Category: 2024 News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Young people need “big-hearted educators” to guide them through the complexities of modernity, Pope Francis told leaders in Catholic education.

Speaking to members of the educational engagement branch of the Italian lay Catholic Action movement Oct. 31, the pope highlighted the critical role of Catholic educators in shaping young people and society in the face of widespread cultural shifts and secularization.

“In this change of epoch, amid the process of secularization” — which he described as “clearly the spirit of this world” — education “finds itself immersed in an almost unprecedented horizon,” the pope said. As a result, “Chistian education traverses uncharted terrain, marked by anthropological and cultural changes on which we are still seeking answers in the light of the Word of God.”

Leaders in Catholic education, he said, “should not be afraid to put forward high ideals, to not be discouraged in the face of difficulties.”

To be effective agents of change, Pope Francis encouraged Catholic educators to “build and strengthen fruitful relationships with different actors in the process of education: families, teachers, social actors, coaches, catechists, priests, religious women and men, without overlooking collaboration with public institutions.”

He also stressed the importance of involving children directly, since children “must not be passive in the educational process; they must be active.”

In his vision for Catholic education, Pope Francis urged educators to center their work on the dignity of each person.

“Bring forward an idea and practice of education that effectively places each person, his or her essential value and original dignity, at the center,” he said.

Teaching, he added, “means first of all rediscovering and valuing the centrality of the person in a relationship where the dignity of human life finds fulfillment and adequate space to grow.”

Looking ahead to the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis called for particular attention to be given to young people, who are “the present and the future of the church.” He urged educators to look to young people with “trust, empathy, with the gaze and heart of Jesus,” embodying a compassionate approach to teaching and mentorship.

November 4, 2024

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

 

Every December 8, Catholics joyfully celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Patroness of the United States.

This year, December 8 will fall on a Sunday – specifically the Second Sunday of Advent.

As a result, the celebration of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is transferred to Monday, December 9th.

In the past, it was understood that when this situation occurred, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception did not maintain the obligation to attend Mass due to its proximity to the Sunday Mass obligation. However, the Holy See just recently clarified that the obligation must remain.

As we quickly approach the end of the liturgical year, I am keenly aware that many parishes have already finalized their schedules for December and many deaneries are planning communal penance services around that time. Furthermore, the short notice of this change might cause confusion.

Therefore, in accord with canon 87, §1, I am hereby granting a dispensation to the Catholic faithful from the obligation to attend Mass on Monday, December 9, 2024, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception throughout the territory of the Diocese of Scranton.

In granting this dispensation, I want to emphasize two things.

First, while the obligation will not be in effect this year, I strongly encourage all faithful who are able to make a special effort to attend Mass on December 9, or do some form of extra prayer, like praying the Rosary.

Second, this dispensation is for this year (2024) only. Next year, in 2025, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception will fall on a Monday and there will be NO dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on that day.

Please be assured of my prayers for you and your family as the sacred season of Advent approaches.

 

Faithfully yours in Christ,

 

Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L.

Bishop of Scranton

 

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – God wants everyone to be a saint, and the clearest path to achieving that goal is loving service to others, Pope Francis said.

Celebrating the feast of All Saints, the pope led the midday recitation of the Angelus prayer Nov. 1 with thousands of visitors in St. Peter’s Square. Hundreds of them had just finished the annual Race of the Saints, a 10-km run that begins and ends at the square.

The runners remind everyone that “the Christian life is a race, but not the way the world races, no! It is the race of a heart that loves,” the pope said, adding thanks to the runners for supporting a Salesian Missions’ project in Ukraine.

God calls everyone to holiness, the pope said, and he gives all the baptized what they need to become saints, “but he does not impose it.”

God gives everyone the freedom to follow the example of Jesus, to discern and accept God’s plan, to treat others the way God would and to place themselves at “the service of others with an ever more universal charity, open and addressed to all,” Pope Francis said.

The Eight Beatitudes, listed in the feast day’s Gospel reading — Matthew 5:1-12 — are a clear roadmap to sainthood, the pope said, and the path followed by Blessed Carlo Acutis, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Teresa of Kolkata and St. Oscar Romero.

Everyone can list many saints, he said, both those formally canonized and those “I like to call the ‘saints next door,’ the everyday, hidden ones who carry on their daily Christian lives,” the pope said. “Brothers and sisters, how much hidden holiness there is in the church!”

“So many brothers and sisters” have lived lives “shaped by the Beatitudes: poor, meek, merciful, hungry and thirsty for justice, peacemakers,” he said. “They are ‘God-filled’ people, unable to remain indifferent to their neighbor’s needs; they are witnesses of luminous paths, which is possible for us as well.”

