Welcome to the St. Mary Parish website, which is continually under construction with new parish updates and exciting news. We welcome you to our parish!

If you are new in the area, we invite you to worship with us and participate in our parish activities.

We extend a special invitation to those who may have been away from the church for a while to rejoin us.

Through this website, we hope to provide opportunities to grow in faith through some of the links that are offered and to keep you up to date with parish activities. 

Good wishes to all.

Rev. Seán Bonner
Pastor

Queridos amigos,

Bienvenido al sitio web de La Parroquia de St. Mary, que se encuentra actualmente en construcción. ¡Le damos la bienvenida a nuestra parroquia!

Si es nuevo en el área, lo invitamos a orar con nosotros y participar en nuestras actividades parroquiales.

Extendemos una invitación especial a aquellos que pueden haber estado lejos de la iglesia por un tiempo para reunirse con nosotros.

A través de este sitio web, esperamos brindar oportunidades para crecer en la fe a través de algunos de los enlaces que se ofrecen y para mantenerlo al día con las actividades de la parroquia.

Los buenos deseos para todos,

Rev. Seán Bonner
Pastor

ministerio hispano - vea la pestaña de
vida parroquial arriba

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Parish Services:

• ONLINE GIVING - sign up today
• Historic Cemetery (section under construction)
• St. Mary Outreach Center

Thinking About Becoming A Catholic?

In parishes throughout the country, men and women who are seeking to journey in faith, gather together for what has come to be known as the R.C.I.A. (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults). If you or someone you know are interested in the R.C.I.A. program, Click here for more information.

Vocation Awareness

Many priests and religious will tell you that before entering religious life, they felt unworthy of such a calling. Yet, St. Paul tells us that he boasts of his weaknesses because he knows that God’s grace is enough (2 Cor 12:7-10). Saint or sinner, you may be called to the priesthood. Click here for more information.

Notes from 
Fr. Sean

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HOLY ROSARY

Pray the Rosary, daily. 

PRAY THE ROSARY WITH US!
How to pray the Rosary

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CHILDREN'S LITURGY
OF THE WORD
SUNDAYS thru May 2020
11:30 am Mass
We help our younger parishioners to better understand the Mass readings on their level.

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YOU ARE PART OF OUR FAMILY!

MASS SCHEDULE

Saturday: 4:00pm
Sunday: 8:30am, 11:30am,
             2:00pm (Misa en español)

Weekday Masses

Monday: 9:00am
Tuesday: 9:00am
(@ St. Richard, Westland, MI)
Wednesday: 9:00am
Thursday: 9:00am
(@ St. Richard, Westland, MI )
Friday: 9:00am

Sacrament of Reconcilation

Saturday: 3:00pm to 3:30pm

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BECOME A PRIEST

Permanent Diaconate

Religious Life

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Bishop Robert Barron's Word on Fire

Catholic News

Congressman tries to add 'Born Alive' protections to vaping bill

Published: February 28, 2020

Washington D.C., Feb 28, 2020 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- The House of Representatives on Friday blocked an attempt to add legislation to protect infants who survive botched abortion attempts into a bill on e-cigarettes.

On Friday morning, House Republicans led by Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) used a procedural move to force a vote on language protecting abortion survivors taken from a bill that has been blocked from consideration for a year.

Walden’s “motion to recommit” was defeated by a vote of 213 – 195. Only three Democrats voted in support of including Wagner’s language, Reps. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), Colin Peterson (D-Minn.), and Ben McAdams (D-Utah).

The chair of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, condemned the result.

“Just three days ago, the U.S. Senate tragically failed to advance the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” he said. “Americans should be outraged that our U.S. Congress cannot pass a law to ensure that newborn babies are not vulnerable to infanticide.”

Friday’s legislative session began with debate on a bill to regulate youth tobacco and e-cigarette consumption. Walden attempted to include language from Rep. Ann Wagner’s (R-Mo.) Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act into the bill.

