the spirituknight.org/councils/2020-07 jul.pdf · fr. jack mckone fr. ahn tran seminarians unborn...

Calendar 3

Birthday News 4

Pro-Life Corner 5

News You Can Use 8

Volunteer Opportunities 13

Inside this issue:

The Spirit

Knights of Columbus

Scott A. MacDonald Council 8512

J U L Y 2 0 2 0 V O L U M E 3 7 I S S U E 7

COUNCIL OFFICERS

Chaplain ...................... Fr. Anh Tran ............ (817) 284-4811

Grand Knight ................ Mike Dellies ............. (817) 656-1492

Deputy Grand Knight.... Robert Sands............ (817) 988-3376

Chancellor ..................... John Giglio ............. (817) 281-4617

Recorder .................... Allan Fitzwater ........... (817) 528-8142

Treasurer ................... Gary Yanowski ........... (817) 656-1142

Financial Secretary ....... Mark Krueger ........... (817) 939-1192

Lecturer ....................... Juan Valdez ............. (817) 966-8925

Advocate .................... Terry Barnhard .......... (817) 707-6135

Warden ..................... Gary Obudzinski ......... (817) 656-3274

Guard .......................... Paul Cuttica ............. (518) 774-4019

Guard ........................ Paul Posluszny ........... (724) 987-3126

Trustee (3-Year) ....... Ken Kenvin, PGK ......... (817) 595-4104

Trustee (2-Year) ........Jerry Dews, PGK ......... (817) 932-0551

Trustee (1-Year) .... Bobby Donahoo, PGK ...... (817) 498-9628

INSURANCE

Field Agent .............. Terry Peffers, PGK ........ (817) 690-7924

FOURTH DEGREE

District 3 Master ........... Pat Conway

San Juan Diego Assembly 2857

Faithful Navigator ..... SK Dick Norgaard ........ (817) 656-2529

Comptroller .. SK Ejikeme “EJ” Alozie-Nwagboso

DIOCESE

Diocesan Rep. ............. Bruce Mallory ........... (817) 807-2982

District Deputy ............ Obie Obregon ........... (817) 528-2393

Catholic Church in the United States

The Catholic faith in the United States first spread through

the work of missionaries, such as Jesuits Isaac Jogues,

Jacques Marquette and Eusebio Kino in the 1600s. In the

1770s, Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra led the establish-

ment of the California mission system.

Catholic education in the United States goes back to at least

1606, when Franciscans opened a school in what is now St.

Augustine, Florida. Further north and a bit later, Jesuits in-

structed such dedicated Native American students as Kateri

Tekakwitha (1656-1680). By the latter 1600s, English colonists

had set up their own public schools, often with a heavily

Protestant, if not blatantly anti-Catholic cast. Even in Catho-

lic-founded Maryland, Catholics were a minority, and in 1677,

in Newtown, the Jesuits established a preparatory school. In

New Orleans, the Franciscans opened a school for boys in

1718. Ursuline sisters arrived there from France in 1727 to

open an orphanage, school for street girls and health facility.

This was the first formal Catholic charity in the present Unit-

ed States. Catholics in Philadelphia in 1782 opened St. Mary’s

School, considered the first parochial school in the United

States.

Meanwhile the Catholic population continued to expand. By

about 1776, it reached approximately 25,000 in Maryland,

Pennsylvania and New York State alone. Not long after the

American Revolution, John Carroll, cousin of Declaration of

Independence signer Charles Carroll, saw his dream of a Cath-

olic college take root with the 1789 establishment of

Georgetown. The Bill of Rights, with the First Amendment

guarantee of religious freedom, helped Catholics further ce-

ment their place in post-Revolutionary America. John Carroll

was appointed prefect of the United States of America in 1784

and bishop of Baltimore in 1789. Baltimore, the premier see,

or first diocese in the country, was elevated to an archdiocese

in 1808. Archbishop Carroll died in 1815. (There are now 195

Catholic dioceses and eparchies in the United States, with

some 450 active and retired bishops.).

Grand Knight’s Message

Brother Knights,

I’m humbled. Even more, I’m honored that you have faith in me to let me take the reigns once again as Grand Knight for Council 8512. It’s an awesome responsibility, and one I don’t take lightly. I just hope I can live up to your expectations. Thank you for your trust.

Speaking of ‘Thank you’, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Rob Sands for agreeing to step up and serve as the Deputy Grand Knight for the coming fraternal year. Rob has a ton of energy and has served our Council well in the short time he’s been a member, working hard on the garage sale, fish fry, Fall Fest and whenever called upon. Thank you also to Allan Fitzwater for agreeing to fill in as Recorder. I look forward to working with them both this coming year.

