Category: Diocese of Scranton News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Earth is ailing, and it needs the prayers of Catholics as well as their personal commitment to caring for creation, Pope Francis said.

“Let us pray that each of us listen with our hearts to the cry of the Earth and of the victims of environmental disasters and climate change, making a personal commitment to care for the world we inhabit,” the pope said in a video message released Aug. 30 by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention each month, and members of the network pray for that intention each day. Pope Francis’ intention for September is: “For the cry of the Earth,” which coincides with the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation Sept. 1 and its inauguration of the monthlong “Season of Creation.”

“If we took the planet’s temperature, it would tell us that the Earth has a fever,” the pope said in the video. “And it is sick, just like anyone who’s sick. But are we listening to this pain? Do we hear the pain of the millions of victims of environmental catastrophes?”

The first victims and those who suffer most, he said, are “the poor, those who are forced to leave their homes because of floods, heat waves or drought.”

To fight poverty and protect nature at the same time, people must change their personal habits, the pope said; but because climate change, pollution and the loss of biodiversity are “caused by humans,” social, economic and political responses also are necessary.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A few hours after he railed against unjust immigration policies at his general audience, Pope Francis and community organizers associated with the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation returned to the theme of welcoming and integrating migrants.

“For us, baptism does not stop at the border,” Joe Rubio, national co-director of IAF for the west-southwest region, told Catholic News Service Aug. 29.

In 20 U.S. dioceses, the foundation and its partners run “Recognizing the Stranger,” a leadership development program that helps immigrants and members of their new parishes develop stronger relationships and work together for the good of their community.

Pope Francis had dedicated his entire general audience talk Aug. 28 to the theme of migration and the obligation to help those seeking safety, freedom and a better life for themselves and their families. He met the community organizers later that day.

While Rubio and his colleagues were in Rome, they also met with Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, to continue discussions on how their organizations could work with similar groups supported by the Latin American bishops’ council, known as CELAM.

“We see that the immigration phenomenon in the Americas is something that is the joint responsibility of the church in North and South America,” Rubio said, so finding ways to work together is something they are exploring. And, Rubio added, there seem to be “similarities between our style of organizing and how the church works, particularly in the poor communities in Latin America.”

The audience with the pope Aug. 28 was the leaders’ third private meeting with Pope Francis, and they left with a gift that doubled as homework: Near the end of their discussion, the pope asked an aide to get each of the organizers a copy in English or Spanish of his three encyclicals and three of his apostolic letters.

They had told the pope they were studying “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” and that they and the people they train read “Power and Responsibility” by Father Romano Guardini, one of the pope’s preferred theologians.

While Pope Francis praised the community organizers for being concrete, for looking around them, listening to people’s needs and then collaborating to find solutions, Rubio said he also told them, “How good it is that you are reading Guardini.”

Joining Rubio in recounting their meeting with the pope to CNS were: Tim McManus, a senior organizer working in Texas, California and Arizona; Elizabeth Valdez, a Houston-based organizer; Liz Hall, lead organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area; and Jorge Montiel, an organizer in Colorado and New Mexico.

Each person at the meeting, they said, had a chance to share his or her personal story with the pope. Montiel said one of the organizers told the pope how she did not want to get involved in community organizing because her experience was that politics always ends up being about power, and power corrupts. But, in the end, the killing of a 6-year-old girl in her neighborhood convinced her to act.

In response, Montiel said, Pope Francis told them, “Faith that does not lead to the work of justice is not real faith.”

In “Fratelli Tutti,” Montiel said, the pope talks a lot about the importance of politics in serving the common good, “but he is way more cautious when talking about power.”

But, Pope Francis told the group, “power is ‘fugitive.’ You either take it or it disappears. Now, it’s more comfortable if you let it go. If you take it, it’s more work because you have to be responsible,” Montiel said the pope told them.

