Chicago-area Catholics continue to pray, donate

Chicago-area Catholics continue to pray, donate

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago continued to find ways to raise money for people affected by the South Asian tsunami in the aftermath of the initial shock.

As governments began to move people from the rolls of the missing to the list of presumed dead, the toll mounted to more than 221,000 people. As those numbers grew, so did the total donations to Catholic Relief Services from the archdiocese, reaching more than $756,000. CRS, the international aid and development agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has pledged $26 million in tsunami relief.

Overall, Catholic agencies are devoting nearly $500 million to victims of the disaster, according to Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican nuncio to the United Nations.

Meanwhile, many Chicago parishes were forming connections with the specific groups in the affected area. The following describes some of their efforts:

Butterflies of peace

The orphans at Jesuit Father Paul Satkunanatagam’s Butterfly Garden have a cadre of workers in the Archdiocese of Chicago who want nothing more than to help them grow and recover from the wreckage of both the tsunami and the religious and ethnic strife in their home country.

Deacon Mike McNulty, who has known Satkunanatagam since he came to the Chicago area to study in the 1970s, had collected more than $127,000 in donations for the orphanage through Jan. 18.

The orphanage will need the money, as its population has multiplied since the disaster struck, McNulty said.

Meanwhile, parents of school and religious ed students at neighboring St. Joseph Parish in Wilmette were looking for ways to establish an ongoing relationship between their children and those who live at Butterfly Garden, said St. Joseph’s pastor, Father John Pollard.

Martha Sheridan, whose children attend St. Joseph School, said the plan is to start with “Hoops for Hope,” a basketball fundraiser for kindergarten through eighth-grade students in the school and religious education programs. Children can come to the gym at the time designated for their age group, donate “from their piggy banks or their allowances” and participate in a short prayer before playing, Sheridan said.

“This for the kids,” Sheridan said. “Father Pollard has already asked their parents to donate. But the kids need to be responsible, and they want to do something, too.”

Satkunanatagam lived in the archdiocese nearly 30 years ago while he studied psychology at Loyola University Chicago, said Deacon Mike McNulty of Sacred Heart Parish in Winnetka. The Sri Lankan priest lived and assisted at Sacred Heart and worked as a chaplain at nearby Regina Dominican High School while he studied.

When he returned to Sri Lanka, he founded the orphanage to help children left bereft by the decades-long violence between the majority Buddhist Sinhalese and the mostly Hindu Tamils. Children were used by both sides in the conflict, McNulty said, sometimes as human shields. Satkunanatagam wanted to use the psychological techniques he had learned at Loyola to help them.

Now, McNulty said, the trauma of the tsunami has washed over everyone, from those who lost their families to those who are trying to care for the homeless and displaced. While most of the orphans from Butterfly Garden survived, their home did not, said McNulty, who

spoke by telephone with Satkunanatagam four times in the three weeks following the disaster.

When McNulty asked Satkunanatagam what Sacred Heart parishioners should pray for, the Srio Lankan priests included the dead, those who lost their families and homes and the displaced among his intentions.

“He said many people are frozen,” McNulty said. “They don’t even cry.”

Satkunanatagam also asked for prayers for those trying to help, both on the scene and by donating money. And then he asked Chicago-area parishes to pray for one ray of hope: that the recovery effort could spur a movement toward peace in the island country.

“He said he was having a healing service to which the Sinhalese and the Tamils were coming to pray together,” McNulty said. “He asked us to pray for them.”

About 400 people gathered at St. Lambert Church in Skokie Jan. 16 to support Sri Lankan community members and pray for Sri Lankan victims and survivors of the disasters.

The Mass, on the feast of St. Sebastian, is a traditional festival for the Sri Lankan community, said St. Lambert pastor Father Dennis Luczak. This year, as in the past, his parishioners reached out to their non-Catholic Sri Lankan compatriots to join them. However, the celebration took on a far more somber tone this year because of the disaster, which killed several people known to members of the local community.

The liturgy began with a statue of the martyr carried in the entrance procession and a lamplighting ceremony in a sanctuary decorated with brass elephants. The prayers of the faithful were read in English, Tamil and Sinhalese, and the offertory came up to the beat of drums and included incense, white rice cakes and fruit in addition to the bread and wine.

Auxiliary Bishop Francis Kane, who celebrated the Mass and preached the homily, reminded worshippers to follow St. Sebastian’s example of staying focused on God, even in the worst of times.

In the wake of the disaster, as the death toll began to rise, Bishop Kane said, he was offended by the one-upmanship of various developed countries as they tried to outbid one another in the amount of aid they pledged.

“If it had been anything less than a tragedy, I would have expected people to start shouting ‘We’re No. 1!’” the bishop said. The emphasis on competition is so omnipresent that many people don’t notice it, he said, but it breeds an unhealthy belief that people can rely on themselves and forget God.

Father Luczak, who spoke briefly at the end of Mass, noted that the Mass itself—and the response to the tragedy—showed the good that can happen when people work together. A lamp-lighting ceremony at the beginning of the liturgy included not only Sri Lankans but an Indonesian, an Indian, Filipino, a Cuban and people of various European heritages.

The second collection was directed to the Good Shepherd sisters in Sri Lanka, who are working to provide immediate relief and long-term rebuilding.

In a letter, the orders provincial superior in Sri Lanka, that means providing education for the children, starting with replacing the school supplies they lost when their homes were swept away, and home equipment, down to pots and pans.

“We are lost, displaced and killed,” Sister Anita Fernandez wrote. “We are homeless, orphaned and widowed. … The very poor are left behind with no place to go as their homes are completely washed away. Our focus is finding means to give permanent relief for the suffering.”

Holy Family Parish, 1080 S. May St., on Roosevelt Road scheduled a Jan. 29 benefit concert for the Franciscan Missionary Brothers Orphanage in the village of Kurukkalmadam, Sri Lanka. The entire village was destroyed by the tsunami, but the orphanage was spared, and the 63 orphans who live there were brought to safety on the roof by the Franciscan Brothers, where they remained for four days until the water receded.

The orphanage, built to house 65 children, now serves 3,000 people, half of them children without parents, who have sought sanctuary with the Franciscan Brothers. Supplies are exhausted and there is fear of cholera from contaminated water, and the brothers are in desperate need of food, water, medical supplies and other resources to provide for all who seek their help, according to concert organizers.

Scheduled performers at the 7 p.m, concert included Chicago gospel legend Samuel Parker and the Holy Family Choir; Two Trees, a world music duo combining the talents of internationally acclaimed flutist Al Jewer and Emmy Award-winning percussionist and keyboard player Andy Mitran; singer-songwriter Louise Dimiceli-Mitran; and modern-day troubadour Gerry Dignan, whose passionate vocal style has been hailed as a mix of Andrea Bocelli, John Denver and Ray Charles.

The concert was Dignan’s idea. He learned of the need from a colleague at the at the Orland Park school where he teaches. The colleague’s cousin is Brother Bob Reinke, a member of the Brothers of

the Poor of St. Francis, now serving in Brooklyn.

Admission was $10 a person, with all proceeds going directly to the orphanage.

The Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago hosted an interfaith prayer service for Tsunami victims and survivors at noon Jan. 26 at the Chicago Temple, 77 W. Washington St.

The two schools having Mardi Gras with proceeds going to tsunami victims are:

Two schools will use their Mardi Gras festivities to raise money for Tsunami relief. St. Felicitas School on the Southeast Side and St. Zachary School in Des Plaines both planned in-school evenst for their students, whith donations going to help victims of the disaster.