As the new fraternal year kicks off, we certainly have some challenges ahead. The one on everyone’s mind is the coronavirus, affectionately known as COVID-19. It certainly has turned our world upside down. After a short hiatus, we resumed our Council’s monthly business meetings in a virtual format. If your email address is current, you should be getting an email with a ‘Zoom’ link to browse to for the meeting.

For many, COVID-19 has meant staying at home, or at least curtailing the number of trips away from home. It’s like an extended winter in which we get occasional breaks from cabin fever. A long awaited return to normal got put on hold, so here we are, our choices for excursions out of the house limited. Not attending mass is probably my biggest disappointment during this pandemic. I would suspect there are quite a number of our brother Knights affected by the new rules. I am avoiding the term “new normal” because I hope this is not a new normal, but a temporary annoyance.

Speaking of annoyance, there seems to be a growing dislike for statues in this country. I’ve been watching with one eye (it’s too frustrating to watch intently) the number of statues being torn down. I would venture to say that some of the statues torn down have nothing to do with race or racism (see article in this newsletter). But, since this topic can be debated at length, and there are strong feelings on both sides of the argument, I’ll just say that I don’t agree with what many of these statues represent. I also believe that destroying our past and erasing history because just because it’s offensive will ultimately lead future generations to repeat some of the mistakes of the past. That’s why we don’t want to forget the holocaust. I was probably the worst tragedy in human existing, but if we don’t understand what lead to it’s development, we won’t see the next occurrence coming.

In addition to a worldwide call to end racism, there are other issues that are confronting our religious beliefs, such as the Supreme Court’s recent decision on abortion and the potential ramifications for future pro-life cas-es. There’s social injustice, immigration issues, human trafficking, and pornography. The list goes on.

It might seem that with such an endless stream of controversies and unpleasantries (for lack of a better word), society is spiraling out of control.

While looking for information to include in this newsletter, I came across a headline from April 2019 in which there was a call for “Catholic great awakening” at the National Day of Prayer breakfast. Although I didn’t read the article (it was over a year old), we could sure such an event.

It would be nice if religion took prominence in our daily lives like it used to, but there are many forces acting to the contrary. Many years ago, Karl Marx referred to religion as the opiate of the people—it keeps you pacified, it keeps you from doing bad things. The argument can also be made that it also keeps you from doing really great things.

If we’re to strengthen our faith as Catholics, we need to keep the proper focus. While riding my bike one even-ing after work, I was listening to a Catholic podcast as a form of escape from the daily grind. In the podcast, which is usually presented by two Catholic priests, they threw out the following quote: “We weren’t put on the earth to make it paradise. We are here for the praise, reverence and worship of God.” We are not here for our own success. The podcast priests also point out that, “When man tries to organize man against God, God or-ganizes against man.” Another form of this expression is that the quickest way to make God laugh is to make plans.

In a recent issue of Liguorian there was an article that stated “...we tend to appropriate what turns out to be a misrepresentation of peace through success, wealth, and material acquisitions.” The article also points out that this “may lead to a sense of affirmation and pleasure, but the feeling is diminutive and fleeting.”

As Jesus once said, “You will always have the poor.” One might also extrapolate this to in-clude always having our share of problems and social issues to content with. So, we need to be vigilant with our prayers. Remember, carry your rosary and pray it often.

Vivat Jesus!

SK Mike Dellies, Grand Knight

P A G E 2 T H E S P I R I T

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/national-catholic-prayer-breakfast-hears-call-for-catholic-great-awakening-64181

Calendar of Events

July 2020

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

28 29 30 1 2

ZOOM BUSINESS

3 4

4TH OF JULY

1ST SAT. MASS

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15 16

OFFICER MTG.

17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 1

2nd Business Meeting (Zoom meeting)

4th 1st Saturday Mass

4th Fourth of July Holiday

12th Breakfast (tentative)

14th Birthday Dinner (tentative)

16th Officers’ Meeting (Zoom meeting)

