House Judiciary Committee: ‘Multiple FBI field offices’ collaborated over anti-Catholic memo

Patrick Norton stands near Sister Annella Zervas’ grave, October 2022. / Credit: Patti Armstrong

St. Paul, Minn., Dec 10, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pointing toward the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto at the Saint Benedict Monastery cemetery in St. Joseph, Minnesota, 61-year-old Patrick Norton recounts the day 13 years ago when he was painting light posts in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother and encountered who he believes was Sister Annella Zervas, OSB.

Zervas, a Benedictine sister, died in 1926 at the age of 26 of a debilitating skin disease.

Norton, who was plucked from the streets of Bombay as a child by Mother Teresa and later adopted by an American family, had been hired by the College of Saint Benedict on Oct. 27, 2010, to do some painting. He told CNA that while finishing up the last light post in front of the grotto he thought to himself, “I wonder if the Blessed Mother thinks I am doing a good job?” When he looked down, there was a nun in full Benedictine habit.

“‘You are doing a good job,’ she told me. We talked a little, but I don’t remember what it was about. Then I watched as she disappeared,” he told CNA.

The encounter was so astonishing that Norton kept it to himself for a year. But in a chance conversation, he was told “there is a holy nun buried in that cemetery” and he came to learn it was Zervas. Eventually, he saw a picture of her and was certain that she was the one who had appeared to him.

An elderly religious sister at Saint Benedict Monastery — who also happened to be named Sister Annella — shared with Norton pictures of Zervas and a booklet about the young sister’s life called “Apostles of Suffering in Our Day” by Benedictine priest Joseph Kreuter, published in 1929.

“Why isn’t she a saint yet?’ Norton asked.

“Oh, I’m in my 80s and I’m the only one promoting her cause,” she replied.

“Sister, why can’t I help you out?” he replied.

Norton said she just looked at him. “I didn’t have any experience but felt compassion for her, and also, I did see Sister Annella, so I felt I had to promote her cause.”

He read in the booklet that Zervas entered the convent at age 15 and died from a painful, unsightly, and odiferous skin disease at age 26. She was also subjected to attacks from the devil and from a heartburn that made it hard to keep food down. At the time of her death, she weighed only 40 pounds. Yet, she asked God to allow her even more suffering and for the strength to bear it so she could offer it up for the Church. 

Every week, Norton made 10 copies of the booklet to pass out. “I went to Sister Annella’s grave and told her, ‘If I am going to make more books, I need money.’” 

A short time later he had a conversation with someone he had just met and told about Zervas. “How can I help?” the person asked him. 

“Can you help me make 20 books a week instead of just 10?” 

“How about 20,000?” the donor, who wanted to remain anonymous, replied. 

The number of books Norton has now distributed is about 100,000. It was also previously published in French and Sri Lanken. 

Another good Samaritan arranged for Norton to be interviewed for a video called “The Sanctity of Two Hearts.”

A friend of Norton’s located Joanne Zervas, a niece of Sister Annella’s, and Norton met with her. She gave him many of her aunt’s personal effects for safekeeping, including family letters, a silver spoon used to give holy Communion when Zervas was incapacitated, her rosary, a book stained with what is believed to be her blood, and candles that burned in her room when she died.  

Word spread about the sister and there were reports of answered prayers through her intercession. Yet, it seemed unlikely that a cause for her canonization would open. 

Norton recounted that Bishop Donald Joseph Kettler of the Diocese of St. Cloud encouraged him to keep telling his story but declined to take further steps in order to respect the wishes of the Benedictine sisters who were not interested in opening a cause for Zervas. 

In a SC Times article in 2017, a spokesperson for the Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, said it was not the Benedictine way to promote one sister above another as it would “be contrary to humility.” A spokesperson from the diocese said that without their support, there would be no cause. 

But Norton and a small group that had formed to pray that her cause be opened met monthly at the cemetery and kept praying. 

After years of disappointment, Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis informed Norton that he was appealing to the wrong diocese. Zervas had died in her parents’ home in Moorhead, Minnesota, which is in the Crookston Diocese. But again, there was no interest in opening a cause there.

“I went through darkness,” Norton admitted. “I would say, ‘Really Lord, are you hearing me?’  One day I said, ‘I’m not getting any younger you know.’”

Norton questioned if he was even the right person to promote Zervas. “I’m not a doctor or a lawyer; I’m just a painter,” he said. But he had told the Lord: “Let me live each day for you, and I will tell people about her through my nothingness.”

Then in 2021, Bishop Andrew Cozzens was appointed to the Diocese of Crookston. Norton heard that Cozzens had known about Zervas since he was a boy. Then on Oct. 15 Norton heard — through a letter from the bishop that was read at the cemetery to the prayer group — that initial steps are being put in place by the diocese to begin an investigation into Zervas’ life, which will make it possible for a cause to be opened.

