Category: Diocese of Scranton News

HARRISBURG – The number of abortions in Pennsylvania rose during 2021, according to recent figures released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Statistics show 33,206 abortions took place in Pennsylvania in 2021, an increase of 1,083 abortions over the 2020 total of 32,123. Pennsylvania has been monitoring and reporting on abortion data since 1975.

In 2021, the largest age group having abortions was 25-29, accounting for 9,771 (29.4%). Individuals under age 20 accounted for 7.7 percent of all abortions and individuals under age 18 accounted for 2.1 percent. Comparatively, in 2020, individuals under age 20 accounted for 7.9 percent and individuals under age 18 accounted for 2.4 percent.

Similar to 2020, 92.9 percent of the abortions performed in 2021 were on Pennsylvania residents. Residents of other states, territories and other countries accounted for 2,352 abortions in 2021.

Of the abortions performed in 2021 in Pennsylvania, more than 92 percent were performed in nine counties: Allegheny, Bucks, Dauphin, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia and York.

In 2021, there were 322 reports of complications from abortions that were submitted by physicians; 34.7 percent more than the 239 reported in 2020.

“Every abortion is a tragedy, but the increase in the number of abortions in Pennsylvania is particularly disturbing,” Maria Gallagher, legislative director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Keystone State affiliate of National Right to Life, said.

The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation is a grassroots right-to-life organization with members statewide. The agency is committed to promoting the dignity and value of human life from conception to natural death and to restoring legal protection for preborn children.

“Imagine how many kindergarten classes the number 1,083 represents. We mourn the loss of these precious children, who never got the chance to see their mother’s face,” Gallagher added.

Induced Abortions Performed in Pennsylvania in 2021 by County:

Bradford: 7

Lackawanna: 479

Luzerne: 725

Lycoming: 145

Monroe: 385

Pike: 35

Sullivan: 7

Susquehanna: 18

Tioga: 2

Wayne: 47

Wyoming: 16

HAZLETON – The Hazleton Chapter of Pennsylvanians for Human Life will sponsor a bus trip to the annual March for Life on Friday, Jan. 20, in Washington D.C.

The details are as follows: 7 a.m. Mass at Saint Gabriel Church, 212 South Wyoming St., Hazleton, for those wishing to attend. The bus will leave from Saint Gabriel’s promptly at 7:30 a.m. Parking is available in the church parking lot.

The bus is expected to arrive at the National Mall in Washington between 11 and 11:30 a.m., where attendees will listen to the rally speakers. The March for Life begins at 1 p.m. Bus pickup for return home will be at 4:15 p.m. at the Indian Museum, located on Jefferson Drive SW between 3rd and 4th streets.

Cost is $50 for adults and $30 for students/children. Fee includes water and snacks on the bus and a buffet dinner stop at Mountain Gate Restaurant.

To reserve a seat, call Carol Matz at (570) 956-0817. Payment is needed to confirm all reservations. Payment may be mailed to: Pennsylvanians for Human Life, P.O. Box 83, Harleigh, PA 18225.

A limited amount of scholarships are available for anyone with financial hardship who wishes to attend.

Anyone wishing to participate but who may be physically unable to march is welcome to join the trip and spend the day in prayer at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

SCRANTON – Saint Francis of Assisi Kitchen in Scranton has begun the 45th annual Host-for-a-Day campaign to support its mission of providing a free daily meal and other services to needy men, women and children in the area.

For a donation of $100 or more, an individual, family, business, community organization or faith-based group can help to sponsor the day’s meal. Recognized sponsorships begin at the $500 contribution level.

In effect, each contributor becomes a “host” for a day. Contributors may then select a date on which they, or someone they designate or memorialize, will be recognized as the provider for that meal.

Financial contributions to the Kitchen also help to fund other programs such as a Client-Choice Food Pantry and Free Clothing Store, and weekly meals at parish locations and high-rise apartment buildings in Carbondale and Olyphant.

