Month: November 2024

SCRANTON – Volunteers and local organizations came together Wednesday to ensure that everyone in the greater Scranton area will be able to enjoy a warm Thanksgiving meal, no matter their circumstances.

The Family-to-Family Thanksgiving Food Basket Program served more families than ever before this year, providing each with all the grocery items needed to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

“We are going to feed 4,000 families today, which is the most that we have ever had to feed,” organizer Linda Robeson said as the event began inside the Scranton Cultural Center.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, was on hand to provide a blessing as volunteers packaged all the food.

“What a wonderful day it is and how encouraging it is for me, and this entire community, to see you representing all the generous hearts that make this possible,” Bishop Bambera told the small army of volunteers. “Thank you to each and every one of you, because every one of you is absolutely vital to this whole operation.”

Members of the cheerleading team at Saint Clare/Saint Paul School in Scranton were among those volunteering to assemble all the food baskets.

“Our cheer coach decided to bring all of us, and I think it’s a great idea,” eighth grader Marie Granet said. “We’re all getting together and helping the community, those in need, and I think it’s really good because it is just putting everything into perspective and helping us be grateful for what we have.”

The Catholic school students began the day at 7 a.m. – and quickly found themselves bagging up thousands of sweet potatoes.

“I think this is a great experience. I really enjoy it,” eighth grader Annabell Joyce explained. “It’s fun helping other people out. I like being involved in everything.”

Student Cate Casey said it was eye-opening to see all the volunteers needed to pull off the event.

“It kind of amazes me because there are so many people here packaging so many things,” she said.

The Family-to-Family Thanksgiving Food Basket Program distribution came just one day after thousands of cooked Thanksgiving meals were distributed to adults and elderly in the community by the Friends of the Poor.

Organizers of both programs say the Thanksgiving community programs cost around $250,000 to operate. They are still asking the community to help subsidize the cost of these important community efforts. Donations of any amount can be mailed to Family-to-Family, PO Box 13, Scranton, PA 18503, or given online at friendsofthepoorscranton.com.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Not every Christian is called to be an apostle, prophet or evangelist, Pope Francis said, but all Christians can cultivate the fruits of the Holy Spirit by becoming “charitable, patient, humble, peacemakers.”

Continuing his series of audience talks on the Holy Spirit, the pope explained that the fruits of the Spirit are different from charisms, which are given spontaneously by the Spirit for the good of the church. Instead, the fruits of the Spirit represent a “collaboration between grace and freedom,” he said.

“These fruits always express the creativity of the person, in whom faith works through charity, sometimes in surprising and joyful ways,” he told visitors gathered for his general audience Nov. 27 in St. Peter’s Square.

Before the audience, Pope Francis met privately with U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who was in Italy for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers. While at the Vatican, Blinken also met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, and Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister.

After riding around St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile, Pope Francis was accompanied to his seat by a group of children, who then sat on the steps of the stage throughout the audience.

In his main talk on the fruits of the Spirit, the pope singled out joy as central to the Christian life.

Spiritual joy, like other forms of joy, includes “a certain feeling of fullness and fulfillment, which makes one wish it would last forever,” he said.

“We know from experience, however, that this does happen, because everything down here passes quickly: youth, health, strength, wealth, friendship, loves,” Pope Francis said, and “even if these things did not pass, soon, after a while they are no longer enough or even become boring” since the heart can only find fulfillment in God.

The joy of the Gospel, on the other hand, “can be renewed each day and become contagious,” he said. Quoting his 2013 exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), the pope said that it is an encounter with God that saves people from isolation and which is the “source of evangelizing action.”

“This is the twofold characteristic of the joy that is the fruit of the Spirit: not only does it not go subject to the inevitable wear and tear of time, but it is multiplied by sharing it with others,” he said.

As an example of living the joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis highlighted the life of St. Philip Neri, the 16th-century founder of the Oratorian order, who the pope said, “had such a love for God that at times it seemed as if his heart would burst in his chest.” The Italian saint is known for his work with poor children and marginalized communities as well as initiating a walking pilgrimage to seven of Rome’s most significant basilicas.

Recalling that the Gospel means “good news” in Greek, the pope said that its contents cannot be communicated “with long and dark faces, but only with the joy of one who has found a hidden treasure and a precious pearl.”