22nd Chapter Meeting

AUGUST 2020

1st 1st Saturday Mass

3rd Sandwich Making

6th Business Meeting


11th Birthday Dinner

20th Officers’ Meeting

26th Chapter Meeting

SEPTEMBER 2020

3rd Business Meeting

5th 1st Saturday Mass

7th Sandwich Making

8th Birthday Dinner


17th Officers’ Meeting

30th Chapter Meeting

UPCOMING EVENTS


THIS MONTH’S EVENTS

ALL MEETINGS ARE VIRTUAL UNTIL THE EASING OF COVID-19 MEETING RESTRICTIONS


JULY BIRTHDAYS

2 Vincent Smith 14 Moses Lopez

2 Don Taylor 16 Thomas Carroll

3 Michael Kennard 16 Christopher Dilday

5 Thomas Schwenk 16 Alfonso Obregon, Sr

6 Daryl Hykel 18 Kevin Costello

7 Johnny Lopez 18 Charles Mac Donald

8 Marco Acevedo 19 Luis Rodriguez

8 Michael Lansing 20 Margarito Silverio

8 Charles Petter 21 Neil Coffee

9 Michael Hernandez 21 Robert Martinez, III

9 Chase Pemberton 23 David Deskeere

10 John Giglio, Sr 24 Leroy Ledet, Jr

10 Jesus Quiroga, Jr 24 Gustavo Perez, Jr

13 Paul Franko 28 Siegfrieo Lang

13 Donald Moody 29 Stephen Hoyer

14 Gerald Campbell 30 Manuel Ramirez, Jr

Council 8512 proudly supports the following seminarian:

Joseph Hoffschwelle

Michael Marincel

Please keep them in your prayers.

PRAYER LIST

Pope Francis I

Pope Benedict XVI

Bishop Michael Olsen

Fr. Jack McKone

Fr. Ahn Tran

Seminarians

Unborn Children

Middle Eastern Christians

Victim of Domestic Violence

Active Military / Veterans

First Responders

COVID-19 Victims/Families

† Monica Okaro (mother-in-

law to Emmanel Egenti)

Oliver Pettit

BIRTHDAY

NEWS

How to Recite the Divine

Mercy Chaplet

The Chaplet of Mercy is recited

using ordinary rosary beads of five

decades. The Chaplet is preceded

by two opening prayers from the

Diary of Saint Faustina and fol-

lowed by a closing prayer. For

step-by-step instructions on how

to recite the Divine Mercy Chap-

let:

https://

www.thedivinemercy.org/

message/devotions/pray-the-

chaplet

BIRTHDAY DINNER MEETINGS ARE TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED...

...TO BE CONTINUED SOON

VOLUNTEER HOURS

Please be sure to "Post Your Volunteer Hours and Visits" on the UKnight

website, or "Record Volunteer Hours" on your smartphone at

www.kofcmobile.org, as soon as you complete them so that UKnight can

accumulate your volunteer hours for you throughout the year. The more we

are able to show the impact Knights have on their communities by accurate-

ly tracking and reporting our hours, the more powerful our example will be.

To log your volunteer hours, visit the Council website and navigate to the

‘Members Only’ section.

https://www.thedivinemercy.org/message/devotions/pray-the-chaplet





US Catholic bishops: Louisiana abortion rul-ing 'a cruel precedent'

CNA Staff, Jun 29, 2020 / 01:01 pm MT (CNA).- Monday’s Supreme Court decision overturning a

Louisiana law holding abortion clinics to the same standards as other surgical centers ‘continues a

cruel precedent’, the chair of the US bishops’ pro-life committee reflected.

In its June 29 5-4 decision in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo, the court found that the state’s law requir-

ing abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital posed substantial obstacles to a woman’s

access to abortion, without significant benefits to the safety of women.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas commented shortly after

the ruling that abortion “violently ends the life of a child, and often severely

harms women. Abortion becomes even more destructive when basic health

and safety standards are ignored, and profit margins are prioritized over

women’s lives.”

“Even as we seek to end the brutality of legalized abortion, we still believe

that the women who seek it should not be further harmed and abused by a cal-

lous, profit-driven industry,” he continued.

“The Court’s failure to recognize the legitimacy of laws prioritizing women’s health and safety over abortion

business interests continues a cruel precedent. As we grieve this decision and the pregnant women who will be

harmed by it, we continue to pray and fight for justice for mothers and children,” Archbishop Naumann stated.

“We will not rest until the day when the Supreme Court corrects the grave injustice of Roe and Casey and rec-

ognizes the Constitutional right to life for unborn human beings. And we continue to ask all people of faith to

pray for women seeking abortion, often under enormous pressure, that they will find alternatives that truly val-

ue them and the lives of their children.”

The court’s decision was authored by Justice Stephen Breyer. Chief Justice John Roberts filed a concurring

opinion.

Having been initially blocked on appeal by a district court, the law in question was upheld by the 5th Circuit

Court of Appeals in 2019.

Breyer wrote that the Louisiana law was “almost word-for-word identical to Texas’ admitting-privileges law”

that the Court ruled against in 2016.

The district court’s original ruling was correct to affirm that Louisiana’s “admitting privileges regulation offers

no significant health benefit,” Breyer wrote, as well as its finding that the regulations “have made and will con-

tinue to make it impossible for abortion providers” to do so, thus putting “a substantial obstacle in the path of

women seeking an abortion.”