“These services benefit people of all ages, and the need is greater than ever,” Rob Williams, Kitchen Executive Director, said. He noted that in 2022 the Kitchen provided 75,000 nutritious meals.

In addition, the number of family servings in the Food Pantry grew from 300 to nearly 800 per month and there were more than 400 individual visits per month at the Free Clothing Store.

Mr. Williams announced that this year the Kitchen will launch a free mobile clothing trailer to bring clothing items to those in need in surrounding communities. Also, the weekly meal service currently provided in Olyphant and Carbondale will expand to Roaring Brook Township.

Dr. Tania Stoker, a member of the Kitchen’s Advisory Board, is chairing the 2023 Host-for-a-Day campaign and leading the effort with her fellow board members.

“Throughout the history of the Kitchen, we have received such generous support from the community and we are thankful that so many people recognize the need to help others. We are hopeful they will continue to participate in this campaign,” she said.

Past contributors to the campaign are receiving an appeal directly from the Kitchen through the mail or will be contacted by members of the Kitchen’s Advisory Board.

Anyone who does not receive an appeal through the mail can make a Host-for-a-Day gift by calling the Kitchen at (570) 342-5556 or sending a check to Saint Francis of Assisi Kitchen, 500 Penn Avenue, Scranton PA 18509. Donations can also be made online at stfranciskitchen.org or facebook.com/stfranciskitchen.

This year the celebration that concludes the campaign will return to an in-person gathering to be held at Fiorelli’s in Peckville on Wednesday, May 3, beginning at 6 p.m. Each contributor and a guest is invited to attend. RSVPs are required by April 3 to confirm attendance and an accurate meal count.

Those who would like to sponsor the reception are asked to call the Kitchen at (570) 342-5556.

LAFLIN — The Feast of the Holy Spouses will celebrated at the Oblates of Saint Joseph Chapel, Route 315, Laflin, on Sunday, Jan. 22, with a special Eucharistic liturgy at 3 p.m.

Guest celebrant and homilist for this year’s feast day Mass will be Father Jeffrey Tudgay, Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Scranton, who also serves as pastor of the Cathedral of Saint Peter.

The annual celebration of the Holy Spouses honors the spousal role of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, exalting the sanctity of marriage and family life within our modern world.

The special feast was approved by the Vatican for the Congregation for the Oblates of the Saint Joseph in 1989.

All faithful are invited to attend Holy Spouses celebration, which will conclude with a social.

For more information, contact the OSJ seminary office at (570) 654-7542.

SCRANTON – On Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2022, seminarians from the Diocese of Scranton gathered with Bishop Bambera and other young men for Project Andrew Evening Prayer followed by a reception at the Cathedral Rectory.

The event gives priests from around the Diocese of Scranton the opportunity to invite individuals whom they might think have a priestly vocation or the qualities needed in a good priest to have dinner with Bishop Bambera in a relaxed, “no pressure” atmosphere of discussion and dialogue about the life of a priest.

Pictured above, first row, from left: Father Alex Roche, Diocesan Director of Vocations & Seminarians; Bishop Bambera; Monsignor David Bohr, Diocesan Secretary for Clergy Formation. Second row: Seminarians Cody Yarnall and Jeremy Barket. Third row: Seminarian Harry Rapp and Rev. Mr. Michael Boris. Fourth Row: Seminarians Andrew McCarroll and Jacob Mutchler. Fifth Row: Seminarians Thomas Dzwonczyk and William Asinari. (Photo/Mike Melisky)

SCRANTON – On Jan. 21 & 22, 2023, all parishes in the Diocese of Scranton will hold a second collection in all parishes for the Church in Latin America.

The collection funds a wide range of pastoral activities and programs, from evangelization programs to pregnancy centers to leadership development of community leaders based on Catholic Social Teaching.

