By Amy Wise Taylor, Catholic News Service

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Tuncaps have a lot of faith in God and his plans for their family, and they’re hoping those plans include a trip to the World Meeting of Families in Milan, Italy.

At a cost of $11,000 just for the flight, the May 30-June 3 event would normally be impossible for the young family, but so far, God has provided a way around every obstacle.

The Tuncap family of Charleston, S.C., is hoping to catch a ride on a military cargo flight to attend the World Meeting of Families May 30-June 3 in Milan, Italy. Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate the closing Mass of the Catholic gathering, which has been held every three years since 1997. Allen and Janell Tuncap are pictured at a park in Charleston with their children, clockwise from top left: Aveah, 6; Tobey, 3; Ethan, 10; Madden, 6 months, and Elyjah, 2. (CNS photo/Mic Smith)

Allen Tuncap, a Petty Officer 2nd Class in the U.S. Coast Guard, said he and his wife, Janell, live simply with their five children — Ethan, 10; Aveah, 6; Tobey, 3; Elyjah, 2; and Madden, 6 months. They attend Mass at St. John Neumann Catholic Church on the Charleston Air Force Base and have formed close friendships there and through the South Carolina Guam Association.

Allen said he was online one night, reminiscing about his two amazing trips to World Youth Day, when he came across an ad for the family meeting. He said it was like Blessed John Paul II had sent him a message from heaven.

He immediately felt called to attend and told Janell about it. Then they found out the cost. But discouragement gave way to a rebirth of excitement when they found out they could fly free on a U.S. Air Force cargo plane through a “space available” program.

The catch is the family won’t know whether they have a seat onboard until the last minute.

“It’s precarious. We won’t know until it happens,” Allen told The Catholic Miscellany, newspaper of the Charleston Diocese. “It’s all prayer. If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s will.”

Prayers have been winging heavenward from the beginning, starting with registration. According to Allen, he found it would cost $2,000 to register his entire family for the gathering. The nonrefundable fee was a huge gamble, since the Tuncaps wouldn’t have a guaranteed flight to Italy.

They decided to take the risk, but the transaction wouldn’t go through. Allen started praying to St. Rita, patron saint of impossible causes, and suddenly up popped an option to register the family for $116, he said.

The Tuncaps paid for themselves and another family as well.

Their first chance at “space available” seating was scheduled for May 19. If they made it, the Tuncaps planned to stay with families in Milan and maybe Rome.

Ethan and Aveah said they’ve been on flights before and weren’t nervous at all, even though cargo flights are loud and bumpy affairs. With childlike enthusiasm, they looked forward to the excitement of their journey, especially meeting the pope.

The Archdiocese of Milan is hosting the world meeting, and it is co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family. Events include family activities as well as workshops and speeches for theologians and people involved in the pastoral care of families.

Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Milan the afternoon of June 1 and will celebrate the event’s closing Mass.

Allen said attending the family meeting was the next step in their faith journey.

Growing up in Guam, he started attending church reluctantly at age 16 at his parents’ insistence. On a whim, he went to a World Youth Day. There, as he listened to others’ stories, he realized the true love of God, he said.

He then went through discernment for the priesthood, but decided he really wanted to be a husband and raise good children. Shortly after that he met Janell.

Because World Youth Day made such an impact in him, Allen said he was especially eager to hear from other families in Milan.

The Tuncaps noted that they are not the type to shake hands and call out “Praise God!” They live their lives simply and let their faith speak for itself.

“We don’t wake up saying we’re going to be holy,” he said. “It’s like brushing your teeth, it’s just routine.”

The family tries to honor the three altars: church, the dinner table, and time between husband and wife so they are in communion with each other, Allen said.

Every night at dinner, each child says an individual prayer, even Elyjah, who thanks “Jesus Rice, the cross. Amen.”

Janell said they are just like any other family. They have their ups and downs and strive to balance family, work and celebration, which is the world meeting theme.

“We’re just normal people who are filled with the love of God,” she said.

Taylor writes for The Catholic Miscellany in Charleston.

