him in the church:


The above plaque reads:

Three pieces of steel from the tangled debris of the World Trade Center were entrusted to the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi following the horrific terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which killed 2,751 people. This memorial to all the victims, including Fr Mychal Judge OFM, a New York Fire Department Chaplain, and Carol LaPlante, a Secular Francisan and parishioner, summons the grief and unspeakable sadness of that tragic morning. A single golden rose rises gently from the mass of contorted steel and transends the senseless brutality with an enduring promise of hope.

After breakfast we caught the E subway line to World Trade Centre to visit Ground Zero.

There is an observation point within the World Financial Centre.



The Fire Department's nearby office has become a memorial to all the Fire Department members who died in the rescue operation.


The above picture shows a poster with the photos and names of all the fire fighters who lost their lives. Along the wall is a huge bronge frieze with the names recorded in rank order below a representation of the events of 9/11.






Among the firefighters I noticed one called Michael Boyle. We are probably not related but I offered a particular prayer for him. The host of Irish and Italian names was quite remarkable.

And of course Father Mychal Judge was included.
Whilst standing in front of the memorial, I noticed a man who removed the baseball cap from the head of one of his two sons. After a brief moment, he made the sign of the Cross.

Next door is the Tribute WTC Visitor Center. This is an extremely moving and simply put together memorial consisting of a multi-media presentation of personal testimonies from survivors, articles found in the debris, a host of 'missing' notices etc. In one of the videos people describe the community atmosphere within the WTC. Many people met their future wives/husbands there.

Here's what one plane passenger said to his loved one before the impact:


and a collection of photos of those who perished:


A video displaying all the names takes four and a half hours to get through the list.

In this Centre I wept. Something about the patriotism of the American people was very touching. I think America is also at heart a religious nation. The video presentation on the rescue operation was extremely sensitive about the recovery of bodies, or parts of bodies, from the smouldering ruins. Every time a body or part of one was recovered, silence was observed and prayer offered as the body was removed with dignity on a Fire Department stretcher draped with the American flag. The Visitor Center is a permanent record of great heroism and stoicism.

One thing which is noticeable is that not a mention is made of the perpetrators of this terrible act. Everything focuses on the people directly involved. No doubt some will dismiss it as an attempt at propaganda. For my own part, I know that America is not a perfect nation or a nation of saints. But it is a great nation. It is also a hugely influential nation in the world, with the possibility of being a force for good or a force for evil. I would urge prayer for this nation that it may be a force for good.

(And had President Bush not declared a war on terror, nor gone into Iraq, perhaps he would be remembered as a great president.)

If you visit New York, do not fail to visit Ground Zero.

The Liverpool Care Pathway

One of my parishioners mentioned this recently so I thought I'd mention the concerns that have been aired by some very eminent physicians and other experts in a letter in today's Daily Telegraph. They are:

P. H. Millard
Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics University of London
Dr Anthony Cole
Chairman, Medical Ethics Alliance
Dr Peter Hargreaves
Consultant in Palliative Medicine
Dr David Hill
Fellow of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons
Dr Elizabeth Negus
Lecturer, Barking University
Dowager Lady Salisbury
Chairman, Choose Life

Both John Smeaton of SPUC and Lifesitenews have covered the matter today.

The Telegraph itself reports here: "Sentenced to death on the NHS".

The letter reads as follows:

SIR – The Patients Association has done well to expose the poor treatment of elderly patients in some parts of the NHS (report, August 27). We would like to draw attention to the new “gold standard” treatment of those categorised as “dying”. Forecasting death is an inexact science.

Just as, in the financial world, so-called algorithmic banking has caused problems by blindly following a computer model, so a similar tick-box approach to the management of death is causing a national crisis in care.

The Government is rolling out a new treatment pattern of palliative care into hospitals, nursing and residential homes. It is based on experience in a Liverpool hospice. If you tick all the right boxes in the Liverpool Care Pathway, the inevitable outcome of the consequent treatment is death.

As a result, a nationwide wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients. Syringe drivers are being used to give continuous terminal sedation, without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

It is disturbing that in the year 2007-2008, 16.5 per cent of deaths came about after terminal sedation. Experienced doctors know that sometimes, when all but essential drugs are stopped, “dying” patients get better.

I daresay there are occasions when it is clear that a patient is dying and there comes a time when the body neither requires nor accepts food and hydration. But we are right to be concerned in the current climate of confusion concerning life and death matters.

Church of the Holy Saviour, New York

Today we were granted an audience with the august parish priest of the Church of Our Saviour on Park Avenue at 38th Street. His name: Father George Rutler. Father Rutler is a well known author and speaker and a friend of Father Ben Kiely, my friend from Kent but who is parish priest at Stowe, Vermont.

Father Rutler has transformed the Church and continues to do so with fine art and sacred objects. The tabernacle is dedicated to the victims of 9/11. More details from the parish website.


Having a very Eastern feel, it is truly a most prayerful place and it was nice to see people praying.


A very touching event took place while we were with Father Rutler. A courier called in and his secretary showed him into the room where we were meeting. The young man said that he regularly delivers items to the Church, that he always says a prayer and that he was so pleased to meet Father. When he mentioned his wife, and that his wife was just calling on his mobile, Father Rutler took the phone and said some very kind words to her. I'm sure he made their day.


Father said that there are currently four seminarians who have come through his parish, not a bad record. The parish is not typical in that there are not many residents, most of those attending being either visitors or people who travel to attend Mass there.

Those rose tinted glasses...

Just get rosier. Here's an advert we saw by a Michigan state highway last week:

Such an ad would be inconceivable in the UK.

American bishops differ over Notre Dame and Obama

Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM, told the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) last month that he disagreed with what he called the "hysterical" reaction of U.S. bishops condemning the Notre Dame scandal, as well as bishops who refuse communion to pro-abortion politicians, which he says makes the Catholic Church too "isolated from society."

So reports Lifesite News.

The Bishop of Marquette, the Most Reverend Alexander Sample (pictured below), is amongst those bishops who wrote against the decision to honour President Obama, a decision which he called "unconscionable" and "completely out of step with the Catholic Church’s teaching.".


My brother, Father Stephen Boyle, and I had the privilege of being Bishop Sample's guests last week. Last Sunday, the day after Ted Kennedy's funeral, Bishop Sample presided at the 10am Mass in his Cathedral. In his homily, he recalled how a bishop friend had remarked that he was concerned that Catholics in America were:

first: consumers
second: Americans
third: democrat or republic
fourth: Catholic.

He said that, at the end of our lives, we will not be judged on our political allegiances or our nationality, but on whether we have been faithful catholics; that the time to vote simply on party lines has gone. We must assess each candidate on his own merits, and weigh very specially his/her policies as they affect human life, marriage, the family and, if they are in opposition to the Church's teaching on these fundamental matters, we must not vote for them. It is time for Americans to be Catholic first. In this way they will be truly good Americans.


Pictured above is Bishop Sample with the rector of the Cathedral Fr Michael Steber, my brother and me.

Cherie Blair - an embarassment to the Catholic Church

Lifesitenews reports that Mrs Blair has once again stated her opposition to the Catholic Church's 'ban' - as she calls it - on contraception. She clearly says that it has been a part of her and her husband's married life:

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with that, and indeed without that (ability) to control I wouldn't have been able to achieve the things that I've been able to do.

We are in a time of bold dissent from the Catholic Church's teaching and we must pray that our bishops will be inspired by the Holy Spirit to guide their faithful according to the Natural Law.