Month: August 2024

WESTFIELD – It has now been nearly two weeks since flash flooding ravaged the communities of Westfield and Knoxville in far northwestern Tioga County on August 9, 2024. 

Unbelievable damage was left behind when the fast-moving waters receded. 

“Here in Westfield was almost the epicenter of the damage. A tremendous number of homes have been lost. We had one life lost in Knoxville. A friend of mine and as of today he has not been found yet. He was washed away by the storm helping some elderly neighbors of his get out of their home,” Ralph Wolstenholme, a parishioner of Saint Catherine of Siena Church in Westfield, explained. 

In the wake of homes literally being washed off their foundation, the community has not lost hope. 

Neighbors have been rallying around one another to begin picking up the pieces.

“The hope that has come from this is incredible. Driving in here right after the damage, to come in and help, you saw people just coming in, saying ‘How do I get to where the damage is?’ I met people today from North Carolina that came all the way up here. They bring hope to this community,” Mark Patrick Clements, a parishioner of Saint Catherine of Siena Church, added. 

On Sunday, August 17, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, visited the hardest-hit communities. 

Parishioners of Saint Catherine’s Church took him around the community to see the damage first-hand.

With many roads finally open, the Bishop also celebrated the first Mass at Saint Catherine’s since the flooding, emphasizing to parishioners that they are the living presence of Jesus these days. 

“You’re living the Eucharist. You’re giving your life in faith by your service of your brothers and sisters. You’re not nailed to a Cross physically, like Jesus at the Heart of his Sacrament, but you’re suffering. You’re suffering for and with your brothers and sisters – and you’re serving them out of love and I can’t think of a more incredible example of what it means to live the Gospel and to allow the Eucharist to take hold of you – than in what you’re doing right now. Right now. Thank you. Thank you,” Bishop Bambera said. 

The Bishop also pledged financial support to parishioners with extensive damage from a Flood Recovery Fund the Diocese of Scranton has maintained since 2011, along with prayers from other parishioners across the Diocese.

“A whole lot of your brothers and sisters already are keeping you in their prayers because they’ve gone through what you’re going through – but all of this local church is holding you in our hearts and lifting you up to the Lord,” the Bishop added.

The Mass, along with the presence of the Bishop, touched many impacted by the flooding.

“There’s nothing more powerful than the Bishop seeing how much one of his communities has been affected and to come out and that outreach, I’m sure I’m not the only parishioner who feels that way,” Wolstenholme said.

“To have him physically drive, I don’t know how long it is, three hours, three-and-a-half hours, to come here, to the most remote area of the Diocese brings an incredible warmth to you. It’s kind of like, wow, he really, really is one of us. He’s not coming in here in a police escort with pomp and circumstance. He came in here humbly and he came in here and met us one-on-one and he rode around with us, getting to know the community. That affects us tremendously,” Clements added.

Parishioners also say it is miraculous that Saint Catherine’s Church was spared damage. With homes destroyed all around it, the water only touched the bottom step since it is built on a slab.

“When we found out that the water only touched the bottom step, when right across the road, it was up to my shoulders almost, just literally 400 yards down the road, houses off the foundation, Christ was preserved, His House was preserved. That is miraculous,” Clements said. 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A new Vatican postage stamp celebrates the 40th anniversary of full diplomatic relations between the United States and the Holy See.

The 2.45-euro ($2.75) stamp features the seal of the Holy See and the seal of the United States tied together with yellow and gold ribbons for the Vatican and red, white and blue ribbons for the United States.

The years 1984 and 2024 feature prominently on the stamp, which also notes it is the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

The Vatican post office will begin selling the stamp Sept. 16, the philatelic office said, and the post office located by the Arch of the Bells in St. Peter’s Square will offer special cancellations for collectors Sept. 16 and 17.

The Vatican and the U.S. government announced the establishment of full diplomatic relations Jan. 10, 1984. Two months later, the Senate confirmed President Ronald Reagan’s choice of William A. Wilson as the first U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, and a few weeks later St. John Paul II appointed then-Archbishop Pio Laghi as the first pro-nuncio to the United States.

But, as the philatelic office said in its announcement of the stamp, “in fact, the first contact between the United States of America and the Holy See at a high level occurred in 1788, when George Washington, through Benjamin Franklin, informed Pope Pius VI that in the fledgling Republic there was no need for permission from the state for the appointment of a bishop by virtue of the religious freedom that the revolution had brought to the colonies.”