The Bishops of the United States decided in 1965, at the end of the Second Vatican Council to establish this collection, recognizing that the church in Latin America needed help and it was important to establish a relationship with our sister churches to the South.

Since the collection began, more than $185 million has been donated by U.S. Catholics. The collection has been increasing through the years, with about $68.5 million contributed over the past decade.

Almost every country, with the exception of some very small Caribbean island nations, has received assistance throughout the years. In the last few years, Haiti has been among the top five recipients along with larger countries like Peru and Colombia. Cuba has also received significant amounts of funding.

 

ROME (OSV News) – In what looks like a continuation of pontifical legacy, Pope Benedict XVI was buried in the crypt where his Polish predecessor, St. John Paul II, was first buried. St. John XXIII also was buried there prior to his beatification.

A triple coffin – the first one made of cypress, the second of zinc and the third one of oak – was put into the grotto Jan. 5 following the funeral Mass with Pope Francis presiding.

The place of burial is unique for many who knew the fond relationship of St. John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope who was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal official under the Polish pontiff.

“It is a sign of friendship that goes way beyond their earthly life,” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, told OSV News. The cardinal was master of papal ceremonies under both St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict.

“I think it truly symbolically closes the earthly symbiosis of the two popes – the Polish and German pontiff,” added Yago de la Cierva, professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.

The Holy See Press Office predicted the crypt where Pope Benedict was laid to rest will be ready for the faithful to visit after Jan. 8.
The two popes had a unique intellectual friendship throughout St. John Paul’s papacy. They also were close collaborators. In 1981, the pontiff made Cardinal Ratzinger prefect of what was then called the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and since renamed a dicastery.

In Italy to this day, the office is called Sant’Uffizio, the Holy Office, and has been one of the most fundamental curial offices for centuries. As the doctrinal guardian office of the Catholic Church, it also is handling cases of clerical sexual abuse.

“I think Joseph Ratzinger was John Paul’s safety net. The Polish pope wanted to transform the Church in every country, but he needed someone to remain in the office to make sure his ‘new initiatives’ were truly Catholic, he needed to have a theologian as a backup. And Karol Wojtyla trusted Ratzinger in every doctrinal issue,” de la Cierva told OSV News.

Cardinal Ratzinger was the one behind many of the Polish pontiff’s documents.

“I remember one press conference with Joseph Ratzinger in the Holy See Press Office,” de la Cierva said. “Someone asked him what he thought about a papal encyclical, and with a smile on his face he answered that he didn’t need to give an opinion because he recognized himself in many texts of John Paul II.”

As history showed, he was writing first drafts of many of them.

After St. John Paul’s death April 2, 2005, newly elected Pope Benedict XVI often prayed at the tomb of his predecessor. On May 9, only a month after the Polish pontiff’s death, the new pope began the beatification process for Pope John Paul II. He was declared “blessed” May 1, 2011. (Pope Francis canonized him and St. John XXIII in 2014.)

Even if their characters seemed a world away, Pope Benedict was similar to St. John Paul in many aspects.

“Pope Benedict XVI would spend a lot of time in the chapel. He was a man of prayer and at the same time a titan of work,” Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki, the Latin Church metropolitan of Lviv, Ukraine, told OSV News.

Archbishop Mokrzycki was a secretary of St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict asked him to continue his mission for the first two years of his papacy. Then the German pope made him archbishop of Lviv in western Ukraine, a city with deep Polish roots.

“When I arrived there, we were renovating the residence of the Lviv bishops, and I put a stained-glass window with both John Paul and Benedict there,” Archbishop Mokrzycki told OSV News. “I truly believe one day he will become a saint, I saw his everyday work, and I can tell this was a holy man.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI “spread and testified to” the Gospel his entire life, Pope Francis told tens of thousands of people gathered Jan. 5 for his predecessor’s funeral Mass.

“Like the women at the tomb, we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show him once more the love that is undying. We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness and devotion that he bestowed upon us over the years,” Pope Francis said in his homily.

