December 17, 2004 - Issue #25
Local News | Opinion/Editorials | Letters to the Editor
Unalaska parish celebrates memorial Mass for six lost at sea
Unalaska’s St. Christopher by the Sea Mission Parish celebrated an informal memorial Mass for six ship workers who were lost at sea after their vessel grounded last week off the west coast of the remote Aleutian island.Pastoral director Annemiek Brunklaus said she got a call from the vessel agent of the doomed ship, asking if the survivors, several of whom are Catholic, could have a memorial for their lost crewmates."I said, ‘Of course,’ " Brunklaus told the Anchor early this week. "They lost six people out of their family, you could almost say."The Selendang Ayu, a Malaysian freighter en route from Seattle to China, lost power in the Bering Sea and drifted for several hours Tuesday and Wednesday last week before grounding near Skan Bay, less than a mile from shore. The ship then broke in two in an onslaught of 30- to 40-foot seas and high winds.A Coast Guard helicopter attempting to rescue crew from the doomed ship during the squall crashed into the ocean and sunk. Four of the 10 people on board the aircraft were plucked from the sea and saved by a second helicopter crew. The six other men, all workers from the ship, were swept away and are presumed dead.Five of the missing crewmen were from India, and the sixth was Filipino. There is a large contingent of Filipino Catholics in Unalaska, the only community on Unalaska Island.Brunklaus said that the captain of the Selendang Ayu and most if not all of the crew— there were originally 26 people on board the vessel — attended the memorial Mass on Dec. 12 at the church. Not all of them were Catholic; in fact, an Indian Sikh wearing a traditional headpiece read the names of the missing crew during the Mass, Brunklaus said.St. Christopher does not have a resident pastor, but circuit priests visit the outpost about once a month, as weather permits. Jesuit Father Joe Schad happened to be scheduled for Unalaska that weekend, the third Sunday of Advent.The shipwreck survivors seemed very appreciative of the opportunity to gather in a spiritual setting to mourn the loss of their comrades, Brunklaus said. "They lit candles and really took part in it," she said.At the prayers of the faithful, each lost man’s name was spoken, followed by a ring of the sanctuary bell and a long moment of silence, according to Brunklaus.Parishioner Aimee Kniaziowski said that she was "very moved" by a brief but emotional statement that the Selendang Ayu captain made at the end of the Mass. He apologized for the accident and especially for the environmental damage expected to result from the thousands of gallons of bunker oil fuel that is seeping from the wreckage, she said. The captain also repeatedly expressed gratitude for the kindness and generosity his crew had been shown, Kniaziowski recalled.Rescuers were able to save only one of the ship workers who was on board the helicopter that crashed into the ocean. Brunklaus learned that the man, a Filipino Catholic, was being treated in the town clinic. When she offered to visit, he eagerly said yes."I had taken Communion along, and this guy really wanted it," she said.The man was clearly traumatized by his experience, Brunklaus said."He said he really thought he was dying, but he got picked out of the water. He was very thankful to God."
Brunklaus said she considered using parish funds to buy clothes and luggage for the crew, but the vessel agent assured her that the company the men work for will handle such needs.The stranded crew members are expected to be flown home in the next few days, according to Kniaziowski, who is the assistant city manager in Unalaska.
Sanctuaries amid war
Priest helps create ‘spaces for peace’ in battle-scarred region
COTABATO CITY, MINDANAO, Philippines — Pikit, a municipality in the southern Philippines, has been "always in the eye of the storm, a conflict zone," according to Oblate Father Roberto Layson, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish there.
The quiet Filipino priest, standing just over five feet tall, has served as a powerful instrument of peace for people tired of the "constant war, sporadic peace," that he said has been the experience of residents for at least 30 years.
Father Layson arrived in Pikit in 1997 from the Philippine island of Jolo after his bishop was killed by rebels.
Since then, Pikit has been the scene of four major armed conflicts, in 1997, 2000, 2001 and last year, that have erupted between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a guerrilla army that has been fighting the Philippine government since the 1970s.
For three days last month, Father Layson trekked through villages in the Pikit area with two Americans, Margaret Menting of Our Lady of the Angels Parish in Kenai and Joe Hastings, a California-based Catholic Relief Services community educator. Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ international relief and development arm, facilitated a "global solidarity partnership" last month between the Anchorage Archdiocese and Cotabato Archdiocese in Mindanao, which includes Pikit.
In Pikit, population 69,000, most homes are constructed from "nipa," woven palm leaves. Lush green fields of rice and corn and groves of banana and coconut trees border Liguasan marsh, an area traditionally inhabited by Muslim people that is rich in mineral and natural gas resources. A national highway also runs through the municipality.