“We all care deeply about the health of our children,” Walden said of tobacco regulations, adding that “the younger the child, the more vulnerable and defenseless they are.”

“That’s why we are offering a final amendment to the bill that literally would save the lives of the youngest children, the babies,” he said. “I hope that we can end the ghastly practice of letting die, children when they are born alive after an abortion.”

Wagner’s bill would mandate that babies who survive a botched abortion attempt be given the same standard of care as other infants born alive at the same gestational age, and be admitted to a hospital.

Under the legislation, doctors or health care workers who fail to provide this care could be liable to criminal penalties, but mothers would not only be not liable but could sue for damages if the care is not provided.

Although it was introduced a year ago, the bill has not yet received a vote because House Democrats have successfully blocked it from coming to the floor. A “discharge” petition—which requires the signatures of 218 members to force a vote—has received only 204 signatures so far.

“Congress has an opportunity to ensure that no baby is denied life-saving care, simply because he or she is allegedly unwanted,” Wagner said, noting that her bill has been blocked from consideration 80 times by Democratic leadership.

“Our constituents must know where we stand,” she said.

The Senate has voted on similar legislation, to consider Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) “Born-Alive” bill, this week, but it failed to receive the 60 votes necessary to advance.

Read More!

Canadian hospice forced to close after refusing to offer assisted dying

Published: February 28, 2020

Vancouver, Canada, Feb 28, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- A hospice in Canada has lost its funding and is being forced to close after refusing to offer and perform medically assisted suicides.

The Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, British Columbia, will lose $1.5 million in funding and will no longer be permitted to operate as a hospice as of February 25, 2021. Fraser Health Authority, one of the six public health care authorities in the province, announced on Tuesday that it would be ending its relationship with the hospice over its refusal to provide medically assisted deaths to its patients. 

Per Fraser Health’s contract with the Delta Hospice Society, which administers the Irene Thomas Hospice, a one-year notice had to be provided before funding could be withdrawn without cause.

"We have made every effort to support the board to come into compliance and they have been clear that they have no intention to," said British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix in a statement.

Dix said that the decision to pull funding was taken “reluctantly,” and that “when the role of the Delta Hospice Society concludes, patients in publicly funded hospice care will again be able to fully access their medical rights."

A press release from Delta Hospice said that while it is not affiliated with a religion, the board of the Delta Hospice Society is opposed to medically assisted death on moral and philosophical grounds. 

“Delta Hospice officials were shocked and outraged this week by the Fraser Health Authority’s blatant move to cut off all discussions and close the facility because it wants the hospice to provide MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) at every facility,” said the statement. 

“The Irene Thomas Hospice is dedicated to allowing patients access to expert symptom management for physical, emotional and spiritual distress. It provides comfort, meaning dignity and hope as one dies a natural death.” 

In September 2016, about three months after medically assissted suicide became legal in Canada, Fraser Health introduced a new policy which required all hospices receiving more than 50% of provincial funding for their beds to offer the procedure to their residents. The hospice receives $1.4 million of its $3 million operating budget from the Fraser Health Authority, and Fraser Health funds virtually all of the beds at Irene Thomas Hospice. 

Angelina Ireland, president of the Delta Hospice Society, said in the press release that Fraser Health ignored her request to lower the amount of funding to below the 50% threshold, and also forbade the hospice from finding another partner to work with. 

After the contract with Fraser Health ends, the public health authority intends to take over the buildings that currently compose the Irene Thomas Hospital and bring in medically assisted dying. 

“By refusing to allow us to find another partner, [Fraser Health is] basically forcing us to be in default of our lease--because in order to have our lease, we have to be a hospice,” Ireland said. 

“They feel that they can just come in and seize our assets.” 

Ireland told CNA that although the facilities are on land that is leased from the government, the buildings were constructed using donations from the community of Delta.

“We built this facility,” she said. “We built that 10 years ago, and we put $9 million into that of privately-raised money from donations.” 

“This didn’t come from the taxpayer. This came from private people.” 