(OSV News) – A study published in July revealed that a new analysis of the Shroud of Turin, including the composition and a microscopic analysis of bloodstains, shows that the marks are consistent with the tortures endured by Christ as described in the Gospels.

The study, titled “New Insights on Blood Evidence from the Turin Shroud Consistent with Jesus Christ’s Tortures,” stated that the presence of creatinine particles with ferritin, which are often a by-product of muscle contractions, “confirms, at a microscopic level, the very heavy torture suffered by Jesus of the HST,” or Holy Shroud of Turin.

Furthermore, “numerous bloodstains scattered throughout the double body image of the HST show evidence that Jesus of the HST was tortured,” it stated.

“Bloodstained marks all over the body image which are consistent with pre-crucifixion flagellation, bloodstained marks on the head that are consistent with a ‘crown’ of thorns, blood marks on the hand and feet that are consistent with crucifixion and the bloodstain on the chest that evidences a post-mortem wound that corresponds with the post-mortem spear wound that Christ received as is described in the Bible,” the report said.

The new study was written by Giulio Fanti, associate professor of Mechanical and Thermal Measurements at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Padua. According to his personal website, Fanti has studied and written about the famed burial cloth since 2004.

The funding for the study, the report said, “was partially supported by a religious group that requested anonymity” and that the group entrusted Fanti with “the analysis of the so-called ‘Padre Pio handkerchief,’ a fabric on which two images considered miraculous are imprinted on the front and back of (a Shroud of Turin-like) Jesus Christ and Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, respectively.”

According to the report, a preliminary study conducted by Fanti, along with Christian Privitera, an engineer, revealed the presence “of an almost transparent substance” between the bloodstained threads of the shroud.

“This substance, given its origin and in agreement with other scholars who have analyzed the Shroud of Oviedo, could be the semi-transparent fluid produced by pulmonary edema,” the report said, referring to the excessive accumulation of fluid in the lungs that Jesus was believed to have suffered from while on the cross.

The Shroud of Oviedo, Spain, is what both tradition and scientific studies claim was the cloth used to cover and clean the face of Jesus after the crucifixion.

Fanti’s study on the Shroud of Turin stated that aside from confirming the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ torture, including the flagellation, the right eye of the man of the shroud, given that it was “more sunken” with a vertical mark over the “apparently furrowed” eyelid,” indicate that he “could have been blinded by another blow of the scourge on the head.”

“As an alternative to the scourge mark on the right eye, one can think of a wound produced by a thorn from the crown placed on Jesus’ head,” the report stated.

The 14-foot-by-4-foot shroud features a full-length photonegative image of a man, front and back, bearing signs of wounds that correspond to the Gospel accounts of the torture Jesus endured in his passion and death.

The Catholic Church has never officially ruled on the shroud’s authenticity, saying judgments about its age and origin belonged to scientific investigation. Scientists have debated its authenticity for decades, and studies have led to conflicting results.

A 1988 carbon testing dated the cloth to the 12th century, leading many to conclude that the shroud is a medieval forgery. However, scientists have challenged that claim by noting that the methodology of the testing was erroneous and that the sample used in the carbon dating process was a piece used to mend the cloth in the Middle Ages.

A 2014 study published in the 2018 Journal of Forensic Sciences by Matteo Borrini, an Italian forensic scientist, and Luigi Garlaschelli, an Italian chemist, stated that blood patterns on the shroud were not consistent with those left by a crucified person.

Garlaschelli also posted a YouTube video of his experiment in 2015 using a live person to study the blood patterns in various positions as well as pressing a sponge against a plastic mannequin to examine the way the fake blood flowed.

However, several experts and researchers criticized the 2014 study, stating that their findings lacked the accuracy of past studies, some of which involved cadavers of men who died of hemopericardium, the pooling of blood in the heart, which is believed to be what ultimately caused Jesus’ death on the cross.

In his report, Fanti questioned the results of the 1988 study, stating that certain factors, including the presence of neutron radiation, transformed elements in the shroud, “thus heavily skewing the results of the radiocarbon dating of the HST performed in 1988 by many centuries.”