The feast of All Saints is a good time to reflect, Pope Francis said. “Do I ask God, in prayer, for the gift of a holy life? Do I let myself be guided by the good impulses that his Spirit inspires in me? And do I commit myself personally to practicing the Beatitudes of the Gospel?”

The pope also encouraged people to visit, if possible, the graves of their loved ones Nov. 2, the feast of All Souls. And he told them the Mass “is the greatest and most effective prayer for the souls of the deceased.”

As always, the pope asked people in the square to pray for peace in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, for the victims of a terrorist attack on a military base in Chad Oct. 28, and for the victims of recent flooding in Spain, particularly in and around Valencia.

SCRANTON – All people are invited to join in a joyous celebration as we honor the dedicated contributions of those in religious life as the Diocese of Scranton celebrates its annual Jubilee Mass for Women and Men Religious on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

Together, we will gather at 12:15 p.m. to recognize the faith-filled service and commitment of those who have devoted their lives to God and our community.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will be principal celebrant and homilist for the Mass.

The Mass will be broadcast on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton for those unable to attend in person. The Mass will also be livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and links for the Mass will also be provided on all Diocesan social media platforms.

2024 Jubilarians

SISTERS, SERVANTS OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY (I.H.M.)

80 Years
Sister M. Melissa Hester, I.H.M.

75 Years
Sister Catherine Anne Mullaly, I.H.M.

70 Years
Sister Joan M. Bastress, I.H.M.
Sister M. de Montfort Babb, I.H.M.
Sister M. Alphonsa Concilio, I.H.M.
Sister M. Annellen Kelly, I.H.M.

60 Years
Sister Beatrice Caulson, I.H.M.
Sister Marylin Grosselfinger, I.H.M.
Sister Agnes Panik, I.H.M.
Sister Richard Mary Peters, I.H.M.
Sister Mary Reap, I.H.M.

50 Years
Sister Kathleen Mary Burns, I.H.M.
Sister Sandra Grieco, I.H.M.

SISTERS OF MERCY OF THE AMERICAS (R.S.M.)

80 Years
Sister Timothy Galbraith, R.S.M.

75 Years
Sister Marise Fabie, R.S.M.
Sister Aileen Purvey, R.S.M.
Sister Ellen Kelly, R.S.M.

70 Years
Sister Elizabeth Gaynor, R.S.M.
Sister Miriam Francis Stadulis, R.S.M.

60 Years
Sister Mary Ann Dillon, R.S.M.

50 Years
Sister Mayon Sylvain, R.S.M.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Catholic voters are among the key constituencies that candidates are seeking to win in 2024, as surveys and analysts indicate they are on track to be closely divided at the polls.

Catholic voters as a whole have varied in recent presidential elections about which party most of them choose to support. For example, data from the Pew Research Center found that most Catholic voters supported former President Donald Trump in 2016, but more Catholics voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.

Margaret Susan Thompson, an associate professor of history at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, who has studied the intersection of religion and politics in the U.S., told OSV News, “We know that Catholics are probably as divided as the rest of the electorate right now.”

“The election is extremely close by almost any standard and Catholics seem to be in many ways mirroring the American population in that regard,” she said.

Polls of the 2024 contest have shown conflicting data about Catholic voters, but also that similar trends are playing out in this constituency compared to the electorate as a whole.

A poll by the Pew Research Center in September found Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris 52%-47% among Catholic voters. But Pew’s survey differed from an EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research survey of Catholic U.S. voters conducted Aug. 28-30, which found 50% of Catholic voters said they plan to support Harris for president, while 43% said they planned to support Trump, with another 6% undecided.

Another poll of Catholic voters in seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — by the National Catholic Reporter found these voters favored Trump over Harris 50% to 45%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.86%.

But most of those same polls also found partisan gaps widened when divided by demographics such as race and gender. While majorities of white Catholics favored Trump, majorities of Black and Hispanic Catholics said they would support Harris.

Thompson said that the Catholic vote in recent decades has grown less distinct from that of the general electorate, and “Catholics are very representative of the American population these days.”

“I think a lot of Catholics are going to vote for Harris, a lot of Catholics are going to vote for Trump,” she said. “And I don’t know how many of them are going to vote for Harris or Trump because they are Catholic.”

Catholic experts who have spoken with OSV News have alternately drawn points of agreement and tension between the platforms of Harris and Trump with respect to Catholic social teaching, on issues ranging from abortion and in vitro fertilization to immigration to climate and labor.