Roberts said that abortion clinics did have standing to appeal the law on behalf of women in the state, despite

having separate interests in seeing the law overturned. At issue in the case was whether the law, enacted in

June 2014, imposed an undue burden on women seeking an abortion in the state.

Abortion providers argued that the Louisiana law imposed substantially the same restrictions and burdens on

women as did the Texas law, which was also rejected by the court. The Louisiana law required that abortion

clinics adhere to the same standards as other surgical clinics in the state and required that doctors practicing at

abortion clinics have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

The law would have prevented five of the six doctors in the state who perform abortions from practicing, and

would have forced the closure of two of the state’s three abortion clinics. Hope Medical Clinic, an abortion pro-

vider, and two abortion doctors sued against the law .

(Continued on Page 6)

US Supreme Court. Credit: Steve Heap/Shutterstock .


REMINDER: BUSINESS MEETING LOCATION With the closing of the Formation Center, our monthly business meetings will now be held in the Resource Room

in the Church Administration Building, located directly across (west) the church parking lot. The Resource Room

is in the south end of the building, as you first enter the double glass doors.

The monthly officers meetings will still be held in the Council office at 4101 Frawley (south end of Outreach

Building).

(“Pro-Life” from Page 5)

In its decision upholding the law, the Fifth Circuit appeals court judges said only one doctor in the state was cur-rently unable to obtain admitting privileges, and that some abortion doctors had not tried hard enough to get ad-mitting privileges.

Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act was passed in a bipartisan effort, authored by pro-life Democratic Rep. Katrina Jackson, now a state senator, and signed into law by then-governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican. It required abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of a clinic.

The state’s current governor, John Bel Edwards (D), campaigned on a pro-life platform leading up to his election in 2015 and signed a bill to ban abortion in the state upon the detection of a fetal heartbeat, in advance of his 2019 re-election.

Although the Supreme Court heard a similar case of Texas’ safety regulations of clinics in 2016 in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Fifth Circuit appeals court that upheld Louisiana’s law pointed out significant differ-ences in the two cases. Fifth Circuit judges said that the law “does not impose a substantial burden on a large fraction of women” as Texas’ law did, and “passes muster” of the court’s 2016 decision.

Roberts said that Louisiana’s law imposed restrictions “just as severe” as those of Texas’ law struck down by the court in 2016. Thus, according to the “legal doctrine of stare decisis,” he said, Louisiana’s law “cannot stand” be-cause of the court’s previous ruling in 2016.

Roberts, however, dissented from that 2016 ruling against the Texas law. He joined the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas which criticized “the Court’s troubling tendency ‘to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue.’”

Chinese authorities force contraception on Uyghurs in 'slow genocide'

CNA Staff, Jun 29, 2020 / 10:00 am MT (CNA).- The Chinese government is forc-ing Uyghur women to take contraceptives in an effort to slow the growing popu-lation. One expert called the campaign "a slow, painful, creeping genocide" of the religious and ethnic minority.

In a report released on Monday, June 29, AP found numerous Uyghurs have been imprisoned for the offense of having too many children, and women reported that there were frequent pregnancy checks, forced abortions, and forced im-plantations of IUDs and other contraceptive methods by Communist authorities. The report cites government statistics, state documents, interviews with ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor.

The report follows previous findings of mass internment, forced labor, steriliza-tions, and other wide-spread human rights abuses by the Chinese government against the ethnic and religious minority.

Uyghurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic minority in China living in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.

The news comes as anywhere from 900,000 to 1.8 million Uyghurs are now estimated to be in the system of more than 1,300 detention camps set up by Chinese authorities, ostensibly for “re-education” purposes. Survivors have reported indoctrination, beatings, forced labor, and torture in the camps. China initially denied the camps exist-ed, but was forced to officially admit their existence in 2018.

One expert told the Associated Press that the forced birth control campaign is “genocide, full stop.”


Uighurs learn gardening at "reeducation camp" in Moyu County, Hotan Prefecture in Xinjiang. Credit: Azamat Imanaliev/Shutterstock ..



“It’s not an immediate, shocking, mass-killing-on-the-spot-type genocide, but it’s a slow, painful, creeping gen-ocide,” Dr. Joanne Smith Finley, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University in the United King-dom told AP.

Finley described the program as “direct means of genetically reducing the Uyghur population.”

The birth rate in the Xinjiang province has dropped considerably since the aggressive government-sponsored birth control initiative began, AP reports. Province-wide, the birth rate has dropped 24% in just 2019, and in certain regions of the province, the birth rate has dropped more than 60% between the years 2015 and 2018.

