St. James Our Lady of Fatima Parishes

The Catholic Church honors St. Bernardine of Siena on May 20. A Franciscan friar and preacher, St. Bernardine is known as “the Apostle of Italyâ€� for his efforts to revive the country's Catholic faith during the 15th century. Bernardine Albizeschi was born to upper-class parents in the Italian republic of Siena during 1380. Misfortune soon entered the boy's life when he lost his mother at age three and his father four years later. His aunt Diana cared for him afterward, and taught him to seek consolation and security by trusting in God. Even at a young age, Bernardine demonstrated a remarkable concern for the poor as an outgrowth of his love for God. Having become accustomed to fasting, he preferred at times to go without any food in order to help someone in greater need. From the ages of 11 to 17 he focused on his studies, developing the eloquence and dedication that would serve his future work as an evangelist. Before becoming a preacher, however, Bernardine spent several years ministering to the sick and dying. He enrolled in a religious association that served at a hospital in the town of Scala, and applied himself to this work from 1397 to 1400. During that time, a severe plague broke out in Siena, causing a crisis that would eventually lead to the young man taking charge of the entire hospital. Inside its walls, up to 20 people were dying each day from an illness that also killed many of the hospital workers. The staff was decimated and new victims were coming in constantly. Bernardine persuaded 12 young men to help him continue the work of the hospital, which he took over for a period of four months. Although the plague did not infect him, the exhausting work left him weak and he contracted a different sickness that kept him in bed for four months. After recovering, he spent over a year caring for his aunt Bartholomaea before her death. Then the 22-year-old Bernardine moved to a small house outside the city, where he began to discern God's will for his future through prayer and fasting. He eventually chose to join the Franciscans of the Strict Observance in 1403, embracing an austere life focused on poverty and humility. During this time, while praying before a crucifix, Bernardine heard Christ say to him: “My son, behold me hanging upon a cross. If you love me, or desire to imitate me, be also fastened naked to your cross and follow me. Thus you will assuredly find me.â€� After Bernardine was ordained a priest, his superiors commissioned him to preach as a missionary to the Italians who were falling away from their Catholic faith. The Dominican evangelist St. Vincent Ferrer, just before leaving Italy, preached a sermon in which he predicted that one of his listeners would continue his work among the Italians –  a prophecy Bernardine heard in person, and went on to fulfill. Bernardine's personal devotion to God, which amazed even the strict Franciscans, made his preaching extremely effective. He moved his hearers to abandon their vices, turn back to God, and make peace with one another. He promoted devotion to the name of Jesus as a simple and effective means of recalling God's love at all times. When other priests consulted him for advice, Bernardine gave them a simple rule: “In all your actions, seek in the first place the kingdom of God and his glory. Direct all you do purely to his honor. Persevere in brotherly charity, and practice first all that you desire to teach others.â€� “By this means,â€� he said, “the Holy Spirit will be your master, and will give you such wisdom and such a tongue that no adversary will be able to stand against you.â€� Bernardine's own life attested to this source of strength in the face of trials. He patiently suffered an accusation of heresy –  which Pope Martin V judged to be false – and refused to abandon his bold preaching when a nobleman threatened him with death. But Bernardine was also widely admired throughout Italy, and he was offered the office of a bishop on three occasions. Each time, however, he turned down the position, choosing to fulfill the prediction of St. Vincent Ferrer through his missionary work. Bernardine preached throughout most of Italy several times over, and even managed to reconcile members of its warring political factions. Later in his life, Bernardine served for five years as the Vicar General for his Franciscan order, and revived the practice of its strict rule of life. Then in 1444, forty years after he first entered religious life, Bernardine became sick while traveling. He continued to preach, but soon lost his strength and his voice. St. Bernardine of Siena died on May 20, 1444. Only six years later, in 1450, Pope Nicholas V canonized him as a saint.