The next year, Pope Pius appointed Jesuit Father John Carroll to be bishop of Baltimore, “thus establishing the Catholic hierarchy in the newly independent country,” the announcement noted.

(OSV News) – Catholics in Connecticut are working to help those impacted by what one lawmaker described as “historic, unprecedented flooding” Aug. 18-19 that took two lives and forced hundreds to flee for safety.

The southwestern part of the state was deluged by 6-10 inches of rainfall in as many hours Aug. 18, with more rain pummeling the region the following day.

At an Aug. 19 news conference, Brenda Bergeron, deputy commissioner of Connecticut’s Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security said the rainfall totals in some areas were at the “1,000-year level” high.

Two women in the town of Oxford drowned as rescuers tried to save them. Hundreds of residents were evacuated, with roads and infrastructure in the area devastated. Gov. Ned Lamont declared a state of emergency Aug. 19.

A volunteer staffer at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Oxford told OSV News that while the church buildings were intact, “a lot of people here” in the parish “did get hit” by the flooding.

The parish is “having 300 cases of water delivered to the church on Friday (Aug. 23), and the town hall is going to spread the word that we have water available for people,” the staffer said.

In the meantime, “all activities are canceled for this week” except for Masses, funerals and a scheduled blood drive, said the staffer.

In Seymour, which also saw a tremendous amount of destruction, particularly to public infrastructure and area businesses, the storm’s full impact is still being assessed, said Father Thomas Cieslikowski, pastor of St. Nicholas Parish.

The priest told OSV News the parish’s two churches “are on high ground” and did not sustain any damage.

However, “one of the two bridges in town are washed out,” and “a couple of my parishioners who live in (Oxford) have been cut off,” he said. “They can’t make it out of their houses. It’s that bad. … I was supposed to have a meeting today, and one of the people that was running the meeting can’t get out of his house.”

Catholic parishes on Long Island, New York, were also battling similar flooding, as storms hammered various communities and mangled roads, rail lines and homes.

On its Facebook page, St. Thomas the Apostle invited those affected to contact the parish for help. The post included a prayer Aug. 18 for flood victims and those aiding them, a text the parish noted had been adapted from a similar supplication during Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that proved to be one of the five deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history.

“Lord, please be with our rescue workers and keep them safe as they make heroic efforts in dangerous situations to rescue those in trouble. Lord, please be with everyone waiting to be rescued, keep them safe, and bring help to them soon,” read the prayer. “God, bless each and every person affected by this storm and surround them with Your love, protection, and angels. Let them know that we are here praying for them and their loved ones. We give You all the praise and glory forever, Lord, and know that even in the darkest hours, You are always with us. Amen.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Cleansed from original sin by baptism, Christians are called to spread the “good fragrance of Christ” throughout the world by their kind actions and joyful attitudes, Pope Francis said.

At his weekly general audience Aug. 21, the pope said Jesus was “anointed with the Holy Spirit” when he was baptized in the River Jordan, whereas Old Testament kings, prophets and priests were anointed with perfumed oil.

Just as those leaders received the oil on their heads, “Christ is the head, our high priest, the Holy Spirit is our perfumed oil and the church is the body of Christ in which it spreads,” he told thousands of people who had joined him for the gathering in the Vatican audience hall.

During the chrism Mass each year, he said, bishops bless the sacred oils used in baptisms and confirmations by praying that recipients of the oils may “be made fragrant with the innocence of a life pleasing to you.”

He related the prayer to a passage from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: “For we are the aroma of Christ for God.”

“We know that unfortunately, sometimes Christians do not spread the fragrance of Christ, but the bad odor of their own sin,” the pope said.

“Let us never forget: Sin distances us from Jesus; it makes us bad oil,” he added. “And the devil – do not forget this – usually enters through one’s pockets. Be aware.”

Sin, however, “should not distract us from the commitment of realizing, as far as we are able and each in their own environment, this sublime vocation of being the good fragrance of Christ in the world,” Pope Francis said. Referencing St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, the pope said that the “fragrance of Christ emanates from the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

“If we strive to cultivate these fruits, then, without our being aware of it, someone will notice some of the fragrance of the Spirit of Christ around us,” he said.