In several of Pikit’s villages, Hastings said, people stood outside their homes sweeping their arms broadly over the scenes before them. "All this was burned down in the war," they told Hastings.
Residents of the Pikit area — who practice Muslim, Christian and indigenous religions — have responded to the violence by creating what have become known as "spaces for peace."
In an area designated a space for peace, opposing factions agree to pass through and even live among each other without firing a shot.
But the spaces are not defined merely by the absence of armed conflict. Hundreds of volunteer residents have been trained to monitor the peace, report abuse incidents, solve conflict nonviolently and repair relationships broken by years of war.
Father Layson has played a key role in bringing this novel concept to life, and even he has been surprised at its success.
The "space for peace" idea was hatched in 2000, the year the Philippine government declared an all-out war on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. As in earlier conflicts, the violence displaced tens of thousands of people for months in the Pikit region as homes were razed and fields burned.
Father Layson’s parish organized a disaster response team made up of 40 Muslim and Christian volunteers as young as 13. They delivered food and supplies to displaced villagers, who were using banana leaves as blankets and sleeping in the mud when it rained. In the evening, the volunteers — many of them high-school dropouts — returned to the parish to eat and plan the next day’s relief efforts.
"We prayed and we cried together when we heard somebody had died in the evacuation centers," Father Layson told the Anchor.
Even when the armed conflict subsided, people were afraid to return to their homes.
Their physical lives were all they had left, Father Layson recalled being told.
So the priest helped secure a guarantee from the Philippine army and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that civilians would not be caught in the crossfire if they returned — they needed a space for peace.Father Layson presented the space-for-peace plan to the military, then spent three days tracking rebels through the countryside before finally meeting with a commander.
The priest asked permission to convert three "barangays," clusters of villages, into a space for peace where each side would agree not to fight. A week later, the commander sent word that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front would not engage in armed conflict in one barangay — Nalapaan, home to 350 families."It’s a small space, a geographical location, and it’s also emotional and psychological in nature, where people could return and then start to build their lives," Father Layson said."It was a crazy idea … at the time, I had very little faith. You don’t talk about rehabilitation when the war is going on. You talk about relief operations. You talk rehabilitation after the war."
In 2002, the space for peace expanded to barangay Panicupan.
On Nov. 29 this year, five additional barangays were declared spaces for peace during a ceremony attended by Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, a Moro Islamic Liberation Front representative, a general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, international cease-fire monitoring teams and representatives from local nongovernmental organizations, including Catholic Relief Services.
At the ceremony, people frequently displaced by wars held cloth banners printed with the names of their various "sitios," or villages, now officially part of the space for peace. The space has been named Ginapaladtaka, a combination of the names of the seven participating barangays. ("Ginapalad" in Cebuano, a local language, means "fortunate" or "blessed.")
The recent declaration was translated into English in a Mindanao newspaper, MindaNews: "We wish there would no longer be oppressors and that no one will be oppressed; the return of harmonious relationship and trust; the reign of love, forgiveness and acceptance of faults; that each one will be true to his/her beliefs, culture and religion."
The Nov. 29 expansion, Father Layson said, is a "victory of peace over war."
Pikit is still the home of the third largest Moro Islamic Liberation Front camp and also a Philippine military battalion. Now there are cease-fire monitoring posts in Buliok, where just last year, Moro rebel camps were attacked again the military, sending refugees streaming into neighboring Pikit.
Catholic Relief Services’ Hastings visited one of those posts, a few miles away from Immaculate Conception Parish, made up of a pavilion and two nipa huts.
Standing less than 10 feet apart, the huts are occupied by military officers and Moro Islamic Liberation Front leaders. Eight trained villagers also volunteer for duty at the post to investigate any human rights violations or complaints reported in the space for peace, Hastings said. It’s part of a model that makes once-warring factions partners in securing the safety of civilians instead of enemies of the people."There is hope even in the midst of war," Father Layson told the Anchor, "and if the formal peace talks have collapsed, you must continue the peace process at the grass-roots level."
Affordable housing called key to fighting homelessness
A city task force formed in January to combat homelessness in Anchorage focuses on affordable housing as a key goal, according to the plan the group presented to the Assembly last week.
"In 10 years, the homeless of Anchorage will be connected with a way to secure safe and affordable housing within three months of being identified by any provider of homeless services," the group’s "10-Year Plan on Homelessness" says.
To achieve that key goal, the plan calls for 500 more units of low-income housing and better coordination among providers serving the homeless.
