Category: Diocese of Scranton News

SCRANTON – With big smiles on their faces, three men from the community programs of Saint Joseph’s Center eagerly handed out programs as people arrived at the Cathedral of Saint Peter for the Diocese of Scranton’s annual Mass for Persons with Disabilities Feb. 12, 2023.

The trio of hospitality ministers – Joe, John and Matt – jumped at the chance to be involved in the special Mass that recognizes and celebrates the gifts that every person contributes to the life of the Church.

“They’re here. They want to be here. They are so excited about getting out and experiencing this with the Church,” Sister Sandy Grieco, I.H.M., Pastoral Care Coordinator with Saint Joseph’s Center, said.

For the last several years, many residents of Saint Joseph’s Center have been unable to attend the Mass for Persons with Disabilities in-person because of health concerns.

“They pray together and want to be together. They have a spirit that nobody else has,” Sister Sandy added. “They have a goodness in their heart. They may not understand every word but they know the spirit. There is an unconditional love amongst them all.”

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, served as principal celebrant and homilist for the Mass that was attended by more than 200 people. During his homily, the bishop reflected on his trip last year to Ghana, emphasizing how those with disabilities were warmly included in huge outdoor community celebrations of faith.

“Far from being a burden to those who brought them, the presence of those with disabilities was welcomed and their participation was quite obviously a blessing, not just for them but particularly to all who gathered with them,” Bishop Bambera said. “The respect, love and acceptance that was extended to these cherished brothers and sisters was palpable. They were one with everyone else!”

Bishop Bambera also reflected on recent words of Pope Francis during a gathering in Rome for the International Day for Persons with Disabilities. The bishop said while Pope Francis indicated that making churches accessible with things like wheelchair ramps is important – the Church must also concentrate on making sure people’s needs for “belonging” are also met so they can experience the fullness and blessing of the Lord.

In addition to Saint Joseph’s Center, individuals from The Arc of Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Order of Alhambra also participated in the Mass.

“We encourage people with intellectual disabilities and support them and let them know they are not forgotten in our culture and society,” Ada Magni, scribe of the exchequer and deputy supreme director of The Order of Alhambra, local caravan Alhamar #4, stated.

The local Order of Alhambra does many things including providing scholarships to students studying special education, helping financially challenged special needs children attend summer camps and supporting the Special Olympics.

“We bring cheer to them but they bring cheer to us,” Magni explained.

NANTICOKE – As a young mother and wife, Beth Powers had been asking God to bring new women into her life. The Holy Spirit answered her call during a retreat she attended in late January.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how many people were going to be involved and I didn’t know any other women coming into this. I knew that I wanted to strengthen relationships with the women I already had and feel that I could rest in the Lord and that is exactly what I got out of this retreat,” she explained.

Powers was one of nearly two dozen women between the ages of 21 and 40 who participated in the ‘Chosen’ retreat for young Catholic women Jan. 27-29 at Holy Family Center in Nanticoke.

As a parishioner of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Swoyersville, Powers believes the gifts she received from the retreat were “invaluable.”

“These are exactly the relationships that I have been asking God to bring into my life,” she added. “I have been beyond blessed with so many gifts from just a few days.”

During the retreat, the young women listened to inspiring talks, participated in small group sharing, attended Mass, Adoration and had the opportunity for Reconciliation.

“For a couple of years now, I have been really interested in seeking community with other young adults who are Catholic and when I found out there was this retreat specifically for young women, I decided to give it a try,” Megan Kinney, a parishioner of Saint Boniface Parish in Williamsport, said.

Kinney said she saw God work through the speakers and really enjoyed meeting all of the other women who participated.

“I am definitely taking away that I am a ‘chosen’ daughter of the Lord and He gives me my identity and I can share that with others and build community and hopefully try to proclaim His glory and His name to other young adults,” she added.

The Diocesan Office for Parish Life put the ‘Chosen’ retreat together with assistance from Kylie Ballinger, who is an ECHO apprentice currently serving at Saint Jude Parish in Mountain Top.

Ballinger has participated in retreats like ‘Chosen’ previously and wanted to empower other young adult women in their faith.

“I wanted to give them a chance to see that the Lord is active and working in other women’s lives around them and they can come together and be united in Christ,” Ballinger stated.