LAFLIN — The Congregation of the Oblates of Saint Joseph, located at 1880 Route 315, Laflin, will host their annual Triduum and Labor Day Mass celebrations honoring Saint Joseph the Worker.

A three-day preparation of Masses over the Labor Day Weekend will be offered on Friday, Saturday & Sunday, Aug. 30-Sept. 1, with liturgies celebrated daily at noon in the Oblates seminary chapel.

Devotions to Saint Joseph, with special intentions for all workers and the unemployed, will follow each Mass. A blessing with the first-class relic of Saint Joseph Marello, founder of the Oblate religious order, will conclude the devotions.

A special morning Mass will be celebrated on Labor Day, Sept. 2, at 11 a.m., honoring the Patron Saint of Workers. Following the Mass, bread will be blessed and distributed to all the faithful as a symbol of the “fruit of our labor.”

Serving as celebrant and homilist for this year’s Labor Day Mass will be Oblate Father Paul A. McDonnell, rector of the OSJ religious community and pastor of Divine Mercy Parish in Scranton.

The Triduum and Labor Day liturgical celebrations will be broadcast live on JMJ Catholic Radio 104.5 FM. For more information, contact the Oblates main office at (570) 654-7542 or email: osjseminary@comcast.net.

SCRANTON – September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and to offer healing and to increase awareness about the Church’s mercy and care for those who have died by suicide, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate a Mass for Suicide Healing and Remembrance Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

The Mass will serve to remember loved ones lost to suicide, and to promote healing for those who grieve their passing.

During the Mass, those attending will be invited to bring forward a flower in remembrance of those lost to suicide. If you, your family, or someone you know has been affected by suicide, please share this information and encourage them to participate.

All are welcome to attend the Mass.

The Mass will also be broadcast live on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton and livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website (dioceseofscranton.org), YouTube channel, and links to the Mass provided on all Diocesan social media platforms.

For more information on the upcoming Mass for Suicide Healing and Remembrance, please contact the Diocesan Office for Parish Life at (570) 207-2213.

SCRANTON – The annual Mass in Italian will be celebrated on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024, at 10:00 a.m., in the Cathedral of Saint Peter. All are welcome to attend.

The liturgy is celebrated in conjunction with La Festa Italiana, which occurs over the Labor Day weekend, Friday through Monday, Aug. 30 – Sept. 2, on Courthouse Square, one block away.

The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will preside and be the homilist.

Father David P. Cappelloni, V.F., La Festa Chaplain and pastor of Saints Anthony and Rocco Parish in Dunmore and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Dunmore, will be the principal celebrant.

Concelebrants will include Monsignor Constantine V. Siconolfi, La Festa Chaplain Emeritus, and priests from the Diocese of Scranton. Deacons from the Diocese will also participate.

The Mass will be broadcast live by CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton and will be rebroadcast on Tuesday, Sept. 3, at 8 p.m., and Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 10:30 a.m. In addition to airing live on CTV, the Mass will also be available on the Diocese of Scranton website (dioceseofscranton.org) and links will be provided on all social media platforms. The Mass will also be available to watch anytime on demand after the live broadcast concludes.

This year’s Italian Mass is being offered in memory of all those members and friends of La Festa Italiana who passed away since the last Mass was celebrated, including Rose Blasi, Ken Brader, Anna Brunetti, Mayor James P. Connors, Tom “Chick” DiPietro, Bill DelPrete, Joe Hoban, James Mack, Sr., John Moffitt, Mariann Moran, Charles Morell, Angelo Rose, Billy Saar, Sheriff John Szymanski and Bill Weber.

Music ministry for the Italian Mass will be provided by the choirs of Saints Anthony and Rocco and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parishes, accompanied by a brass quartet, all directed by Joseph Moffitt. Dominick DeNaples, mandolin; Patrick Loungo, Nicholas Luongo, Eugene Mentz, organist, and Monica Spishock, timpani, will also accompany.