Mayor Mark Begich created the 23-member task force in January, and it has been collecting data and meeting on a monthly basis since then. The group presented its final plan Dec. 10 at a noon gathering at city hall with the mayor, Assembly members and the nation’s "homelessness czar" in attendance.
Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, praised Anchorage’s plan for going beyond old approaches such as soup kitchens and shelters, according to a story in the Anchorage Daily News.
"It’s a smart plan, sophisticated, comprehensive, doable," Mangano was reported as saying. "No idealizing or romanticizing."
The homelessness czar held up the 19-page plan as a model for other cities who are developing their own 10-year plans, according to Anchorage task force chairwoman Hilary Morgan.
Morgan, who runs a residential program for homeless chronic alcoholics, told the Anchor that this new effort is different from earlier attempts to address homelessness.
"If you go back and look at all of the homeless task force plans before us, they pretty much targeted the issue of the day," she said. "They didn’t encompass all of the homeless population, and also didn’t really provide a template for what to do for the next 10 years."
But, Morgan added, the most important difference in the new plan is its focus on developing adequate housing options and such efficient, coordinated services that a housing plan can be pulled together within three months of identifying a homeless person. "We don’t have that now," she said. "That’s very, very different."
Currently, a homeless person seeking help may wait two to three years before subsidized housing becomes available, according to advocates for the homeless.
Once the person is in a house, the process of addressing the reasons that put them on the street should be easier to address, Morgan said, citing polls of people who had experienced homelessness.
"Every one of them says, ‘I want a place to live,’ " she said. "They don’t say, ‘I’d like to go through treatment first, and then mental health stuff, and then I’d like to take some tests and then I’d like to go into a house’ — which is the way it works now."
It’s a relatively new concept to begin the quest for housing by providing housing, Morgan admitted. But she quickly added that the so-called "housing first" model does not ignore other important issues such as employment, mental illness or substance abuse.
"You still provide the services that the person needs, but you do it while they’re in the house," she said. That way, the person is highly motivated to take the necessary steps to remain in housing, she said.
The new plan’s call for 500 more units of low-income housing in 10 years will be key to its overall success, according to Catholic Social Services’ Stephanie Wheeler.
That’s a lot of housing for a city that builders say is rapidly running out of developable land, but it’s "what we need to do," said Wheeler, director of the Catholic agency’s Homeless and Emergency Case Management Services. "We’re seeing an increase in homeless families and individuals and the number one reason is the lack of affordable housing."
Wheeler has worked the past several years with folks who have been forcibly uprooted from mobile home communities when the landowner has sold the property. She said that more than 500 families in Anchorage have been affected by a rash of such land sales, which have been driven by developers desiring to construct more lucrative projects once the mobile homes have been removed.
Several developers have provided money to help families relocate, but some people have still ended up homeless, according to Wheeler.
Morgan and other advocates for the homeless say that currently between 6,000 and 8,000 people in Anchorage experience homelessness in a given year. It’s impossible to know the exact number, since some people are homeless for only a few days or weeks and get back into housing without assistance from a service provider.
Morgan said that of the total number of homeless people in Anchorage, roughly 200 are "late-stage chronic" — those who live more or less permanently on the street.
"It’s a really small percentage," Morgan said. Still, that is the population that the general public persistently associates with homelessness, rather than the more typical case of the person who is homeless temporarily in between jobs or after a stint in prison, she said.
Mayor Begich reiterated his intention at the Dec. 10 gathering to establish an oversight committee to ensure that the plan is implemented.
"The mayor really wants to institutionalize it, because we’re temporary," said Diane DiSanto, a community development specialist in the mayor’s office. Begich doesn’t want the plan to be "stuck up on a shelf" after he leaves office, she said.
Message from the Archbishop
Christmas Greetings and good tidings
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
As we approach the celebration of the birth of our Savior at Christmas, I want to wish you God’s blessings of peace and joy. A special thanks to all who have sent cards and gifts. Also, a particular thanks to all of you who have contributed time and talent to the programs and services of the archdiocese. May God bless each of you.
Editorials
Tragedy hits this Christmas season
A pair of December tragedies is having a sobering effect on Christmas around here.
First, a mother and her two young children died mysteriously in their Anchorage home, apparently from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The deaths in this family, which happened to be Catholic — both the youngsters were in parochial school — are being investigated to determine what happened. That’s important, so society can learn better ways to prevent such awful tragedies.
In the meantime, let us pray for these three lost lives and for healing for their devastated families.
