Category: Diocese of Scranton News

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) – Speaking from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Easter, Pope Leo XIV delivered a passionate appeal for peace, declaring that the power of the risen Christ is “entirely nonviolent” and calling on world leaders to lay down their weapons and choose dialogue over domination.

The address came moments after the pope offered Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square with more than 50,000 people present and preceded his solemn blessing, “urbi et orbi,” meaning “to the city and to the world,” in which the pope offers an indulgence to Catholics around the world who receive the blessing with the proper dispositions.

“In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!” Pope Leo said on April 5.

The pope repeated the word peace 13 times in his address, underlining that the peace the risen Christ offers “is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us.”

“Let us allow ourselves to be transformed by the peace of Christ! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts!”

In a surprise announcement, Pope Leo revealed he will host a prayer vigil for peace in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, April 11.

At the heart of his message was a meditation on the nature of Christ’s power in the resurrection, which he contrasted with the violence that marks the modern world.
“The power with which Christ rose is entirely nonviolent,” Pope Leo said.

That strength, the pope added, “is God himself, for he is Love who creates and generates, Love who is faithful to the end and Love who forgives and redeems.”

“On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars and marked by a hatred and indifference that make us feel powerless in the face of evil. To the Lord we entrust all hearts that suffer and await the true peace that only he can give,” he said.

The pope warned against the “globalization of indifference,” a phrase he credited to his predecessor, Pope Francis, who gave his final “urbi et orbi” blessing from the same loggia on Easter Sunday one year ago the day before he died. Pope Leo invoked the words from Pope Francis’ Easter blessing last year, in which the late pope lamented “what a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world.”

“We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent,” Pope Leo said. “Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow.”

“We cannot continue to be indifferent! And we cannot resign ourselves to evil!” he added.

Quoting a sermon by St. Augustine, Pope Leo said, “If you fear death, love the resurrection!”

Easter, the pope said, “is the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred.”

“It is a victory that came at a very high price,” he added. “Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die — and die on a cross — after suffering an unjust condemnation, being mocked and tortured, and shedding all his blood. As the true immolated Lamb, he took upon himself the sin of the world (cf. Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18–19) and thus freed us all — and with us, all creation — from the dominion of evil.”

“Evil is not the last word, because it has been defeated by the Risen One,” he said.

After giving the “urbi et orbi” blessing in Latin, Pope Leo offered Easter greetings in 10 different languages, including Chinese and Arabic, with loud cheers as he spoke in English and Spanish.

“May you bring the joy of Jesus, who is risen and present in our midst, to all you meet,” he said in English. The pope then joined the joyful crowd in St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile.

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV offered Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square Sunday proclaiming that with Christ’s resurrection “death has been conquered forever” and “no longer has power over us.”

“Today all of creation is resplendent with new light, a song of praise rises from the earth, and our hearts rejoice: Christ is risen from the dead, and with him, we too rise to new life,” the pope said.

Pope Leo declared that Easter “embraces the mystery of our lives and the destiny of history, reaching us even in the depths of death, where we feel threatened and sometimes overwhelmed. It opens us up to a hope that never fails, to a light that never fades, to a fullness of joy that nothing can take away.”

Tens of thousands gathered under the bright Roman sun on April 5 in a flower-adorned St. Peter’s Square for the first Easter Mass of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate. The square was transformed for the occasion by thousands of blooms in vivid colors on the stairs leading up to the Renaissance basilica.

The Mass opened with the choir’s joyful proclamation: “O sons and daughters of the King, whom heavenly hosts in glory sing, today the grave has lost its sting. Alleluia!”

In his homily, Pope Leo declared that the resurrection of Christ has conquered the power of death, which he said “constantly threatens us” both from within, our feelings, doubts, disappointments, fears, and from outside, where war, injustice, selfishness and violence are prevalent.

From within, he said, that power manifests in sin, loneliness, doubt and exhaustion. “The weight of our sins prevents us from ‘spreading our wings’ and taking flight, or when the disappointments or loneliness we experience drain our hope,” he said.

“When we have to come to terms with our weakness, with the sufferings and the daily grind of life, we can feel as if we have ended up in a tunnel with no end in sight.”

But the pope also turned his gaze outward, describing a world marked by suffering and injustice.