After his main talk, Pope Francis told his guests that Aug. 21 is the feast of St. Pius X, patron of catechists, and noted that many places celebrate catechists on that date to commemorate the saint. In 1905, Pope Pius mandated all parishes to teach catechism classes, and he compiled a simple, brief catechism, known as “The Catechism of Pius X,” which was used around the world for instructional purposes.

“Let us think of our catechists who advance so much work and who are, in many places in the world, the first to carry forward the faith,” Pope Francis said. “Let us pray for catechists today that the Lord may make them courageous and that they may continue.”

The pope also asked attendees at his audience to pray for peace in Ukraine, “which suffers so much,” as well as in Myanmar, South Sudan, Congo, Palestine and Israel.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Capital punishment promotes a deadly attitude of revenge and denies the possibility of change in the lives of incarcerated people, Pope Francis said.

“The death penalty is in no way the solution to the violence that can strike innocent people,” the pope wrote in the preface to a new book on prison chaplaincy.

Capital executions, “far from bringing justice, fuel a sense of revenge that becomes a dangerous poison for the body of our civil societies,” the pope wrote. And rather than continue the cycle of violence, governments “should focus on allowing prisoners the opportunity to truly change their lives, rather than investing money and resources in their execution, as if they were human beings no longer worthy of living and to be disposed of.”

The book featuring the pope’s preface, titled “A Christian on Death Row,” shares the experiences of Dale Recinella, a lay Catholic prison chaplain and licensed attorney who, along with his wife, has accompanied people on death row and in solitary confinement in Florida prisons since 1998. The book, published by the Vatican publishing house, was set to go on sale Aug. 27.

Pope Francis called Recinella’s work a “living and passionate witness to God’s school of infinite mercy,” and he said it is a “great gift to the church and to society in the United States.”

In light of the upcoming Holy Year 2025, the pope wrote, Catholics should “collectively call for the abolition of the death penalty.”

“As the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy taught us, we must never think that there could be a sin, a mistake, or an action of ours that distances us permanently from the Lord. His heart has already been crucified for us,” he wrote. “And God can only forgive us.”

In 2018, the pope formally changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church to unambiguously oppose the death penalty. While the previous language allowed for the death penalty in extreme cases, the revised entry in the catechism calls the death penalty “inadmissible” and states that the church “works for determination for its abolition worldwide.”

In his preface, Pope Francis said that God’s infinite mercy toward each person “can also be scandalous,” noting the many criticisms and rejections Recinella has faced for his prison ministry. “But is it not true that Jesus welcomed in His embrace a thief condemned to death?” the pope asked.

“Even the most heinous of our sins does not mar our identity in God’s eyes: we remain His children, loved by Him, protected by Him and considered precious.”

Pope Francis explained that in one loving gaze, “like that of Christ on the cross,” incarcerated people “may find a new meaning in their lives and indeed, in their deaths.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – When receiving the Eucharist, Catholics should respond with gratitude and awe that Jesus offers himself as nourishment and salvation, Pope Francis said.

Jesus “becomes true food and true drink,” the pope said. “Thank you, Lord Jesus! Let’s say, ‘Thank you, thank you’ with all our heart,” he told visitors and pilgrims who joined him in St. Peter’s Square Aug. 18 for the midday recitation of the Angelus prayer.

In the day’s Gospel reading from St. John, Jesus tells the crowd that he is “the living bread that came down from heaven” and that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood will have eternal life.

Some were surprised by Jesus’ words, and not in a good way, the pope said. But for Catholics, “the bread from heaven is a gift that exceeds all expectations.”

“The heavenly bread, which comes from the Father, is the Son himself made flesh for us,” he said. More than the bread that human beings need to survive, the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist “satisfies the hunger for hope, the hunger for truth and the hunger for salvation that we all feel not in our stomachs, but in our hearts.”

“Every one of us needs the Eucharist,” Pope Francis said.

“He saves us, nourishing our lives with his own, and he will do this forever,” the pope said. “And it is thanks to him that we can live in communion with God and with each other.”

The Eucharist, he said, is not “something magical, no. It is not something that will immediately solve all problems, but it is the very body of Christ that gives hope to the poor and overcomes the arrogance of those who gorge themselves at their expense.”

Pope Francis asked Catholics to ponder two questions: “Do I hunger and thirst for salvation, not just for myself, but for all my brothers and sisters? When I receive the Eucharist, which is the miracle of mercy, do I stand in awe before the body of the Lord, who died and rose again for us?”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis’ trip to Asia and Oceania in September will be a trip of religious, economic and social contrasts.