The second tragedy began out in the Bering Sea when a Malaysian freighter ship lost power and eventually grounded off the west coast of Unalaska Island. Six men from the ship were lost at sea when the Coast Guard helicopter attempting to save them plunged into the roiling waves. The families of these lost men have no bodies to lay to rest, and the pain of knowing their loved ones died terrifyingly, far from their homes in India and the Philippines.
Adding to the ship disaster is the fact that the wreckage is now leaking thousands of gallons of its fuel oil into the pristine waters of Unalaska’s Skan Bay. It’s a fertile, wild area, rich in sea life and, until now, unspoiled. The widening oil slick has hit the beaches in some spots and will probably get much worse. Investigators believe only about a third of the fuel on board has leaked out so far.
The size of the spill is small compared to the Exxon Valdez’s — nearly 11 million gallons of oil gushed from that shipwreck — but cleanup was much easier in Prince William Sound than it will be along the unprotected, cliff-faced coast of Unalaska, especially with the winter storm season gearing up.
We hope these tragedies in Anchorage and Unalaska inspire better prevention methods, and we pray for God’s peace to fill those who are grieving this Christmas.
Kids, it’s OK to say, ‘Merry Christmas’
We’re pleased to see that the Anchorage School District is being sensible about religious expression.
The issue of religion in public school always flares during the holiday season. The Rev. Jerry Prevo, pastor of the 2,200-family Anchorage Baptist Temple in Anchorage and a conservative activist, is reportedly encouraging Christians to talk about Jesus as much as others talk about Santa.
We agree that Christian kids should be free to express their religious beliefs, presuming it’s done respectfully and presuming Muslim and Jewish and Buddhist kids are granted the same rights.
The Anchorage School District recently completed a year-long review of its religion policy. The basic message is that it is appropriate to teach about religion when it is logically tied to a particular lesson, and to do so respectful of the fact that students may come from different traditions.
"The District should neither encourage, discourage, nor disparage religious beliefs or activity," the new policy says. It has guidelines to help schools maintain religious neutrality, such as, "The event should neither promote nor inhibit religious views."
Teachers are to strive for balance, presenting different religious traditions or ideas when the topic comes up, which it always does this time of year.
Fortunately, it doesn’t appear anyone around here is trying to suppress Christian kids’ beliefs, or anyone else’s. Elsewhere, some schools have gone overboard:
At a New Jersey public school, the principal removed the word "God" from a child’s poem about Thanksgiving. The poem said, "… Pilgrims thank God/ For what they were given/ Everybody say/ Happy Thanksgiving!" (The offending word was later returned to the poem.)
Students in the Woodland School District in Illinois are not allowed to sing any Christmas songs at school, not even "Jingle Bells." A Florida principal banned Christmas trees.
These tales make us sigh with relief as we compare them to Anchorage policies. Merry Christmas!
Letters to the Editor
Help was, will be valuable
When I go back to my reminiscence, I gratefully remember your valued patronage which had given me enough strength and vision to continue the mission work. Wish you a very happy Christmas and bright new year. May I request you to help me in my new year with rosaries, statues, medals, scapulars, used cards and magazines, school supplies such as ball pens, pencils and other possible help for the new year? Please mail them to me at this address: St. Anthony Church, Kanjirakodu P.O., Kundara – 691 501, Kollam, Kerala, India.
Kollam, Kerala, India
In Holland, rules are clear
If you lived in Holland, there would be no doubt about the proposed guidelines for euthanizing terminally ill newborns. A 12-line article written in plain English in the Dec. 1, 2004, Anchorage Daily News stated that, after proposing guidelines for the procedure, a hospital admitted that it had already begun carrying out such procedures. Furthermore, the main Dutch doctors’ association urged that people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives should be reviewed by a board. The independent board would review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people "with no free will." We know in concise, plain English what the guidelines are in Holland. Do we know what our guidelines are? Let us be watchful.
Anchorage
Kids deserve married parents
A husband in Ohio, who is tired of his wife, wants to divorce her. His wife wants to reconcile with him because that’s what is best for their four children. A court-appointed psychologist wrote in her report to the judge that it "frightens" her that the wife is refusing to accept the divorce. Does this strike you as outrageous? It does me. Children should be given all the defenses they need to keep their parents together. When parents say, "I am so tired of arguing with Dad (Mom)," the kids can say: "We’re not tired of being a family. What part of ‘for better or worse’ don’t you understand?" When a parent says, "We’ve grown apart," the kids can say: "Grow back together. It wasn’t our idea to form this family; it was yours. You have a duty and a responsibility to stay together for our sake."
Monument, Colo.