“We see it present in injustices, in partisan selfishness, in the oppression of the poor, in the lack of attention given to the most vulnerable,” he said. “We see it in violence, in the wounds of the world, in the cry of pain that rises from every corner because of the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.”

Yet Easter, Pope Leo insisted, refuses to allow despair to be the final word. The feast “invites us to lift our gaze and open our hearts,” he said, and announces that “the power of death is not the final destiny of our lives. We are all directed, once and for all, on the path to fulfillment, because in Christ we also have risen.”

During the Mass, the Gospel of John was proclaimed in both Latin and Greek, and the prayers of the faithful were offered in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Portuguese. Pope Leo offered the consecration in Latin.

The pope called on Christians to carry that message into the wider world, like St. Mary Magdalene, who ran to announce the risen Christ to the disciples.

“Brothers and sisters, Easter gives us this hope, as we remember that in the risen Christ a new creation is possible every day,” Pope Leo said.

“We need this song of hope today. It is ourselves, risen with Christ, who must bring him into the streets of the world. Let us then run like Mary Magdalene, announcing him to everyone, living out the joy of the resurrection, so that wherever the specter of death still lingers, the light of life may shine,” he said.

SCRANTON – The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, led the faithful of the Diocese of Scranton in celebrating the Easter Vigil on Saturday, April 4, 2026, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter, marking the Church’s most solemn celebration of the Resurrection.

The liturgy began at 8:00 p.m. in the Cathedral Prayer Graden, where the Easter fire was kindled and the Paschal Candle lit, symbolizing Christ as the light of the world.

From there, the faithful processed in darkness to the Cathedral and once inside, their individual candles gradually illuminated the Mother Church of the Diocese.

Rooted in Scripture and rich symbolism, the Liturgy of the Word traced salvation history through a series of readings – from the story of creation in Genesis to the crossing of the Red Sea, the promises of the prophets, and ultimately the proclamation of the Resurrection from the Gospel of Matthew. 

Preaching at the Vigil, Bishop Bambera centered his homily on the hope of the Resurrection amid a suffering world.

“Welcome on this night of the Resurrection – this night that lies at the heart of our lives as Christians,” the Bishop said. “This is the day the Lord has made.”

The Bishop noted the joy of the occasion, particularly as more than 300 catechumens and candidates across the Diocese were being baptized or received into full communion with the Church this Easter. 

“How blessed we are by their presence and commitment to journey with Christ and with us, his Church,” the Bishop said.

At the same time, he acknowledged the reality of suffering both globally and locally, pointing to ongoing wars, the struggles of immigrants, and the persistence of antisemitism, as well as the personal crosses carried by many.

“Amid such upheaval and pain,” he said, “these sacred days beckon us to turn to the only place that enables our broken world and lives to find forgiveness, healing, hope and peace: the Paschal Mystery.”

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop Bambera emphasized that Christian hope is not the absence of suffering but the confidence to face it. 

“Hope grows from a relationship with the risen Jesus,” Bishop Bambera related, “and our belief that, out of love for us, the power of God enabled his cross and death to give way to life and resurrection.”

He further challenged the faithful to live out the message of Easter beyond the walls of the church, recalling the Gospel’s call to share the Good News.

“The resurrection of Jesus compels us to move beyond ourselves,” he said, urging believers to proclaim God’s mercy and care for those who suffer.

Following the homily, the Vigil continued with the Liturgy of Baptism, including the blessing of water, the renewal of Baptismal promises, and the reception of new members into the Church, before culminating in the celebration of the Eucharist and the singing of the closing song of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – God’s love is stronger than any evil, capable of “driving out hatred” and “bringing down the mighty,” Pope Leo XIV said.

“Man can kill the body, but the life of the God of love is eternal life, which transcends death and which no tomb can imprison,” the pope said in his homily during the Easter Vigil April 4 in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“This, my dear friends, is also our message to the world today,” to be shared “through the words of faith and the works of charity,” he said.

Just as Mary Magdalene and the other women rushed to tell the disciples that Jesus is risen, “we too should desire to set out tonight from this basilica to bring to all the good news,” the pope said. “Having risen with him, through his power, we too can give life to a new world of peace and unity.”

