Diocesan seminarian Thomas Dzwonczyk leads a group of young children in Bible study on July 23, the final day of Vacation Bible School, at Saint Catherine of Siena Parish in Moscow.

MOSCOW – From singing songs praising God to listening to bible stories and even learning composting – Saint Catherine of Siena Parish was buzzing with activity the week of July 19-23, 2021.

The weather cooperated as the Lackawanna County parish hosted its annual Vacation Bible School. The weeklong event was held outdoors for the first time to keep both students and volunteers safe.

“We’ve never been outside. It really worked out well,” Sandra Czyzyk, Saint Catherine of Siena Parish Director of Religious Education, said. “We could move from one session to another, getting some fresh air and the kids loved being outside.”

A total of 88 students attended the program. This year’s event was centered on the theme of “Earthkeepers.”

Czyzyk said it took 65 volunteers – many of them young adults – to make sure the program was a success.

Children participate in a Vacation Bible School activity at Holy Rosary Parish in Hazleton in early August. The theme of this year’s weeklong program was “To Mars and Beyond.”

“It means a lot to see the students grow throughout the week,” aide Samantha Bajor, 16, said. “At the start, the kids are always so shy and they don’t really want to talk to you but by the end of the week they all break out of their shell.”

After COVID-19 forced the parish to hold a virtual event last year, Bajor said she is glad everyone was able to gather in person this year. She helped to lead the fourth, fifth and sixth grade students during the week.

“I’m glad it’s back,” Bajor explained.

Fred Kloss, 15, agreed. The teenage youth group member also volunteered to help make this year’s vacation bible school a success.

“It was a great experience. I think it definitely brings younger kids closer to church,” he said.

Kloss believes the students he worked with learned a lot.

“Most of the kids liked the music a lot and the dancing. They learned songs and they sang the lyrics that teach them about their faith as well. A lot of them really liked the bible stories as well,” he added.

Czyzyk said vacation bible school is an important summer event to keep kids connected to the faith and let them see their pastor at their level having fun with them.

“Just coming out in the sunshine and being elbow-to-elbow with other young people, peers of their age, whether they’re 3 or 13 has just been so invigorating, physically and spiritually as well!” she said with a smile.

The reviews from the kids back up the week’s success.

“One little guy said to a teacher – this must be what heaven is like!” Czyzyk added.

Holy Rosary Parish in Hazleton also recently completed a successful weeklong vacation bible school program from Aug. 2-6, 2021.

With the theme “To Mars and Beyond,” 20 students participated in the nightly program at the parish.

“I wanted to start something that would get the kids into their faith, meet new kids and find other followers of Christ and that they could bond together with and spread the Gospel with,” Hailey Dudinyak said.

Dudinyak, a sophomore at Moravian College, put together Holy Rosary’s vacation bible school two years ago for a Girl Scout project and jumped at the chance to do it again this year.

“All the kids, they really put the energy in that we needed to have for it to be successful. I loved all the kids that came. They were just so energetic and they really enjoyed themselves. They all worked together beautifully,” she added.

Dudinyak, along with her brother and a few others, did most of the work for the event.

“Each day we started out with the kids seeing a skit between me and my brother. My brother was a robot called “EP3-20,” which stands of Ephesians 3:20, which was the key bible verse,” she added.

Each session also consisted of learning dances, bible stories and participating in craft projects.

“I actually just received a video from one of the parents of their kid doing the dances in their backyard by the campfire,” Hailey explained. “They’re continuing to praise the Lord and spread the Gospel, which is all we need, and that’s what the whole goal was!”

 

When each individual makes a small act of charity, like getting the COVID-19 vaccine, every gesture added together can transform the world, Pope Francis said in a global ad campaign.

“Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love. And contributing to ensure the majority of people are vaccinated is an act of love — love for oneself, love for one’s family and friends, love for all people,” he said in a public service announcement released Aug. 18 in Rome.

The video message was part of a global effort by the U.S.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit Ad Council and the COVID Collaborative’s “It’s Up To You” campaign to increase people’s confidence in COVID-19 vaccines by reminding them that the vaccines are safe, effective and save people’s lives. The Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development also cooperated with the educational initiative.

The video in Spanish with English, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles features Pope Francis and six cardinals and archbishops from North and South America. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is among them.


 

                           

WELCOME HOME!