Pope Francis in September cast the upcoming U.S. election as a choice between the “lesser of two evils,” citing tension with the candidates’ platforms on immigration and abortion as “against life.”

But despite this tension, both campaigns have courted Catholic voters and launched Catholic coalitions. The Trump campaign has on social media made some cultural signals to Catholics, for instance, tweeting the St. Michael prayer. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, is also a convert to Catholicism. Trump and his surrogates have also labeled Harris as anti-Catholic, pointing to her work as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018, when she scrutinized the nominations of some potential judges over whether their membership in the “all-male” Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charitable organization, could impact their ability to hear cases “fairly and impartially,” citing the organization’s opposition to abortion.

The Harris campaign, Thompson said, has been less overt in targeting specifically Catholic voters, but is trying “to retain the votes that President Biden received” in 2020. Biden, whom Harris serves under, is the country’s second Catholic president.

“I do think one area where the Catholic Church position may — and I really emphasize ‘may’ not ‘will’ — help the Democrats is on immigration,” she said, arguing that the U.S. bishops have long advocated for humane immigration policy and treatment of migrants, even those bishops who sometimes otherwise appear “generally pretty conservative.”

“And of course, so has the Holy Father,” she added, referring to Pope Francis.

Courting Catholic voters was also on display Oct. 17 at the annual Al Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a long-standing white-tie fundraiser benefiting Catholic charities. The dinner has a long tradition of welcoming both major party presidential candidates in election years, where the rivals typically exchange lighthearted jabs at one another. But this year, Harris declined to attend the event, sending a video message in which she praised “the tremendous charitable work of the Catholic Church.”

Thompson said that although Trump was in attendance at the event, his remarks included vulgarities and differed from the traditional format of light humor about the other candidate. For example, in 2008, then Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain teased one another but also offered remarks noting their respect for their rival, with Obama praising the “honor and distinction” of McCain’s military service, and McCain praising the historic nature of Obama’s candidacy and his “skill, energy and determination” to achieve it.

Harris instead spent that evening campaigning in Wisconsin, one of the three Rust Belt states along with Michigan and Pennsylvania that are seen as key battlegrounds in 2024.

Of those states, Pennsylvania, nicknamed the Keystone State, might live up to its nickname as the key contest in determining whether Trump or Harris secures the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to be elected president. A significant share of that state’s electorate is Catholic.

Micheal Allison, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Scranton, said the area has a sizable Catholic population. It includes descendants of “particularly European Catholics who came over 100 years ago, 130 years ago,” and then those whose more recent relatives, or they themselves, immigrated to the area, he said, including “a lot from Latin America.”

Asked about how Biden carried both Catholic voters and Pennsylvania in 2020, Allison told OSV News that Biden was arguably “the right person at the right time,” someone who was seen as “a safe, moderate to conservative Democrat, up against someone who had overseen a pretty rough to worse time, particularly under COVID.”

Exit polling from 2020 found that 30% of Pennsylvania voters that year said they were Catholic. Allison said that shows “Catholic voters are going to show up.”

“I think they’re committed to voting,” he said. But he added that “the Catholic population is dwindling.”

“A lot of Catholics — people (who) are baptized and raised Catholic — don’t attend Mass,” he said. “There’s been some alienation from the Catholic Church. So it’s not entirely always clear what people mean (in polling) when they say they’re Catholic, and they’re filling out exit polling, versus how regularly they attend church.”

Pennsylvania, he said, also has strong union ties, which can impact the voting habits of some who might otherwise be more socially conservative.

Thompson added that Catholics, like many voters, likely “have their positions pretty well solidified by now,” but pointed to controversial remarks at an Oct. 27 Trump rally at Madison Square Garden that generated headlines after a comedian who spoke there called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” among other controversial remarks about Latinos and other groups, as something that could affect how the remaining undecided Catholics ultimately vote.

Noting that “a sizable proportion of that population is Catholic,” Thompson said, “Is that going to persuade an undecided Catholic voter to say, ‘Well, having heard that, I’m definitely going to vote for the Republicans?’ Frankly, I don’t think so.”

Election Day is Nov. 5.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Catholic Church must put more effort into ensuring that the sacrament of confirmation is not the “sacrament of goodbye” for young people, who receive it and then do not come to church again until they want to get married, Pope Francis said.

“The problem is how to ensure that the sacrament of confirmation is not reduced, in practice, to ‘last rites,’ that is the sacrament of ‘departure’ from the church, but is rather the sacrament of the beginning of an active participation in its life,” he said Oct. 30 at his weekly general audience.