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON – Although the Obama administration’s proposed “accommodation” for religious employers to the mandate that contraceptives and sterilization be included in most health plans “may create an appearance of moderation and compromise,” it does not change the administration’s fundamental position, attorneys for the U.S. bishops said in comments filed May 15.

“We are convinced that no public good is served by this unprecedented nationwide mandate, and that forcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest,” said the comments filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Signed by Anthony R. Picarello and Michael F. Moses, general counsel and associate general counsel, respectively, for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the 21-page comments were in response to the administration’s “advance notice of proposed rulemaking” published March 16 in the Federal Register, which proposed new ways for religious organizations that have moral objections to providing free contraceptives to their employees to comply with the requirement.

Among the administration’s suggestions are having the costs covered by a “third-party administrator” of a health plan or “independent agency” that receive funds from other sources, such as rebates from drug makers.

The USCCB comments said the proposed changes would still require “conscientiously objecting nonexempt religious organizations … to provide plans that serve as a conduit for contraceptives and sterilization procedures to their own employees, and their premiums will help pay for those items.”

“As a practical or moral matter, none of (the approaches proposed by the administration) will solve the problem that the mandate creates for nonexempt religious organizations with a conscientious objection to contraceptive coverage,” the attorneys added.

The USCCB comments repeated several times that the best solution to their objections to the mandate would be its complete rescission.

“We believe that this mandate is unjust and unlawful — it is bad health policy, and because it entails an element of government coercion against conscience, it creates a religious freedom problem,” the USCCB attorneys said.

“These moral and legal problems are compounded by an extremely narrow exemption that intrusively and unlawfully carves up the religious community into those that are deemed ‘religious enough’ for an exemption, and those that are not,” they added.

The USCCB submission noted that HHS had not asked for comments on whether contraceptives and sterilization should be among the mandated preventive services for women under the health reform law or on the four-pronged definition of religious organizations that could be exempt from the requirement.

To be exempt from the requirement, a religious organization “has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and is a nonprofit organization” under specific sections of the Internal Revenue Code.

Both the mandate and the exemption are now final rules, “entirely unchanged from August 2011,” the USCCB said.

It warned that “many religious and other stakeholders with a conscientious objection to some or all of the mandate coverage are ineligible” for the exemption or the one-year “temporary enforcement safe harbor” established by the Obama administration. That safe harbor period is to begin Aug. 1, 2012.

“Absent a change of course by the administration or a court order granting relief, individuals, insurers, for-profit employers and many other stakeholders with a moral or religious objection to contraceptive coverage will be required in the next few months either to drop out of the health insurance marketplace, potentially triggering crippling penalties, or to provide coverage that violates their deeply held convictions,” the USCCB attorneys said.

Before it makes a final decision on the proposed ruling, the Obama administration is seeking public comment until June 19.

By Catholic News Service

LONDON – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an impassioned defense of religion, saying the world would be heading for tragedy and disaster without faith.

In a May 14 interview in front of more than 4,300 people at an Anglican conference in the Royal Albert Hall, London, Blair also revealed that he had once been rebuked by an official for proposing to end a speech with the words: “God bless Britain.”

Blair, a former Anglican who became a Catholic in 2007 — less than a year after he stepped down from leading his country for a decade — said that faith was vital because it introduced the virtue of humility into societies.

“What is the essence of our faith besides all the things we believe, certainly as Christians, about Jesus Christ and his place in our lives?” he asked.

“It is also fundamentally a belief that there is something bigger and more important than you, that you are not the only thing that matters, that there is something that is greater and transcendent,” he told the leadership conference organized by the Holy Trinity Brompton, an influential Anglican parish in London.

“I think that essential obligation of humility for humanity is deeply important,” he said. “It is what allows us to make progress, it is what keeps us from ideology or thought processes that then treat human beings as if they were secondary to some political purpose.”

He said: “For a long period of time, what people thought was that as society became more developed and as we became more prosperous, that faith would be relegated, that it would become a kind of relic of the past — what kind of ignorant people do but not what civilized, educated people do.

