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Photo: President Jane Gerety, RSM (right) honored Michael Grandchamp and Kim McKillop for their 30 years of service to the University during the annual holiday luncheon.

Glenda Duclos, payroll manager, received the staff community service award during the annual holiday luncheon and service recognition ceremony Dec. 20, 2017. In addition, President Jane Gerety, RSM, honored more than 40 employees for their service to Salve Regina.

Salve Regina’s staff community service awards are designed to recognize staff members who demonstrate their commitment to others by volunteering in their communities. Staff members are honored each year for their volunteerism, and donations in the amount of $300 are given to the charities of their choice.

Duclos volunteers her time with the Pan-Mass Challenge bike-a-thon as the lunchtime supervisor. Benefiting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Pan-Mass Challenge raises more money for charity than any other single athletic fundraising event in the country.

Staff members who were honored for their years of service include:

Five years of service

• Nicholas Albanese, Admissions
• Cynthia Bassett, Academic Center for Excellence
• Rosemarie Bottari, Safety and Security
• Gerald Brothers, Information Technology
• Katharine Daley, Design Services
• Emily Diomandes, Dean of Students Office
• Jessica Gesner, Human Resources
• Kevin Gilmartin, Athletics
• Alexandria Hallam, Student Activities
• Matthew Kelly, Mercy Center for Spiritual Life
• Kevin McDonald, Center for Student Development
• James McGuire, University Relations
• Sami Nassim, Multicultural Programs and Retention
• Kelly Scafariello, Athletics
• Lindsey Turowski, University Relations
• Matthew Viveiros, Information Technology

Ten years of service

• Charles Avenengo, Music, Theatre and Dance
• Paul Cardoza, Dean of Students Office
• Melissa Davis, Academic Affairs
• Elaine Forsythe, Information Technology
• Teresa Haas, Pell Center
• Corinne Hughes, Athletics
• Jamison Landsman, Counseling Services
• Paul Larson, Safety and Security
• Ingrid Levin, Library Services
• Jennifer Marshall, Nursing
• Anna Mae Mayer, Mercy Center for Spiritual Life
• Craig O’Rourke, Athletics
• Janice Violante, President’s Office

Fifteen years of service

• Thomas Blaney, Athletics
• Carla Brownell, Admissions
• Joshua Carvalho, Information Technology
• Christine Lalli , University Relations
• Gianna Sullivan, Art and Art History
• Michelle Spear Villacorta, Business Office
• Julie Ward, Career Development

Twenty years of service

• Mona Dube, Social Work
• Victoria Duclos, University Relations
• Kristine Hendrickson, University Relations
• Richard O’Neill, Facilities
• Theresa Peckham, Safety and Security

Twenty-five years of service

• Edward Habershaw, Athletics

Thirty years of service

• Michael Grandchamp, Business Office
• Kim McKillop, Student Affairs

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The Office of Human Resources will sponsor basic yoga and yoga blend classes for faculty and staff throughout the spring 2018 semester.

Basic Yoga

Certified instructor Christine Reed will lead basic yoga classes at 5 p.m. Mondays in the Rodgers Recreation Center, Room 039. Classes begin Jan. 8 and run through April 30, with no class Feb. 19.

Yoga focuses on breathing, stretching and strengthening to support physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Participants are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing and bring a yoga mat, towel and water to each class. Mats and blocks will be available if needed.

Yoga Blend

Certified instructor Nancy Escher will lead yoga blend classes at 12:35 p.m. Wednesdays in the Rodgers Recreation Center, Room 039. Classes begin Jan. 10 and run through April 4.

This energizing class combines yoga, core exercises and strength training with hand-held weights. Improve flexibility, balance and strength while giving attention to breath and mindfulness. Mats and weights will be available if needed.

For more information, or to register for either program, contact Escher at (401) 341-2157 or nancy.escher@salve.edu.

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Much of the inspiration behind the faith and scholarship of Dr. Miguel Romero, assistant professor in the Department of Religious and Theological Studies, is drawn out of reverence for his older brother, Vicente Romero.

This devotion has resulted in the Salve professor becoming one of the most respected modern-day scholars concerning the church and its relationship with the disabled. It also led to Romero being one of about a dozen from around the world invited to present on “Catechesis and Disability” during a major international conference last October at the Vatican.

So when Pope Francis personally greeted Romero following his presentation and accepted some of his most recent writings on the topic, the pope expressed one magical word of gratitude – “Vicente.”

Romero was instantly moved to tears.

“The Holy Father said my brother’s name,” Romero said. “If I could choose one word I wanted to hear, it would be my brother’s name. I was grateful for that. It’s why I do this. Everything I write, I thank my brother. I am particularly indebted to Vicente Romero, to his kindness and support.”