Pope Francis announced at the audience that beginning the following week, summaries of his audience talk will be translated into Chinese. Currently, the pope gives his catechesis in Italian, and aides read summaries in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Doubling down on the centrality of synodality in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said that it is now up to local churches to accept and implement proposals from the final document approved the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Approved by the pope, the synod’s final document “participates in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter, and as such, I ask that it be accepted,” the pope wrote in a note published by the Vatican Nov. 25.

“Local churches and groupings of churches are now called upon to implement, in different contexts, the authoritative indications contained in the document, through the processes of discernment and decision-making provided by law and by the document itself,” he wrote nearly a month after the synod’s close.

The final document outlined key priorities for the church, including increased participation of laity through new ministries and adjusted governing structures, greater transparency and accountability among church leadership and creating space for previously marginalized groups.

After synod members voted to approve the final document, Pope Francis announced that he would not write the customary apostolic exhortation after the synod but would instead offer the document to the entire church for implementation.

With the exceptions of the first synods convoked by St. Paul VI in 1967 and 1971, all ordinary assemblies of the Synod of Bishops have been followed by an exhortation on the synod’s themes and discussions by the pope.

In his note, Pope Francis clarified that while the document is “not strictly normative” and must be adapted to contexts where it is applied, it still obligates “local churches to make choices consistent with what was indicated” in the document.

He also underscored the need for time to address broader churchwide issues, such as those assigned to the 10 study groups he set up in the spring to explore issues raised during the synod, including women’s ministry, seminary education, relationships between bishops and religious communities, and the role of nuncios. More groups may be created, the pope said.

The conclusion of the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops “does not end the synodal process,” he wrote.

Quoting his 2016 exhortation, “Amoris Laetitia” on marriage and family life, the pope wrote that “not all doctrinal, moral or pastoral discussions must be resolved by interventions of the magisterium,” rather the bishops of each country or region can seek “more encultured solutions” to issues involving local traditions and challenges.

He added that the final synod document contains recommendations which “can already now be implemented in the local churches and groupings of churches, taking into account different contexts, what has already been done and what remains to be done in order to learn and develop ever better the style proper to the missionary synodal church.”

“In many cases it is a matter of effectively implementing what is already provided for in existing law, Latin and Eastern,” while in other contexts local churches can proceed with the creation of “new forms of ministry and missionary action” through a process of synodal discernment and experimentation.

Pope Francis also specified that during bishops’ “ad limina” visits to Rome, each bishop will be asked to discuss what choices have been made in his local church regarding what has been indicated in the final synod document, reflecting on the challenges and the fruits.

Meanwhile, he said, the General Secretariat of the Synod and the various dicasteries of the Roman Curia will be tasked with overseeing the synodal journey’s “implementation phase.”

(OSV News) – The devastating images – whether viewed from the banks of the Seine River in Paris or on millions of glowing screens around the world — stunned onlookers. Many wept, clutching tissues to smoke- and sorrow-reddened eyes, others prayed aloud or in silence, some even sung hymns.

It was the evening of April 15, 2019, and Notre Dame Cathedral – an 850-plus-year-old, stone-and-mortar monument to human ingenuity and religious aspiration – was burning.

France is a famously secular nation. Once known as “the eldest daughter of the church,” slightly less than half of the population call themselves Catholics, and only about 5% of the total population attend weekly Mass.

But on that slightly chilly spring evening, such statistics didn’t matter. A thing of beauty was being destroyed — and it wasn’t required to be religious, or even Catholic, to mourn its possible extinction.

“Paris without Notre Dame … madness,” one onlooker mused to CNN as it broadcast the conflagration. Experts later estimated the heat in the cathedral’s crossing reached as high as 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt metal.

Now, five years later — owing to the courage of Paris’ firefighters, nearly $1 billion from worldwide donors, and the skills of almost 1,000 artisans — Notre Dame is scheduled to reopen to the public Dec. 7-8.

OSV News talked to a number of friends and admirers of the cathedral to ask what Notre Dame’s phoenix-like resurrection means to them and to Americans.