“I think a world without faith would be a world on the path to tragedy and disaster, I really believe that,” he added.

The former Labor Party leader acknowledged that “God and religion can also be abused by politicians” and said it was important to be cautious of those who might be using religion for their own purposes.

But he said that when he proposed to finish a speech as prime minister simply with the words “God bless Britain,” an aide told him disapprovingly: “I just remind you Prime Minister, this is not America.”

He said he then abandoned the idea.

By Dennis Sadowski, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON – While there is no roadmap to solving Europe’s economic crisis, the Catholic Church – with its history of serving the poor – can help in the face of government austerity measures, longtime observers said.

People stand in line to enter a government employment office in Madrid April 27. Deep austerity measures being discussed by several European governments have led voters to oust incumbent officials, opening the door for less drastic approaches to rebuilding fragile economies. (CNS photo/Andrea Comas, Reuters)

“At the moment, if you gather three European economists, you have four options” of how to solve the crisis, said Raul Gonzalez Fabre, professor of economics and ethics at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid.

However, he and other European observers said the Catholic Church can help guide discussions so that a balance is achieved among government, charitable agencies and private enterprise.

While Europe’s economic situation poses serious challenges that are expected to take years to resolve, observers such as British Jesuit Father Frank Turner say the church’s steady hand in serving the poor and assisting the newly unemployed will help cement its role as a key adviser in the development of economic solutions aimed at the common good in the 17-nation euro zone.

It’s not that the church offers specific answers. Father Turner, who works at the Jesuit European Social Center in Brussels, pointed to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”) as a basic framework for action. In broad terms, the document calls for a balance between global development and the common good.

Father Turner also cited a January commentary by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of the European Community that addressed the importance of developing “a highly competitive social market economy” in response to the growing financial crisis.

In “A European Community of Solidarity and Responsibility,” the bishops called for “equal balancing of the principles of freedom and solidarity.” In particular, they cite the need for binding “freedom of the market with the principle of justice and the commandment to love of neighbor.”

Gonzalez told Catholic News Service that the economic crisis “may be the opportunity (for the church and governments) to work together in order to help the old and new poor survive the situation.”

“New bridges in charity and social commitment may ease doctrinal antagonisms and help create deeper dialogues on culture in the future,” he added.

Overall unemployment in the euro zone rose to 10.9 percent in March, leading to restlessness among workers.

Seeking change, voters have turned to leaders from across the political spectrum in the hope that someone will ease the economic crisis. In Spain in November, where official unemployment has hovered at 24 percent for months, voters ousted the socialist government in favor of the conservative Popular Party.

Next door in France, voters May 6 opted for socialist Francois Hollande over Nicolas Sarkozy, the moderately conservative incumbent, for president. Sarkozy’s austerity measures seemed to be the target of voter backlash.

In Greece, where unemployment stood at 21.7 percent, voters also took aim at austerity measures by propelling the hard-left SYRIZA party to a second-place finish in May 6 elections. Party leaders May 15 blocked any deal with the European Union on a bailout, ending the possibility of a compromise in the formation of a coalition government with mainline parties. New elections were scheduled for June as fears of bankruptcy loomed.

The European Union, largely guided by German government demands, has offered its most recent financial recovery plans to Greece and France. Hollande and SYRIZA’s leaders have stepped back from the deals, saying that Germany should not be the primary driver behind the efforts.

“It is clear that extreme parties gained consensus because European decision-makers did not take into account the social and human consequences of the austerity plans,” said Raul Caruso of the Institute of Economic Policy at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

He called for economic policies that primarily benefit citizens and for leaders to pay better attention to the needs of citizens in the future if they are concerned about a backlash in future elections. He also suggested that people would agree with austerity measures if they were perceived as “just and fair.”

“In Europe, the widespread sentiment is that decision-makers are completely unable to meet these needs,” he said. “The European leaders seem to lack any imaginative and productive vision of the future.”

