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Gulf Pine Catholic
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July 1, 2016
Bishop Morin honors Milling for her work in AIDS ministry
Bishop Roger Morin recently traveled to New
Orleans, LA, for a very special event: the Project
Lazarus Annual Guardian Angel Award Gala. Project
Lazarus, an Archdiocese of New Orleans-sponsored
home for people living with HIV/AIDS, holds an
annual gala to celebrate and honor some of the agency’s
strongest advocates and supporters. In fact, Bishop
Morin was named Guardian Angel in 2005 for his
invaluable contributions to the wellbeing of the agency
and its residents.
This year, Project Lazarus was privileged to have
Bishop Morin present the Pawell-Desrosiers Award to
Anne Milling. This award, named after Project Lazarus
founders Fr. Paul Desrosiers, an Archdiocesan priest,
and Fr. Bob Pawell, a Fransciscan friar, is the highest
honor a person can receive from the agency and is only
presented to individuals or organizations who meet a
special criteria: without the time, love and effort of this
awardee, the agency would not be in operation as it is
today. Bishop Morin spoke beautifully about his long-
time friend, going back to their partnership in planning
the New Orleans papal visit of Pope John Paul II in
1987. Once the visit was complete and the planning
process came to an end, Bishop Morin recommended
that Mrs. Milling volunteer at Project Lazarus, which,
at that time, was a hospice for people dying of AIDS
who had no one to turn to for help. Despite being a
highly stigmatized disease, Mrs. Milling took Bishop
Morin’s recommendation to heart and became one of
the earliest and most active volunteers.
Driven by her devout Catholic faith, Mrs. Milling
served the population in any capacity necessary, from
taking residents to appointments, to sitting with people
as they passed. She also influenced countless other
Catholics and community members to see past the
stigma of AIDS and support these individuals through-
out the most challenging times of their lives, as well as
to provide desperately needed financial assistance to
the growing agency. Project Lazarus would not be the
agency it is today without the support of both Mrs.
Milling and Bishop Morin.
Photos/Willow Haley
Never again: Pope prays for Armenian genocide victims, future peace
BY CINDYWOODEN
Catholic News Service
YEREVAN, Armenia (CNS) -- In silence and in
prayer while a mournful hymn was sung, Pope Francis
formally paid tribute to the estimated 1.5 million
Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks in 1915-18.
Visiting the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial, a monument
to the martyrs, Pope Francis wrote in the guestbook,
“May God preserve the memory of the Armenian peo-
ple. Memories should not be watered down or forgot-
ten; memory is a source of peace and of the future.”
The words were in addition to those the pope had
planned to write June 25, praying that humanity would
never again know the large-scale massacre of a people
and that by remembering such tragedies of the past,
people would learn to vanquish evil with good.
Accompanied by the Armenian Orthodox patriarch,
Catholicos Karekin II, and by bishops and clergy from
both the Catholic and Armenian Apostolic churches,
Pope Francis blessed a wreath of yellow and white
flowers placed before the towering stone shards that
protect the eternal flame at Tsitsernakaberd.
He and the catholicos descended a few steps to the
flame’s basin and laid roses at its edge before praying
several minutes in silence.
There were no speeches at the memorial, only
Scripture readings, prayers and hymns, including one
that described the dead as “images of the Lamb of God”
led to the slaughter “without opening their mouths to
deny the Lord or the homeland.”
A choir of women in teal dresses with
white veils sang the refrain: “Holy and true
Lord, how long before you judge and require
justice for our blood?”
A long, basalt memorial wall outside is
engraved with the names of the cities of the
victims. The opposite side of the wall is deco-
rated with plagues honoring those who
denounced the massacre and came to the res-
cue of the victims. The name of Pope Benedict
XV is prominent. The pope welcomed an
estimated 400 Armenian orphans, who fled to
Pope Francis Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
place flowers at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in
Yerevan, Armenia, June 25. The monument honors
the estimaged 1.5 million Armenians killed by
Ottoman Turks in 1915-18.
CNS photo/Paul Haring
Italy and were given refuge in Castel Gandolfo, the
papal summer residence. A dozen descents of those
orphans were present at the memorial for Pope Francis’
visit.
Before leaving the memorial, Pope Francis -- like
St. John Paul II did in 2001 -- symbolically planted a
pine tree, shoveling a little bit of dirt beneath the hardy
sapling and dousing it generously with water.