The Mass began in the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica with the blessing of the fire and of the Easter candle. With most of the lights in the basilica turned off, Pope Leo and the concelebrating cardinals, bishops and priests processed in darkness toward the altar, stopping first to light the pope’s candle and then those of the concelebrants and faithful.

During the liturgy, Pope Leo baptized 10 adults. Five were from the Diocese of Rome, two from Great Britain, two from Portugal and one catechumen was from South Korea, according to ANSA, the Italian news agency.

The pope also confirmed the 10 and gave them their first Communion during the Mass.

During the Liturgy of the Word and the readings detailing moments in the history of salvation, Pope Leo said in his homily, “We have seen how God responds to the hardness of sin — which divides and kills — with the power of love, which unites and restores life.”

The Gospel reading described how the women who had witnessed Jesus’ death and burial overcame their grief and fear, and went to his tomb, expecting to find it sealed with a large stone and soldiers standing guard, he said.

“This is what sin is: a heavy barrier that closes us off and separates us from God, seeking to kill his words of hope within us,” he said.

However, because of the women’s “faith and love,” he said, they became the first witnesses of the resurrection and “they saw the power of God’s love, stronger than any force of evil, capable of ‘driving out hatred’ and ‘bringing down the mighty.'”

Throughout history, even when humanity failed to live according to God’s plan, he said, “the Lord did not abandon us, but revealed his merciful face to us in an even more surprising way — through forgiveness.”

“Sisters and brothers, even today, there are tombs to be opened, and often the stones sealing them are so heavy and so closely guarded that they seem to be immovable,” Pope Leo said.

Some “stones” weigh heavily on the human heart, he said, “such as mistrust, fear, selfishness and resentment; others, stemming from these inner struggles, sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations.”

“Let us not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by them!” he said. With God’s help, many men and women have rolled away those “stones,” sometimes at the cost of their lives, “but with good fruits that we still benefit from today.”

“They are not unattainable figures, but people like us who, strengthened by the grace of the Risen One, in charity and truth, had the courage to speak” the words of God and to act “with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified,” he said.

“Let us be inspired by their example,” the pope said, “and on this holy night let us make their commitment our own, so that the Easter gifts of harmony and peace may grow and flourish everywhere and always throughout the world.”

ROME (OSV News) – Inside the ancient arena of the Roman Empire that crucified Christ, Pope Leo XIV carried the cross through the darkness of night on Good Friday at Rome’s Colosseum, leading about 30,000 in prayer for the sufferings of the modern world.

Torch flames flickered against nearly 2,000-year-old stone walls as crowds packed the streets around the Colosseum, praying alongside the pope through the traditional Via Crucis on the first Good Friday of his pontificate April 3.

The 70-year-old pope carried the cross through all 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, holding it directly in front of his face for nearly two hours as he prayed for victims of war, the defense of human dignity, the despairing and the lonely.

It was the first time a pope had carried the cross for every station in more than three decades. According to Vatican archival research communicated by Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni April 3, St. John Paul II was the last pope to do so, carrying the cross from 1980 to 1994.

The meditations for this year’s celebration were written by Franciscan Father Francesco Patton, who formerly served as custos of the Holy Land and drew on his experience walking the historical Way of the Cross through the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, describing it in both Jesus’ time and today as “a chaotic, distracting and noisy environment, surrounded by people who share our faith in him, but also by those who deride or insult him.”

In this way, he said, the Via Crucis parallels how every Christian is called to incarnate faith, hope and charity in the real world “where the believer faces ongoing challenges and must constantly strive to imitate Jesus.”

Each station included a Scripture reading, a quotation from St. Francis, a meditation by Father Patton and a short introspective litany prayer, after which the crowd prayed an Our Father in Latin and verses of the traditional “Stabat Mater” prayer.

The inclusion of quotations by St. Francis of Assisi fits with the Catholic Church’s special Jubilee Year marking the 800th anniversary of the saint’s death. St. Francis’ reflection on redemptive suffering was among those cited, “Let all of us, brothers, consider the Good Shepherd who bore the suffering of the cross to save his sheep.” Many of the quotations were drawn from St. Francis’ “Admonitions,” the spiritual writings he left for his brother friars before his death in 1226.