Conversely, the rate of IUD insertion in Xinjiang has increased by similar percentages. In 2014, there were 200,000 IUDs inserted in the province, a number which grew to 330,000 by 2018. AP reported that this uptick in IUDs was counter to the rest of China, which had seen the contraceptive device fall out of favor among Chinese women.

The report also found that 149 of 484 detained persons in the Xinjiang county of Karakax were detained for hav-ing more than the officially permitted amount of children. This, said the AP, was the most commonly cited of-fense justifying detention.

Prior to the regime of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities were permitted to have two children, or in certain cases three--unlike the Han majority, which was permitted to have one. Those rules were changed in 2015, when Han were permitted to have two children.

Uyghur women told Associated Press that they were detained even for having three children, which was legal. Seven women who were detained in the camps said they “were force-fed birth control pills or injected with flu-ids, often with no explanation. Many felt dizzy, tired or ill, and women stopped getting their periods.”

After being released from the camp, some women discovered that they were sterile.

Another woman told AP that she had been in a camp where married women were subject to numerous pregnan-cy tests, and those who had children were fitted with an IUD. The woman reported that a cellmate of hers, who was a Uighur woman, was forced by an official to recite that she “gave birth to too many children,” which “shows I am uneducated and know little about the law.”

China has engaged in an extensive network of detention camps for religious and ethnic minorities. The Chinese government claims that the camps are purportedly to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region. Numer-ous leaked files have revealed that many are sent to the camps for the “crimes” of following traditional Islamic practices like fasting, or for conspicuously religious dress.

A leaked manual for the operation of the camps showed that there is a heavy emphasis on assimilating the Uy-ghur population into the customs of the Han ethnic group. This includes forced intermarriage between Uyghur women and Han men.

Catholic bioethicist warns against gene-editing experiments

By Kate Scanlon

Washington D.C., Jun 27, 2020 / 12:00 pm MT (CNA).- In the wake of a gene-editing experiment gone wrong, the president of the National Catholic Bioeth-ics Center said that the Church must stand firm against the unborn being “sacrificed on the altar of scientific research.”

Medium’s science publication OneZero reported last week that scientists in the United Kingdom recently conducted an experiment where they deleted a gene from human embryos using the CRISPR technique. They later realized the edit-ed embryos also contained significant unintended edits that could lead to birth defects or other major medical issues later in life. The embryos were subse-quently destroyed.

“There’s no sugarcoating this,” Fyodor Urnov, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley, told OneZero. “This is a restraining order for all genome editors to stay the living daylights away from embryo editing.”

“It’s really terrible, what they’re talking about, because gene editing for embryos, because it’s germline chang-es, meaning that if these children survive, their children, this will be passed on, it’s like changing the biology of the human being, the DNA of human beings,” he said.


Credit: Shutterstock


For this Catholic baseball player, a season off is ‘a relief’

By Anna Wilgenbusch

Denver Newsroom, Jun 30, 2020 / 03:00 am MT (CNA).- Seth McGar-ry, a pitcher in the Philadelphia Phillies minor league system, has never really not played baseball. But with baseball stadiums closed around the nation due to the COVID-19, he might spend his summer without the game.

“My entire past and childhood was always spent at a baseball field. I love competing,” McGarry told CNA. He started playing when he was five years old, attended Florida Atlantic University on scholarship, and was drafted into the minor leagues at age 21, before he graduated.

The baseball world has been reluctant to make a decisive call for the season. McGarry says that his team has spent months in a state of uncertainty.

“We've had to be in limbo and on standby, where we still had to train and throw and lift everyday to stay ready in case something happened,” McGarry said.

With gyms closed and practices prohibited, McGarry said that it has been difficult to train for the possibility of some semblance of a season. Players who live in rural areas did not have anyone to throw with or any equip-ment to lift.


Seth McGarry on the mound. Courte-sy photo.

BREAKFAST CREW SCHEDULE The KofC breakfasts have been suspended due to the Coronavirus concerns. Look for the breakfasts to resume

once the current restrictions on gatherings is rescinded.


Joseph Meaney, PH.D., speaking Friday in an interview on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly, said that the experiment gone

wrong was predictable, because “science, as it emerges into new areas, makes a lot of mistakes.”

Meany said it is “wonderful” that secular scientists raised alarms about the experiment.

“It’s good to see that there’s a universal consensus that this should not be done,” he said.

He also cautioned against arguments from some scientists who contend that such experiments are ethical be-

cause the embryos are not permitted to be carried to term and born.

“We cannot do this to our youngest brothers and sisters,” Meaney said.

He added that while there might be permissible uses of such technology for adults and children in the womb,

“you can’t conceive a child in a laboratory, and experiment on them in a laboratory.”

“So these little embryos, even though they were created in labs, are our brothers and sisters,” he said.