As the Diocese of Scranton prepares for the Mass attendance obligation to be reinstated on August 15, Bishop Bambera is welcoming home Catholics across all 11-counties. The celebration of the Mass is the center of our lives as Christians. It is where we are drawn close to Jesus and receive His body and blood – his very life – in the Eucharist.

As this Sunday approaches, the Diocese of Scranton continues to prioritize the health, safety and spiritual well-being of all parishioners. If you need to find a parish or Mass time near you, you can visit the Diocese of Scranton’s website at dioceseofscranton.org.

 

 

ROME (CNS) – Italian police have launched an investigation after postal workers discovered an envelope containing three bullets and addressed to “the pope.”

News reports said the stamp on the envelope indicated it came from France, and the bullets were 9mm Flobert-round bullets. Reportedly, there was a message inside making reference to the Vatican’s financial operations.

The envelope had written on it in pen and with poor handwriting: “The pope. Vatican City. St. Peter’s Square in Rome.”

The envelope was flagged by employees at a mail sorting facility near Milan in the early hours of Aug. 9 and was handed over to Italy’s military police as authorities coordinated their investigation.

According to Wikipedia, 9mm Flobert shotguns are most often used for pest control and face very little to no restriction in Europe, even in countries with strict gun laws, due to their limited power and short range.

 

WASHINGTON (CNS) – A U.S. District Court judge’s Aug. 9 ruling to block the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures despite their own moral or medical objections is “a victory for common sense, conscience and sound medicine.”

That is the view of Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington. He is the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case.

“Today’s ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment,” he said about the ruling in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra.

Franciscan Alliance, based in Mishawaka, Indiana, is a Catholic health care system now known as Franciscan Health that operates hospitals serving Indiana and one hospital in Illinois and employs over 18,000 full- and part-time employees. The defendant is Secretary Xavier Becerra of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

On Aug. 9, Judge Reed O’Connor of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Wichita Falls blocked the HHS regulation — in its current form as proscribed by the Biden administration. It requires doctors to perform gender-transition procedures in children and adults or be held liable for discrimination.

The regulation, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, was first issued in 2016 by HHS under the Obama administration.

In 2020, the Trump administration put in place a final rule that eliminated the general prohibition on discrimination based on gender identity and also adopted abortion and religious freedom exemptions for health care providers. But the courts blocked this rule change.

In 2021, shortly after he was inaugurated, President Joe Biden issued an executive order declaring his administration would apply in all areas — including the ACA — the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court’s in Bostock in 2020 that discrimination based on sex outlawed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers people who are gay or transgender.

“The Christian plaintiffs contend that violation of their statutory rights under RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) is an irreparable harm,” O’Connor said in his ruling.

“The court agrees,” he said, “and concludes that enforcement of the 2021 interpretation (of Section 1557) forces Christian plaintiffs to face civil penalties or to perform gender-transition procedures and abortions contrary to their religious beliefs — a quintessential irreparable injury.”

“The court grants plaintiffs’ request for a permanent injunction and permanently enjoins” HHS, Becerra and all HHS-related divisions, agencies and employees “from interpreting or enforcing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.”

“Today’s decision rightly says the mandate violates federal law,” said Goodrich in a string of tweets. He noted “this is now the second federal court to block the mandate.”

He was referring to a Jan. 19 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota in Fargo in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Franciscan Alliance/Franciscan Health, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. The states of Texas, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska and Wisconsin also joined in the suit.

The Biden administration filed an appeal April 20 with the U.S Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in St. Louis.

Goodrich tweeted that Franciscan Alliance/Franciscan Health’s hospitals and health care professionals “gladly serve all patients regardless of their sex or gender identity, yet were threatened with multimillion dollar penalties by a controversial HHS regulation if they refused to perform gender-transition procedures.”

“These religious doctors and hospitals joyfully serve ALL patients and routinely provide top-notch care to transgender patients. There is ample evidence, however, that some gender transition procedures can harm patients,” Goodrich said.

“Several federal circuits — including the 5th and 1st — have all reached the same conclusion: ‘There is no medical consensus that sex reassignment surgery is a necessary or even effective treatment for gender dysphoria.”

 

Pope Francis greets a child during his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall Aug. 11, 2021. The pope continued his series of audience talks focused on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and reflected on what role God’s law to Moses plays in helping people encounter Christ. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – What made Christian life radically new was the call for those who have faith in Jesus Christ to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the law God handed down to Moses, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience.