Talk has surfaced that Greece may leave the euro zone, returning to its old currency, the drachma. Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel emerged from a May 15 meeting to say they want Greece to keep using the euro.

If Greece exits the euro zone, the move is expected to pose serious challenges in the short term. In the long term, the move may offer the Mediterranean country a chance to forge a new economy as Greek products become more competitive in the global marketplace, explained Erasmus K. Kersting, assistant professor of economics at Villanova University in Philadelphia.

“The average citizen in Greece would see their purchasing power fall at first, but the hope is that the recovery would be swift and strong,” Kersting, a native of Hannover, Germany, said in an email. “That, in turn, would mean a dramatic fall in unemployment and hopefully also a reversal of the feelings of anger and helplessness that seem to currently prevail in the country.”

Regardless of who is in power, economic reforms are necessary, said Laura Gonzalez, a native of Spain who is assistant professor of finance and business economics at Fordham University in New York.

She predicted that new bailout agreements eventually would be in place to allow Greece and France to ease their way out of their economic crises.

“Everyone is convinced about the need to change the current situation,” she said. “The status quo is not sustainable.”

By Deborah Gyapong, Catholic News Service

OTTAWA, Ontario – Canadian religious groups are “experiencing a worrisome erosion” of freedom of conscience and religious freedom — universal rights that face increasing threats around the world, said the Canadian bishops.

In a 12-page pastoral letter to all Canadians, the bishops said they “particularly want to address those members of the faithful who find themselves in difficult situations where they may be pressured to act against their religious faith or their conscience.”

The bishops quoted Blessed John Paul II, saying the right to religious freedom is “the litmus test for the respect of all the other human rights.” They defended the right of religious believers to participate in the public square and explained that religious freedom is more than freedom of worship.

“Besides being free from external coercion, everyone must be able freely to exercise the right to choose, profess, disseminate, and practice his or her own religion,” the bishops said. “This includes freedom for parents to educate their children in their religious convictions and to choose the schools which provide that formation.

The bishops urged the protection of rights of conscientious objection that are being undermined in Canada and other Western democracies. They also encouraged people to form their consciences in the light of objective truth and to resist, even to the point of suffering, any pressures to violate them.

In Canada, the bishops said, most of the conflicts concern legislation or regulations that involve human life or the traditional family. Among recent problems in Canada, they listed:

• Colleges of physicians compelling doctors who refuse to perform abortions to refer patients to a doctor who will perform the procedure.

• Pharmacists threatened if they refuse, on conscience grounds, to fill prescriptions for contraceptives or the morning-after pill.

• Marriage commissioners in British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Saskatchewan who must perform same-sex marriages or resign.

“Those who will not cooperate with the requirements of an immoral law must be prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to uphold the truth and to bear the suffering that results,” the bishops said, citing the martyrdom of St. Thomas More as an example.

They said that, worldwide, 75 percent of all religious persecution is directed at Christians. The letter cited the massacre of Coptic Christians in Egypt; church bombings in Nigeria; the interference of the Chinese government in church affairs; and the effects of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

By David Agren, Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY – A Mexican priest known for sheltering undocumented Central American migrants — and defying organized criminal groups and corrupt politicians — has withdrawn from his work temporarily due to threats, but says he will return.

News of the threats came the same day officials in the northern state of Nuevo Leon found 49 dismembered bodies stuffed into plastic bags — bodies they feared could be undocumented migrants transiting Mexico.

Father Alejandro Solalinde, director of the Brothers of the Road shelter in Oaxaca state, has been threatened and will remain away from the facility he founded for the next two weeks, said Scalabrini Sister Leticia Gutierrez, director of the Mexican bishops’ human mobility ministry.

Sister Leticia told Catholic News Service May 15 that Father Solalinde would take advantage of a previously scheduled trip abroad, which coincided with the latest threat — and not abandon his ministry or run from the situation, as some media outlets reported.

Shelter operations would not be impacted by his absence, Sister Leticia said.