“When the fire happened at Notre Dame, it cut me so deep as I watched it in real time,” said Ron St. Angelo, a photographer who documented the cathedral during repairs. “Because Notre Dame — even though it wasn’t built for that exact purpose — has become the symbol worldwide for the Mother Of God, Our Lady. Notre Dame housed relics and artifacts from the Crucifixion, including the crown of thorns.”

St. Angelo is the official photographer of the Dallas Cowboys and also shoots for the Diocese of Dallas. For this assignment, St. Angelo lodged at a hotel within walking distance from Notre Dame — and on the cold rainy day when he first saw it after the fire, he had the impression tears were being shed.

Thinking back to the day it burned, “It felt like we were watching something that I would compare to seeing the Crucifixion. That’s what it felt like,” St. Angelo recalled. “Something so iconic and so symbolic was being destroyed. … I said, ‘They’ll never be able to restore this.'”

Circling the cathedral with his camera, however, St. Angelo became more optimistic.

“I started seeing all of the reconstruction and scaffolding and everything — and I thought, ‘They’re bound and determined to recreate this,'” he said. “So, in a way, it was akin to the Resurrection — because it was brought back to life.”

Among those entrusted with that task was Jennifer Feltman, an associate professor of art history at the University of Alabama who specializes in medieval art. She is a member of the “Chantier scientifique de Notre Dame” working group organized by the French government to play a role in the cathedral’s preservation.

“The first time I visited the site after the 2019 fire was with my colleagues in September of 2021,” Feltman said. “COVID travel bans had just been lifted for the USA to France, but we were all still in the midst of the global pandemic and it very much felt that way.”

Arriving in the City of Light, Feltman was immediately struck by a noticeable absence.

“When I saw the Paris skyline without the spire of Notre Dame, it was deeply sad. At the same time, it felt hopeful to see the energy of the workers and to meet researchers involved in the restoration, with whom I have been working,” she said. “There is a great sense of pride among all and a collective energy of being part of something that is much bigger than us.”

Feltman believes the reopening will represent a significant shift.

“On Dec. 7, the keys will be handed back to the church. A choir of workers and researchers will sing, and I think for them, this will be a key moment of transition from this being a worksite to becoming again a site for the faithful,” she said.

The river of funding that flowed to Notre Dame after the catastrophe perhaps defied expectations — or not, given the apparently universal affection for the cathedral.

“There is a very strong attachment – and even love – of American people for Notre Dame,” affirmed Michel Picaud, president of the Friends of Notre-Dame de Paris, a nonprofit organization launched in 2017 dedicated to raising restoration funds for the cathedral.

Its age and history, the lengthy alliance between the U.S. and France, cultural references such as books and musicals — all play a role in that relationship and the popular imagination, Picaud said.

“They consider that Notre Dame de Paris is not only a French cathedral, or a Roman Catholic cathedral – but it’s also part of the universal heritage,” he said. “People consider that this is part of their own culture, if you will.”

Although the fire was not a terrorist act, Picaud also sees an eerie similarity between the horrors Americans witnessed on Sept. 11, 2001, and the Notre Dame disaster.

“When the fire happened, I think the fall of the spire of the cathedral reminded people of Sept. 11,” he suggested. “And so, it was even more of a shock.”

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who has accepted the invitation of Paris’ Archbishop Laurent Ulrich to attend Notre Dame’s Dec. 8 rededication, confirmed that residents of the Big Apple were indeed jolted.

“New Yorkers, like people all over the world, were stunned and saddened watching Notre Dame Cathedral in flames, even as we were inspired by the faith of the people of France that their iconic cathedral would soon be restored,” Archbishop Dolan told OSV News. “As I stood in front of our own beloved St. Patrick’s Cathedral that day, I expressed our hope and prayers that this magnificent monument of the faith of the French people be rebuilt.”

Located in Midtown Manhattan and known as “America’s Parish Church,” St. Patrick’s Cathedral established a “St. Patrick’s to Notre Dame” fund to contribute to the rebuilding effort.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington – the largest Roman Catholic Church in North America – also aided the effort, said Msgr. Walter Rossi, the shrine’s rector.

The shrine “established a special online collection to facilitate donations to support the restoration of the iconic cathedral, which, thanks to the generosity of American Catholics, raised $563,794,” he said. “It is wonderful that five years later, Notre Dame will reopen on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception for the world to once again enjoy the beauty, peace and magnificence of this iconic shrine in honor of Our Lady.”