The Mass in St. Peter’s Square was the first time in more than 200 years that a pope celebrated the funeral of his predecessor. Pope Pius VII had celebrated the funeral of Pius VI in 1802 when his remains were returned to Rome after he died in exile in France in 1799.

Pope Benedict, who had retired in 2013, had requested his funeral be simple; the only heads of state invited to lead delegations were those of Italy and his native Germany.

However, many dignitaries – including Queen Sofia of Spain and King Philippe of Belgium – and presidents and government ministers representing more than a dozen nations were in attendance, as were most of the ambassadors to the Holy See.

Members of the College of Cardinals sat on one side of the casket, while, on the other side, sat special guests, including the late pope’s closest collaborators and representatives of the Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant and U.S. evangelical communities. Jewish and Muslim organizations also sent delegations.

Pope Francis presided over the Mass and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, was the main celebrant at the altar. Some 120 cardinals, another 400 bishops and 3,700 priests concelebrated. The vestments and stoles were red in keeping with the color of mourning for deceased popes.

Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, who turns 91 Jan. 13, was allowed to leave China to attend the funeral of Pope Benedict, who had made him a cardinal in 2006. The retired cardinal was arrested in May and fined in November together with five others on charges of failing to properly register a now-defunct fund to help anti-government protesters.

More than 1,000 journalists, photographers and camera operators from around the world were accredited to cover the funeral in St. Peter’s Square.

An estimated 50,000 people filled the square for the Mass, and a number of visitors told Catholic News Service that banners and flags were being confiscated by security upon entrance. Of the few flags and banners that did make it past security was a white cloth with “Santo Subito” (“Sainthood Now”) written in red and a “Thank you, Pope Benedict” written in light blue in German.

Just as Pope Benedict dedicated his pontificate to directing the faithful’s focus to the person of Christ, Pope Francis dedicated his homily to Christ’s loving devotion and suffering witness as the “invitation and the program of life that he quietly inspires in us,” rather than on a summary of his predecessor’s life.

Pope Francis spoke of Jesus’ grateful, prayerful and sustained devotion to God’s will and how Jesus’ final words on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” summed up his entire life, “a ceaseless self-entrustment into the hands of his Father.”

“His were hands of forgiveness and compassion, healing and mercy, anointing and blessing, which led him also to entrust himself into the hands of his brothers and sisters,” he said.

“Father into your hands I commend my spirit,” the pope said, is the plan for life that Jesus quietly invites and inspires people to follow.

However, he said, the path requires sustained and prayerful devotion that is “silently shaped and refined amid the challenges and resistance that every pastor must face in trusting obedience to the Lord’s command to feed his flock.”

“Like the Master, a shepherd bears the burden of interceding and the strain of anointing his people, especially in situations where goodness must struggle to prevail and the dignity of our brothers and sisters is threatened,” said the pope.

“The Lord quietly bestows the spirit of meekness that is ready to understand, accept, hope and risk, notwithstanding any misunderstandings that might result. It is the source of an unseen and elusive fruitfulness, born of his knowing the One in whom he has placed his trust,” he said.

“Feeding means loving, and loving also means being ready to suffer. Loving means giving the sheep what is truly good, the nourishment of God’s truth, of God’s word, the nourishment of his presence,” Pope Francis said, quoting his predecessor’s homily marking the start of his pontificate April 24, 2005.

“Holding fast to the Lord’s last words and to the witness of his entire life, we too, as an ecclesial community, want to follow in his steps and to commend our brother into the hands of the Father,” he said of Pope Benedict. “May those merciful hands find his lamp alight with the oil of the Gospel that he spread and testified to for his entire life.”

“God’s faithful people, gathered here, now accompany and entrust to him the life of the one who was their pastor,” the pope said. “Together, we want to say, ‘Father, into your hands we commend his spirit.'”

“Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever!” he concluded, as the crowd prayed in silence.