WASHINGTON – Tens of thousands of pro-life advocates descended upon the nation’s capital for the 50th March for Life Jan. 20 – the first national march since the overturning of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that initially prompted the annual demonstration.

Many of those in the crowd for the historic moment were from parishes, schools and community groups in northeastern and north central Pennsylvania.

“I always find the march very impactful and whenever I hear the speakers and the information they give, like the number of babies killed or the number that we saved, it always gives me goosebumps,” Dominico Cordo, 16, said.

The Brodheadsville native, who is a member of the youth group at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish, said this is the tenth year he has attended the March for Life overall. Currently a sophomore in high school, Cordo makes it a priority to attend because it provides a powerful witness to the world about the importance of valuing life.

“In my generation, I know there are a lot of young kids who are pro-choice. Whenever I go to the March for Life, it shows me that a lot of kids still believe that life is sacred and special,” he explained.

Cordo was one of 15 young adults and several chaperones from Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Brodheadsville and Saint Matthew Parish in East Stroudsburg who took a bus down to Washington. Students from Marywood University as well as other pro-life advocates joined them.

“I saw people who came from New York, Ohio, Louisiana, Idaho and even Wyoming,” Marco Morocho, 17, of Saint Matthew Parish, said.

While many of the young adults have attended the march before, this year was the first time Katie Smith made the trip.

“I thought it was a pretty amazing experience,” the 15 year old said. “Every person counts and every person can make a difference.”

Smith said the speech of Sister Mary Casey O’Connor, who has a twin sister with Down syndrome, really touched her heart.

“I just found her words and her love to be very empowering,” the teen explained. “Not many people my age talk about things like this. I feel like a lot of young people are too afraid to have an opinion or they just don’t understand.”

The national March for Life first took place in Washington in 1974 in response to the Roe decision legalizing abortion nationwide the previous year. The march has taken place in Washington each year since, with a smaller-in-scale event during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

The 2023 event was the first national March for Life since the high court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe and returned the matter of regulating or restricting abortion to state legislatures.

At the pre-march rally, the Christian band “We Are Messengers” performed, followed by a number of speakers, including Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as “Jesus” in the television series “The Chosen,” former Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy, and Gianna Emanuela Molla, the daughter of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla.

Canonized in 2004, St. Gianna gave her life for Gianna Emanuela, choosing to move forward with her fourth pregnancy even after doctors discovered a tumor in her uterus.

“The energy was definitely the same. It was high energy. Everyone is still passionate and committed to the pro-life cause,” Dori Hurley, Youth Ministry Coordinator for Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish, said. “They talked a lot about the ‘next steps,’ taking care of mothers and being able to provide for them so they can bring life into the world. Coach Dungy and Jonathan Roumie also spoke about how important prayer is especially at this time. It is as critical as ever to pray because God hears our prayers and he has heard them thus far and overturned Roe v. Wade and he will hear them in the future as we push towards the states to eradicate this genocide.”

Sean Robbins, Director of Youth and College Ministry at Saint Matthew Parish, said the atmosphere at this year’s march was more “joyful,” whereas in the past it was “hopefulness” that Roe would one day be overturned.

“You could feel it in the air that Roe v. Wade was finally overturned and now we can move forward and really get close to making the thought of abortion not only illegal but unthinkable,” Robbins said.

As he works with teenagers in the Poconos, he sees young people wanting to get involved in standing up for life.

“They could have a classmate this year who has an unexpected pregnancy out of nowhere and want to know how to help this classmate or how to talk to them about the beauty of their child and other options,” he added. “Rather than just saying ‘abortion is wrong,’ they want to meet her where she’s at, and get her to see the baby as something that is not a burden but a blessing.”

Standing on the event stage at the National Mall, with the U.S. Capitol visible in the background, Jeanne Mancini, March for Life president, told attendees the annual March for Life would continue until abortion is “unthinkable.”

“While the March began as a response to Roe, we don’t end as a response to Roe being overturned,” Mancini said. “Why? Because we are not yet done.”

SCRANTON – On the eve of the 2023 March for Life in Washington, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, urged people to be “fearless” in defense of the unborn and mothers in need.