The meditation for the first station, “Jesus is condemned to death,” called leaders of every kind to account, with Father Patton writing that every person in authority will answer to God in the Last Judgment for how they exercise power, including “the power to judge; the power to start or end a war; the power to instill violence or peace; the power to fuel the desire for revenge or for reconciliation; the power to use the economy to oppress people or to liberate them from misery.”

The 10th station, “Jesus is stripped of his garments,” drew a sharp connection between Christ’s humiliation and contemporary violations of human dignity. The meditations cited authoritarian regimes that force prisoners to remain half-naked in bare cells, torturers who tear away not only clothing but skin and flesh, sexual abusers who reduce victims to objects and an entertainment industry that “exploits nudity for the sake of profit.”

The meditation concluded with a call to conversion, “Remind us, Lord, that each time we fail to recognize the dignity of others, our own dignity is diminished.”

The 11th station, “Jesus is nailed to the cross,” offered a meditation on the nature of true power in the eyes of God. “You show that true power is not that of those who use force and violence to impose themselves, but that of those who are capable of taking upon themselves the evil of humanity — ours, mine — and destroying it with the power of love that is manifest in forgiveness,” it said. “You are King and you reign from the cross: you do not resort to the supposed power of armies, but to the apparent powerlessness of love.”

The litany prayers that followed each meditation gave voice to a wide range of human suffering. At the eighth station, “Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem,” the crowd prayed to “weep over the devastation of war” and “for massacres and genocides.” At the ninth station, the congregation asked to be made instruments of Christ “to lift up the most frail” and “to lift up those we judge as having ‘brought it upon themselves.'”

Throughout the evening, prayers were offered for political prisoners, for people searching for the ultimate meaning of life, for those suffering from addiction, for children whose childhoods have been stolen, for victims of trafficking, for the poor stripped of their dignity, for migrants and refugees, for the lonely, for mothers who have lost children and for those who die alone.

When asked earlier in the week about his decision to carry the cross for all 14 stations, Pope Leo told reporters in Castel Gandolfo that he saw it as a sign the world needed.

“I think it will be an important sign because of what the pope represents, a spiritual leader today in the world, for this voice that everyone wants to hear to say that Christ still suffers, and I carry all these sufferings too in my prayer,” the pope said.

Pope Leo extended an invitation to all people, regardless of faith. “I would like to invite all people of goodwill, all people of faith, all Christians to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us to give salvation, life, and to seek how we may also be bearers of peace and not of hatred,” he added.

The Colosseum has long held a special place in the Church’s commemoration of Christ’s passion. In 1756, Pope Benedict XIV dedicated it to the memory of the passion of Christ and the early Christian martyrs, and the Stations of the Cross were regularly observed there for roughly a century. St. John XXIII later restored the tradition to the Colosseum, with St. Paul VI making it a regular fixture of the pope’s Good Friday traditions.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A message of nonviolence and quiet endurance marked the Good Friday liturgy at the Vatican, during which the Passion of Christ offers an example of breaking the cycle of violence that continues today.

Delivering the homily during the solemn Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion ahead of the evening Via Crucis, Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, the papal preacher, urged the faithful not to give into violence, but rather find the “discreet and stubborn song that invites (us) to love.”

“We are all constantly tempted to use a little bit of aggressiveness, a little bit of violence, thinking that without these means things will never be resolved,” he said April 3 in St. Peter’s Basilica. “The servant of the Lord cannot give in to this instinct.”

The rite began with Pope Leo XIV’s silent procession down the central nave. Dressed in red vestments, symbolizing the blood of Christ’s Passion, he somberly lay prostrate before the altar, a sign of adoration and penance. The readings recounted Christ’s passion and death on the cross.

At the moment of the veneration of the cross, the pope removed his chasuble and shoes and knelt before the crucifix in a gesture of humility. Clergy followed one by one, venerating the cross on bended knee and a kiss.

Father Pasolini’s homily echoed Pope Leo’s repeated calls for an end to war, warning that “in a time like ours, still so lacerated by hatred and violence, where even the name of God is invoked to justify wars and decisions of death….”

He said this evil continues “to circulate because it always finds someone willing to return it and multiply it.”