Mosaic law was necessary and important to follow at that time in history, but it served as a path to follow toward an eventual encounter with Christ and his commandment of love, he said Aug. 11 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.

The pope continued with his series of talks reflecting on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, focusing on the apostle answering the question, “Why, then, the law” if, after all, “there is the Holy Spirit and if there is Jesus who redeems us?”

“The law is a journey” and it acts like a teacher that takes people by the hand, leading them forward, toward an encounter with Jesus and having faith in Christ, he said.

God gave Moses the law to prepare his people on this journey during a time of rampant idolatry and to help his people guide their behavior in a way that showed and expressed their faith and covenant with God, he said.

However, he said, the law was not the covenant; the covenant came first with Abraham, hundreds of years before Moses, the pope said. The covenant was based not on the observance of the law, but on faith in the fulfilment of God’s promises, he said.

St. Paul needed to clarify the role of the law to the Galatians because there were “fundamentalist missionaries” among them who seemed almost “nostalgic” about observing Mosaic law, believing that adhering to the covenant also included observing the Mosaic law, he said.

The apostle explains that, “in reality, the covenant and the law are not linked indissolubly,” the pope said. “The first element he relies on is that the covenant established by God with Abraham was based on faith in the fulfillment of the promise and not on the observance of the law that did not yet exist.”

“Having said this, one should not think, however, that St. Paul was opposed to the Mosaic law” because he does defend its divine origin and says it has “a well-defined role in the history of salvation,” the pope said.

“The law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the fulfillment of (God’s) promise, because it is not capable of being able to fulfill it. Those who seek life need to look to the promise and to its fulfillment in Christ,” he said.

This was the problem — when people put more importance on observing the law than with encountering Christ, he said.

This passage of St. Paul to the Galatians “presents the radical newness of the Christian life: All those who have faith in Jesus Christ are called to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the law and, at the same time, brings it to fulfillment according to the commandment of love,” he said.

The law is a path and “may the Lord help people walk along the path of the Ten Commandments, however, by looking at Christ’s love, the encounter with Christ, knowing that the encounter with Jesus is more important than all the commandments,” he said.

Addressing people after the main audience talk, Pope Francis told French-speaking visitors that it was “with great sorrow” that he learned of the Aug. 6 murder of the 60-year-old Montfort Father Olivier Maire.

“I extend my condolences to the religious community of the Monfortians in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre in Vendée, to his family and to all Catholics in France,” he said, assuring everyone of his closeness.

At the end of the audience, right before the pope was set to greet visitors, an aide went to the pope, spoke to him for a few minutes and handed him a mobile phone. The pope spoke on the phone for a few minutes, then left the hall briefly before returning to greet visitors as usual.

Visitors were required to wear face masks, but not present a so-called “green pass” of proof of vaccination, of a negative COVID-19 test or of recovery from COVID-19.

Italy recently passed a decree as part of ongoing measures to curb the spread of the virus, by making it obligatory for anyone over the age of 12 to show a “green pass” for certain activities, including to eat indoors at restaurants, enter gyms or movie theaters, visit museums, including the Vatican Museums, and, starting in September, to attend school on-site.

The Italian bishops’ conference published a note July 26 saying the pass was not required for going to Mass or joining in processions, but health measures such as wearing masks and social distancing would be continuing. The green pass was required for people entering church-owned or church-operated movie theaters, museums, restaurants and coffee bars, sporting events, conferences, indoor swimming pools, gyms, social centers and reception venues.

 

Caring for the health, safety and spiritual well-being of all parishioners remains a priority of the Diocese of Scranton during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bishop Joseph C. Bambera issued a new letter to the faithful on August 6, strongly recommending that parishioners wear a mask while attending Mass because of the new delta variant.  He has also requested that all priests, deacons and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion wear masks while distributing Holy Communion, regardless of their vaccination status.

Read Bishop Bambera’s letter below:

 

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Jesus commanded his followers to care for the sick and to bring physical and spiritual healing to everyone. In that spirit, the Catholic bishops of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have issued this statement:

Caring for the health, safety and spiritual wellbeing of parishioners and their communities is a priority of all the bishops of Pennsylvania. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, dioceses have made every effort to implement best practices in public health for every aspect of parish life.  Each diocese is continuously re-evaluating coronavirus mitigation efforts, frequently consulting with state and federal healthcare experts and constantly monitoring data. Diocesan leaders are listening to input from parishioners, including those with medical expertise, as cases of the Delta and other new variants are surging.