“We engage this noble cause not for political reasons. We engage it because of who we are as Christians, because of our belief in Jesus Christ and the Gospel that he proclaimed,” Bishop Bambera said.

During his homily at the Diocese of Scranton’s annual Mass for Life on Jan. 19, 2023, the bishop said in addition to the unborn, the faithful must also be fearless in defending those who are elderly, sick, poor, disabled or imprisoned.

“We can never shrink from confronting life issues in our prayer, in what we teach as a church and in the pastoral care that we offer. We must also never shrink from confronting life issues when we vote. We must never shrink from confronting life issues in the initiatives and public policies that we are able to influence in our volunteer efforts, in the daily activities of our lives and in all that we do that sometimes can even unwittingly exploit the most defenseless among us,” he continued.

More than 125 people attended the Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Peter while hundreds of others watched online and on television.

More than a dozen parishioners from Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Peckville, led by their pastor, Father Andy Kurovsky, filled the first few pews of the Cathedral during Mass.

“It is important for us to stand for life, to support our bishop and our diocese and pray for a culture that respects life from conception to natural death and every moment in between,” Ann O’Brien, pastoral minister for outreach at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, said.

O’Brien appreciates that the Diocese of Scranton offers an opportunity to pray for pro-life efforts, especially for people that are unable to travel to the March for Life itself.

“Right now, I have a sprained ankle so there are people who cannot make it and make the march but having something local is very doable,” she added.

Sacred Heart parishioners Pam Gregorowicz and her daughter Grace, 16, attended the Mass for Life and traveled to Washington the following day.

“We have to continue to show a stance for life. This is a big hurdle but our work has really just begun because now we have to take that to the state level and we have to be a voice for those who don’t have a voice,” Pam explained.

“The more people praying together and fighting, the more powerful an impact it has,” Grace added.

With the Supreme Court this past June overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that asserted that abortion was a constitutional right, Bishop Bambera also echoed the theme of the March for Life itself, “Next Steps: Marching in a Post-Roe America,” as he spoke to the faithful.

“For as encouraging as this past year has been, the task that we have engaged to build a culture of life and to create a vision of the world in which the beauty of the human person is treasured and respected, still remains unfinished,” Bishop Bambera said.

SCRANTON – The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, presided over an Ecumenical Celebration of the Word of God on Jan. 19, 2023, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter.

Dozens of people from varying Christian denominations participated in the annual event that highlights the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in the Diocese of Scranton.

“As we gather in prayer during this Week of Christian Unity, we are reminded always of the Prayer of Jesus and we realize that Prayer is far from being fulfilled,” Bishop Bambera said near the conclusion of the Prayer Service. “May we see this time of Prayer as a reminder to us of what ‘can be’ as all that God calls us to be in Jesus Christ.”

Referencing this year’s theme, “Do Good; Seek Justice,” taken from the first chapter of Isaiah, the bishop alluded to divisions between Christian churches not being the way God intended for us to operate.

“May we resolve not only to pray, one with another, but may we resolve to work, to build up the Christian community through our acts of service and love for one another and the world in which we live.”

Proto Deacon Sergei Kapral, from Holy Resurrection Orthodox Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre, gave the sermon during the Prayer Service.

“Our prayer here today is what we believe. What we believe is how we pray,” he said.
The choir from Holy Rosary School in Duryea provided beautiful music for the Prayer Service. The young students enthusiastically took part in the program.

“We’ve been practicing for a couple weeks now. We practiced on the bus ride here. It was really exciting,” eighth grader Lauren Marranca said.

“I wasn’t expecting that many people. I thought it would just be the bishop and a few other people,” seventh grader Emma DeSanto added.

During the ‘Call to Gather,’ Monsignor Vincent J. Grimalia, Diocesan Coordinator for Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, reminded everyone in attendance that by the waters of baptism we become members of the Body of Christ.

“We need God’s grace to overcome our divisions and to address systems and structures that have contributed to the fracturing of our communities. We gather to pray to reinforce the unity that we have as Christians,” he stated.

While meeting in the Vatican with an ecumenical delegation from Finland Jan. 19, Pope Francis also spoke about the importance of fully living the common call, shared by all Christians baptized in Christ.