Vanessa Corcoran, a medieval scholar and advising dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University in Washington, said collaboration made that outcome a reality.

“Notre Dame took almost two centuries to build in the first place. In a world that’s so filled with division right now, the desire to unite across different disciplines and interests in order to save Notre Dame — and to restore it to its glory — is an amazing thing,” she said. “When they talk about the restoration process, you have scientists who are weighing in, you have art historians weighing in, environmentalists — and all bringing in each of their unique fields of expertise to make this happen. It’s uplifting to see that sort of collaboration.”

Ultimately, the work of all those who resurrected the cathedral serves the highest purpose.

“The reopening of Notre Dame in Paris once again allows for a unique encounter with the Divine,” said Father Edward Looney, secretary of the Mariological Society of America. “Many seek out the cathedral for its history and beauty, while at the same time they come in contact with the Lord, his mother, and the saints. A visit offers a person grace — whether they realize it or not.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The annual Prayer Vigil for Life will take place Jan. 23-24, 2025, the U.S. bishops’ conference announced Nov. 22.

The event is hosted each January by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington and The Catholic University of America’s Office of Campus Ministry. It takes place on the eve of the March for Life, an annual protest of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which was overturned in 2022.

The 52nd National March for Life will take place Jan. 24, 2025.

“I enthusiastically invite Catholics from all around the country to join me in-person or virtually, in praying for an end to abortion and building up a culture of life,” said Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, in the USCCB’s statement announcing the dates.

Since the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022 overturned nearly a half-century of its own precedent that held abortion to be a constitutional right, individual states have moved to either restrict abortion or expand access to it.

“Together, we must pray to change hearts and build a culture of life as we advocate for the most vulnerable,” Bishop Thomas said. “I look forward to opening our Vigil with Holy Mass together with many other bishops, hundreds of priests, consecrated religious, seminarians, and many thousands of pilgrims.”

At the vigil, the Jan 23 opening mass will take place in the basilica’s Great Upper Church from 5-7 p.m., with Bishop Thomas as the principal celebrant and homilist. A Eucharistic procession and the National Holy Hour for Life will follow the Mass. The vigil’s closing Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Brooklyn.

The event will be broadcast on Catholic networks and livestreamed on the basilica’s website at www.nationalshrine.org/mass. More information about the schedule can be found on the USCCB’s website, www.usccb.org, and more information about on-site attendance at the basilica is at its website.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – A touring relic will give the faithful in Washington and seven states a rare opportunity to venerate St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest Christian theologians.

The skull of St. Thomas, which has been on tour in Europe for the past year for observances marking the jubilees of his canonization (700 years in 2023), death (750 years in 2024) and birth (800 years in 2025) will be in Washington for two days of veneration Nov. 29 and 30.

Washington is the first of its stops in 10 U.S. cities through Dec. 18.

The Dominican medieval theologian and author of key theological works including the “Summa Theologiae” (“Summary of Theology”) died of illness during travel at Fossanova Abbey in Italy March 7, 1274, around age 49. He was canonized five decades later on July 18, 1323, and declared a doctor of the church in 1567.

The Cistercian abbey kept St. Thomas’ body until 1369. Then his relics were moved to Toulouse, France, where the Dominicans, also known as the Order of Preachers, were founded.

Dominicans in Toulouse commissioned a new reliquary for the skull’s tour. The relic was recently on display in the Czech Republic and France, and after the United States, organizers have planned for stops in Manila and Luxembourg.

The events in Washington are sponsored by St. Dominic Parish, the Dominican House of Studies and the Thomistic Institute.

The skull will be displayed first at St. Dominic Nov. 29, beginning at 12:10 p.m. with Mass celebrated by Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington. Veneration continues until 7 p.m., with vespers at 5:30 p.m. and night prayer at 6:45 p.m., concluding with a Marian procession.

On Nov. 30, the relic will be received at the Dominican House of Studies beginning with lauds and a votive Mass of St. Thomas Aquinas at 7:30 a.m. Veneration will continue until 5 p.m. with Dominican Father Gregory Pine preaching at 3 p.m.