Continuing a series of audience talks about the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, the pope said parishes need to identify laypeople “who have had a personal encounter with Christ and have had a true experience of the Spirit,” and ask them to lead the confirmation preparation classes.

But all Catholics must help as well by rekindling the “flame” of the Holy Spirit that they received at confirmation like the disciples received at Pentecost, he said. And the Holy Year 2025, which opens Dec. 24, is a good time to do that.

“Here is a good goal for the Jubilee Year: To remove the ashes of habit and disengagement, to become, like the torchbearers at the Olympics, bearers of the flame of the Spirit,” he said. “May the Spirit help us to take a few steps in this direction!”

“Confirmation is for all the faithful what Pentecost was for the entire church,” the pope said, quoting the Italian bishops’ catechism for adults. “It strengthens the baptismal incorporation into Christ and the church and the consecration to the prophetic, royal and priestly mission.”

In other words, he told Arab speakers, “Through the sacrament of confirmation, the Holy Spirit consecrates and strengthens us, making us active participants in the church’s mission.”

Greeting a group of ethnic Croatian young people who had recently been confirmed in Germany, Pope Francis prayed that the Holy Spirit would “inflame your hearts and make you joyful witnesses for Christ.”

Urging everyone present in St. Peter’s Square to continue to pray for peace in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and Myanmar, the pope said he had just read about 150 people being gunned down.

Pope Francis did not say where, but some assumed he was referring to a terrorist attack Oct. 6 in the village of Manni, Burkina Faso, while Vatican News reported he was referring to Israeli attacks on northern Gaza.

“What do children, families, have to do with war?” the pope asked. “They are the first victims. Let us pray for peace.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Highlighting progress made in safeguarding and recommendations for rectifying ongoing gaps, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors dedicated its first annual report to all victims and survivors of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church.

“The commission’s work — including this report — is and always has been about recognition and inclusion of victims and survivors of abuse in the life of the church,” Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, president of the pontifical commission, said at a news conference at the Vatican Oct. 29.

“Your suffering and wounds have opened our eyes to the fact that as a church we have failed to care for victims, and that we didn’t defend you, and that we resisted understanding you when you needed us most,” he said.

“We praise your courageous testimony, and at the same time, we recognize that you are likely tired of empty words,” the cardinal said. “Nothing we do will ever be enough to fully repair what has happened, but we hope that this report and those that will come, compiled with the help of victims and survivors at the center, will help to ensure the firm commitment that these events never happen again in the church.”

The cardinal and other members of the commission presented their pilot annual report, a tool mandated by Pope Francis to measure and document the church’s progress in safeguarding minors and vulnerable adults around the world.

“The pilot report is not intended as an audit of the incidence of abuse within church contexts,” the report said. “This is especially due to time and capacity constraints” and “to a lack of reliable data in some countries, most notably reliable statistics on the number of children who are sexually abused.”

“Hopefully, future reports will address the incidence of abuse, including the question of progress in reducing and preventing abuse,” which might better fulfill “the long-term auditing function of the commission,” it said.

The 100-page report produced detailed “profiles” covering about two dozen church entities.

The commission compiled information about safeguarding received from the about 17 bishops’ conferences whose members visited Rome for their “ad limina” visits in 2023, and it also sent questionnaires, reviewed safeguarding guidelines and exchanged information with: the Consolata Missionary Sisters and the Spiritan priests and brothers; the dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith and Clergy; Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based confederation of the church’s humanitarian agencies; and three other Caritas entities — one each at the regional, national and diocesan levels.

The report also collected information and “trends” from the commission’s four regional groups of local experts. Among the positive global trends the groups noted are greater collaboration between bishops’ and religious conferences in safeguarding and a shift toward understanding safeguarding is about protecting human rights and dignity.

Some global “challenges” the groups found included: long delays in processing abuse cases by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; lack of resources for safeguarding training; clericalism and prioritizing the church’s reputation over supporting victims and survivors; lack of effective measures in current safeguarding activities to address abuse online; and inadequate formation to help clergy in understanding and promoting safeguarding.

“While some serious studies of abuse prevalence have been conducted in local churches” in Europe, “there remains a persistent absence of reliable statistics about the scale of abuse by clerics and religious in several parts of the region,” the report said.

In fact, the lack of data or the inability to access available data on sexual abuse by members of the church, it said, is a major hindrance to the empirical-based approach the commission depends on for formulating recommendations and strengthening policies.

