Jeremy Barket and Cody Yarnall have been accepted as seminarians for the Diocese of Scranton and will begin the Program for Priestly Formation this fall.
Jeremy is a member of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Dupont. Cody is a member of Saint Matthew Parish in East Stroudsburg. They will attend Saint Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Md.
Let us pray for them, all of our seminarians and those who are discerning a call to serve our local Church as a Diocesan Priest.
PHILADELPHIA – Several teenagers from Mary, Mother of God Parish recently got what they call an “eye-opening experience” as they spent a week volunteering to serve the poor in Philadelphia.
The students, who are all involved in the Scranton parish’s youth group, spent the week of July 26-30 preparing and serving meals at Saint Francis Inn in the Kensington-section of Philadelphia.
“What I got out of it is an appreciation for what I have,” Ryan Legg, 17, said after returning from the service trip. “I have a new-found appreciation for what I have and what I’m given on a daily basis.”
Emma Woody, 14, was the youngest volunteer of the group. The incoming freshman at Holy Cross High School admits she was nervous about the trip until she arrived.
“I really enjoyed it. Going there, I didn’t really know what to expect. When I got there I was really surprised,” Woody explained. “Once I met the people, I found out they are really nice and we have common interests.”
Saint Francis Inn has been serving meals to the neediest individuals and families in Philadelphia since 1979. The facility serves a sit-down meal in its dining room every day. The meals are unique because they are served restaurant-style. Instead of walking through a line to get food, volunteers serve them right at their tables.
“While serving them, we have the opportunity to talk to them and get to know them a little bit,” Sean Kennedy, 17, a senior at Holy Cross High School, said. “Throughout the week, it is most of the same guests so you really get to have a good understanding of them and have a nice experience with them.”
Volunteer Julia Lidle, 17, was especially touched by a seven-year-old boy who relied on Saint Francis Inn for his meals.
“He liked to play tag with us. He is seven and he’s homeless and it brings him so much joy when we play tag with him around the soup kitchen,” Lidle explained.
All of the students say they felt the love and appreciation of the dinner guests – and that made their volunteer efforts worth it.
“One thing that stuck out was how grateful everybody was and how they all came up and thanked every one of us after their meal,” Madison Kranson, 17, a senior at Holy Cross High School, said.
“For dinner, there were usually around 170 people,” Ryan Burda, 16, a junior at Holy Cross High School, said. “Even though the people may have been down on their luck, they were just so appreciative of every little thing they have.”
Rev. Cyril D. Edwards, V.E., pastor, Mary, Mother of God Parish, leads the annual service trip. He is always touched by the stories of kindness, love and charity that the students experience.
Many of the students say they were so inspired by the service trip – they plan to continue volunteer efforts locally.
“I will try to volunteer more at local soup kitchens and try to get my friends involved,” Woody said.
“I feel like getting more people involved and getting more people to go on this trip so they can see how life is really different for some people,” Kranson added.
MOUNTAIN TOP – When you consider spending a week volunteering during the middle of July, young adults might think they are “giving up” part of their summer vacation.
That wasn’t the feeling of dozens of young people from Saint Jude Parish who took part in a “Week of Service” in their community from July 19-22, 2021.
During the first day, the students started by serving their parish by sprucing up the church grounds but then their ministry mission went on the move to non-profit organizations across the Wyoming Valley.
Volunteering at the Catholic Youth Center in Wilkes-Barre had a profound impact on Juliet Biscotti, a junior at Crestwood High School.
“I realized just helping out for a few hours can make a big impact. The children were so happy to have us there. It meant a lot to me to know that I helped add fun and happiness to their day,” she said.
Jack Scanlan, a Crestwood senior, agreed.
“The CYC had the most impact on me because I was directly interacting with the kids and it had an impact on their day,” he explained.
This was Scanlan’s sixth year taking part in Saint Jude’s “Week of Service.” He says he continues to serve because he wants to help people and have an impact in his community in a positive way.
“I will use the lessons I learned to benefit others by serving the community more. I plan on continuing to help the community through service in whatever ways become available to me,” he added.
Thomas Dugan, a freshman at Holy Redeemer High School, spent part of his week volunteering at Saint Vincent de Paul Kitchen in Wilkes-Barre and the Commission on Economic Opportunity (CEO).