Norton has now been promoting Zervas’ story for more than a decade.

“I couldn’t fall asleep that night,” Norton told CNA. “I was overwhelmed. The first thing I did was to thank Our Lord and Our Lady. Before going to bed, every night, I always kiss the cheek of Our Lady of Fátima statue [in his home] and say, ‘Good night, Mother.’ And I kiss the feet of Our Lord on a big crucifix from a monastery in Spain and say, ‘You are my Lord and my God. There is no other God, and I love you.’”  

“Even before Sister Annella appeared to me, every Mother’s Day, I brought roses to the grotto and would tell [Mary], ‘You are the best Ma in the whole world. Happy Mother’s Day, Ma.’ I’d sit there and look at the big crucifix and pray the rosary.” 

Norton said he is at peace with his efforts over the years to make Zervas’ life and holiness known. “Since the diocese is taking over, I’m going to just be silent and do my best to live in humility and pray,” he said. “I will pray a lot and thank the Lord for the work he is doing.”

[…]

Washington D.C., May 23, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Elise Amez-Droz’s journey to the Catholic Church began in a place well known for religious fervor, but not exactly known for Catholicism: Salt Lake City, Utah.

While at a conference in Salt Lake City, Amez-Droz, 24, met someone who was converting to Catholicism, which surprised her, she said. A native of Switzerland, Amez-Droz said the only Catholics she knew in her home country were not very devout.

“I was shocked that, clearly, he loved Christ, and I could see it,” she said. “But it just puzzled me that he was joining what I thought was a dead faith.”

Amez-Droz was raised an Evangelical Christian, and said that in her youth she had no thoughts of leaving her childhood faith.

But in gradute school, she struggled.

“I started really wondering about the purpose of life. It was a really rough time for me,” said Amez-Droz. She started to feel as though her life was suddenly without purpose, she said.

In Salt Lake City, she decided to join her new friend for Mass – the first Catholic Mass she had ever attended.

“My first thought was ‘well, it’s not as heretical as I thought it was [going to be],’” she said.

She kept in touch with her friend, and asked him questions about converting and why he was becoming Catholic. After she moved to Washington, DC, she made many Catholic friends, and noticed “how good all these people were,” and that they practiced virtue, “without having an incentive to do it.”

She initially found their virtue “annoying,” and was “really struggling” with how nice her new friends seemed to be.

Still, she decided to learn more about the Catholic faith. In 2018, she entered RCIA. But before committing to an RCIA program, she checked out RCIA at several different parishes in the Washington, DC area.

“I was like, ‘this is a long process. I’m signing up for something that’s going to last seven, eight months,’” she said, describing her relatively unusual approach to RCIA.

“I wanted to make sure I could connect well with the leader of it and that I was going to be learning the true doctrine of the Church,” she added.

After a few weeks, she narrowed it down to two parishes, before deciding on St. Peter’s in Washington, DC. She said she was intrigued by the Dominican friars who taught RCIA at the parish.

Amez-Droz also appreciated the approach the parish took to RCIA, which was to include past participants who had already been received into the Church.

“I knew every Tuesday night that there would be a group of people who were going to be there every time,” said Amez-Droz. “That really made a big difference for me, because it showed me that people were still learning and they wanted to do that journey with us.”

Still, even though she had put in that much effort to find the right RCIA fit, Amez-Droz still was not entirely sold on entering the Church until just a few months before Easter Vigil.

She told CNA that she was convinced after a period of intense study and reading.

“It became more clear to me that I could never go back to my Protestant faith, just having read too much history,” she said. She also was particularly taken by Augustine’s “Confessions,” and she was intrigued by “The Benedict Option.”

“I thought [The Benedict Option] was really interesting. I think it really warmed me up to tradition, considering what community life looks like,” she said. Another huge influence on her conversion was Christopher West’s “Theology of the Body For Beginners.”

“That theology made so much sense,” she said. “I was like, this is one of the most compelling things I’ve ever heard, and it’s from a pope. So that’s what made me think.”

One of the biggest ideological hurdles for Amez-Droz was accepting the authority of the Church. Once she did, however, it was relatively smooth sailing from there.

“As a convert, it comes down to ‘do I accept the authority of the Church?’ If I do, then everything else is true,” she said, and one must embrace the Church’s teachings.

Amez-Droz chose St. Therese of Lisieux as her confirmation saint, after first learning about her at a retreat.

She told CNA that she appreciated that St. Therese “emphasizes being great by being small,” and that she admired her humility. She also found it interesting that St. Therese died at age 24, the same age Amez-Droz would be when she entered the Church.

Additionally, Amez-Droz spoke French as her first language, the same as St. Therese.

