Following his election May 8 as the 266th Successor to Peter, Pope Leo XIV addressed the College of Cardinals, saying that from the time of St. Peter and “up to myself, his unworthy successor, the pope has been a humble servant of God and of his brothers and sisters, and nothing more than this.” Read more on Pope Leo XIV’s election on pp 2-3. —OSV News photo/ Dylan Martinez, Reuters
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Wow, so much has happened in the life of our Church since our last publication of the Catholic Spirit. We thought Pope Francis’ health was improving as he got out of the hospital, and we heard of him going to a prison to pray on Holy Thursday, then arriving in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday to give the Blessing for the city and the world. Easter Monday, Pope Francis returned to the Father’s house in heaven. We accompany him with our prayers and thank him for his Petrine ministry!
As you might remember, I was fortunate to have gotten to know Pope Francis during my time in Rome while serving as Rector of the Pontifical North American College. Our American seminary was the first seminary he visited after his election as Supreme Pontiff. On my subsequent trips to Rome, after my assignment here as your Bishop, I always stopped to see him while visiting Rome. At Christmas and Easter, he always wrote to assure me of prayers for the faithful of Metuchen and asked that we remember to pray for him.
I was in Rome for some meetings the week of his funeral, so felt blessed to participate in the transfer of his body from the Santa Marta residence where he lived to the Basilica of St. Peter’s, then to concelebrate his funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square. I ran into others from our Diocese visiting Rome that week, too, so was able to pray with them and visit.
After our period of mourning, we all joined in prayer as the cardinal electors gathered to choose a new successor to St. Peter. I was in Rome and in the square to see the white smoke and to welcome the new Holy Father as he came to the balcony of St. Peter’s for the first time when Pope Benedict and Pope Francis were elected. It is an edifying, Spirit
filled moment. The cardinals participate in an election, but very much unlike the elections we normally take part in. As they gathered in the Sistine Chapel under the gaze of Christ the Judge, the cardinals did something similar to what the first apostles did when they chose St. Matthias to replace Judas as one of the original 12 apostles. They prayed like we read about in the Acts of the Apostles, that the Lord, who knows the hearts of all, would show them who was the chosen one (Acts 12:25).
The result was astonishing to most of us – an American born Pope! “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:18).
God, who is ever faithful, has provided us a new shepherd, a Peter for our day. I think we are so blessed to have a pope who knows our situation here in the United States. Pope Leo grew up here, studied here, even nearby in Philadelphia, has family living here in the states and many friends. I think he will be able to guide us in our work of evangelization, preaching and shepherding in ways that will greatly assist us as we face the challenges of our day. It is a moment for us to discern what God is asking of us in the United States right now. How can we use this time to bring more to know, love and serve our Lord here in our country, perhaps even those who have drifted away?
He has told us that he chose the name Leo XIV, in part, because Pope Leo XIII lived in a time of great upheaval as the Industrial revolution was changing the world. His predecessor was committed to helping to figure out the new landscape as the world turned from an agrarian society of farmers to one where cities began to quickly grow larger as factory workers were needed. Immigration to the U.S. was in full swing to help meet this need as many places of poverty in Europe couldn’t provide for the basic needs of life. In our day, we also live in a time of great change, as technology and
AI are changing everything, immigration is an issue again, too, and Pope Leo XIV wants to be sure that Jesus is at the center and that the Gospels shed light upon our situation today. What a wonderful insight.
The three pillars of the Augustinian order are Unity, Truth and Love. Pope Leo has embodied these in his life and ministry, being an Augustinian and their major superior. These pillars will certainly serve him well as he strives to govern and shepherd the Church in our day. They are an antidote to many sicknesses that have crept into our country and even our Church. Likewise, his experiences of ministering in Peru for so many years and in Rome, in addition to his American background, make him a global Catholic citizen, so he will be a Pope for all.
We are certainly proud to have the first American Pope in Leo XIV! He needs and deserves our prayers, love and support, so I ask you to join me in praying for him.