On Thursday, the Vatican released an updated version of the Directory for Catechesis which contained new sec-

tions on bioethics. The 300-page book, which provides universal norms for pastors and catechists in the work of

evangelization, said that “bioethical questions challenge catechesis and its formative function.”

The Vatican document states that scientific research and its applications “are not morally neutral,” and that the

morality of an action cannot be based on “technical efficiency alone, from utility or from dominant ideologies.”

The directory talks about genetic experimentation and the risk of it leading to eugenic practices, stating that “it

is important to distinguish the difference carefully between therapeutic intervention and manipulation.”

The correction of genetic abnormalities is lawful “as long as it promotes the good of the person without affect-

ing his identity and integrity,” it said.


(“News” from Page 8)

And it’s still uncertain what the summer will hold. They may be asked to report for some kind of instructional

league, while some may be invited to spring training with the major leagues. McGarry has no idea what those

possibilities would look like.

But uncertainty, McGarry said, is just part of the game of baseball.

“With the baseball life, there is so much uncertainty and not knowing,” said McGarry. During a normal season,

he plays every day and travels all over the northeast in a team bus.

Staying home, he finds, offers the respite of consistency.

“It’s been really nice to kinda have this time to just be in the same place for more than five or six months,”

said McGarry. He was married in February 2017 and has an 8-month-old baby girl, Hannah.

During a regular season, McGarry goes months without seeing his family. But the pandemic has allowed him to

spend more time with his wife and to see his baby daughter grow.

“Just being able to see her everyday, and sleep in my own bed, and have home-cooked family dinners all the

time together, it’s been really great,” said McGarry.

For McGarry, getting to spend time with his family far outweighs the disappointment of not being able to show-

case the progress he made over the offseason.

“The whole entire season I’d spent training and trying to get better at certain things, so not being able to play

and complete and showcase that was a little frustrating. But at the same time, it was kind of a relief,” said

McGarry. “I've gotten to see a lot of stuff that I wouldn't have gotten to see, like [Hannah] crawling and stand-

ing. A lot of that stuff I wouldn't have gotten to see in person.”

McGarry said that not everyone has been so lucky. His team has a lot of international players who were not able

to return home before borders closed and who are now stuck in hotels.

One international player McGarry knows has been stuck in Sarasota, Florida, for months. McGarry said that his

friend is just trying to “make the most out of his situation,” but it hasn’t been easy.

In the tumults of baseball life, McGarry’s Catholic faith is a constant. During the season, the team is provided

with a priest for Mass, and also a translator for the international players.

But McGarry said that instead of asking God to change anything about his current situation, he has tried to ap-

proach the Lord with gratitude for what he does have.

“I think during all this time, instead of asking for guidance or for help, I spent more time just giving thanks and

appreciating what I had with the time I get now with my daughter and wife, instead of searching for or asking

for more.”

After St. Junípero Serra statue torn down, Archbishop Cordileone offers exorcism prayers

CNA Staff, Jun 29, 2020 / 01:45 pm MT (CNA).- After a mob tore down statues, including a figure of St. Junípero

Serra statue, in a San Francisco park, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was joined by several dozen Catholics

Saturday in prayer and acts of spiritual reparation.


P A G E 1 0 T H E S P I R I T


“Evil has made itself present here. So we have gathered together to pray for

God, to ask the saints...for their intercession, above all our Blessed Mother,

in an act of reparation, asking God's mercy on us and on the whole city, that

we might turn our hearts back towards him,” Cordileone said in a June 27

video.

The St. Junípero Serra statue was torn down in Golden Gate Park the evening

of June 19 by a crowd of about 100 people. The crowd also tore down statues

of Francis Scott Key, author of the National Anthem, and Ulysses S. Grant, U.S.

president and Union Army general who defeated the Confederate States of

America.

On Saturday, several dozen people joined the Archbishop of San Francisco to pray.

“The presence of so many wonderful people here was of great comfort for me,” the archbishop said. “I feel

such a great wound in my soul when I see these horrendous acts of blasphemy disparaging the memory of Serra

who was such a great hero, such a great defender of the indigenous people of this land.”

Cordileone said the statue was “blasphemously torn down”

“An act of sacrilege occurred here. That is an act of the Evil One,” he said in the video.

“We came together to say the prayer of the rosary, and also the prayer of exorcism, the St. Michael Prayer, be-

cause evil is here, this is an activity of the evil one, who wants to bring down the Church, who wants to bring

down all Christian believers,” he said.

“So we offer that prayer, and bless this ground with holy water so that God might purify it, sanctify it, that we

in turn might be sanctified,” he said, encouraging Catholics to pray, to fast and to inform themselves.