“Working at the soup kitchen helped me learn how the soup kitchen operates from giving food, stocking shelves and cleaning dishes. At CEO food packing, we packed the boxes by using an assembly line that helped me learn how to be efficient so that we could pack the most possible boxes,” Dugan said.
The students filled 520 boxes of food at CEO, answering Jesus’ call to serve others.
“I think it’s important to help people in need and spread happiness,” Biscotti said.
This year, Saint Jude’s “Week of Service” was only four days because many community organizations are only starting
to open up from the COVID-19 pandemic. Other places that benefited from the young people’s service include the MS Kirby Library, Brandon’s Forever Home and the residents of Mountain Top
Senior Care. The students sang Christmas carols (for Christmas in July) outside the facility and handed out handmade cards to all of the residents.
Each young adult vowed to take lessons learned from the “Week of Service” and continue to spread the love of Jesus to their neighbors.
“I can carry the lessons of this year’s ‘Week of Service’ by telling the people in the community and telling them to join next year for a first-hand experience,” Dugan explained. “I can tell this to people by continuing to do other service projects in my community that I intend to keep doing.”
“I can use the lessons that I learned to continue to do service in the community,” Biscotti added. “This year, I plan on teaching the kindergarten CCD class at Saint Jude’s. I love working with children and spreading the news about Jesus with them,” she said.
MOSCOW – From singing songs praising God to listening to bible stories and even learning composting – Saint Catherine of Siena Parish was buzzing with activity the week of July 19-23, 2021.
The weather cooperated as the Lackawanna County parish hosted its annual Vacation Bible School. The weeklong event was held outdoors for the first time to keep both students and volunteers safe.
“We’ve never been outside. It really worked out well,” Sandra Czyzyk, Saint Catherine of Siena Parish Director of Religious Education, said. “We could move from one session to another, getting some fresh air and the kids loved being outside.”
A total of 88 students attended the program. This year’s event was centered on the theme of “Earthkeepers.”
Czyzyk said it took 65 volunteers – many of them young adults – to make sure the program was a success.
“It means a lot to see the students grow throughout the week,” aide Samantha Bajor, 16, said. “At the start, the kids are always so shy and they don’t really want to talk to you but by the end of the week they all break out of their shell.”
After COVID-19 forced the parish to hold a virtual event last year, Bajor said she is glad everyone was able to gather in person this year. She helped to lead the fourth, fifth and sixth grade students during the week.
“I’m glad it’s back,” Bajor explained.
Fred Kloss, 15, agreed. The teenage youth group member also volunteered to help make this year’s vacation bible school a success.
“It was a great experience. I think it definitely brings younger kids closer to church,” he said.
Kloss believes the students he worked with learned a lot.
“Most of the kids liked the music a lot and the dancing. They learned songs and they sang the lyrics that teach them about their faith as well. A lot of them really liked the bible stories as well,” he added.
Czyzyk said vacation bible school is an important summer event to keep kids connected to the faith and let them see their pastor at their level having fun with them.
“Just coming out in the sunshine and being elbow-to-elbow with other young people, peers of their age, whether they’re 3 or 13 has just been so invigorating, physically and spiritually as well!” she said with a smile.
The reviews from the kids back up the week’s success.
“One little guy said to a teacher – this must be what heaven is like!” Czyzyk added.
Holy Rosary Parish in Hazleton also recently completed a successful weeklong vacation bible school program from Aug. 2-6, 2021.
With the theme “To Mars and Beyond,” 20 students participated in the nightly program at the parish.
“I wanted to start something that would get the kids into their faith, meet new kids and find other followers of Christ and that they could bond together with and spread the Gospel with,” Hailey Dudinyak said.
Dudinyak, a sophomore at Moravian College, put together Holy Rosary’s vacation bible school two years ago for a Girl Scout project and jumped at the chance to do it again this year.
“All the kids, they really put the energy in that we needed to have for it to be successful. I loved all the kids that came. They were just so energetic and they really enjoyed themselves. They all worked together beautifully,” she added.
Dudinyak, along with her brother and a few others, did most of the work for the event.
“Each day we started out with the kids seeing a skit between me and my brother. My brother was a robot called “EP3-20,” which stands of Ephesians 3:20, which was the key bible verse,” she added.
Each session also consisted of learning dances, bible stories and participating in craft projects.