The homily emphasized that resisting this evil of violence is neither easy nor instinctive. Faced with injustice, the natural human reaction is to retaliate or “even the scores.” Yet Jesus refused that instinct entirely.

“He accepts everything without returning violence,” Father Pasolini said. 

Jesus “broke this chain,” not through superior force, but by embracing suffering and responding with forgiveness, silence and compassion, the papal preacher said.

Father Pasolini pointed to what he called a “silent line of people,” ordinary men and women who, often unnoticed, choose to resist hatred in their daily lives.

“They get up every day and try to make their life something that is not only for them, but also for others,” he said. “They carry burdens that they have not chosen, they receive wounds without becoming bitter, they don’t stop looking for the good, even when it seems useless.”

ROME (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV washed and kissed the feet of 12 priests on Holy Thursday in his first Easter Triduum liturgy as pope, saying that Jesus taught us how to love like he loves during the Last Supper.

“As true God and true man, Christ offers us the example of self-giving, service and love. We need his example to learn how to love, not because we are incapable of it, but precisely to teach ourselves and one another what true love is,” Pope Leo said in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, where he celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on April 2.

“Learning to act like Jesus, the living sign that God has placed within the history of the world, is the work of a lifetime,” he said.

Thousands of people packed the Lateran basilica for the Mass, the first time a pope has celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass at Rome’s cathedral in over a decade.

In his homily, the pope reflected on the Gospel of John’s account of the Last Supper, in which Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, encouraging the faithful to enter into the mystery of Christ’s humility and love as the Easter Triduum begins.

“As humanity is brought to its knees by so many acts of brutality, let us too kneel down as brothers and sisters alongside the oppressed. In this way, we seek to follow the Lord’s example,” Pope Leo said.

“By renewing the Lord’s gestures and words this very evening, we commemorate the institution of the Eucharist and of Holy Orders. The intrinsic bond between these two sacraments reveals the perfect self-gift of Jesus, the High Priest and living, eternal Eucharist,” he added.

A few minutes later, the pope himself personally washed the feet of 12 priests in imitation of Christ washing the feet of the Apostles. Eleven of the young priests were ordained last year by Pope Leo himself. The twelfth, Father Renzo Chiesa, serves as spiritual director of the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary. The pope bent down to kiss each one’s feet as he washed them.

“The washing of the feet is a gesture that encapsulates the revelation of God: an exemplary sign of the Word made flesh, his unmistakable memorial,” Pope Leo said. “By taking on the condition of a servant, the Son reveals the Father’s glory, overturning the worldly standards that so often distort our conscience.”

The Mass in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran on Holy Thursday restores the traditional practice of popes, in which the Holy Father, in his role as Bishop of Rome, marks the start of the Sacred Triduum at his diocesan cathedral.

The last time a pope washed the feet of priests at the Lateran was in 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI performed the rite with 12 priests of the Diocese of Rome.

During Pope Francis’ pontificate, the late pope opted to celebrate Holy Thursday in Rome-area prisons, where he offered Mass and washed the feet of prisoners.

Pope Leo quoted both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis in his homily. Citing Pope Benedict’s 2008 Holy Thursday homily, he said, “Like Peter, who at first resisted Jesus’ initiative, we too must ‘learn repeatedly that God’s greatness is different from our idea of greatness… because we systematically desire a God of success and not of the Passion.'”

The Lateran basilica, the oldest public church in Rome and the seat of the Bishop of Rome, is also the final resting place of Pope Leo XIII, the most recent pope to bear the name Leo before the current pope.

At the conclusion of the Holy Thursday evening liturgy, the pope carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession to the chapel of repose as the congregation sang the traditional Eucharistic hymn “Pange, Lingua.” The pope then knelt in prayer and the basilica fell completely silent.

“This evening’s solemn liturgy marks our entry into the Holy Triduum of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. We cross this threshold not as mere spectators, nor out of habit, but as those personally invited by Jesus himself as guests at the Supper in which bread and wine become for us the sacrament of salvation,” Pope Leo said.

As night fell across the Eternal City, Rome’s historic churches opened their doors for prayer late into the night with elaborately decorated altars of repose adorned with flowers and candles. Catholics filled the streets of the city’s historic center, moving from church to church to pray in Adoration at the altars of repose.