“There's a lot that people don't know. There's a lot of ignorance of the real history. I'd ask our people to learn

about the history of Father Serra, of the missions, of the whole history of the Church, so that they can appreci-

ate the great legacy the Church has given us.”

The exorcism prayer Cordileone offered, the St. Michael Prayer, invokes the intercession of the Archangel Mi-

chael against the power of Satan. It is not the same as those exorcism prayers offered by the Church if a person

is believed to be the subject of demonic possession.

During the eighteenth century, the saint founded nine Catholic missions in the area that would later become

California, many of those missions would go on to become the centers of major California cities.

Serra helped to convert thousands of native Californians to Christianity and taught them new agricultural tech-

nologies. His statue in Golden Gate Park was first placed there in 1907. It was crafted by well-known American

sculptor Douglas Tilden.

Critics have lambasted Serra as a symbol of European colonialism and said the missions engaged in the forced

labor of Native Americans, sometimes claiming Serra himself was abusive.

But Serra’s defenders say that Serra was actually an advocate for native people and a champion of human

rights. They note the many native people he helped during his life, and their outpouring of grief at his death.

Biographers note that Serra frequently intervened for native people when they faced persecution from Spanish

authorities. In one case, the priest intervened to spare the lives of several California natives who had attacked

a Spanish outpost. In one letter urging fair treatment of native people, Serra wrote that “if the Indians were to

kill me...they should be forgiven.”


Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone during a June 27 prayer service in Golden Gate Park. Credit: Dennis Callahan/Archdiocese of San Francis-co



Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez said in 2015 that Serra had “deep love for the native peoples he had come

to evangelize.”

“In his appeals, he said some truly remarkable things about human dignity, human rights and the mercy of

God,” the archbishop added.

In 2017, Gomez praised Serra as an overlooked American founder.

“Remembering St. Junípero and the first missionaries changes how we remember our national story. It reminds

us that America’s first beginnings were not political. America’s first beginnings were spiritual,” Gomez said in a

2017 homily.

Pope Francis canonized the Franciscan missionary in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 23, 2015.

“Junípero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated

and abused it,” the pope said in his homily at the Mass of canonization. “Mistreatment and wrongs which today

still trouble us, especially because of the hurt which they cause in the lives of many people.”

The legacy of the Church, Cordileone said, is “a wonderful legacy that we should be proud of. There are those

who want us to be ashamed of it. We have every reason to be proud of it.”

“But also we have to approach living our Christian life with humility and to continue to give goodness to the

world, and to give the world beauty and truth, with the help of the grace of God,” he said.

“Our Lady is always asking us to pray the rosary,'” he added. “The rosary has the power even to change history”

Cordileone said Serra had a personal importance for him.

“He was someone who was very much a part of my life growing up,” said the archbishop.

“I grew up very close to the first mission he founded, in San Diego.”

The toppling of the statue made him “very distressed” and “inflicted a great wound in my soul.”

“So the presence of so many people here was of great support to me,” he said.

In a June 20 statement, Cordileone said that important protests over racial injustice have been “hijacked” by a

mob bent on violence.

“St. Serra made heroic sacrifices to protect the indigenous people of California from their Spanish conquerors,

especially the soldiers,” he said. “Even with his infirm leg which caused him such pain, he walked all the way to

Mexico City to obtain special faculties of governance from the Viceroy of Spain in order to discipline the mili-

tary who were abusing the Indians. And then he walked back to California.”

Cordileone said he did not want to “deny that historical wrongs have occurred, even by people of good will, and

healing of memories and reparation is much needed. But just as historical wrongs cannot be righted by keeping

them hidden, neither can they be righted by re-writing the history.”

In 2018, San Francisco’s city government removed a statue of the saint from a prominent location outside City

Hall. Stanford University's Board of Trustees recommended to rename some, but not all, features on campus

named for the priest. The student government had said the Catholic missions had a harmful impact on Native

Americans.

A statue of the saint remains displayed in the U.S. Capitol.


A lady about 8 months pregnant got onto a bus. She noticed the man opposite her was smiling

at her. She immediately moved to another seat. This time the smile turned into a grin, so

she moved again. The man seemed more amused. When on the fourth move, the man burst

out laughing, she complained to the driver and he had the man arrested.

The case came up in court. The judge asked the man (about 20 years old) what he had to say

for himself. The man replied, “Well your honor, it was like this: when the lady got on the

bus, I couldn’t help but notice her conditions. She sat down under a sign that said, ‘The Dou-

ble Mint Twins are coming’ and I grinned.

Then she moved and sat under a sign that said, ‘Logan’s Liniment will reduce the swelling,’

and I had to smile.

Then she placed herself under a deodorant sign that said, ‘William’s Big Stick Did the Trick,’ and I could hardly

contain myself.