Celestine is a saint who will always be remembered for the bizarre manner in which he was elected Pope, his spectacular incompetence in that office, and for the distinction of being the only pontiff ever to have resigned.Pietro di Murrone was born in born 1215 in the Neapolitan province of Moline to a poor family. He became a Benedictine monk at the age of seventeen, and was eventually ordained priest at Rome. His love of solitude led him first into the wilderness of Monte Morone in the Abruzzi, whence his surname, and later into the wilder recesses of Mt. Majella. He was strongly influenced by the life of John the Baptist, and took him as his model in his religious life. His hair-cloth was roughened with knots, he wore a chain of iron encompassing his emaciated frame, and he fasted every day except for on Sunday. Each year he kept four Lents, passing three of them on bread and water only, and he consecrated the entire day and a great part of the night to prayer and labour. As generally happens in the case of saintly anchorites, Peter's great desire for solitude was not destined to be gratified. Many kindred spirits gathered about him eager to imitate his rule of life, and before his death there were thirty- six monasteries, numbering 600 religious, and bearing his papal name, Celestini. The order that developed amongst those that gathered around him was approved as a branch of the Benedictines by Urban IV in 1264. This congregation of Benedictine Celestines must not be confused with other Celestines, Fransiscans, who are extreme Spirituals that Pope Celestine permitted to live as hermits according to the Rule of St. Francis in 1294, but were pendent of the Franciscan superiors. In thier gratitude they named themselves after the pope (Pauperes eremitæ Domini Celestine), but were dissolved and dispersed (1302) by Boniface VIII, whose legitimacy the Spirituals contested. In 1284, Pietro, weary of the cares of government, appointed a certain Robert as his vicar and plunged again into the depths of the wilderness. It would be well if some Catholic scholar would devote some time to a thorough investigation of his relations to the extreme spiritual party of that age, for though it is certain that the pious hermit did not approve of the heretical tenets held by the leaders, it is equally true that the fanatics, during his life and after his death, made copious use of his name.In July 1294, his pious exercises were suddently interrupted by a scene unparalleled in ecclesiastical history. Three eminent dignitaries, accompanied by an immense multitude of monks and laymen, ascended the mountain, and announced that Pietro had been chosen as the new Pope by a unanimous vote of the Sacred College and humbly begged him to accept the honour. Two years and three months had elapsed since the death of Nicholas IV on Apil 4, 1292 without much prospect that the conclave at Perugia would unite upon a candidate. Of the twelve Cardinals who composed the Sacred College six were Romans, four Italians and two French. The factious spirit of Guelph and Ghibelline, which was then epidemic in Italy, divided the conclave, as well as the city of Rome, into two hostile parties of the Orsini and the Colonna, neither of which could outvote the other. During a personal visit to Perugia in the spring of 1294, Charles II of Naples, who needed the papal authority in order to regain Sicily, only exasperated the situation. Hostile words were exchanged between the Angevin monarch and Cardinal Gaetani, who was at that time the intellectual leader of the Colonna, and later, Pope Boniface VIII, their bitter enemy. When the situation seemed hopeless, Cardinal Latino Orsini admonished the fathers that God had revealed to a saintly hermit that if the cardinals did not perform their duty within four months, He would visit the Church with severe chastisement. All knew that he was referring to Pietro di Murrone. The proposition was seized upon by the exhausted conclave and the election was made unanimous. Pietro received the news of his elevation with tears, but after a brief prayer, obeyed what seemed the clear voice of God, commanding him to sacrifice his personal inclination on the altar of the public welfare. Flight was impossible, even if he had contemplated it, for no sooner did the news of this extraordinary event spread abroad than multitudes (numbered at 200,000) flocked about him. His elevation was particularly welcome to the Spirituals, who saw in it the realization of current prophecies that the reign of the Holy Spirit ruling through the monks was at hand, and they proclaimed him the