Let us pray, Lord, source of eternal life and truth, give to Pope Leo XIV a spirit of courage and right judgment, a spirit of knowledge and love. By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care, may he, as successor to the Apostle Peter and vicar of Christ, build your Church into a sacrament of unity, love, and peace for all the world. Amen
Know of my love, prayers and gratitude for you as we continue our Easter journey filled with the graces of this blessed season! Let us thank God for His faithfulness to us. God bless you and your loved ones.
Yours in Christ,
Most
Reverend James F. Checchio, JCD, MBA Bishop of Metuchen
By Russell Shaw, OSV News
Cardinal Robert F. Prevost has selected the name Pope Leo XIV, an apparent nod to Pope Leo XIII, who deserves to be called the founding father of Catholic social doctrine in modern times, with his encyclical “Rerum Novarum” as its foundational document. Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903) laid the foun dation for modern Catholic social teaching with his landmark 1891 encyclical, which addressed the rights and dignity of workers in the face of industrialization. Defending private property while affirming workers’ rights to fair wages, unions and humane conditions, Pope Leo positioned the church as a moral voice in economic matters.
Born Gioacchino Pecci in 1810, Pope Leo had a long ecclesiastical career before becoming pope. Though elected as a transitional pope due to his age and health, he served for 25 years, the third-longest papacy in history. He encouraged a revival of Thomistic philosophy and warned against excessive nationalism and secularism, especially in his letter “Testem Benevolentiae,” which addressed concerns about “Americanism.” While conservative in piety, Pope Leo’s leadership marked a shift toward engaging modern society with reasoned faith. His teaching legacy, especially “Rerum Novarum,” continues to shape Catholic social thought today.
Pope Leo XIII is depicted in this official Vatican portrait.
—OSV News photo/Library of Congress
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By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Cardinal Rob ert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.
He is the first North American to be elected pope and, before the conclave, was the U.S. cardinal most mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter.
The white smoke poured from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at 6:07 p.m. Rome time and a few minutes later the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began to ring.
About 20 minutes later the Vatican police band and two dozen members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard marched into St. Peter’s Square. They soon were joined by the marching band of the Italian Carabinieri, a branch of military police, and by units of the other branches of the Italian military.
As soon as news began to spread, people from all over Rome ran to join the tens of thousands who were already in the square for the smoke watch. Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri was among them.
French Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at 7:12 p.m. He told the crowd: “I announce to you a great joy. We have a pope (‘Habemus papam’),” saying the cardinal’s name in Latin and announcing the name by which he will be called.
Twenty minutes later, the new Pope Leo came out onto the balcony, smiling and waving to the crowd wearing the white papal cassock, a red mozzetta or cape and a red stole to give his first public blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).
The crowd shouted repeatedly,
the first greeting of the risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for God’s flock,” he said, praying that Christ’s peace would enter people’s hearts, their families and “the whole earth.”
The peace of the risen Lord, he said, is “a peace that is unarmed and disarming.”
Signaling strong continuity with the papacy of Pope Francis, Pope Leo told the crowd that God “loves all of us un conditionally” and that the Church must be open to everyone.
“We are all in God’s hands,” he said, so “without fear, united, hand in hand with God and with each other, let us go forward.”
He thanked the cardinals who elected him, apparently on the fourth ballot of the conclave, “to be the successor of Peter and to walk with you as a united Church always seeking peace, justice” and together being missionary disciples of Christ.
ald W. Wuerl, the retired archbishop of Washington; and Marc Ouellet, retired prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
Above, Pope Leo XIV, the former Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, waves to the crowds in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican after his election as pope May 8, 2025. The new pope was born in Chicago.
Pope Leo XIV’s coat of arms with his episcopal motto, “In Illo uno unum,” literally “In the One (Christ), we are one,” is seen in an image published by the Vatican Secretariat of State May 10, 2025.
Telling the crowd that he was an Augustinian, he quoted St. Augustine, who said, “With you I am a Christian and for you a bishop.”
“Together we must try to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges and always dialogues, that is always open to receiving everyone like this square with its arms open to everyone, everyone in need,” he said.