“I actually just received a video from one of the parents of their kid doing the dances in their backyard by the campfire,” Hailey explained. “They’re continuing to praise the Lord and spread the Gospel, which is all we need, and that’s what the whole goal was!”
When each individual makes a small act of charity, like getting the COVID-19 vaccine, every gesture added together can transform the world, Pope Francis said in a global ad campaign.
“Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love. And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love — love for oneself, love for one’s family and friends, love for all people,” he said in a public service announcement released Aug. 18 in Rome.
The video message was part of a global effort by the U.S.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit Ad Council and the COVID Collaborative’s “It’s Up To You” campaign to increase people’s confidence in COVID-19 vaccines by reminding them that the vaccines are safe, effective and save people’s lives. The Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development also cooperated with the educational initiative.
The video in Spanish with English, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles features Pope Francis and six cardinals and archbishops from North and South America. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is among them.
As the Diocese of Scranton prepares for the Mass attendance obligation to be reinstated on August 15, Bishop Bambera is welcoming home Catholics across all 11-counties. The celebration of the Mass is the center of our lives as Christians. It is where we are drawn close to Jesus and receive His body and blood – his very life – in the Eucharist.
As this Sunday approaches, the Diocese of Scranton continues to prioritize the health, safety and spiritual well-being of all parishioners. If you need to find a parish or Mass time near you, you can visit the Diocese of Scranton’s website at dioceseofscranton.org.
ROME (CNS) – Italian police have launched an investigation after postal workers discovered an envelope containing three bullets and addressed to “the pope.”
News reports said the stamp on the envelope indicated it came from France, and the bullets were 9mm Flobert-round bullets. Reportedly, there was a message inside making reference to the Vatican’s financial operations.
The envelope had written on it in pen and with poor handwriting: “The pope. Vatican City. St. Peter’s Square in Rome.”
The envelope was flagged by employees at a mail sorting facility near Milan in the early hours of Aug. 9 and was handed over to Italy’s military police as authorities coordinated their investigation.
According to Wikipedia, 9mm Flobert shotguns are most often used for pest control and face very little to no restriction in Europe, even in countries with strict gun laws, due to their limited power and short range.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – A U.S. District Court judge’s Aug. 9 ruling to block the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures despite their own moral or medical objections is “a victory for common sense, conscience and sound medicine.”
That is the view of Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington. He is the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case.
“Today’s ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment,” he said about the ruling in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra.
Franciscan Alliance, based in Mishawaka, Indiana, is a Catholic health care system now known as Franciscan Health that operates hospitals serving Indiana and one hospital in Illinois and employs over 18,000 full- and part-time employees. The defendant is Secretary Xavier Becerra of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
On Aug. 9, Judge Reed O’Connor of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Wichita Falls blocked the HHS regulation — in its current form as proscribed by the Biden administration. It requires doctors to perform gender-transition procedures in children and adults or be held liable for discrimination.
The regulation, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, was first issued in 2016 by HHS under the Obama administration.
In 2020, the Trump administration put in place a final rule that eliminated the general prohibition on discrimination based on gender identity and also adopted abortion and religious freedom exemptions for health care providers. But the courts blocked this rule change.
In 2021, shortly after he was inaugurated, President Joe Biden issued an executive order declaring his administration would apply in all areas — including the ACA — the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court’s in Bostock in 2020 that discrimination based on sex outlawed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers people who are gay or transgender.
“The Christian plaintiffs contend that violation of their statutory rights under RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) is an irreparable harm,” O’Connor said in his ruling.
“The court agrees,” he said, “and concludes that enforcement of the 2021 interpretation (of Section 1557) forces Christian plaintiffs to face civil penalties or to perform gender-transition procedures and abortions contrary to their religious beliefs — a quintessential irreparable injury.”
“The court grants plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction and permanently enjoins” HHS, Becerra and all HHS-related divisions, agencies and employees “from interpreting or enforcing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.”
“Today’s decision rightly says the mandate violates federal law,” said Goodrich in a string of tweets. He noted “this is now the second federal court to block the mandate.”
He was referring to a Jan. 19 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota in Fargo in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Franciscan Alliance/Franciscan Health, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. The states of Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska and Wisconsin also joined in the suit.
The Biden administration filed an appeal April 20 with the U.S Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in St. Louis.
Goodrich tweeted that Franciscan Alliance/Franciscan Health’s hospitals and health care professionals “gladly serve all patients regardless of their sex or gender identity, yet were threatened with multimillion dollar penalties by a controversial HHS regulation if they refused to perform gender-transition procedures.”