Ashley Yando-DeFlice is the cantor. The featured soloist will be T.J. Capobianco from the New York City Metropolitan Opera.

The lectors are Atty. Frank T. Blasi and Anthony Bengivenga, President of UNICO National.

The Prayer of the Faithful will be led by Diane Alberigi, Karen Clifford and Joe Guido.

The offertory gifts will be presented by Alex and Annette Blasi-Strubeck, Robert W. Pettinato, the Honorable Robert Mazzoni and the Honorable Leonard Zito (Ret.).

James Baress, Patrick Caramanno, Joshua Cillo, Jonathan Eboli, Stephen Eboli, Richard Garofalo and Joseph Wentline are the ushers. Guy Valvano is honorary usher.

At the conclusion of Mass, members of The Italian Colony of Saint Lucy will process out with the statue of Saint Lucy onto the festival grounds to the Heritage Piazza on Spruce Street.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Working to turn migrants away from the prospect of peace and security in a new country is “a grave sin,” Pope Francis said.

“It needs to be said clearly: There are those who systematically work by all means to drive away migrants, and this, when done knowingly and deliberately, is a grave sin,” he said during his general audience Aug. 28.

The pope began his audience in St. Peter’s Square by explaining that he would “postpone the usual catechesis” — he currently is in the middle of a series of talks about the Holy Spirit – to discuss “the people who – even at this moment – are crossing seas and deserts to reach a land where they can live in peace and security.”

“Brothers and sisters, we can all agree on one thing: Migrants should not be in those seas and in those lethal deserts,” he said. “And, unfortunately, they are there.”

But migrants cannot be deterred from those deadly crossings “through more restrictive laws, nor through the militarization of borders, nor through rejections,” the pope said. “Instead, we will achieve it by expanding safe and legal avenues for migrants, by facilitating sanctuary for those fleeing wars, violence, persecution and many calamities; we will achieve it by fostering in every way a global governance of migration based on justice, fraternity and solidarity.”

Everyone, he added, must join forces “to combat human trafficking” and “stop the criminal traffickers who mercilessly exploit the misery of others.”

“What kills migrants is our indifference and that attitude of rejection,” he said, and, praising the many “good Samaritans” and organizations working to support migrants, he noted that ordinary people must be involved in alleviating the plight of migration as well.

“We cannot be on the front line, but we are not excluded; there are many ways for one to make their contribution, first of all prayer,” the pope said, asking visitors in the square directly: “Do you pray for migrants? For those who come to our lands to save their lives?”

Pope Francis followed his question to the audience with a pregnant pause.

The pope made specific mention of Mediterranea Saving Humans – an Italian NGO that rescues migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea – as a group “on the front line” of the migrant crisis. The group posted a message on social media Aug. 24 saying the pope had blessed the crew of a ship set to sail on a rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea organized with the migration office of the Italian bishops’ conference.

According to the U.N. Refugee Agency, 4,110 people died or went missing while crossing the Mediterranean Sea in 2023.

Referring to the migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, the pope said that “the tragedy is that many, the majority of these deaths, could have been prevented.”

Reflecting on the seas and deserts migrants many cross to reach their destinations, Pope Francis noted the biblical significance of such areas as “places of suffering, of fear, of despair, but at the same time they are places of passage to liberation, to redemption, to attaining freedom and the fulfillment of God’s promises.”

Yet the Mediterranean Sea and the deserts, plains, forests and jungles crossed by migrants in pursuit of a better life have become “migrant cemeteries,” the pope said. “And even here these are often not ‘natural’ deaths, no. At times, they have been taken to the desert and abandoned.”

But, Pope Francis said, “to accompany the people on their journey to freedom, God himself crosses the sea and the desert.”

“God does not remain at a distance, no. He shares in the migrants’ drama, God is there with them, with the migrants,” he said. “He suffers with them, with the migrants, he weeps and hopes with them.”