first legitimate Pope since Constantine's donation of wealth and worldly power to "the first rich father" (Inferno, Canto XIX). King Charles of Naples, upon hearing of the election of his subject, hastened with his son Charles Martel, titular King of Hungary, to present his homage to the new Pope, but, in reality, to take the simple old man into honourable custody. Had Charles known how to preserve moderation in exploiting his good luck, this windfall might have brought him incalculable benefits. As it was, he ruined everything by his excessive greed.In reply to the request of the cardinals, that he should come to Perugia to be crowned, Pietro, at the instigation of Charles, summoned the Sacred College to meet him at Aquila, a frontier town of the Kingdom of Naples. Reluctantly they came, and one by one, Gaetani being the last to appear. Seated humbly on a simple donkey, the rope held by two monarchs, the new pontiff proceeded to Aquila, and although only three of the cardinals had arrived, the king ordered him to be crowned, and the ceremony had to be repeated in traditional form some days later, instancing the only double papal coronation. Cardinal Latino was so grief- stricken at the course which affairs were evidently taking that he fell sick and died shortly after the coronation. Pietro took the name of Celestine V. As one of his first acts of Pope, being urged by the cardinals to cross over into the States of the Church, Celestine, at the behest of the king, ordered the entire Curia to repair to Naples. It is wonderful how many serious mistakes the simple old man crowded into five short months. We have no full register of them, because his official acts were annulled by his successor. On September 18, he created twelve new cardinals, seven of whom were French, and the rest, with one possible exception, Neapolitans, thus paving the road to Avignon and the Great Schism. Ten days later he embittered the cardinals by renewing the rigorous law of Gregory X, regulating the conclave which Adrian V had suspended. He is said to have appointed a young son of Charles to the important See of Lyons, but no trace of such appointment appears in Gams or Eubel. At Monte Cassino on his way to Naples, he strove to force the Celestine hermit-rule on the monks, which they humoured him with while he was with them. At Benevento he created the bishop of the city a cardinal, without observing any of the traditional forms. Meanwhile he scattered privileges and offices with a lavish hand. Refusing no one, he was found to have granted the same place or benefice to three or four rival suitors. He also granted favours without a second thought. In consequence, the affairs of the Curia fell into extreme disorder. Upon his arrival in Naples, he took up his abode in a single apartment of the Castel Nuovo, and on the approach of Advent had a little cell built on the model of his beloved hut in the Abruzzi. But he was ill at ease. Affairs of State took up time that ought to be devoted to exercises of piety, and he feared that his soul was in danger. The thought of abdication seems to have occurred simultaneously to the pope and to his discontented cardinals, whom he rarely consulted.That the idea originated with Cardinal Gaetani, the latter vigorously denied, and maintained that he originally opposed it. But a serious canonical doubt arose: Can a pope resign? As he has no superior on earth, who is authorized to accept his resignation? The solution of the question was reserved to the trained canonist, Cardinal Gaetani, who, basing his conclusion on common sense and the Church's right to self-preservation, decided affirmatively.It is interesting to notice how curtly, when he became Boniface VIII, he dispatched the delicate subject on which the validity of his claim to the papacy depended. In the "Liber Sextus" I, vii, 1, he issued the following decree: "Whereas some curious persons, arguing on things of no great expediency, and rashly seeking, against the teaching of the Apostle, to know more than it is meet to know, have seemed, with little forethought, to raise an anxious doubt, whether the Roman Pontiff, especially when he recognizes himself incapable of ruling the Universal Church and of bearing the burden of the Supreme Pontificate, can validly renounce the papacy, and its burden and honour: Pope Celestine V, Our predecessor, whilst still presiding over the government of the aforesaid Church, wishing to cut off all the matter for hesitation on the subject, having deliberated with his brethren, the Cardinals of the Roman Church, of whom We were one, with the concordant