Father Solalinde’s situation reflects ongoing difficulties for church workers who try to protect migrants passing through Mexico from risks such as kidnapping and robbery; many of those workers have been threatened.

Sister Leticia said Father Solalinde has been threatened six times and now travels with a security detail. Oaxaca state police guard his shelter.

News of Father Solalinde’s troubles followed the discovery of 49 bodies dumped May 13 in the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez, about 100 miles from the U.S. border at McAllen, Texas.

The massacre marked the third atrocity of its kind to be committed in Mexico over a 10-day period.

Security analyst Alejandro Hope attributed the spate of mass slayings to rival drug cartels, the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas, carrying out a turf war and taking the battle to each other’s territories.

Nuevo Leon security officials say the massacre there mostly likely involved Los Zetas, which is powerful in northeastern Mexico and is known to kidnap migrants.

Sister Leticia said she suspects some of the victims are Central American migrants. The highway where the bodies were found is a known migrant route to the U.S. border, and the flow of migrants from Central America has been on the increase since before Christmas, she said.

Staff from the human mobility ministry are checking with shelter operators and migrant groups in Central America to determine if migrants are missing, Sister Leticia said.

By Joyce Coronel, Catholic News Service

PHOENIX – As Manny Yrique prayed before the Blessed Sacrament, his heart was burdened with concerns about the United States and the level of animosity in American discourse.

Manny Yrique displays the special red, white and blue beads he uses for his the Rosary for the United States of America at his Phoenix home May 8. Along with the rosary there is a prayer booklet that lists all the special intentions for branches of the federal and local governments as well as the names of the 50 states. (CNS photo/J.D. Long-Garcia, The Catholic Sun)

“I knelt down to pray and I was overwhelmed by the feeling that Our Lord wanted me to pray a rosary,” Yrique said. “I felt him telling me, ‘Take it to my mother.’”

He pulled out his rosary beads and as he began to pray, he was struck by the realization that each of the 50 Hail Mary prayers of the rosary could be offered for one of the 50 United States.

Yrique said he’s always had a strong devotion to Mary. He remembers being 8 years old, kneeling with his 6-year-old sister to pray the rosary while their mother was undergoing surgery.

“We didn’t know if our mom was coming back home, so we took out our plastic rosaries, knelt down at the Virgin of Guadalupe statue that was over my mom’s bed and we prayed a rosary,” Yrique told The Catholic Sun, newspaper of the Phoenix Diocese. “It was like, ‘Nothing’s going to happen as long as Mary’s with you.’”

Yrique said he designed the Rosary for the United States of America through prayer, often waking in the middle of the night to compose the intentions.

He has already given away or sold 3,000 of the red, white and blue rosary beads and has ordered another 2,000. He has a website, www.magnalitecatholic.com/usa_rosary. Along with the rosary, people can order a prayer booklet or prayer card that lists all the intentions as well as the names of the 50 states.

Each of the five decades has a designated intention.

The first three decades are prayed for the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The fourth decade is dedicated to state and local governments as well as police and firefighters. The fifth decade is devoted to U.S. military personnel.

Yrique’s conviction about the love of the mother of God is something that he said can partly be explained by his own mother’s unshakeable devotion to her children.

“I believe that a mother has tremendous impact on her family — I saw that in my mother,” Yrique said. “We knew that nothing would happen to us as children as long as Mom was there.

“I believe the Blessed Virgin Mary is the same way — she’s always been my mother and I believe she has the ear of God at her command.”

The “Rosary for the USA” is not a political statement, Yrique said. He’s not praying for a particular candidate to win the upcoming election or for any political party’s success. He’s simply praying for the United States — its leaders and populace.

“At the time I started praying for my country, I was really concerned with how divisive we became over the S.B. 1070 (immigration) issue,” Yrique said. “So when I saw things happening on the news — when I saw people being angry at one another, shouting at one another, I thought, ‘This is not the way I was brought up.’”

Yrique said it’s important for the 30 million Catholics in the United States to pray for their leaders, regardless of political persuasion.