Among the people in the crowd was Georg Bruckmaier who traveled nearly 10 hours by car to come to the funeral from his home in Bavaria, not far away from where the late pope was born.

Wearing a Bavarian flag around his back, he told CNS, “There are a lot of Bavarians here today, I’ve seen people I know from university. I wanted to be here for the atmosphere.”

“People felt very close to him, because he is a Bavarian, so this is a really big event to be here,” Bruckmaier said, adding that being able to pay his last respects before the pope’s remains in St. Peter’s Basilica, “is a different thing than seeing it on television. It’s something I won’t forget in my whole life.”

Fiona-Louise Devlin told CNS she and her companions were wearing scarves from the late pope’s visit to Scotland in 2010. She said they traveled to Rome from Scotland specifically for the funeral, booking their flight the day the pope passed away.

“He’s the pope of our generation. Like, how so many people say that John Paul II was their pope, he was mine. I’ve traveled around the world to go to celebrations that he’s been a part of, so I wanted to be here for this,” she said.

As the day began, the thick morning fog obscuring the cupola slowly began to lift as 12 laymen emerged from the basilica carrying the pope’s casket. The crowd applauded as the cypress casket was brought into the square and placed before the altar.

The pope’s master of liturgical ceremonies, Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli, and Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the late pope’s longtime personal secretary, together placed an opened Book of the Gospels on the casket. The simple casket was decorated with his coat of arms as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, which depicts a shell, a Moor and a bear loaded with a pack on his back.

The Bible readings at the Mass were in Spanish, English and Italian, and the prayers of the faithful at the Mass were recited in German, French, Arabic, Portuguese and Italian.

The prayers included petitions for “Pope Emeritus Benedict, who has fallen asleep in the Lord: may the eternal Shepherd receive him into his kingdom of light and peace,” followed by a prayer “for our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and for all the pastors of the church: may they proclaim fearlessly, in word and deed, Christ’s victory over evil and death.”

The other prayers were for justice and peace in the world, for those suffering from poverty and other forms of need, and for those gathered at the funeral.

At the pope’s funeral, like any Catholic funeral, Communion was followed by the “final commendation and farewell,” asking that “Pope Emeritus Benedict” be delivered from death and “may sing God’s praises in the heavenly Jerusalem.”

Pope Francis prayed that God have mercy on his predecessor, who was “a fearless preacher of your word and a faithful minister of the divine mysteries.”

While the funeral was based on the model of a papal funeral, two key elements normally part of a papal funeral following the farewell prayer were missing: there were no prayers offered by representatives of the Diocese of Rome and of the Eastern Catholic churches, since those prayers are specific to the death of a reigning pope, who is bishop of the Diocese of Rome and is in communion with the leaders of the Eastern-rite churches.

A bell tolled solemnly and the assembly applauded for several minutes — with some chanting “Benedetto” — as the pallbearers carried the casket toward St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Francis blessed the casket and laid his right hand on it in prayer, then bowed slightly in reverence before it was taken inside for a private burial in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the same tomb that held the remains of St. Pope John Paul II before his beatification.

The evening before the funeral Mass a small assembly of cardinals, officials of St. Peter’s Basilica and members of the late pope’s household gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica to witness Pope Benedict’s body being placed into a cypress casket and closed. The ceremony took place Jan. 4 after about 195,000 people had paid their respects to the pope over three days of public viewing.

The “rogito,” a document rolled up and placed in a tube, was placed in the casket with the body. In addition to containing his biography, the legal document, written in Latin, also attested to his death and burial. Medals and coins minted during his pontificate also were placed in the casket.

Archbishop Gänswein and Msgr. Ravelli extended a white silk cloth over the deceased pope’s face. The pope was wearing a miter and the chasuble he wore for Mass at World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008; between his clasped hands were a rosary and small crucifix.

After the funeral Mass, the pope’s casket was taken to the chapel in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica where he was to be buried.