The Delta Hospice Society wishes to provide patients with a peaceful natural death, not actively end patients’ lives, Ireland explained to CNA. 

“[The hospice] worked really hard to have the people to trust us that when they come to hospice they will not be killed,” she said. “We will take care of them, they will take care of their families. And now basically the government has said that any hospice that does not provide euthanasia, it's not allowed to exist.”

Ireland called this a “direct attack” on the medical specialty of palliative care. 

Faith-based healthcare organizations, as well as medical professionals opposed to MAiD, are not required to offer medically assisted suicide to patients in Canada. Doctors, however, must refer patients seeking an “assisted death” to a healthcare provider who is willing to euthanize them. 

Assisted dying is readily available at Delta Hospital, which is a one-minute drive from the Irene Thomas Hospice.

Read More!

Justice Department weighs in on Kentucky religious freedom case

Published: February 28, 2020

Washington D.C., Feb 28, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Department of Justice on Thursday registered its support for the religious freedom case of a Kentucky photographer in a lawsuit over a city anti-discrimination ordinance.

“The central question presented in this case is whether the government can compel a wedding photographer to photograph, provide photography editing services for, and blog about weddings of which she does not approve, and does not wish to photograph or to promote,” the Justice Department (DOJ) said in a statement of interest in the case filed on Thursday. 

“The answer is no,” the Justice Department concluded.

The case of photographer Chelsey Nelson is currently before a federal district court in Kentucky. Nelson, a photographer with her own business, sued the city government of Louisville over an ordinance she says would compel her to violate her religious beliefs and serve certain types of weddings, including same-sex weddings.

“Ms. Nelson has a practice of ‘declin[ing] requests for wedding celebration and boutique editing services if the request required [her] to use [her] artistic talents to promote or positively portray anything immoral, dishonorable to God, or contrary to [her] religious beliefs’,” the DOJ stated.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents Nelson, applauded the DOJ’s statement on Friday.

“Chelsey serves all people. But the Louisville government is trying to compel Chelsey’s speech, force her participation in ceremonies she objects to, and eliminate her editorial control over her photographs and blogs,” ADF senior counsel Jonathan Scruggs stated Feb. 28.

The “Metro Ordinance” in question, of Louisville city and Jefferson County, Kentucky, is an anti-discrimination ordinance for businesses and other places of “public accommodation, resort, or amusement.” Two of the protected categories under the law are “sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Under the law, businesses cannot deny goods and services on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as other classes, nor can they post notices saying they could do so.

Nelson filed a complaint over the ordinance, saying that the city “is using the threat of limitless damages, compliance reports, posting of notices, and court orders” to compel business owners like her to “participate in solemn ceremonies she disagrees with—same-sex wedding ceremonies.”

The Metro Ordinance is an unconstitutional violation of free expression, DOJ argued.

“Photography,” the DOJ said, “is an expressive art form,” including at a wedding where the “photographer makes numerous artistic and viewpoint-based judgments” through which “to convey meaning and ideas through photography and editing.”

To compel a photographer “to create expression for and to participate in a ceremony that violates her sincerely held religious beliefs invades her First Amendment rights in a manner akin to the governmental intrusion in Hurley,” the DOJ said, referencing the 1995 case of Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc.

Scruggs said that he hopes the Supreme Court will take up the similar case of Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman in Arlene’s Flowers v. State of Washington as a companion to the case of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which concerns the city’s decision to sever ties with Catholic Social Services over access to foster placement for same-sex couples.

Stutzman has appealed to the Supreme Court for a second time after the Washington state supreme court again ruled against her early in 2019. She had been sued by the ACLU and the state for declining to serve a same-sex wedding.

“Without the Supreme Court’s intervention in Barronelle’s case,” Scruggs said, “state and local government officials will continue to threaten sincere people of faith like Barronelle and Chelsey with severe penalties for living out their beliefs in the public square.”

Last year, the Kentucky state Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Christian business owner who declined to serve an LGBT pride festival, and who was punished by a local government for discrimination.

Read More!

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