“These religious doctors and hospitals joyfully serve ALL patients and routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients. There is ample evidence, however, that some gender transition procedures can harm patients,” Goodrich said.
“Several federal circuits — including the 5th and 1st — have all reached the same conclusion: ‘There is no medical consensus that sex reassignment surgery is a necessary or even effective treatment for gender dysphoria.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – What made Christian life radically new was the call for those who have faith in Jesus Christ to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the law God handed down to Moses, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.
Mosaic law was necessary and important to follow at that time in history, but it served as a path to follow toward an eventual encounter with Christ and his commandment of love, he said Aug. 11 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.
The pope continued with his series of talks reflecting on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, focusing on the apostle answering the question, “Why, then, the law” if, after all, “there is the Holy Spirit and if there is Jesus who redeems us?”
“The law is a journey” and it acts like a teacher that takes people by the hand, leading them forward, toward an encounter with Jesus and having faith in Christ, he said.
God gave Moses the law to prepare his people on this journey during a time of rampant idolatry and to help his people guide their behavior in a way that showed and expressed their faith and covenant with God, he said.
However, he said, the law was not the covenant; the covenant came first with Abraham, hundreds of years before Moses, the pope said. The covenant was based not on the observance of the law, but on faith in the fulfilment of God’s promises, he said.
St. Paul needed to clarify the role of the law to the Galatians because there were “fundamentalist missionaries” among them who seemed almost “nostalgic” about observing Mosaic law, believing that adhering to the covenant also included observing the Mosaic law, he said.
The apostle explains that, “in reality, the covenant and the law are not linked indissolubly,” the pope said. “The first element he relies on is that the covenant established by God with Abraham was based on faith in the fulfillment of the promise and not on the observance of the law that did not yet exist.”
“Having said this, one should not think, however, that St. Paul was opposed to the Mosaic law” because he does defend its divine origin and says it has “a well-defined role in the history of salvation,” the pope said.
“The law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of (God’s) promise, because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ,” he said.
This was the problem — when people put more importance on observing the law than with encountering Christ, he said.
This passage of St. Paul to the Galatians “presents the radical newness of the Christian life: All those who have faith in Jesus Christ are called to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the law and, at the same time, brings it to fulfillment according to the commandment of love,” he said.
The law is a path and “may the Lord help people walk along the path of the Ten Commandments, however, by looking at Christ’s love, the encounter with Christ, knowing that the encounter with Jesus is more important than all the commandments,” he said.
Addressing people after the main audience talk, Pope Francis told French-speaking visitors that it was “with great sorrow” that he learned of the Aug. 6 murder of the 60-year-old Montfort Father Olivier Maire.
“I extend my condolences to the religious community of the Monfortians in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre in Vendée, to his family and to all Catholics in France,” he said, assuring everyone of his closeness.
At the end of the audience, right before the pope was set to greet visitors, an aide went to the pope, spoke to him for a few minutes and handed him a mobile phone. The pope spoke on the phone for a few minutes, then left the hall briefly before returning to greet visitors as usual.
Visitors were required to wear face masks, but not present a so-called “green pass” of proof of vaccination, of a negative COVID-19 test or of recovery from COVID-19.
Italy recently passed a decree as part of ongoing measures to curb the spread of the virus, by making it obligatory for anyone over the age of 12 to show a “green pass” for certain activities, including to eat indoors at restaurants, enter gyms or movie theaters, visit museums, including the Vatican Museums, and, starting in September, to attend school on-site.
The Italian bishops’ conference published a note July 26 saying the pass was not required for going to Mass or joining in processions, but health measures such as wearing masks and social distancing would be continuing. The green pass was required for people entering church-owned or church-operated movie theaters, museums, restaurants and coffee bars, sporting events, conferences, indoor swimming pools, gyms, social centers and reception venues.
Caring for the health, safety and spiritual well-being of all parishioners remains a priority of the Diocese of Scranton during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bishop Joseph C. Bambera issued a new letter to the faithful on August 6, strongly recommending that parishioners wear a mask while attending Mass because of the new delta variant. He has also requested that all priests, deacons and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion wear masks while distributing Holy Communion, regardless of their vaccination status.
Read Bishop Bambera’s letter below:
