Parish roundup: Octogenarian Catholics keep up the fight; new Catholic school for addicts; bishop reflects on racism

Tom Karlin, far right, kneels in protest during a May 2008 protest at Naval Base Kitsap at Bangor, Washington, home to the Trident nuclear submarine fleet. (Laura Karlin/Northwest Catholic)

by Dan Morris-Young

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December 12, 2018

What is the impact of nuclear weapons? "They deter us from having health care for tens of millions of our people; they deter us from educating our children adequately; they deter us from reaching out in compassion to suffering people around the world, and they deter peaceful resolution of conflict the world over."

So wrote Tom Karlin in a 2013 letter for his court mitigation hearing following his arrest while protesting at Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State, home to the country's Trident nuclear submarine fleet, the only site with a drydock capable of handling Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, and the Navy's largest fuel depot.

A member of St. Leo the Great Parish in Tacoma, Washington, Karlin, 82, is a long-time social justice activist having prayed for the unborn near abortion clinics, served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, worked with Habitat for Humanity, traveled to Central America, served the L'Arche community participated in Pax Christi and lived in a Catholic Worker house.

Northwest Catholic magazine carries a compelling feature on the carpenter who is a former Trappist seminarian, a Navy veteran and friend of the late writer-teacher-theologian Fr. Henri Nouwen.

Millie Francis, 85, says she will not take down her painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Mark Young/Bradenton Herald/CAN)

There are a lot of tough Catholics in their 80s.

For example, eighty-five-year-old Millie Francis hopes to enlist the help of her parish, Sacred Heart in Bradenton, Florida, and the local Knights of Columbus council in a tussle with her trailer park management over a portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe that she created to replace the front window of her mobile home. Reportedly, she had initial permission. She told reporters, "They'll have to kill me first" before complying with its removal.

And then there is the "gang of four" allegedly retired Redemptorists in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who have become mainstays within that diocese's Hispanic Apostolate/Apostolado Hispano — Frs. Bob Halter (75), Gilbert Enderle (82), Donnell Kirchner (78) and Don MacKinnon (84). The four drive countless miles on weekends presiding at Spanish-language masses across the diocese. If that were not enough, they take part in other ministries. Halter is rector of the Redemptorist community residing at St. Gerard Majella Parish where the priests reside and also directs the other priests' Hispanic Ministry throughout the diocese. MacKinnon is chaplain at Cristo Rey High School and active in Baton Rouge Together, an interfaith community action organization. Enderle is vice-postulator for the cause of Blessed Redemptorist Fr. Francis Xavier Seelos whose shrine is in New Orleans. Kirchner pursues an active career in writing about moral issues in Spanish, Portuguese and English.

In what appears to be a national first, the Allentown diocese in Pennsylvania has announced the opening of a high school for students suffering drug and/or alcohol addiction. To enroll about 90 students in grades 9-12 in the fall of 2019, the new Kolbe Academy will operate out of the former St. Francis Academy on property overseen by the School Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis in the Lehigh Valley, which encompasses Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton and several small municipalities. Not to be confused with the Kolbe Academy home-school program, the new campus is named after St. Maximilian Kolbe, patron saint of those suffering addiction.

Bishop Thomas R. Zinkula of Davenport, Iowa, right, poses Nov. 16 with his sister Sharon Zinkula, and her husband, Joseph Flowers. They shared their family's story of dealing with racism. (CNS photo/The Catholic Messenger/Barb Arland-Fye)

The U.S. bishops' recent passage of a pastoral letter on racism had personal meaning for Bishop Thomas Zinkula of the Davenport, Iowa, diocese. He, his sister Sharon, and her husband, Thomas Flowers, share how the Zinkula Family in the late 1980s dealt with the relationship of Sharon and Thomas, who is black.

Rebecca Bryant, refugee resettlement specialist for Catholic Charities of the Little Rock Diocese, succinctly summarizes roadblocks to refugee resettlement in the U.S. She describes a "collapse in refugee resettlement infrastructure." NCR's Maria Benevento also filed a report on the grass-roots chaos that accompanies U.S. immigration policy vagarities.

In an effort to re-orient the focus of Toronto's popular annual downtown Santa Claus Parade toward the birth of Christ, the city's St. Patrick Parish hosts a post-parade party to kick off its Advent season.

Emily Meehan paints a winter theme for Vittoria Russo during Toronto's St. Patrick's Parish's annual party following the city's popular Santa Claus Parade. (The Catholic Register/Jean Ko Din)

In the same spirit, Jesuit Fr. Jack Bentz offers ideas on how parishes can convert Easter-and-Christmas Catholics into full-time parishioners.

[Dan Morris-Young is NCR's West Coast correspondent. His email is dmyoung@ncronline.org.]

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