“I really believe that it doesn’t matter who we elect if the power of God is not working through our elected officials,” he said. “I’d like people to get off their soapboxes and get on their knees and pray. God will bless America when Americans remember to bless God.”

Coronel writes for The Catholic Sun in Phoenix.

By Mark Zimmermann, Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON – New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan praised the class of 2012 at The Catholic University of America, saying in his May 12 commencement address that the 1,500 students receiving degrees that day had all majored in “the Law of the Gift” – learning to pattern their lives after the self-giving love of Jesus.

New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan acknowledges the applause as he gives the May 12 commencement address at The Catholic University of America in Washington. (CNS photo/Ed Pfueller, Catholic University of America)

Cardinal Dolan noted how Blessed John Paul II described the “Law of the Gift” this way: “For we are at our best, we are most fully alive and human, when we give away freely and sacrificially our very selves in love for another.”

The cardinal noted how Jesus spoke about the “Law of the Gift” when the Lord said, “Greater love than this no one has, than to give one’s life for one’s friends.”

New York’s archbishop, who also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, encouraged the graduates to draw on their faith to help in the effort to stand up for religious freedom in the United States and to oppose efforts to redefine marriage.

“Religion, faith, the church promote a culture built on the ‘Law of the Gift,’” the cardinal said. “Thus, wise people from Alexis de Tocqueville to John Courtney Murray … have observed that an essential ingredient in American wisdom and the genius of the American republic is the freedom it allows for religion to flourish.”

He predicted that a challenge the class of 2012 “will inevitably face is the defense of religious freedom as part of both our American and creedal legacy.”

Cardinal Dolan has played a leading role in the U.S. bishops’ defense of religious freedom in the face of recent threats, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate that would force Catholic institutions including hospitals, universities and social service agencies to provide health insurance coverage to employees for procedures the Catholic Church opposes, including abortion-inducing drugs, artificial contraceptives and sterilizations.

Cardinal Dolan said the “Law of the Gift” also provides special insights into the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage.

The law “is most poetically exemplified in the lifelong, life-giving, faithful, intimate union of a man and woman in marriage, which then leads to the procreation of new life in babies, so that husband and wife, now father and mother, spend their lives sacrificially loving and giving to those children,” the cardinal said.

“That union — that sacred rhythm of man/woman/husband/wife/baby/mother/father — is so essential to the order of the common good that its very definition is ingrained into our interior dictionary, that its protection and flourishing is the aim of enlightened culture.”

The cardinal said the Catholic University graduates had first learned those lessons from “the most significant of all professors, your mom and dad,” at home, and he led the graduates in applauding their parents.

“The ‘Law of the Gift’ is part of the DNA of any Catholic school, this sterling one included,” he said.

“That we are at our best when we give ourselves away in love to another — the ‘Law of the Gift,’” Cardinal Dolan continued, “is, I’m afraid, ‘countercultural’ today, in an era that prefers getting to giving, and entitlement to responsibility; in a society that considers every drive, desire or urge as a right, and where convenience and privacy can trump even the right to life itself; and in a mindset where freedom is reduced to the liberty to do whatever we want, wherever we want, whenever, however, with whomever we want, rather than the duty to do what we ought. … Well, the ‘Law of the Gift’ can be as ignored as a yellow traffic light in New York City.”

New York’s cardinal also noted how Pope Benedict XVI has emphasized the importance of Catholic universities being faithful to their Catholic identity as they carry out the church’s mission in service to the Gospel. He noted that each classroom at The Catholic University of America features the most effective audiovisual aid of them all — the crucifix.

A big part of the joy at that morning’s graduation, the cardinal said, was rooted in gratitude of the university’s solidarity and communion with the church’s pastoral leadership, knowing “that this university is both Catholic and American, flowing from the most noble ideals of truth and respect for human dignity that are at the heart of our church and our country.”

Earlier, Cardinal Dolan received Catholic University’s President’s Medal, the school’s highest honor. Cardinal Dolan has a doctorate in American church history from Catholic University.

Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, chancellor, offered the invocation at Catholic University’s 123rd annual commencement, asking God to bless the university’s work, and he prayed that at the university, the light of Catholic faith would continue to shine so that those seeking truth will come to know God, who is truth.

Addressing the graduates, John Garvey, president of Catholic University, noted that many commencement speakers encourage graduates “to follow your dreams and wear sunscreen.”

He urged them instead to draw upon the virtue of patience. “Patience is the disposition to await God’s grace. … Get up every morning with the disposition to await God’s grace,” he said.

Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard in Washington.

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

ROME – For the first time, the Pontifical North American College took home the champion’s title in the Clericus Cup soccer series.

Pontifical North American College seminarian Christopher Seiler of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, left, heads the ball as his team competes against the Pontifical Gregorian University during the final of the Clericus Cup soccer tournament in Rome May 12. The NAC won the game 3-0, achieving its first championship in the 6-year-old tournament. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

To the cheers of superheroes and other fans in the stands, the NAC Martyrs beat last year’s champions, the Pontifical Gregorian University, 3-0, in the final playoff May 12.

“We pretty much controlled the entire game. There was no risk of conceding a goal and as long as the offense did their job,” the final win was in the bag, third-year seminarian John Gibson of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee told Catholic News Service.

Gibson scored two goals in the first half and Scottie Gratton of the Diocese of Burlington, Vt., netted the final goal. Playing for the Martyrs, Lewi Barakat of the Archdiocese of Sydney provided all three assists in the game.

Cardinal George Pell of Sydney sat with the U.S. players to lend his support to the sole Australian on the predominately North American team.

“Australia has played an important part of the team,” Gibson said, “They’re a great presence in the house and on the team.”

Australia doesn’t have its own seminary in Rome, so a dozen or so Australians live at the North American College each year.

The NAC Martyrs finished second in the Clericus Cup in 2009 and 2010, and third in 2008. The soccer championship exclusively for priests and seminarians in Rome was established in 2007.

Pontifical North American College seminarian Nick Nelson of the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., kicks the ball as his team competes against the Pontifical Gregorian University during the final of the Clericus Cup soccer tournament in Rome May 12. The Pontifical North American College won the game 3-0, achieving their first win in the 6-year-old tournament. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The weekend win “has been a long time coming. The team worked really hard and we’re really overjoyed,” Gibson said.

Known for their lively fan base, the Martyrs had a costumed pirate, Captain America, Spiderman, Wolverine, a Native American chief, a fluffy yellow chicken and a Ninja Turtle cheering the team on.

A number of American students studying at U.S. universities with campuses in Rome also attended the final game “to support us and show their love for America,” Gibson said.

A Mass of Christian Burial for John Patrick “J.P” Huling will be celebrated at 10 a.m., Tuesday, May 15, at St. Michael Church in Sharonville. Visitation is from 4- 9 p.m., today, May 14, at Moeller High School, 9001 Montgomery Road in Cincinnati. Sgt. Huling, an Explosive, Ordnance, Disposal (EOD) Technician with the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed in Afghanistan on May 6.

Huling, a 2004 graduate of Moeller High School, is survived by his wife, Patricia, parents John and Debbie, brother, Justin, and sister, Lauren Huling Coach

For the visitation at Moeller, the procession will take place at 3:15 p.m. According to the school’s website, the visitor locker room on the first floor closest to All Saints Church will be reserved for the family as a break room. The line for viewing will begin in the lobby, and guests will proceed down the length of the bleachers up the south end base line and then to the casket.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati announced to Cincinnati media late Monday that the family of Sgt. John Patrick Huling requests that no recording devices, audio or video, be brought into church before, during, or after his funeral service on Tuesday morning. “The great archdiocesan community thanks you for respecting their wishes,” said Communications Director Dan Andriacco, who added: “St. Michael the Archangel Parish asks that electronic media not set up on church property. The campus is a small one. With the large crowd expected, parish officials believe that every square foot of space will be needed for parking and walking. In fact, shuttles are being set up to other parking locations to accommodate mourners.”