“May this evening’s Eucharistic adoration, in every parish and community, be a time to contemplate Jesus’ gesture, kneeling as he did, and to ask for the strength to imitate his service with the same love,” the pope said.

Earlier Thursday, Pope Leo presided over the Chrism Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, where he blessed the holy oils used in sacraments throughout the year, with more than 800 priests in attendance.

The pope will preside over all remaining liturgies of the Paschal Triduum at St. Peter’s Basilica, including the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening. On Good Friday night, he will lead the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. On Easter Sunday, he will offer Mass in St. Peter’s Square before delivering the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the city and the world.

SCRANTON – The Diocese of Scranton is proud to announce the results of its fifth annual Rectory, Set, Cook! pastor chef cooking competition – and once again – the event has set a new benchmark for generosity.

At the close of this year’s campaign, Rectory, Set, Cook! raised a record-breaking $234,779 from 2,031 donors, making this year’s competition the most successful in its five-year history.

Between Feb. 17 and March 27, 2026, the popular online fundraiser brought together priests from across northeastern and north central Pennsylvania in a friendly and creative culinary showdown, all in support of anti-hunger and anti-homelessness initiatives of Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton.

“This year’s Rectory, Set, Cook! once again showed the incredible generosity of our community,” Shannon Kowalski, Development Coordinator for Catholic Social Services, said. “Each year, this event continues to grow, not only in the amount of money raised but the number of people who get involved and support our mission.”

At the conclusion of the competition, at exactly 4 p.m. on March 27, the following pastor chefs and teams were named the 2026 Top Chefs:

First Place:
Father Jose Kuriappilly, Father Dan Toomey, and Team Bradford County
Parish(es): Saints Peter and Paul Parish, Towanda; Epiphany Parish, Sayre; Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Wyalusing
Total Raised: $32,524.06

Second Place:
Father James Paisley
Parish(es): Saint Ann Basilica Parish, Scranton
Total Raised: $31,829.52

Third Place:
Father Glenn McCreary and Father Dias Antony Valiamarathungal
Parish(es): Saint Boniface Parish, Williamsport; Saint Ann Parish, Williamsport
Total Raised: $31,363.92

Fourth Place:
Monsignor Jack Bendik, Father Phil Sladicka, and Father Jake Doris
Parish(es): Representing Retired Clergy of Villa Saint Joseph, Dunmore
Total Raised: $30,034.81

Fifth Place:
Father Kevin Miller, Father Neftali Feliz Sena, and Father Benito Aquino
Parish(es): Saint Pius of Pietrelcina Parish, Hazleton
Total Raised: $17,248.00

“We are truly honored and humbled to have finished first in this year’s Rectory, Set, Cook! contest,” Father Kuriappilly said on behalf of the winning team. “This achievement does not belong simply to us priests, but to all the people who supported and encouraged us along the way. We also congratulate all our brother priests who participated in this year’s event!”

The true impact of Rectory, Set, Cook! extends far beyond the friendly competition in the kitchen.

“The real winners are the individuals and families who benefit from the outpouring of support,” Kowalski added. “These funds all Catholic Social Services to continue providing essential services to those who rely on our food pantries, kitchens and emergency shelters throughout the year.”

Since its launch in 2022, the competition has grown steadily each year – raising $171,747 in its inaugural year, followed by $197,412 in 2023, $218,001 in 2024, $227,162 in 2025, and now surpassing that total again in 2026. With this year’s success, the initiative has now raised more than $1 million overall.

Numerous community partners also helped to make Rectory, Set, Cook! successful this year, including Hawk Family Foundation, Discover NEPA, Creative Benefits, Inc., Grimm Construction, Inc., Topp Business Solutions, MMQ & Associates, P.C., Troy Mechanical, Inc., Damage Control, Inc., DePietro’s Pharmacy, and Tambur Family Foundation.

SCRANTON – The month of April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. It is a time to recognize the importance of families and communities working together to prevent child mistreatment.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate a Healing Mass for Survivors of Abuse at 12:10 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, 2026, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

The Healing Mass provides space for those affected by abuse to find solace, strength, and support. Through prayer, reflection, and healing, the Diocese of Scranton remains committed to offering care and compassion to survivors.

The Mass will be broadcast live on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton and livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and social media.