“By proclaiming (the Gospel) together we rediscover ourselves as brothers and sisters” and bear witness to “the beauty of unity,” the pope told the delegation.
The sacrament of baptism, shared by Christians, reconciles an individual with God, he said, and in the same way, “we are called to be more and more reconciled with one another and to be agents of reconciliation in the world.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Reacting to “heartbreaking scenes” of death and destruction in Turkey and Syria, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ international policy committee urged U.S. Catholics and all people of goodwill to pray for the victims of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked the two countries Feb. 6 and to give generously to those in need.

By Feb. 9 in Turkey and Syria, the death toll had risen to almost 20,000 combine and close to 53,000 others were injured.

“I join with our Holy Father Pope Francis in praying for the souls of the departed as we mourn the loss of so many lives,” Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, Illinois, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, said in a Feb. 8 statement.

“We pray for those injured and the many others suffering, and we also pray for the safety and protection of emergency personnel working to save lives and tending to those in need in the wake of this disaster,” he said.

Rescue workers were still “trying to free people from rubble and those alive are facing freezing conditions as they try to salvage their belongings and seek shelter,” Bishop Malloy said. “In a region that has experienced much conflict and hardship, these heartbreaking scenes call out to us to provide aid and assistance to our brothers and sisters in need.”

The bishop urged U.S. Catholics “to give generously” to Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) to support their efforts to provide emergency humanitarian relief.

“I also call upon the U.S. government to provide much-needed assistance and to work in conjunction with Catholic aid organizations to deliver effective assistance to those most in need,” he said.

CNEWA, an agency of the Holy See, is looking to aid over 2,000 families in Syria’s Aleppo and Hama regions — already long ravaged by conflict — by providing bedding, food, medicines, infant formula, diapers and clothing. Donations can be made online at https://cnewa.org/work/emergency-syria; by phone at 800-442-6392; or by mail to CNEWA headquarters, 1011 First Avenue, New York, NY 10022.
CRS, the U.S. Catholic Church’s overseas relief and development agency, also is accepting donations through its website, crs.org. CRS is partnering with Caritas Turkey, Caritas Syria and Caritas Anatolia — members of Caritas Internationalis, a global confederation of Catholic relief organizations — to shelter displaced victims while ensuring access to food, clean water and hygiene supplies.

NEW YORK (OSV News) – Catholic humanitarian agencies are launching emergency relief campaigns following Feb. 6’s devastating earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. On Feb. 9, the death toll approached nearly 20,000 between the two countries.

The number of dead and injured was expected to climb further as rescue teams continued to search through the rubble of toppled buildings.

The Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), an agency of the Holy See, is looking to aid over 2,000 families in Syria’s Aleppo and Hama regions – already long ravaged by conflict – by providing bedding, food, medicines, infant formula, diapers and clothing. Donations can be made online at https://cnewa.org/work/emergency-syria; by phone at 800-442-6392; or by mail to CNEWA headquarters, 1011 First Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the U.S. Catholic Church’s overseas relief and development agency, also is accepting donations through its website, crs.org. CRS is partnering with Caritas Turkey, Caritas Syria and Caritas Anatolia — members of Caritas Internationalis, a global confederation of Catholic relief organizations — to shelter displaced victims while ensuring access to food, clean water and hygiene supplies.

CNEWA president Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari said in a Feb. 7 news release his agency’s effort was “a preliminary response” to the disaster, which saw two powerful quakes strike southern Turkey and northern Syria mere hours apart.

The first quake, a 7.8 magnitude tremor, occurred just after 4 a.m. during a winter storm, followed by a 6.7 magnitude aftershock. The second quake, registering 7.5, hit nine hours later some 60 miles away. Numerous aftershocks have followed the quakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Thousands of buildings have collapsed, with rescue efforts hampered by inclement weather and damaged roads. Rescuers, joined by international teams, are racing against time to extricate survivors from the rubble.

“Survivors are still processing the shock of the earthquake, searching through the rubble and assisting in rescue efforts,” said CNEWA Beirut regional director Michel Constantin, whose team manages emergency programs throughout the region. “There is a general state of panic, exacerbated by the harsh weather, complicating rescue efforts and the capacity to collect and assess data and plan accordingly.”

