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Currents News for Tuesday, January 7, 2020

On the newscast: Millions of mourners arrived in the hometown of Gen. Qassem Soleimani for his funeral. But it became chaotic – and a stampede followed killing at least 56 Iranians; A mob of masked protestors torch a Catholic Church in Chile that serves the national police; A unique glimpse into Pope Benedict’s life today and an update on his health; And we’ll hear from a nun who has worked closely with seven popes.

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Using Architecture, Missionary Priest ‘Builds’ Relationship With Christ

By Tim Harfmann

Jesuit priest Father Terrence Curry is on a new mission, sanding and sawing spirituality in Brooklyn. 

He is an architect, and started ministering in the Brooklyn Diocese last summer. When he’s not serving in parishes, Fr. Curry is hard at work designing furniture in his Sunset Park studio. 

“For me, the encounter with God really is in the process of making, of encountering the materials, the stuff of creation,” he explained. 

Fr. Curry’s 35-year ministry includes teaching architecture around the world, including China, where communism forced the priest to be referred to as “Professor Curry.”

Yet, he found ways of instilling splinters of scripture.

“I have them look at some materials and I say, ‘Okay, rather than starting with a concept about function and about form, why don’t you encounter the materials and see what the materials inspire?’” he would ask students.

Former pupils like Chaoyun Wu are now visiting the crafty cleric in Brooklyn with an understanding of what Fr. Curry was trying to teach.

“I felt it was something that’s much bigger than I am,” Chaoyun explained. “It is a pursuit of something, that is something greater than one person.”

Fr. Curry hopes to bring those teachings to the Brooklyn Diocese. He is still building prototypes and looking for clients, but he remains inspired by Christ — the real architect.  

“The dining room table is an altar, right? The altar is a dining room table,” he said. 

Now Fr. Curry is carving Catholicism in his saw-dusted studio.

Puerto Rico Reels Under Successive Earthquakes; Catholic Church Damaged

By Emily Drooby and Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) — At least one person has died and one Catholic Church was destroyed by the latest of a series of earthquakes to rock Puerto Rico.

A magnitude 6.4 quake shook people awake at 4:24 a.m. local time Jan. 7, less than 24 hours after a magnitude 5.8 temblor shook the island in the predawn hours of Jan. 6.

Aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 3.8 to 6 were felt throughout the island following the early morning temblor, reported the U.S. Geological Survey.

The continuous shaking has taken a psychological toll, said Father Enrique Camacho, executive director of Caritas of Puerto Rico, which is affiliated with Catholic Charities USA.

“Right now we are helping the people with emotional support,” Father Camacho told Catholic News Service Jan. 7. “What we fear is that we continue having these earthquakes. If we have bigger ones, the damage is going to be very, very, very bad.”

The latest earthquake sent people scurrying from their homes into the streets from Ponce, the island’s second-largest city, westward along the island’s southern coast to the towns of Guayanilla, Guanica, Yauco and Lajas, all near the epicenter of the quakes.

Police in Ponce said a 73-year-old man died when a wall fell on him, reported El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper.

Immaculate Conception Church in Guayanilla was severely damaged, Mayor Nelson Torres Yordan told a local television station. Photos posted by El Nuevo Dia showed residents removing the church’s undamaged tabernacle to safety.

Father Camacho said the church had survived the island’s major earthquake of 1918, only to be shaken apart by the Jan. 7 temblor. “The only church that remained on the street (in 1918) was that,” he said. “Then 100 years later, with this earthquake, it is the one that fell down.

“That’s really sad because it was a very historical monument, a tourist place,” he added.

Father Camacho said he had been in contact with Bishop Ruben Gonzalez Medina of Ponce, where the cathedral experienced some damage. Mass was canceled Jan. 7 at the cathedral and numerous parishes across the diocese, he said.

“I talked with a priest in charge of social ministry in Ponce,” Father Camacho told CNS. “He told me even himself he is not traveling to see what is happening (in the diocese) because they are afraid there could be more ruts in the road and their lives are in danger.

Puerto Rico has experienced a series of minor earthquakes beginning the night of Dec. 28-29 leading to the major shakers, reported the U.S. Geological Survey.

The most recent large quake knocked out power to much of the island, including the capital of San Juan. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reported that all of its power plants went offline after its “auto protection” systems were activated.

The company reported damaged to one of its main power plants near the earthquake’s epicenter, but that technicians were working to restore electricity to other parts of the island.

Archbishop Robert Gonzalez Nieves of San Juan tweeted soon after the quake Jan. 7: “A 6.7-point earthquake has just shaken all of Puerto Rico that is now without light. Prayer, serenity, solidarity and charity are important. We are one family!”

Father Camacho said if more powerful earthquakes occur, he feared damage in the rural mountainous center of the island, where housing is less sturdy, would be severe.