The Eucharist was another major factor for Amez-Droz, and was the reason she decided to stick with Catholicism even amid the “summer of scandal” that plagued the Church.

She also said that she appreciated that the Catholics she knew were open and willing to discuss the scandals, particularly those concerning former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick.

“It helped me understand how Catholics were taking it,” said Amez-Droz. “It’s true that every time I would hear ‘but where else would we go? The Eucharist is only in this Church,’ and I thought that was true.”

She explained that the scandals themselves did not impact her decision to join the Church, but did help her discern where to attend RCIA.

“I don’t expect the Church to be perfect going forward, either. Ultimately, it didn’t really affect my decision,” she said.

“I think the biggest impact it had for me was choosing an RCIA, because I wanted to make sure the priest wasn’t involved with scandals himself.”

Amez-Droz received the Eucharist for the first time on April 21, 2019 at the Easter Vigil.

She almost immediately broke down in tears.

She explained to CNA that she had spent the day with her best friend, and watched “The Passion of the Christ.” The movie, she said, made her feel as though she was “totally not worthy” of receiving communion.

“At the Easter Vigil, I was really happy and I was super-excited to get confirmed, but when it came to communion, it was like ‘this is what it’s all about,’” she said.

“I was just overwhelmed that I could share in God’s very person in such a close way, even though I’m totally unworthy,” she said.
 
While she has only been a confirmed Catholic for a few weeks, Amez-Droz told CNA that she feels entirely supported by her parish, and that she is fond of the structure provided by Mass, and the requirement that Catholics attend Mass each Sunday.

“There’s so many ways that Christ exposes himself to you in life. It’s not like you finding him, it’s like ‘this is part of your schedule,”” she said.

“It’s making me a lot closer to God.”

This story is part of “The New Catholics Project,” a CNA series profiling new converts to the Catholic faith. Look for additional profiles to come.

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 6, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The president’s annual state of the union address received a divided response after highlighting life issues. The chamber of the House of Representatives showed a clear divide in the legislature over President Trump’s call for a late-term abortion ban, with pro-life advocates offering their own reactions after the speech.

In the speech, delivered Tuesday evening, Trump encouraged lawmakers to choose “results” over “resistance” while making the traditional call for bipartisan cooperation.

After speaking about his legislative priorities for the coming year, including renewed calls for physical barriers on the southern U.S. border with Mexico and a nation-wide paid family leave program for parents, the president turned to recent abortion legislation at the state level.

“There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days,” the president said, referencing the passage of the Reproductive Health Act recently passed by the state of New York.

That measure has been the subject of fierce criticism for allowing the possibility of effective abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

“Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth,” said Trump. “These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and their dreams with the world.”

The president also referenced recent failed legislation in Virginia which would have allowed for mothers to terminate an unborn child even during labor. Citing the defense of the measure by embattled governor Ralph Northam, Trump called the bill a means to “execute a baby after birth.”

Regarding his own legislative suggestions for Congress, the president called for new laws to ban late-term abortions, saying he wished to see “a culture that cherishes innocent life.”

“Let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.”

“To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.”

The proposal was greeted with a decidedly mixed reaction by some lawmakers, with Republicans standing in favor of the proposal.

While many Democrats, including a large block of women representatives who sat as a group dressed in white, remained seated with their arms folded, others, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), applauded.

Manchin later told RealClearPolitics that “late term abortions are just horrific…totally just wrong.”

Pro-life advocates were swift to praise the president’s speech.

Tom McClusky, the president of March for Life Action, said in a statement that he was pleased Trump spoke strongly in “condemning the extremist abortion propositions out of New York and Virginia.”

“The American consensus opposes abortion after the first trimester, yet some politicians continue to embrace and perpetuate an unprecedentedly radical pro-abortion agenda,” said McClusky, noting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) invited Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana Wen as her guest to the speech.

These politicians are “out of touch with the American people,” said McClusky. “It is time for politicians, regardless of party, to stand up in favor of protecting innocent life.”

Ashley McGuire, senior fellow at the Catholic Association, agreed with McClusky, describing the call to end late-term abortions as a “welcome change from the left’s celebration of third-trimester abortions and infanticide.”

While much of the state of the union address appeared to highlight divisions between the two parties, there was considerable applause for the president’s condemnation of anti-Semitism.

“We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism, or those who spread its venomous creed,” Trump said. “With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.”  

Judah Samet, who survived the anti-Semitic terrorist attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October, attended the speech as a guest of the president. That attack left 11 people dead. Samet is also a survivor of the Holocaust and was imprisoned in a concentration camp.

The president’s legislative agenda and his call for increased cooperation will both be tested in the coming weeks. Congress and the president have until Feb. 15 to agree funding arrangements for parts of the federal government in order to avoid another partial shutdown.

[…]