NOVEMBER 21-23 Welcome, young people! Full coverage of the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis will appear in next week’s issue of The Criterion. Serving the Church in Central and Southern Indiana Since 1960 CriterionOnline.com November 22, 2013 Vol. LIV, No. 8 75¢ A nation still remembers 50 years later, local Catholics reflect on President Kennedy’s CNS photo/courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Kennedy CNS photo/courtesy John F. assassination By Sean Gallagher For people who are old enough to remember Nov. 22, 1963, the memories associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are often Father Patrick Beidelman, rector of SS. Peter and etched in their minds, still vividly clear Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis, carries the Book of 50 years later. Gospels. This can be especially true since Kennedy was the first—and still only— Catholic elected to the highest office in the land. Some of those Catholics who have U.S. President John F. Kennedy and first lady, Jacqueline shared their memories of that tragic day Kennedy, arrive at Love Field in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. with The Criterion were Catholic grade Later that day, President Kennedy was killed by an school or high school students at the time. assassin’s bullet while riding in a car on the streets of Another was a young priest. Dallas. To this day, he is still the first—and only Catholic— The following is an edited version of to be elected president of the United States. Fifty years their recollections of Kennedy’s death, the later, many readers of The Criterion still have vivid days that followed and the meaning of it in memories of that tragic day. their life of faith. ‘The silence and sadness of our city’ Renee Lange, now a member of Washington cathedral, site of Kennedy St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis, was a seventh-grade student in the fall of 1963 at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Dallas. funeral in 1963, is ‘holy ground’ “I remember it like it was yesterday. It WASHINGTON (CNS)—On Nov. 25, 1963, a television President Kennedy at the Requiem Mass, Nov. 25, 1963, before started out as such an exciting day because audience of millions of people around the world prayerfully bid their removal to Arlington, where they lie in expectation of a the president was coming to town,” she farewell to President John F. Kennedy, as his flag-draped coffin heavenly resurrection.” wrote. “Everyone was talking about it! was placed before the sanctuary of the Cathedral of St. Matthew On a recent weekday, Msgr. W. Ronald Jameson, the “Later in the morning, we were in the the Apostle in Washington, during the funeral Mass for the cathedral’s rector, stood beside that plaque. “Many people middle of math class when the loud speaker slain president. who come here, come because of that,” he said, noting came on with the principal announcing that Today, almost 50 years later, people come to the cathedral that many talk about “the sense of hope that his presidency President Kennedy had been shot coming from across the country and around the world, with many brought the nation.” out of the triple underpass downtown. wanting to stand at that very spot, where an inlaid marble “They see the plaque, and it brings back memories,” the “Each student immediately kneeled plaque is inscribed with the words, “Here rested the remains of See KENNEDY, page 10 See LOCAL, page 10 Pope Francis’ first apostolic exhortation, ‘Evangelii Gaudium,’ to be published on Nov. 26 VATICAN CITY (CNS)—The Vatican will publish However, last June, Pope Francis told the ordinary council of Pope Francis’ first apostolic exhortation on Nov. 26, two days the Synod of Bishops, which is normally responsible for helping after he formally delivers it to the Church at a Mass concluding draft post-synodal apostolic exhortations, that he would not be the 2012-13 Year of Faith. working from their draft. The Vatican announced on Instead, the pope said, he planned to write an “exhortation Nov. 18 that “Evangelii Gaudium” on evangelization in general and, within it, refer to the synod,” (“The Joy of the Gospel”) will be in order to “take everything from the synod but put it in a presented at a news conference featuring wider framework.” Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president Pope Francis will formally deliver the document on of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Nov. 24 in St. Peter’s Square, at the concluding Mass of the New Evangelization; Archbishop Lorenzo Year of Faith, giving copies to a Latvian bishop, a Tanzanian Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod priest and a deacon from Australia. The pope will also give of Bishops; and Archbishop Claudio Celli, copies to members of men’s and women’s religious orders, and to president of the Pontifical Council for representatives of other groups of faithful, including seminarians, Social Communications. families and members of ecclesial movements. A visually Pope Francis Apostolic exhortations, one of the impaired Catholic will receive the document in the form of a most authoritative forms of papal CD-ROM allowing for audio reproduction. writing, are often based on deliberations of synods of bishops. A Japanese sculptor and a Polish painter will receive “Evangelii Gaudium” is expected to take into account the the apostolic exhortation on behalf of the artistic world, October 2012 synod on the new evangelization, held at the Archbishop Fisichella said, and two journalists will do likewise beginning of the Year of Faith. on behalf of the media. † Page 2 The Criterion Friday, November 22, 2013 Nuns help debrief stressed typhoon victims arriving in Manila MANILA, Philippines children. I was so traumatized. (CNS)—The grandstand of That tidal wave, oh, the water Villamor Air Base was buzzing was so strong!” with teams of workers trying to Pateros, a Catholic, said she help people displaced by the super also prayed hard that no flying typhoon that struck the central debris like loose corrugated metal Philippines 10 days earlier. roofs would hit her head as she Reuters Rattay, CNS photo/Wolfgang Evacuees, fresh off the military huddled to protect her children. planes that took them here, could “When the storm slapped my make free phone calls, register for back, it really hurt,” she said. “I transportation to meet loved ones just kept praying that my head in Metro Manila, get help to start would be fine.” their lives over and receive some The family was able to stay in much needed stress-debriefing. a house that was still standing and That was where some local they had plenty of water, but there religious sisters stepped in. was little food. They were able to Nymiah Pateros told Catholic get some rice from a storehouse News Service she was thankful but it was wet, so they dried it in for help from Assumptionist the sun. Sister Anna Carmela Pesongco. “It was already starting to smell “She said she would contact sour. But we cooked it and ate it our family here,” said Pateros, instead of dying of hunger,” said who is from the town of Palo, just Pateros. “We just withstood it as south of Tacloban. “She helped us, best we could, but the children she has a cell phone. I don’t have developed diarrhea.” a cell phone now. It got washed The family survived the storm A 6-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy hold their soft toys on Nov. 19 in the devastated waterfront shanty town of Guiuan, out and filled with salt water.” and the hunger, but Pateros Philippines, in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. Ten days after one of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded, some Pateros was holding her 1-year- said hungry inmates who broke residents of remote villages where the storm made landfall in the central Philippines said they were still waiting for aid. old daughter in her arms, giving through a wall in the prison her juice from a small box. The started to loot the remaining their relatives in Manila. help the survivors strengthen a hope that really, beyond all this, 29-year-old, her husband, their houses, and they went after the She said counselors are their faith. God is greater. God continues to daughter and 3-year-old son, family’s neighbors. particularly concerned for the “We pray for them, all these be a loving God.” and her father all survived the “So we left. We ran away and children, “so that they find a home people that we don’t even typhoon’s howling winds and we just came here,” she said. in the midst of all this because know their names, and reassure (Donations for Super Typhoon fast-rising water brought by a Sister Anna Carmela, president the kids need a certain sense of them that there is a God,” said Haiyan, which devastated the massive storm surge that smacked of Assumption College in Makati, security ... that they know people Sister Anna Carmela. “In all the Philippines, are being taken Leyte province. said the sisters from various can welcome them and offer disasters that we go through, it’s online at www.crs.org. Donations She said her husband “was orders are debriefing the survivors them, not just food, but a home. the strengthening of their faith also can be sent to CRS, drifting in the water. And we like the Pateros family to find out All these are simple things, but that will make them go on, that P.O. Box 17090, Baltimore, Md., clung to the branch of a tree.