The new bishop of Rome told the people of his diocese and of the whole Catholic Church, “We want to be a synodal Church, a Church that journeys, a Church that seeks peace always, that always seeks charity, that wants to be close to people, especially those who are suffering.”
After asking the crowd to recite the Hail Mary with him, Pope Leo gave his first solemn blessing.
A longtime missionary in Peru, the 69-year-old pope holds both U.S. and Peruvian citizenship.
La Repubblica, the major Italian daily, described him April 25 as “cosmopolitan and shy,” but also said he was “appreciated by conservatives and progressives. He has global visibility in a conclave in which few (cardinals) know each other.”
That visibility comes from the fact that as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he was instrumental in helping Pope Francis choose bishops for many Latin-rite dioceses, he met hundreds of bishops during their “ad limina” visits to Rome and was called to assist the world’s Latin-rite bishops “in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them.”
—CNS photos/Vatican Media
The new pope was serving as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, when Pope Francis called him to the Vatican in January 2023.
During a talk at St. Jude Parish in Chicago in August, the then-cardinal said Pope Francis nominated him “specifically because he did not want someone from the Roman Curia to take on this role. He wanted a missionary; he wanted someone from outside; he wanted someone who would come in with a different perspective.”
In a March 2024 interview with Catholic News Service, he said Pope Francis’ decision in 2022 to name three women as full members of the dicastery, giving them input on the selection of bishops “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the church in episcopal ministry.”
To deter attitudes of clericalism among bishops, he said, “it’s important to find men who are truly interested in serving, in preaching the Gospel, not just with eloquent words, but rather with the example and witness they give.”
In fact, the cardinal said, Pope Francis’ “most effective and important” bulwark against clericalism was his being “a pastor who preaches by gesture.”
In an interview in 2023 with Vatican
Ten years ago, on the Solemnity of Pentecost, Pope Francis gave his encyclical, Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, to the world, sharing with all of us the interconnectedness of all things and unfolding the relationship we are to have with others and with creation. Woven in to the letter is also a clear reminder of how often we have failed at both. But, as Pope Francis continued to believe, there is always hope, especially when we remember whose children we are and take action as good stewards of creation. We are called to embrace the transformative power of God’s love.
By David Karas, Correspondent
Whether in the classroom or around the church, students in Catholic schools and faithful in parishes across the Diocese of Metuchen are working to live out the calling of the late Pope Francis to care for creation.
In 2015, Pope Francis released an encyclical letter on the environment, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home.” The teaching letter was offered as a spiritual and moral guide, calling attention to environmental issues and degradation, and challenging faithful to do their part to help.
Taking these words to heart, school and parish communities have taken part in a wide variety of initiatives to find ways to protect and support their local environment and to find ways to be more sustainable.
At St. Bartholomew School, East Brunswick, students who are part of the school’s STREAM Club have been working on a sustainable farming project – which they presented at a STREAM Fair held at Immaculata High School, Somerville. With the objective of following teachings from St. Francis, Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Francis to be good stewards of the earth, club moderator Anne Sanelli worked with her students to research practices to protect and enrich local soil. They researched types of farming, produced a children’s book to teach future generations about what they learned, and even implemented a hydroponic farming system to grow strawberries.
“Our faith calls us to care for creation,” said principal Theresa Craig. “These activities encouraged environmental consciousness at a formative time – middle school – when students are developing their own values. We helped students see that by
linking faith with science and creativity, we show students that caring for creation isn’t just about recycling.”
She said the project helped provide students with a hands-on learning opportunity, and the chance through the hydroponic growing process to see how care and attention can nurture life.
“It takes concepts out of the textbook and off of their Chromebooks and into reality,” she said. “Through these activities, students began to understand their role as caretakers of God’s creation, not just observers of it.”
The environmental commitment of students at Immaculate Conception School, Annandale, resulted in the school receiving a prestigious honor in 2023 –the Green Flag Award from EcoSchool U.S. The award is the organization’s highest honor in eco-consciousness, and a globally respected symbol of environmental excellence.
Earning this honor required students to lead assessments, hit benchmarks and meet stringent criteria, noted principal Connie Fortunato.