It is now evident that this global health crisis could linger for months or years to come. Our call as shepherds is to provide the Eucharist in a safe environment. To that end, each diocesan bishop will communicate to the faithful, asking them to prioritize their own health and the health of their neighbors and faith communities.

As previously announced, the bishops are reinstating the obligation to attend Mass in person on Sundays and holy days beginning on Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. However, by longstanding Church law, this obligation does not apply to those who are:

  • Sick
  • Have a serious health risk
  • In a household with those at risk
  • Primary caregivers to those at risk
  • Have serious anxiety or concerns about being in a large-group setting due to COVID-19
  • Unable to attend Mass in person

As an act of charity, anyone who believes they might have COVID-19 or one of its variants should stay home.

Those who are legitimately excused from Mass on Sundays and Holy Days are encouraged to spend time in prayer, meditating on the death and Resurrection of the Lord, reading the sacred Scriptures, and uniting themselves to Christ. They are also encouraged to investigate the numerous options to view broadcasts and streams of Mass, which are continuing across the state.

While masks are not currently mandated, each parishioner is strongly encouraged to make a responsible decision about the use of masks and vaccinations following in the examples of all Pennsylvania Bishops, Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who have all been vaccinated for the common good.

Our coronavirus mitigation efforts will continue to evolve, based on the most up-to-date public health information. Each bishop will continue to communicate with his faithful as changes become necessary.

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference is based in Harrisburg and is the public affairs arm of PA’s Catholic bishops.

 

 

Since its dedication, the twin towers of the Cathedral have been a Scranton landmark. Gain a new perspective of this historic building through its art and architecture. On Friday, August 6 at 7:00 p.m., Monsignor Rupert, Cathedral Pastor, will offer a tour highlighting the numerous frescoes, stained glass windows, mosaics, and other works of art which bring to life our local history.

The Valenches Music Company will be performing live music on the porch of the Cathedral starting at 6 p.m.

The tour is presented in conjunction with First Friday Scranton.

 

Father Ed Michelini, seminarian Marc Philips during French Azilum Mass on Sunday, July 25, 2021

BRADFORD COUNTY – Returning to the first roots of the Catholic faith in Bradford County, where they were originally planted, Father Ed Michelini from Ss. Peter & Paul Parish in Towanda began a new tradition four years ago. Once a year, on a Sunday in July, he offers Mass at the French Azilum Historic Site, accompanied by parishioners and visitors. The Board of Directors at the French Azilum Site welcomes this event each year on their calendar as another living link to its past history.

Many aristocrats fled the violence of the French Revolution by coming to America in the late 18th century. The group of refugees who came to this area had an additional goal — to establish a place of refuge for their Queen, Marie Antoinette, and her two children, hence the name “Azilum,” which means asylum or safety.

Investors in Philadelphia who were sympathetic to the French loyalists’ plight, initially purchased 1600 acres along the Susquehanna River. They set aside 300 acres on a fertile “horseshoe” bend in the river for a planned community, including agricultural area, and began building houses for the refugees.

The occupation began in 1793, including one or more priests, and more homes added as numbers increased. As history explains, Marie Antoinette did not escape death, and the “Grand Maison” (The Big House) which they had built for the queen was later utilized for other purposes. This community eventually dwindled; by the turn of the century, several had migrated to more established places, such as New Orleans with its large French population; many others returned home to France when the new government granted them amnesty.

A few families remained, and some of their descendants are still among the local county population. Place names, like Homet’s Ferry and LaPorte are remnants of that period.

On Sunday, July 25, 2021, Father Michelini, along with parish summer seminarian, Marc Philips, set up the altar under the pavilion for the 1:00 p.m. Mass. A number of parishioners, site guides and visitors assembled and participated in the Mass. In his homily, Father Michelini recalled not only our grandparents and the elderly, for the celebration of the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, but also the region’s ancestors in faith, and the intrepid French settlers who made Bradford County home.

Marc Philips led the entrance and recessional hymns, with all happily joining in singing in the open air. He also sang a solo Communion hymn. A gentle breeze wafted like the Holy Spirit through the flock of the faithful who gathered once more on the grounds for the Holy Mass.