But, Your Honor, when she moved the fourth time and sat under a sign that said, ‘Goodyear Rubber could have

prevented this Accident!’

...I just lost it.”

CASE DISMISSED!!

I swear to God he levitated: I have a friend who I’ve known since I was very little. One day, when he was six, I

was at his house when he got this absolutely god-awful stomach pain. I mean, he was literally writhing in pain.

So, his mom took him to the doctor’s office, where the doctor took one look and told her to take him to the ER.

She feared something along the lines of an intestinal rupture. About half way to the hospital, my friend suddenly

let rip the loudest, most powerful fart any of us had ever heard. I swear to God he levitated. We thought the up-

holstery in the car seat had ripped. After a good 30 seconds of intense farting, he looked at his mom and said, “I

feel all better now!”

Scott A. MacDonald

KofC Council 8512

http://uknight.org/

CouncilSite/index.asp?

CNO=8512

Texas Knight The Journal of the Knights of Columbus in Texas

S I N C E 1 9 0 2

www.texasknight-news.net

WE NEED YOUR INPUT

In an effort to keep the monthly newsletter pertinent and fresh, we are

looking for news, articles, upcoming events, and other items of interest

to our membership. If you have something you would like to see in the

newsletter, pass that information along to the Spirit editor. Pictures of

brother Knights in action will be greatly appreciated, so please send them

in. Also, every article submitted will be evaluated for possible submission

to the Texas Knight to be included in the next edition. Remember, the

monthly newsletter can be an effective recruiting tool, so we need to

make sure it has up-to-date and useful information.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION:

July 24th


VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

There are many ways to become active in your Council. Contact one of the committee chairs below to get started. They would love to have you aboard.

COMMITTEE CHAIRS

15K/5K Run ................... Chuck Seefeldt ............... (817) 422-4949

Birthday Dinner ............. Paul Posluszny ............. (724) 987-3126

Ceremonial ..................... Rick Martinez .............. (817) 545-9194

Church ....................... Terry Peffers, PGK ........... (817) 690-7924

Community ..................... Paul Franko ............... (817) 721-3947

Fall Fest ........................ Chuck Seefeldt ............... (817) 422-4949

Family .................................. open ...........................................

Fish Fry .......................... Obie Obregon .............. (817) 528-2393

Night Shelter .................... John Mokry ................ (817) 897-3342

Public Relations ............. Terry Barnhard ............. (817) 707-6135

Recruitment ..................... Chris Stark ................ (979) 218-3664

Retention ........................ Dave Tyrone ............... (682) 551-2793

Right to Life ................... Rick Martinez .............. (817) 545-9194

Spirit Editor ..................... Mike Dellies ............... (817) 656-1492

Sunshine Lady .............. Jackie Posluszny ............ (724) 987-2761

Webmaster ...................... John Giglio ................ (817) 281-4617

BREAKFAST CREWS

DAVE DESKEERE .......... (817) 284-3288

Terry Peffers ...................... (817) 690-7924

Bill Stolowski ...................... (817) 281-9325

John Mokry ........................ (817) 284-4537

Rick Cardona ...................... (682) 999-9195

Dan Weed .......................... (817) 808-1080

Ed McGinley ....................... (817) 319-8921

Edward Hernandez ............. (817) 614-8728

MIKE DELLIES ............. (817) 656-1492

Emmanuel Egenti ............... (817) 428-1249

Steve Hoyer ....................... (817) 428-6446

Mark Krueger ..................... (817) 939-1192

Richard Rodriguez .............. (214) 532-4845

Gus Robicheaux .................. (817) 281-5752

Mike Pollack ....................... (817) 282-5621

Juan Ramos ....................... (817) 715-0526

CHRIS GREEN .............. (214) 282-7143

Bill Fettig ............................ (817) 793-4368

Jay Rogers ......................... (682) 221-9157

Mike Walsh......................... (469) 212-6406

Mike Pollack ....................... (817) 282-5621

HELP NEEDED

Council Office is located at:

4101 Frawley Dr., North Richland Hills, TX 76180

Diocese: Fort Worth Caucus: 8 District: 26

BUSINESS MEETINGS ARE THE 1ST THURSDAY OF EVERY MONTH

Meetings begin at 7:00pm in the Resource Room of the St. John the Apostle Church Administration Office

“ L o y a l t y t o t h e N a t i o n a l l t h e t i m e , l o y a l t y t o t h e G o v e r n m e n t w h e n i t d e s e r v e s i t . ”

~ M a r k T w a i n

the spirituknight.org/councils/2020-07 jul.pdf · fr. jack mckone fr. ahn tran seminarians unborn...

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