“Inspired by Pope Francis and Laudato Si’, the school community is deeply grateful for his guidance and vision, which call all people to be faithful stewards of the Earth,” she said. “His words remind ICS students and faculty that caring for the environment is a moral responsibility and a reflection of our love for God and one another.”
In the past several years, students have fully embraced this call to action, at all grade levels.
While Kindergarten and first grade students learned about bees and the importance of pollinating, second graders
worked on an outdoor learning space and classroom. Third graders sold bird feed cones to raise money for bird baths and puddle ponds for the school campus, and fourth graders installed a water irrigation system for their school garden. Meanwhile, fifth graders raised money to purchase and install bat boxes to support the local population.
Students also conducted an audit to find sources of excessive waste and implemented plans to reduce waste in the cafeteria – including composting – and bathrooms, researching hand dryers and recycling options. They also searched for “energy vampires” and worked to reduce the number of devices using power unnecessarily.
Fortunato said the award that resulted from these and more actions is “an achievement that reflects the school’s deep commitment to sustainability as part of our responsibility as caretakers of God’s Earth.”
She added that “students have continued to embrace this mission through projects that blend science, leadership, and faith-based action.”
With winter melting away and the spring season in full bloom, students in Saints Philip and James School, Phillipsburg, are preparing to ramp up their Garden Club. Open to students in grades 2 through 8, the club meets weekly.
Today’s students will be caring for and tending to the same garden as students in prior graduating classes. The garden on the school’s grounds came about in 2017 as part of an Eagle Scout Project, and all students in grades Pre-K through 8 have the chance to work in the garden as part of the school’s STREAM curriculum, as well.
“Our 7th graders were out fixing up the garden, getting it ready for the season,” said principal Sara Siano. “We
were able to find some flashback photos from 2018 of the same class, working hard in the same garden.”
In past years, students have written letters to local greenhouses – resulting in some donated cabbage plants – and a Pre-K class also raised ladybugs who helped to keep pests away from the cabbage.
At St. Joseph Parish, Bound Brook, responding to the call of Pope Francis to care for creation has become a mission integrated into nearly every facet of daily life.
Over the past several years, the parish has implemented more comprehensive recycling and composting protocols and has begun to save energy through solar parking lot lighting, to name a few initiatives. The parish community also holds outdoor Masses in the summer months – including “Blue Sky Mondays” – and has more intentionally marked the Season of Creation, which is observed from Sept. 1 through Oct. 4, with Masses, prayer services, educational events and fellowship.
One outdoor Mass in 2020 included the blessing of a young red oak tree, a gift from an anonymous donor to help contribute to the parish campus.
On April 29, 2023, the parish also formally opened and blessed Isidoro’s Community Garden, set on the site of a former beech tree that died from a disease after standing tall for more than a century. Today, the garden holds 15 garden beds that can be rented by parishioners or local residents, with a nominal $50 rental fee per year.
The garden was named after Isidoro Garcia, a parishioner who passed away, as well as St. Isidore, the patron saint of farmers.
1. Immaculate Conception, Annandale – Third graders make their project presentation about becoming a certified wildlife habitat.
2. St. Bartholomew, East Brunswick – The finished project of students’ initiative to research sustainable farming, presented at Immaculata High School, Somerville, STREAM Fair.
3. St. Bart’s STREAM Club students presenting at the STREAM Fair.
4. Sts. Philip and James, Phillipsburg – Students in the school’s Garden Club tend to the garden that is also cared for by each class and grade.
By Connie Fortunato, Principal
At Immaculate Conception School (ICS), faith and education go hand in hand. As a Catholic school, ICS is committed to forming disciples of Christ while providing an exceptional academic experience rooted in faith, service, and leadership. Inspired by Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ and the call to care for God’s creation, ICS has woven sustainability into its curriculum, empowering students to be leaders for change.
Whether through acts of kindness, service projects, or hands-on learning experiences, ICS students are encouraged to see Christ in one another and take an active role in making their community and world a better place.
