All posts by Bernard Stancati

Council

Good of the Order

Narrative for the Council Business Meeting Minutes

Operation Overlord, the Allied planned invasion of Europe began precisely 15 minutes past midnight on 6 June 1944 with the arrival of the British and American pathfinders, followed shortly by the airborne troops. In the predawn hours, Allied airborne armies marked the flanks, the extreme limits of the Normandy battlefield. Between them there were five invasion beaches – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. As the airborne troops fought in the hedgerows to secure objectives, the greatest sea armada the world has ever known began to assemble off the coast, over 5,000 ships carrying more than 250,000 soldiers, sailors, and coastguardsmen. At 5:50 A.M, a massive naval bombardment of German coastal positions began. Beginning at 6:30 A.M. at Omaha Beach, a few thousand men waded ashore in the first wave of the invasion. By the evening of 6 June, even at Omaha, Hitler’s Atlantic Wall had been irrevocably breached. Since much has been written about the combat operations, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day, it was decided to focus the discussion on other aspects of the operation, namely the Chaplain Corps, and four men in particular.

One is Reverend Charles Lusher, a Baptist Minister, who joined the Army in 1943. He was chaplain of the 438th Troop Carrier Group/53rd Wing/9th Air Force. And his unit’s C-47 troop transport planes carried some of the first men to parachute into Normandy on June 6. Rev Lusher went from plane to plane until the final one had taken off, where upon he knelt down on the runway to pray. He died on July 4, 1999.

A second is Father Francis L Sampson, who entered the Army as a chaplain in 1942, and after Chaplain school, he joined the 501st Parachute Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division as its regimental chaplain, and would remain its chaplain for the rest of the war. Known as the “Paratrooper Padre,” he jumped into Normandy on D-Day, landing behind enemy lines in a river. He lost his communion set in the river, yet after diving to the bottom he was able to retrieve it. Captured during the Battle of the Bulge, Father Sampson would remain a POW until April 28, 1945 when he was freed by the Russian Army. Father Sampson would eventually become Chief of Chaplains, retiring in 1971 with the rank of Brigadier General. Father Sampson. He died in 1996 at the age of 83.

The two remaining chaplains, Reverend John G. Burkhalter and Pastor George Russell Barber, were at Omaha Beach on June 6. During the course of the first day, both men tended to the spiritual needs of the dying and wounded on Omaha. From June 7 on, both chaplains assisted in preparing the dead for burial, with Chaplain Barber helping in the establishment of a national cemetery that now sits behind Omaha Beach. Each man ended up making being a chaplain a career. Reverend Burkhalter died in 1992 and was buried at Arlington. Pastor Barber, one of the last surviving chaplains from the US landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day, died Dec 17, 2004 at the age of 90.

While each person’s story was incredibly interesting, all attempts to find a fitting ending to this saga were feeble at best, and thus fell short. Nevertheless, each chaplain saw themselves as a man of God, whose job centered on leading the men in their charge closer to God. Therefore, they would probably agree that asking all to pray that we will never see the likes of D-Day again would be a fair tribute to those that have passed, those still living, and those yet to be born.

Lector

Lecture Series

The Rev Robert F. Houlihan, S.J. Educators Series, 2014, number 3.0

   From Cardinal Priest to Sainthood; the Canonization of the Good Pope John XXIII

   Material was taken from articles that appeared in the April 18, 2014 edition of “The Colorado Catholic          Herald” newspaper of the diocese of Colorado Springs

On April 27, 2014, two former popes were canonized as saints by Pope Francis I. One was Pope John Paul II, and the other was Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Boncalli, Pope John XXIII. While Pope John Paul II papacy was one of the longest, Pope John’s reign was one of the shortest, only 5 years. In addition, Pope John did not have the scholarly intellect or charisma of a Pope John Paul II. Nevertheless, he was an astute observer of the world environment, and attuned to the powerful changes that were taking place around the world. And in response to what he saw unfolding, Pope John had the fortitude and moral courage to call for a second Vatican council. As we examine the historical implications of Vatican II, one could argue that he has become one of the most important and influential papal figures of modern times. As an individual, Pope John XXIII was a person of deep faith based convictions, and was noted as a fun loving jovial man with an incredible sense of humor, who loved anyone of any race, culture and nationality. As pope and pastor, he worried over the decline in the spiritual and apostolic nature of the world and the rise of radical secular thought. From his perspective, it was the world that was broken not the Church, and that a new and revamped Church, therefore, could become the main instrument for bringing hope and guidance to a world that was in desperate need of both. Against opposition and push back, he championed for and got a second Vatican council, no easy feat. One of the keys to its ultimate success was the fact that Vatican II was fomented without any pre-conceived ideas of what it would accomplish. Pope John XXIII opened Vatican II, yet died before it was completed. The task of bringing Vatican II to close was left to his predecessor, Pope Paul VI. Yet like a large rock tossed into a pond, the effects of Vatican II are still rippling out and reverberating through both the Catholic and Religious Communities. In that regard the work of Vatican II is still unfolding and being playing out, and thanks to the visionary acumen one man it will for generations to come.

Lector

The Birthplace of a New Evangelization

Lecturer – Ben Stancati

The Rev Robert F. Houlihan, S.J. Educators Series, 2014, number 2.0

Nowa Huta, The Birthplace of a New Evangelization

Taken from a piece written by Krzysztof Mazur, a member of Our Lady of Mercy Council 15128 in Krakow, the article appeared in the April 21014 edition of Columbia magazine

 

On April 27, 2014, Blessed Pope John Paul II will be declared a saint. As it turns out the date will be significant for a number of coincidental reasons. Yet as his eminence said in 1982, “In the designs of providence there are no mere coincidences.” Fifty-four years ago to the date, the residents of Nowa Huta, a steel mill town in the eastern district of the ancient city of Krakow, came together to defend their right for religious expression, when communist officials decided to build a school instead of a church in the town square. In an act of civil disobedience, the residents of the city stood against the might of atheistic communism and the power of the then Soviet Union. For a young auxiliary bishop by the name of Karol Wojtyla, and the citizens of Nowa Huta, the events of the day, now known as “the defense of the cross,” would come to symbolize the beginning of the “new evangelization.” In 1979, a year after being elected pope, Karol Wojtyla traveled to his native Poland, yet was not allowed to visit Nowa Huta. In his homily given at the nearby village of Mogila, the pope noted that the history of Nowa Huta, the birthplace of a new evangelization, had been written by the way of the Holy Cross. As John Paul II is canonized a saint, we Christians should look to both his life and the people of Nowa Huta for inspiration, as we continue down the long and difficult journey of defending the cross.