Even prior to the quake, 4.1 million in Syria depended on humanitarian aid due to a long-running civil war that since 2011 has ravaged the nation.

“The situation is tragic. … We have opened our convent doors to hundreds of families who have lost their houses, and their number is increasing by the hour,” said Blue Marist Brother Georges Sabe, whose order — which CNEWA’s campaign will aid — is sheltering up to 1,000 families in Aleppo, coordinating with the Franciscan Friars and the Salesian Fathers.

Brother Sabe said, “The elderly, children and women … are now in urgent need of food, clothes, medications and most of all, comfort and warmth in this harsh winter.”

CNEWA’s campaign also will bolster outreach by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which currently aids more than 850 families in the Aleppo region through local churches’ extensive network of parishes and schools. Through CNEWA, the society will receive mattresses, pillows, blankets, food, water and medicines, as well as milk, infant formula and diapers.

In the Syrian city of Hama, about 153 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake, CNEWA will assist three emergency shelters for more than 150 families who have lost their homes due to the quakes.

“We lived and survived the long years of war but never experienced this kind of fear,” said Bishop Abdo Abrash of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Homs, Hama and Yabroud, which is running the shelters. “It is true misery … there is a lack of first aid equipment to tend to the survivors.”

Constantin said amid the “chaotic” situation on the ground, “this is a critical moment to help heal those who have survived, those who ‘saw death,’ as one of our partners told me.”

Along with financial support, prayer remains an essential response to the tragedy, said Msgr. Vaccari.

“Even though we at CNEWA are accustomed to tragedies and emergencies, we are not immune to their toll,” he said. “We ask for your prayers of support and consolation for the victims of this horror, your prayers for those who have lost their lives and those who mourn them.”

(OSV News) – Theresa Flores plans to attend her 11th Super Bowl this year, but not necessarily because she is a football fan. 

Instead, the 57-year-old author, speaker and social worker will be in Glendale, Arizona, with volunteers from the SOAP (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution) Project, which Flores founded to prevent human trafficking.

“A lot of kids are being trafficked during sporting events,” said Flores, who along with her team holds outreaches during large entertainment gatherings nationwide, training participants to recognize the signs of trafficking while distributing materials – including millions of bars of soap – labeled with the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline number: 888-373-7888.

Experts differ over the Super Bowl’s impact on human trafficking, but overall data shows that the problem has risen sharply across the globe. 

Some 50 million individuals worldwide were ensnared in modern slavery during 2021, according to the United Nations International Labor Organization Sept. 2022 report. Forced labor (including sex and labor trafficking) and forced marriage are the two most common types.

During 2020, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Polaris, which operates the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, received more than 10,500 reports involving over 16,650 individuals victims — numbers that represented “likely only a fraction of the actual problem,” according to the organization’s website.

Traffickers prey on people made vulnerable by poverty, homelessness, addiction, prior sexual abuse and natural disasters, according to Human Trafficking Search, a global research database funded by the O.L. Pathy Family Foundation.

But even individuals from loving and secure families can be vulnerable to traffickers — and statistics do not capture their anguish –– something Flores, a survivor herself, knows all too well. 

Growing up, Flores was “a Catholic teenager in a very devout Catholic family in the Midwest,” to whom “nothing bad had ever happened,” she told OSV News.

But all that changed in high school, when Flores came under the influence of a teenage boy who groomed her over a six-month period for sex trafficking.

“He made me think he liked me,” said Flores. “He gave me a ride home from school one day. But he didn’t take me home. He took me to his house, drugged and raped me.”

Too ashamed to tell her parents about the attack, Flores then spent close to two years “being sold to men” in a network of sex clients, blackmailed into submission, and exploited after school and late in the evening. 

“I was actually kidnapped one night, sold to the highest bidder and left for dead in a motel in Detroit,” said Flores. “The police ended up bringing me home.”

She and her family soon relocated, and Flores, now 57, rebuilt her life, becoming a nationally recognized author, speaker, licensed social worker, and advocate for survivors and trafficking prevention. She founded both the SOAP Project and the similarly focused nonprofit Traffickfree, and also serves as the program director for U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking.

Sister Ann Victory, a Sister of the Humility of Mary and USCSAHT board member, said human trafficking comes down to “issues of power, control and money.”