Visiting four nations Sept. 2-13, the 87-year-old pope will be making the longest trip of his pontificate, both in terms of distance covered and days away from the Vatican.

The trip will include predominantly Muslim Indonesia and predominantly Christian Papua New Guinea, as well as Singapore, Asia’s economic powerhouse, and Timor-Leste, one of the world’s poorest nations.

Plans were being made for the trip in September 2020, but everything was halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pope Francis not only is four years older, but now regularly uses a cane, a walker or a wheelchair to get around.

The 45th trip of his pontificate is expected to focus heavily on interreligious dialogue, ethnic harmony, care for creation, concern for immigrants and gratitude for the work of missionaries and the church’s contribution to education and health care.

His visit will begin in Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world; Catholics account for only about 3% of the population. Then he will move on to Papua New Guinea, where an estimated 98% of the population is Christian. Timor-Leste is the only nation on the itinerary where Catholics are the majority; the Vatican estimates 96% of the population belongs to the church. In Singapore, Buddhists make up the largest religious group — about 31% — followed by 20% of the population claiming no religious belief; Christians account for almost 19% of the population and Muslims about 15%.

While from a European or North American perspective all four countries could be considered part of the “periphery” of global Catholicism — those outlying areas Pope Francis prioritizes when accepting invitations — he will stick to the largest city in each nation, with one exception: He will spend about three hours Sept. 8 in Vanimo and Baro, towns on the northwesternmost shore of Papua New Guinea.

It’s personal, according to Father Giorgio Licini, a PIME missionary and general secretary of the Papua New Guinea bishops’ conference.

Writing in Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Father Licini said Pope Francis insisted on going to the outposts over the advice of the bishops’ conference and the government because he wanted to visit his friend, Father Martin Prado, a 35-year-old member of the Institute of the Incarnate Word from Argentina, and see the work he and the Incarnate Word sisters have been doing in the remote area.

But Indonesia is the first stop, and interreligious dialogue and “human fraternity” are expected to be the dominant topics.

Divine Word Father Markus Solo Kewuta, an Indonesian official at the Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, said generally Christian-Muslim relations in his homeland are “very peaceful, very kind,” but they can vary in different parts of the country, a nation made up of more than 17,000 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited.

The country’s main Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and the Indonesian government both promote official dialogue, peaceful coexistence and simple neighborliness, Father Solo said, but there is a worrying new trend of “ghetto building,” or of people looking to live in neighborhoods where only Muslims or Christians live, which decreases mutual knowledge, trust and cooperation.

The priest, who grew up on the predominantly Catholic island of Flores, told Catholic News Service it still is common for members of the Nahdlatul Ulama youth group to volunteer to stand guard outside their neighborhood Christian churches on Christmas Eve and during the Easter vigil to ensure the services take place in peace.

“Unfortunately, these good relations will be always disturbed by the radical or violent acts of people, and particularly also by the politicization of religion,” he said. “This really divides nations, societies and religions; friends become enemies. We have experienced this in the past several times.”

“We live in a plurality, and therefore we are condemned to dialogue with each other,” he said.

In Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste, Pope Francis also is expected to talk about the religious obligation to care for creation. All three nations have seen accelerating deforestation as the global market seeks tropical wood, and all three struggle to regulate mining while relying on profits from mineral exports.

Pope Francis will not be the first pope to visit any of the countries on his itinerary. St. Paul VI visited Indonesia in 1970 and St. John Paul II went to the country in 1989; on the same trip, St. John Paul visited Timor-Leste, which celebrated its independence from Indonesia in 2002. The Polish pope visited Papua New Guinea in 1984 and again in 1995. In 1986, St. John Paul visited Singapore, though he stayed only five hours — enough time to celebrate a public Mass, meet government officials and speak to the nation’s priests.

Singapore is one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and Pope Francis’ 46-hour visit will include time with some of the island’s poorer residents — the elderly and sick people cared for at St. Theresa’s Home, a nursing home that can serve up to 200 patients.

A 2014 Pew Research Center report ranked Singapore as the most religiously diverse country in the world, but also found a significant percentage of the population claims no religious affiliation at all. Pope Francis’ final event in Singapore, before his 12-hour flight back to Rome, will be an interreligious meeting with young people, bringing the theme full circle.