Vicente, who has a profound cognitive impairment, lives with the Romero family in their Bristol, Rhode Island home. Raised in a Catholic family in the American Southwest, Vicente has always lived at home; he cannot walk, speak or feed himself. Everything related to his well-being depends entirely on the care he receives from others. Vicente was baptized Catholic and has received the Holy Eucharist but, Romero said, he has also been denied the Eucharist and still hasn’t had all his sacraments.

“I think part of what my journey has been as a Christian and also a theologian is not to argue for [Vicente’s] place,” Romero said, “but rather to help understand that those who are oppressed, who are weakest and most vulnerable, have a place of privilege and honor within Christianity. And if they don’t, then we are confused about what it means to be a Christian.”

While Romero’s view is certainly emotional, it is also grounded in a rich tradition of Catholic orthodoxy, including in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Two of his scholarly writings presented to Pope Francis draw on this doctrine, including, “The Happiness of Those Who Lack the Use of Reason,” published in the January 2016 issue of The Thomist; and “The Goodness and Beauty of Our Fragile Flesh: Moral Theologians and Our Engagement with Disability,” published in a 2017 special issue that he edited on the topic in the Journal of Moral Theology.

“If I have understood the tradition and teaching correctly, [Vicente] is the one whose membership and participation is not questioned,” Romero said.

Yet, Romero points to significant failures today among ordinary Catholics and churches everywhere in their service to the disabled. Beyond many of the mundane issues such as providing basic access, Romero said deeper problems contribute to faithful Catholics being denied the Eucharist and the Sacraments. He cites a statistic that some 80-85 percent of all those born deaf who are baptized Catholic eventually abandon the church.

“We are failing,” he said. “We haven’t fully received the good news. This is a problem that belongs to ordinary Catholics. There’s a profound failure of the church in these counts.”

Romero, who serves on the board of directors for the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, is working to change that. The partnership brought Romero’s name and his scholarship to the Vatican’s attention after the pope asked the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization to address the church’s failures with regard to the disabled.

October’s major international conference on “Catechesis and Disability” was the first opportunity to follow through on the pope’s commission, and Romero was invited to speak in Rome on the topic. Attending the conference were pastors, bishops, cardinals, theologians and ministers (both lay and ordained) from around the world, and many of the 450 in the audience were those who felt alienated from the church for one reason or another.

“I gave an honest account of our ordinary vulnerability to impairment and illness,” he said. “Our bodies break. If something so ordinary is not understood and recognized as part of what it means to be a human being to live well, to flourish, to live a good life, to live a life of holiness, a life of virtue, and is just bracketed out in these descriptions of Christian life, then that description of Christian life is skewed. It’s problematic. It might be a beautiful account, but it’s not us. We are born in a state of vulnerability. Some of us are profoundly impaired and injured. Thinking about those themes led me to the heart of what I am today.”

At the end of the conference, Pope Francis, who will typically host a private audience with the guest speakers, decided on this occasion that he wanted to meet with everyone in attendance. “Which was shocking and amazing,” Romero said. “It was one of the most marvelous and beautiful experiences I’ve ever seen. We were a stumbling, tripping, clumsy procession – wheelchairs and crutches, deaf folks signing. It was marvelous. It was wonderful and beautiful to be in that room, where folks were free.”

When it was Romero’s time to step forward to meet with the pope, his words had been carefully chosen. “I had thought about what I would say,” he recalled. “I asked my students if I could say anything to Pope Francis what would it be? I asked my wife and kids.”

Presenting his hands to Pope Francis, Romero said simply, “Holy Father, thank you for remembering the poor. Here are things that I wrote for my brother. His name is Vicente. He has a profound disability.”

A Salve Regina moment

Romero was invited to Rome by Archbishop Reno Fisichella, who, during his own remarks at the conference, referenced the hymn, “Salve Regina” (Hail Holy Queen), which was written by Hermann of Riechenau, a paralyzed and blind 11th century Benedictine monk who was also known to be called “Hermann the Cripple.”

The archbishop suggested that Hermann’s “Salve Regina” hymn is a long-term agenda to address these concerns of the church and the disabled, a sentiment that struck Romero profoundly given his presence there to offer his scholarship on the topic, not to mention his personal connection to Salve Regina.

“[Hermann] could not stand up and not even sit down because of the deformation of his body, and he also suffered greatly in the bed; he could not write because his fingers were too weak, and the words came out of his lips incomprehensibly,” the archbishop told the congregation. “Yet, he was able to study Latin, Greek, Arabic, mathematics and music. To him, however, according to tradition, the composition of the Salve Regina, which has become the patrimony of the Church and which we sing to this day, must be.”

Needless to say, when the entire gathering started singing the Salve Regina, Romero was especially impacted.

“This is why I feel at home at Salve,” Romero said. “I love the charism of the Sisters of Mercy. Mercy is not merely a slogan here. It’s the only way that makes sense to move through a world that is broken and wounded, where people feel alienated. And you get to decide if you’re going to be an agent of mercy.”

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