The relic’s other scheduled visits include St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, Charlottesville, Virginia, Dec. 2; Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, Dec. 4; St. Gertrude Priory, Cincinnati, Dec. 6; St. Patrick Priory, Columbus, Ohio, Dec. 7-8; St. Louis Bertrand Parish, Louisville, Kentucky, Dec. 10; St. Rose Priory, Springfield, Kentucky, Dec. 12; St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, New York City, Dec. 14; St. Patrick Parish, Philadelphia, Dec. 16; and Sts. Philip and James Parish, Baltimore, Dec. 18.

Besides the skull in Toulouse, another skull thought to be that of St. Thomas was found in Fossanova in 1585 and is kept nearby in the town of Priverno. In March, that skull was carried in a solemn procession with the local bishop in Priverno to mark the 750th anniversary of the saint’s death.

In 2023, a medical team examined the Priverno skull, and both skulls are currently venerated pending an eventual forensic and DNA analysis.

Relics have real power, Father James Sullivan, prior of St. Dominic’s Priory in Washington, told OSV News.

“The veneration of the relic brings about a certain devotion in the faithful,” he said. “People who are struggling feel close to saints who also struggled.”

That closeness is the point, he said. The relic “reminds us of the holiness of the person, whether martyr or pope,” he said. “It’s holiness that matters — our devotion to Christ and how closely we follow him.”

St. Thomas’ three jubilees “draw our attention to the masterwork of wisdom and sanctity which God wrought in him,” Father Pine, instructor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an assistant director at the Thomistic Institute, said in a Nov. 19 statement announcing the relic’s Washington stops. “The opportunity that we have to receive and venerate his relic makes this grace all the more proximate and precious to us.”

In the same statement, Father James Brent, assistant professor of philosophy at the Dominican House of Studies, said “an exceptional way” to gain wisdom and understanding “is to pray for it in the presence of the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas.”

St. Thomas’ teaching of natural theology — the belief that people can experience God’s existence through reason and experience, instead of any special revelation — makes him very accessible, Father Sullivan said.

It’s, “what you could call human flourishing — becoming a better person,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, as the sole administrator for the Vatican’s pension fund, which is currently unable to guarantee future obligations in the medium term.

“We are all fully aware now that urgent structural measures, which can no longer be postponed, are needed to achieve sustainability of the pension fund,” the pope wrote in a letter addressed to the College of Cardinals and the heads of the Roman Curia and other institutions connected to the Holy See.

Given the limited resources available to the Holy See and because appropriate funding will be needed to cover all pension obligations, there is a need for “making decisions that are not easy and will require special sensitivity, generosity and a willingness to sacrifice from everyone,” the pope wrote in the letter dated Nov. 19 and published by the Vatican Nov. 21.

“In light of this and with everything considered, I wish, therefore, to inform you of the decision I made today to appoint His Eminence, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, sole administrator for the pension fund, believing that this choice represents, at this time, an essential step in meeting the challenges facing our pension system in the future,” he wrote.

The letter comes just a few months after the pope wrote to the College of Cardinals Sept. 16 saying, “Additional effort is now needed on everyone’s part so that a ‘zero deficit'” may be an achievable goal.

The pope had already reduced the salary for cardinals living in Rome in previous years and completely eliminated their allowances starting Nov. 1; it was estimated that without the allowances, the cardinals now receive just over 10% less each month.

“Since we have to deal with serious and complex problems that risk worsening if not dealt with in a timely manner,” the pope wrote Nov. 19, it was time to address the management of the Vatican’s pension fund, which has been an issue of concern ever since its establishment.

The latest studies carried out by independent experts, the pope wrote, now point to “a serious prospective imbalance in the fund,” which will only increase over time without any interventions.

“In concrete terms, this means that the current system is unable to guarantee in the medium term the fulfillment of the pension obligation for future generations,” he wrote, emphasizing that “justice and equity” across generations must remain guiding principles.

The pope asked everyone for their “special cooperation in facilitating this new and unavoidable path of change” and thanked all those who have “dealt with this sensitive matter over the years.”

This “new phase” is imperative and fundamental, he explained, for “the stability and well-being of our community, with promptness and unity of vision so that the actions due are expeditiously implemented.”

Cardinal Farrell also is president of the Vatican’s Investment Committee, leads a commission determining confidential contracts and is the camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Ireland and served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington from 2002 to 2007 and bishop of Dallas from 2007 to 2016.