As for an immediate response, Caritas of Puerto Rico is in a holding pattern.

“We are waiting to see what are the damages,” the priest said. “We are willing to help people reconstruct as soon as possible.”

Nun Who Served Seven Popes Celebrates 90 Years of Life

Currents News Staff

Sister Maria de Céu was born in Portugal 90 years ago. 

She has lived in the Vatican for 70 years, serving the Church and a total of seven popes.

She is a Franciscan Missionary of Mary, and recounted how she found her vocation when she was very young.

“I was attracted to this life, maybe unconsciously, because I was still young,” she explained. “I would go to the altar of the Virgin and say, ‘Blessed Mother, make me white like this wall,’ the wall where her image was. That’s how I started to feel an attraction not to married life, although there was a boy chasing after me.”

Sr. Maria made her first vows in Rome and began a life of service for Peter’s successor. 

“I thought: I’m happy to be here,” she said. “Not everyone has the opportunity to come to Rome and see the pope.”

Being close to seven popes has been a blessing for Sr. Maria, who could still remember her first time visiting St. Peter’s Basilica.

“I was completely moved, seeing all those people, already, in that time,” she said. “Seeing the pope, who was an extraordinary figure. He was so mystical, Pope Pius XII. It looked like the skies were opened.”

She helped him and other pontiffs with small but important tasks, like washing clothes, and along the way has learned great life lessons from each one.

Sr. Maria even extended an invitation to Pope Francis last year.

“I told him I am Portuguese, that I’d been in the Vatican for such a long time,” she said. “I told him, ‘Holy Father, come visit us one day. We’re two steps away.’ Then he put his hand on my head.”

Although the Holy Father didn’t go visit her, he helped her celebrate her ninetieth birthday with a Mass, marking nine decades serving her community and the Vatican. 

She defines her whole life with one phrase: “A life given to others.”

“If we don’t give ourselves to others, what’s the purpose of living? The Lord always comes first,” she reminded.

This 90-year-old’s secret to happiness? Living a true vocation of service. Sr. Maria is confident her self-giving can benefit many people and inspire new generations to do so as well. 

Texas Bishop Offers Care for Infant Slated for Removal From Life Support

By Christopher White, National Correspondent

NEW YORK — As a battle rages over whether a Texas hospital can remove an 11-month old from life support, one Catholic bishop is offering assistance to the family.

Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas has offered his help following a judge’s order on Jan. 2 that the hospital, which believes the infant, Tinslee Lewis, is in pain and has no chance of improving, can remove life-sustaining treatment.

Bishop Olson offered to provide “compassion and appropriate care for her in a Catholic health care facility.”

“Healthcare decisions involving the vulnerable and severely ill are best made in the patient’s interests by family and healthcare providers and not by judges, by politicians, or lobbyists,” he said in a statement.

Bishop Olson also said his offer was made to provide support in finding “the best quality of life” for both the infant and her family

According to the hospital, the 11-month old Tinslee is on a regular supply of painkillers, sedatives and paralytics in order to be kept alive.

“Even with the most extraordinary measures the medical team is taking, Tinslee continues to suffer,” said a statement from Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth.

Plans to remove the infant from life support were invoked under Texas’s “ten day rule,” which allows for doctors to remove life-sustaining treatment when a family and doctors disagree, if the ethics committee agrees with the doctors. Treatment is then withdrawn after a ten-day window if the family is unsuccessful at finding another medical care facility – hence Bishop Olson’s offer.

In a statement through Texas’s Right to Life, Tinslee’s mother said “I feel frustrated because anyone in that courtroom would want more time just like I do if Tinslee were their baby.”

In February 2018, however, the bishops of Texas cut ties with Texas’s Right to Life, noting that the organization “has implied that the bishops do not faithfully represent Church teaching.”

In a statement at the time, the Texas Catholic Conference noted that some of the disagreements were over end-of-life decision-making.

“The bishops have been compelled to publicly correct Texas Right to Life’s misstatements on end-of-life care and advance directives, in which Texas Right to Life implied that the legislation the bishops were supporting allowed euthanasia and death panels rather than the reality that the legislation reflected the long-standing Church teaching requiring a balance of patient autonomy and the physician conscience protection,” the statement said.

Following the judge’s decision on Thursday regarding baby Tinslee, Texas Alliance for Life, which continues to work with the Texas Catholic Conference, said that “we don’t see how she could have ruled any other way.”

“This case centers around the dispute resolution process within the Texas Advanced Directives Act (TADA). We don’t see how she could have ruled any other way,” said executive director Joe Pojman.

“As we have stated previously, Texas Alliance for Life supports TADA. It is good public policy, it is constitutional, and it provides a balance between the patient’s autonomy and the physician’s conscience protection rights to do no harm,” Pojman continued.

“We are praying for the family and all involved in Tinslee’s care,” he concluded.