Although the burial was private, images supplied by Vatican Media showed Cardinal Re leading prayers and blessing the remains during the burial rite attended by a small number of senior cardinals, the retired pope’s closest aides and others.

The cypress casket was wrapped with red ribbon, which was affixed to the wood with red wax seals, then placed inside a zinc casket soldered shut and put inside a larger casket made of oak. The tops of both the zinc and oak caskets were decorated with a simple cross, a bronze plaque with the pope’s name and dates of birth, papacy and death, and his papal coat of arms.

His tomb is located between the only two women buried in the grotto under the basilica: the 15th-century Queen Charlotte of Cyprus and the 17th-century Queen Christina of Sweden.

The burial ceremony ended before 1 p.m. but Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said he thought the crypt would not be open to the public until Jan. 8.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI was a renowned theologian, a “recognized authority,” who left “a rich legacy of studies and research on the fundamental truths of the faith,” said the official summary of his life and papacy.

The 1,000-word text, known as a “rogito,” was rolled up, slipped into a metal cylinder and placed with his body in a cypress casket late Jan. 4 after an estimated 195,000 people had passed by his body in St. Peter’s Square to pay their respects.

The text, released in Latin and Italian shortly before the pope’s funeral Mass Jan. 5, highlighted his work as a theologian, his ecumenical outreach, his relations with the Jewish community and his efforts to deal with the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

The short biography about his birth, childhood and education also noted that “the time of his youth was not easy. His family’s faith and his upbringing prepared him for the difficult experience of the problems associated with the Nazi regime, knowing the climate of strong hostility toward the Catholic Church in Germany.”

However, it said, “in this complex situation, he discovered the beauty and truth of faith in Christ.”

The text spoke of his ordination and his career as a professor of theology and noted his role as a “peritus” or theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council, his appointment as archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and his creation as a cardinal by St. Paul VI later that same year.

“On Friday, April 8, 2005,” it said, “he presided over the Holy Mass for the funeral of John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.”

Elected St. John Paul’s successor April 19, 2005, it said, “he presented himself as ‘a humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord'” when he greeted the crowds from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“Benedict XVI placed the theme of God and faith at the center of his pontificate in a continuous search for the face of the Lord Jesus Christ,” the text said. He tried to help “everyone to know him, particularly through the publication of the three-volume work ‘Jesus of Nazareth.'”

“Endowed with vast and profound biblical and theological knowledge, he had the extraordinary ability to elaborate enlightening syntheses on major doctrinal and spiritual themes, as well as on crucial issues in the life of the church and contemporary culture,” the rogito continued.

Turning to his efforts at dialogue, the document said that “he successfully promoted dialogue with Anglicans, Jews and representatives of other religions, as well as resumed contacts with the priests of the St. Pius X community.”

The mention of Anglicans seemed to refer to initial tensions and then a resumption of dialogue after Pope Benedict made special pastoral provisions for Catholics coming from the Anglican tradition, establishing in 2009 personal ordinariates, jurisdictions similar to dioceses, which recognize their full communion with Rome while preserving some of their Anglican heritage.

The “resumed contacts with the priests of the St. Pius X community,” referred to the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and other Catholics attached to the “extraordinary” or pre-Vatican II form of the Mass. Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of four of the society’s bishops who were ordained illicitly in 1988 and launched a long and intense dialogue with the group.

Pope Benedict’s papal teaching, in encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, catechesis at his general audiences and speeches and homilies “delivered during his 24 apostolic journeys around the world” also were mentioned.

“In the face of increasingly rampant relativism and practical atheism,” it said, he established the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization in 2010.

And, the document said, “he firmly fought against crimes committed by members of the clergy against minors and vulnerable people, continually calling the church to conversion, prayer, penance and purification.”

Pope Benedict was the first pope in some 600 years to resign.

The rogito included the complete text he read in Latin Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced at an ordinary consistory of cardinals that he was stepping down. He had explained that “in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”