counsel and assent of Us and of them all, by Apostolic authority established and decreed, that the Roman Pontiff may freely resign. We, therefore, lest it should happen that in course of time this enactment should fall into oblivion, and the aforesaid doubt should revive the discussion, have placed it among other constitutions ad perpetuam rei memoriam by the advice of our brethren."When the report spread that Celestine contemplated resigning, the excitement in Naples was intense. King Charles, whose arbitrary course had brought things to this crisis, organized a determined opposition. A huge procession of the clergy and monks surrounded the castle, and with tears and prayers implored the Pope to continue his rule. Celestine, whose mind was not yet clear on the subject, returned an evasive answer, whereupon the multitude chanted the Te Deum and withdrew. A week later, on December13, Celestine's resolution was irrevocably fixed. Summoning the cardinals on that day, he read the constitution mentioned by Boniface in the "Liber Sextus", announced his resignation, and proclaimed the cardinals free to proceed to a new election. After the lapse of the nine days enjoined by the legislation of Gregory X, the cardinals entered the conclave, and the next day Benedetto Gaetani was proclaimed Pope as Boniface VIII. After revoking many of the provisions made by Celestine, Boniface brought his predecessor, now in the dress of a humble hermit, with him on the road to Rome. He was forced to retain him in custody, lest an inimical use should be made of the simple old man. Celestine yearned for his cell in the Abruzzi, and managed to escape at San Germano, and to the great joy of his monks reappeared among them at Majella. Boniface ordered his arrest, but Celestine evaded his pursuers for several months by wandering through the woods and mountains. Finally, he attempted to cross the Adriatic to Greece but, driven back by a tempest, and captured at the foot of Mt. Gargano, he was delivered into the hands of Boniface, who confined him closely in a narrow room in the tower of the castle of Fumone near Anagni (Analecta Bollandiana, 1897, XVI, 429-30). Here, after nine months passed in fasting and prayer, closely watched and attended by two of his own religious, though rudely treated by the guards, he ended his extraordinary career in his ninety-first year. That Boniface treated him harshly, and finally cruelly murdered him, is a calumny. Some years after his canonization by Clement V in 1313, his remains were transferred from Ferentino to the church of his order at Aquila, where they are still the object of great veneration. His feast is celebrated on May 19.

On May 18, the Catholic Church honors the first “Pope John� in its history. Saint John I was a martyr for the faith, imprisoned and starved to death by a heretical Germanic king during the sixth century. He was a friend of the renowned Christian philosopher Boethius, who died in a similar manner. Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians also honor Pope St. John I, on the same date as the Roman Catholic Church. The future Pope John I was born in Tuscany, and served as an archdeacon in the Church for several years. He was chosen to become the Bishop of Rome in 523, succeeding Pope St. Hormisdas. During his papal reign Italy was ruled by the Ostrogothic King Theodoric. Like many of his fellow tribesmen, the king adhered to the Arian heresy, holding that Christ was a created being rather than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Arianism had originated in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire during the fourth century, and subsequently spread among the Western Goths. By the sixth century the heresy was weak in the East, but not dead. In 523, the Byzantine Emperor Justin I ordered Arian clergy to surrender their churches into orthodox Catholic hands. In the West, meanwhile, Theodoric was angered by the emperor’s move, and responded by trying to use the Pope’s authority for his own ends. Pope John was thus placed in an extremely awkward position. Despite the Pope’s own solid orthodoxy, the Arian king seems to have expected him to intercede with the Eastern emperor on behalf of the heretics. John’s refusal to satisfy King Theodoric would eventually lead to his martyrdom. John did travel to Constantinople, where he was honored as St. Peter’s successor by the people, the Byzantine Emperor, and the Church’s legitimate Eastern patriarchs. (The Church of Alexandria had already separated by this point.) The Pope crowned the emperor, and celebrated the Easter liturgy at the Hagia