A major milestone in ICS’s mission was earning the Green Flag from the Eco-Schools program, an achievement that reflects the school’s deep commitment to sustainability as part of our responsibility as caretakers of God’s Earth. Since then, students have continued to embrace this mission through projects that blend science, leadership, and faith-based action, including:
Creating an outdoor learning space, where students can experience the beauty of God’s creation while learning about sustainability.
Growing food through hydroponic and outdoor gardens, demonstrating the importance of gratitude for the resources God provides.
Analyzing water quality in school fountains, promoting respect for one of Earth’s most essential natural gifts.
Evaluating school energy use, encouraging responsible consumption in light of our duty to care for the planet.
Improving cafeteria waste management, practicing stewardship by recycling, composting, and reducing waste.
Through these efforts, students are putting their faith into action, learning that their choices–no matter how small–can make a meaningful impact.
At ICS, students are encouraged to be independent thinkers and lead learners who walk in the footsteps of Jesus by using their gifts to serve others. To support this, ICS has dedicated structured time for hands-on, student-led learning through Students Thinking, Exploring, and Problem-Solving (S.T.E.P.) groups, which meet twice a month for 30 minutes. These sessions allow students to work collaboratively, solve real-world problems, and take ownership of their learning while teachers serve as guides and mentors in faith and knowledge.
As part of this approach, students are developing essential life skills and learning how they can use them to serve God and others:
Effective communicators – Writing persuasive essays in Language Arts about environmental sustainability, presenting research findings on water conservation in Science, and leading morning prayers and reflections to inspire their peers.
Skilled researchers – Conducting data analysis on water quality, evaluating the effects of climate change in Social Studies, and using Scripture to draw connections between faith and stewardship.
Team collaborators – Working in S.T.E.P. groups to develop action plans for waste reduction, participating in STEM projects where students design energy-efficient structures, and collaborating on service initiatives like food drives for the community.
Responsible accountants – Managing budgets for school improvement projects in Math, tracking cafeteria waste costs in a financial literacy unit, and discussing economic responsibility from a Catholic Social Teaching perspective.
Graphic designers and storytellers – Creating infographics and posters for the Green Flag initiatives, writing reflections on faith and environmental responsibility in Religion, and developing public awareness campaigns in Technology and Art.
Landscape architects – Planning and designing garden spaces using measurement and geometry in Math, studying plant life cycles in Science, and reflecting on biblical references to nature in Religion.
Project managers – Organizing sustainability events, setting deadlines, and managing team progress in S.T.E.P. meetings, using critical thinking in Problem-Based Learning, and learning time management through group presentations and reports.
At the core of ICS’s mission is the belief that education should not only form the mind but also the heart. Inspired by Pope Francis and Laudato Si’, the school community is deeply grateful for his guidance and vision, which call all people to be faithful stewards of the Earth. His words remind ICS students and faculty that caring for the environment is a moral responsibility and a reflection of our love for God and one another.
Through faith, knowledge, and service, Immaculate Conception School is preparing students to be not only strong academic leaders but also compassionate disciples of Christ. By embracing learning as a way to serve, ICS students are proving that when faith and education come together, they can ignite change, uplift communities, and bring the light of Christ into the world.
By Msgr. Joseph J. Kerrigan Special Contributor
Every once in a while, the profound connection between God, neighbor, God’s creation and the ordinary practice of our faith is all too obvious to be ignored.
This year, for those who keep close to the Church’s liturgy and calendar, Tuesday in the Octave of Easter offered
As ‘Laudato Si’’
By OSV News
P—Joshua Earle photo/Unsplash
such an example. For one, the day also happened to be Earth Day (April 22), and was less than 24 hours removed from the death of Pope Francis, widely lauded for his championing of the environment, and less than 72 hours away from the first reading at the Easter Vigil, which featured the Book of Genesis’ portrayal of creation.
The Psalm Response for the Easter Tuesday Mass couldn’t have been scripted
better to capture all this: “The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord (Ps. 33:5b).”
More often than not, however, most of us need to sharpen our eyes, ears and hearts to regularly sense and incorporate that connection.