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Being obedient to God’s commandment and spirit of love can radically change attitudes and actions to convert people from “predators” of natural resources to “tillers” of God’s great garden of planet Earth, Pope Francis said.

“The earth is entrusted to our care, yet continues to belong to God,” according to Judeo-Christian tradition, the pope said in his message for the 2024 the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

“To claim the right to possess and dominate nature, manipulating it at will, thus represents a form of idolatry, a Promethean version of humanity who, intoxicated by its technocratic power, arrogantly places the earth in a ‘dis-graced’ condition, deprived of God’s grace,” he wrote in his message, which was released by the Vatican June 27.

The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which will be celebrated Sept. 1, marks the start of the ecumenical Season of Creation. The season concludes Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology.

The theme for 2024 is “Hope and Act with Creation,” based on St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (8:19-25), in which the apostle considers the destiny of the created world as it shares in the penalty of corruption brought about by sin, concluding that creation will share in the benefits of redemption and future glory that comprise the ultimate liberation of God’s people.

“Why is there so much evil in the world? Why so much injustice, so many fratricidal wars that kill children, destroy cities, pollute the environment and leave mother earth violated and devastated?” the pope said in his message.

“Creation itself, like humanity, was enslaved, albeit through no fault of its own, and finds itself unable to fulfill the lasting meaning and purpose for which it was designed,” he wrote, reflecting on St. Paul’s letter. “It is subject to dissolution and death, aggravated by the human abuse of nature.”

At the same time, St. Paul saw that “the salvation of humanity in Christ is a sure hope also for creation,” which will be “set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God,” he wrote.

“This conversion entails leaving behind the arrogance of those who want to exercise dominion over others and nature itself, reducing the latter to an object to be manipulated, and instead embracing the humility of those who care for others and for all of creation,” he added.

“To hope and act with creation, then, means above all to join forces and to walk together with all men and women of goodwill,” he said in his message.

It also means rethinking the meaning and limitations of human power, which has “made impressive and awesome technological advances,” he wrote. However, “unchecked power creates monsters and then turns against us” and there is “an urgent need to set ethical limits on the development of artificial intelligence.”

Rather than being used for domination over humanity and nature, technology must be “harnessed for the service of peace and integral development,” he wrote.

The pope’s message said Christian theology and its understanding of hope play an important role in helping people of faith make the needed “ecological conversion.”

With God as the loving Father, his Son as the “friend and redeemer of every person, and the Holy Spirit who guides our steps on the path of charity,” he wrote, “obedience to the Spirit of love radically changes the way we think: from ‘predators,’ we become ’tillers’ of the garden.”

Presenting the pope’s message at a news conference at the Vatican June 27, Salesian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said “ecological conversion, like any conversion experience, is a spiritual event with visible, concrete repercussions.”

That is why this year’s message is “markedly theological,” she said, so that it can “support this awareness that makes hope almost a miracle of God in us, but also around us” and help the faithful respond concretely to what is happening in the world.

Father Alberto Ravagnani, who works in youth ministry for the Archdiocese of Milan, said it is important to help young Catholics be able to approach ecological crises and caring for creation from a place of faith and hope, rather than fear.

“The topic of caring for creation is not always adequately brought to the attention of children and young people as a topic of faith,” that is, linking the environment with “our identity as creatures, as children, as brothers and sisters.”

Responding to a question about activists who turn to violent or harmful methods to raise awareness about climate change and related issues, he said, the majority of young people are looking for positive ways to be engaged and help change things, “not by destroying …, but by shaping something new.”

That is why it is important to create real possibilities for young people to take the lead in constructive projects and even help with funding, the priest said.

Most young people are under the impression that the church is trying to hinder technological progress or that “God is insignificant” or “unreliable,” he said.

Young people need to see that the church questions development that threatens human dignity and creation, and promotes progress that is “for the true good of humanity.”