Sophia Church in April of 526. But while John could urge Justin to treat the Arians somewhat more mercifully, he could not make the kind of demands on their behalf that Theodoric expected. The gothic king, who had recently killed John’s intellectually accomplished friend Boethius (honored by the Church as St. Severinus Boethius, on Oct. 23), was furious with the Pope when he learned of his refusal to support the Arians in Constantinople. Already exhausted by his travels, the Pope was imprisoned in Ravenna and deprived of food. The death of St. John I came on or around May 18, which became his feast day in the Byzantine Catholic tradition and in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. In the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, he is celebrated on May 27, the date on which his exhumed body was returned to Rome for veneration in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The following is the first in a series of three articles highlighting the journey of hope, healing and forgiveness three women found through Project Rachel, a post-abortion healing ministry of Priests for Life in the Archdiocese of Detroit, and Silent No More, a campaign to raise awareness about the devastation of abortion and the healing resources available. For more information, contact Project Rachel at (313) 237-5894. Denise A. Stearns | The Michigan Catholic LAKE ORION — It’s the elephant in the room. The experience of abortion and its results are excluded from polite conversation. The issue is politically incorrect. It’s too polarizing and can tear individuals, couples, families and communities apart. The Catholic Church teaches that abortion, the deliberate killing of an unborn child, is a most grave evil, yet more than one in three regular church-going Americans have been in an abortive relationship — either having had an abortion or being the father of an aborted child, according to Rachel’s Vineyard, a national post-abortion healing ministry run by the Priests for Life. And many of these deeply wounded people — who come from all walks of life — have never dealt with its impact on their lives or experienced [...]

DETROIT — Fr. Timothy Kesicki, SJ, who taught theology at Detroit’s Loyola High School and now serves as provincial of the Chicago-Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus, was appointed May 10 to be the next president of the Jesuit Conference in the United States. Fr. Kesicki was appointed by Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, superior general of the Society of Jesus, to become the leader of the U.S.-based Jesuits beginning Aug. 1, 2014. The Jesuit Conference, based in Washington, D.C., coordinates the work of the world’s largest religious order in the United States. Fr. Kesicki, a native of Erie, Pa., was ordained to the priesthood in 1994 and taught theology at Loyola High School in Detroit from 1988-91. He later served separately as provincial of the Jesuits’ Detroit and Chicago provinces before the two merged under his leadership in 2010. He will succeed Fr. Thomas Smolich, SJ, who has served as president of the U.S. Jesuit Conference since 2006. “This assignment comes at a very exciting time for the Church and the Society of Jesus here in the U.S. and around the world,” Fr. Kesicki said in a statement. “Going back to St. Ignatius himself, we Jesuits have always put [...]

DETROIT — When viewed from the perspective of Church history, the renewal of the permanent diaconate in the Western Church is “still in its toddler stage,” said Deacon Michael McKale. Deacon McKale, 69, is retiring at the end of June as the archdiocesan Office of Clergy and Consecrated Life’s associate director for permanent deacons, but intends to remain active in his own diaconal assignment at Holy Name Parish in Birmingham. Back in his Chancery Building office after undergoing open-heart surgery several weeks ago, Deacon McKale said the understanding of the role of permanent deacons in today’s Church is developing. “Most of the bishops who attended Vatican II and who personally heard the discussion of around 100 topics on the permanent diaconate are no longer alive, and most of the bishops who replaced them are not acquainted with the intention of the earlier bishops concerning the renewal of the permanent diaconate,” he said. While originally the main thrust of diaconal ministry was to be in the area of charity, Deacon McKale said deacons now often find themselves more concerned with parish duties as a result of the priest shortage. In many dioceses, he said, deacons are being named parish life coordinators. [...]