Data is what helps the commission track “which initiatives are working and those that are falling short,” Cardinal O’Malley wrote in the report. By compiling progress made and gaps to fill, the commission aims to promote transparency and accountability, “and be a sign of our commitment to restore the hope and trust of victims,” their families and communities.

The commission expects the bulk of each year’s report to be based on the information it manages to receive — as not all diocesan bishops responded to the commission’s questionnaire — from bishops ahead of and during their ad limina visits to Rome. It will also canvas other dicasteries, religious institutes and lay Catholic associations to be included each year.

The commission’s report proposed seven key areas for further study and action, emphasizing that its staff and experts were available to help all levels of the church.

Among the top priorities, the report said is: “access to the truth,” especially for victims wanting information about their allegations of abuse and the status of their alleged abuser; a clear, uniform definition of what constitutes a “vulnerable adult”; a shared protocol that clarifies the different responsibilities of dicasteries in the Roman Curia and of the local church; “the need for a disciplinary or administrative proceeding that provides an efficient path for resignation or removal from office” of church leaders; and promoting the theological-pastoral vision of child dignity and human rights in relation to abuse, perhaps with an encyclical dedicated to the protection of children and vulnerable adults in the church’s life.

A key goal of the annual report is to track and foster “pastoral conversion, a change of heart of overcoming our sinful past” while also encouraging continued steps, recognizing “there is still much needing to be done,” Cardinal O’Malley said.

Known as “conversional justice,” the process of conversion must include the practice of telling the truth, pursuing justice, making reparations and guaranteeing abuse does not happen again, “in other words, institutional reform,” said Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, a commission member and a lawyer from the Netherlands, who was the U.N. special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children from 2014 to 2020.

Juan Carlos Cruz, another commission member, communications executive and abuse survivor, said that it is true that the annual report is “not perfect” and is just “the tip of the iceberg” with so much more to do.

But, he said, “I’ve realized that there are many more good people in the church, many more good people, than bad.”

“What happens is if the good people don’t talk, they don’t speak and they don’t do things like this report, the bad people are very good at doing their evil, so they win,” he said.

Encouraging other victims to tell their stories, Cruz said that people must keep “bringing light where many wanted darkness.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Two days after opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica to inaugurate the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis will travel to a Rome prison to open a Holy Door as a “tangible sign of the message of hope” for people in prisons around the world, the Vatican announced.

The pope will go Dec. 26 to Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome, “a symbol of all the prisons dispersed throughout the world,” to deliver a message of hope to prisoners, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization’s section for new evangelization and the chief organizer of the Holy Year 2025, announced at a news conference Oct. 28.

Pope Francis will open the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24. He will then open the Holy Doors at the major basilicas of St. John Lateran Dec. 29, St. Mary Major Jan. 1 and St. Paul Outside the Walls Jan. 5.

In his “bull of indiction,” the document formally proclaiming the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis wrote that during the Holy Year he will have close to his heart “prisoners who, deprived of their freedom, feel daily the harshness of detention and its restrictions, lack of affection and, in more than a few cases, lack of respect for their persons.”

In the document, the pope also called on governments to “undertake initiatives aimed at restoring hope” for incarcerated persons during the Holy Year, such as expanding forms of amnesty and social reintegration programs.

Archbishop Fisichella announced that the Vatican had signed an agreement with Italy’s minister of justice and the government commissioner for Rome to implement reintegration programs for incarcerated individuals by involving their participation in activities during the Jubilee Year.

The archbishop also outlined the schedule of cultural offerings leading up to the Jubilee Year, during which the city of Rome estimates that 30 million people will visit the Italian capital.

The Vatican will organize a concert of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, to be performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in Rome Nov. 3; three art exhibitions in November and December, including a display of rare Christian icons from the collection of the Vatican Museums; and a concert from the Sistine Chapel Choir two days before the opening of the Holy Door.

Archbishop Fisichella also unveiled the official mascot of the Holy Year 2025: “Luce” (Italian for light), a cartoon pilgrim dressed in a yellow raincoat, mud-stained boots, wearing a missionary cross and holding a pilgrim’s staff. Luce’s glowing eyes feature the shape of scallop shells, a traditional symbol of pilgrimage and hope.

The mascot, he said, was inspired by the church’s desire “to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.”

“Luce” will also serve as the mascot of the Holy See’s pavilion at Expo 2025, which will take place in Osaka, Japan, from April to October 2025. The Holy See pavilion — which will be hosted inside of Italy’s national pavilion — will have the theme “Beauty brings hope,” and display the 17th-century painting “The Entombment of Christ” by Caravaggio — the only one of his works housed in the Vatican Museums.