Traffickers can make thousands of dollars per victim, with the United Nations’ International Labor Organization estimating the total annual profits of forced labor, including sex trafficking, to be $150 billion.

In recent years, victim advocates have sought to hold the hotel industry accountable for turning a blind eye to the problem.

“A hotel is making money every time a trafficker rents a room,” said Kristina Aiad Toss of the Columbus, Ohio-based Babin Law firm, which has filed civil suits against hotels for failure to counter known trafficking on their premises. “Hotels are really on the front lines of this problem. That’s really a piece of the puzzle I think has been missing.”

Over the past five years, “we’ve slowly started to see hotels take the issue more seriously,” Toss told OSV News.

However, advocates stress the problem of trafficking requires a broad, collaborative approach at government, industry and community levels.

“This work is way too complex to do by yourself,” said Sister Ann. “These kinds of partnerships and connections continue to be key across the nation, and across the world.”

Awareness and a willingness to act can save lives, she said.

Individuals who “seem unable to speak,” while lacking their own money, identification and even knowledge of their exact address, may be victims of trafficking, said Sister Ann.

As a trained nurse, Sister Ann said she also remains alert for “evidence of physical and psychological abuse” in potential victims.

Rather than intervening directly, she said, bystanders who suspect trafficking should contact law enforcement or the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which can be reached by phone at 888-373-7888, by text at 233733 (“Befree”) or by live chat.

Having the courage to speak up, even if the fears of trafficking prove unfounded, can prevent years of suffering, said Flores, recalling her time as a victim.

“I wish my neighbor, who saw me as a 15-year-old running through his backyard late at night barefoot and in pajamas, had called someone,” she said. “I wish somebody would have done this for me.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis expressed his “spiritual closeness” and “solidarity” with those affected by a pair of powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria Feb. 6.

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey hit southern Turkey before dawn Feb. 6 wreaking havoc in large areas of neighboring Syria. It was followed by what the geological survey said was a separate 7.5 magnitude earthquake, less than 12 hours later some 60 miles away.

By mid-afternoon local time, the Associated Press was reporting that more than 2,300 people were killed while hundreds remained trapped under the rubble of toppled buildings.

The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in need said a Catholic priest was among the dead in Syria. Father Imad Daher died in the collapse of the residence of retired Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo, who was injured and hospitalized, the charity said.

Pope Francis was “deeply saddened” to learn of the “huge loss of life” caused by the disaster and offered his “heartfelt condolences” to those mourning losses, wrote Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, in telegrams to the Vatican’s ambassadors in Turkey and Syria.

The pope also prayed that emergency personnel would “be sustained in their care of the injured and in the ongoing relief efforts by the divine gifts of fortitude and perseverance.”

According to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the earthquake is the largest disaster to hit the country since 1939, when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 32,000 people and injured over 100,000. It is unclear how high the number of dead and wounded from the Feb. 6 earthquakes will reach, he added.

The Turkish president said that more than 45 countries have offered to support Turkey in relief efforts in addition to NATO and the European Union.

The Middle East Council of Churches, representing Orthodox, Evangelical and Catholic churches, issued a statement calling on the international community to provide emergency aid to the region and to lift sanctions on Syria “so sanctions may not turn into a crime against humanity.”

Just a few hours after the quake, the Knights of Malta announced that Malteser International, their relief agency, was sending an emergency response team.

“Our local partners have an urgent need of support, especially in areas of northern Syria where hundreds of thousands of people live in simple refuges and now, with the earthquakes, are even more defenseless,” said Oliver Hochedez, head of the Malteser International emergency response department. “In the hospitals run by our partner organizations the number of injured arriving increases hour by hour. We must provide help rapidly.”

Chaldean Catholic Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo told Vatican News Feb. 6 that he had never seen such destruction in war-torn Syria. “There was a strong fear and now the people are in the street, in the cold and under the rain,” he said. “There is damage everywhere, even in the cathedral. The libraries are destroyed, the houses crumbled. It’s an apocalyptic situation.”

Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization of national Catholic charities, immediately began a fundraising campaign for relief efforts in Turkey and Syria. The charity has been active in Turkey since 1991 and in Syria since 2011, primarily providing aid for refugees.