DETROIT — When St. Irene Parish, Dundee, and St. Joseph Parish, Ida, found out they’d be merging when the roadmap of the Together in Faith pastoral planning process was released in February 2012, there was no need to wait to get things started. The marriage of the two rural Monroe County parishes, which will take effect July 1, “just made sense,” said Fr. Michael Woroniewicz, pastor of both parishes. St. Irene, with 300 families, and St. Joseph, with 400, have already become accustomed to doing some things together as clustered parishes. Now, they will form one parish with two worship sites, as envisioned by the Together in Faith plan. “We really do need two worship spaces and two campuses,” Fr. Woroniewicz said. The two churches are about eight miles apart, but Fr. Woroniewicz said that in his sprawling, rural corner of the archdiocese, “people are used to driving a distance — to Ann Arbor to go to the doctor or to Toledo to go shopping,” for instance. One thing still to be determined, however, is what the new parish will be called. “I’m expecting the official decree from the archbishop any day now, with the new name,” Fr. Woroniewicz said [...]

Deacon Patrick Joseph Gonyeau Age: 34 Parents: Thomas and Patricia Gonyeau of St. Jude Parish, Detroit (formerly of St. David Parish, Detroit) Education: St. Clare of Montefalco in Grosse Pointe Park (K-4); Tyrone Elementary School in Harper Woods (grades 5-6); Harper Woods High School (grades 7-12); Michigan State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in advertising with special certification in public relations in 2001; Sacred Heart Major Seminary, where he earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in 2009, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology and a Master of Divinity degree in 2013. Home parish: St. Jude Parish, Detroit Masses of Thanksgiving: St. Jude Church, Detroit, 10 a.m. Sunday, May 19; Our Lady Queen of Peace Church, Harper Woods, 10 a.m. Sunday, June 2; Bishop Foley High School Chapel, Madison Heights, 11 a.m. Sunday, June 9. Secular career before seminary: Waiter and folk musician Route to the priesthood: It is true, and I am grateful, that God can write straight with crooked lines. At 25, I was a befuddled configuration of crooked lines living in Nashville, Tenn., when I began to reap the fruits of years of faithless and secular living. What I didn’t know then, but am certain of now, is [...]

Religious jubilarians celebrate years of service to God and neighbor DETROIT — In his remarks at the luncheon for this year’s religious jubilarians — vowed religious women and men marking milestone anniversaries — June 9, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron said it was almost unavoidable that he would reprise his early remarks at Mass. “But it is always appropriate to give thanks for the contributions” of those in religious life, he said, adding that their contributions to the life of the Church have been “made at some sacrifice.” This year’s Celebration of Consecrated Life jubilee Mass honored 109 religious sisters and brothers, and religious order priests serving in the Archdiocese of Detroit, who were 25, 50, 60, 65, 70, 75 or 80 years of consecrated life and above, including one observing 88 years in the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. At 105 years of age, Sr. Rose Xavier Dunn, IHM, had actually hoped to attend the event, but was not up to making the trip from Monroe to Sacred Heart Major Seminary when the day arrived, said Msgr. Timothy Hogan, director of the archdiocesan Office of Clergy and Consecrated Life. As always, the women religious on the list [...]

DETROIT — Sr. Brigid Johnson, RSM, one of this year’s 60-year jubilarians, said she is thankful for what her vocation to the Religious Sisters of Mercy has meant during these past six decades. “It’s a wonderful privilege to be part of a group of women, all of whom want to be of help to God’s children — especially to so many who are struggling with so many things in their lives,” she said June 9 after the annual Celebration of Consecrated Life jubilee Mass. At 77, Sr. Johnson is still teaching mathematics and tutoring students in math at the University of Detroit Mercy. She said many of the students with whom she works are otherwise talented people who nevertheless hate or fear math. “They seem to be so grateful for the extra help,” Sr. Johnson said. Students find it comforting when she tells them that, while they might not be as proficient in math as she is, they have talents she doesn’t have, she continued. Besides her work at UDM, Sr. Johnson is also a liturgist and coordinates many of the liturgies at the McAuley Center in Farmington Hills. She grew up in St. Francis de Sales Parish, attending the [...]