In the seminary, I took a course in Pneumatology (the theology of the Holy Spirit), where I learned that the Spirit is not so much the “forgotten” person of the Trinity among believers, as is often stated, as much as the Spirit is the “overlooked” person. References to the Spirit abound, for all to discover, in liturgy, Scripture, prayer and everyday life; what is needed is the proper awareness to perceive and respond.
That awareness, perception and responsiveness are all likewise needed in fully living out the confluence of God, us and the earth. Thanks to Pope Francis, and especially his first encyclical, the landmark 2015 treatise Laudato Si’, it has become easier to digest that the concerns of the whole planet, “our common home,” are part of what is religiously important, too.
One tool for this intertwining is offered by Jason Minton Brown, a lecturer and ecological chaplain at Simon Fraser University in Canada. He has coined the expression “placefulness” to help us in becoming more rooted in creation, much as the expression mindfulness describes a more active attention to our thoughts and feelings. He describes placefulness as “a posture of openness to what is unfolding before us in the land, in a place.”
With placefulness as a spiritual practice, he says, we are participating in a spirituality inherent to the land and to the earth, and not projecting something onto them.
Placefulness aligns well with Pope Francis’ sense of integral ecology, described in Laudato Si’: “Everything is connected,” Francis wrote. “We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it.”
As with acquiring any new habit, seeing ourselves actively within the web of creation and developing a convivial relationship with nature takes practice, and some disciplines are involved. Here are a few that might help:
-Seeing nature as sacred, noticing creation through the lens of faith and giving thanks to the hand of the Creator in the beauty and order we observe in creation.
-Reading and pondering Scripture texts, such as the Book of Psalms, which feature creation.
-Practicing more eco-friendly actions and care for the earth, as an expression of our Christian stewardship.
-Spending quiet time in nature as a form of prayer.
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” Jesuit Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, wrote in his famous poem, God’s Grandeur. By honoring the earth with our attention and care, we give glory to its Creator. And we are also practicing our faith. As Pope Francis noted in Laudato Si’: “Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”
Msgr. Kerrigan is pastor of St. Joseph Church, Bound Brook, and an instructor with the Contemplative Leadership Institute of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, SC.
ope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’” warned of a world in crisis due to environmental neglect. Ten years later experts say progress has been made – but not nearly enough. In 2023, the Pope issued his Apostolic Exhortation, “Laudate Deum,” stating, “With the passage of time I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”
The Pope further forecast a bleak global future, with widespread impacts on human dignity.
“In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons,” Pope Francis wrote. “We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc.”
Catholic leaders and organizations, including the Catholic Climate Covenant
and the Laudato Si’ Movement, acknowl edge growing engagement but stress that political polarization and consumer culture hinder a more robust response. While global climate action has ad vanced, the U.S. Church’s involvement remains inconsistent.
Scientists confirm that 2024 was Earth’s hottest year on record, with worsening extreme weather. With the anniversary of “Laudato Si’,” Catholics are called to deepen their commitment to caring for our common home.
“It’s up to humans – and their unique creativity – to come up with solutions,” said Sister Damien Marie Savino, a Fran ciscan Sister of the Eucharist who is dean of science and sustainability at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and a visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “We wouldn’t have en vironmental issues if it wasn’t for human action. So we have to recognize that our actions do have a unique effect because of our unique ecological niche.”
By Christina Leslie Contributing Editor
Knights of the Metuchen Diocese are joining with fellow members throughout the country to deepen their relationship with Christ via the organization’s Cor Initiative.
Cor – Latin for “heart” – is an initiative designed by Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly “to form and strengthen Catholic men in faith and virtue as missionary disciples by drawing them into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ through prayer, formation and fraternity,” their website explains. Kelly unveiled Cor in 2023 at the Knights’ 141st Supreme Convention; currently, more than 5,500 councils nationwide are running or intend to form Cor programs, and the program has grown 68% in 2024-2025.
Components of the 60-to-90-minute meetings include “Men of the Word,” a Bible study; “Patris Corde,” a study of St. Joseph’s life as a model for Catholic men; recitation of the rosary; a Holy Hour; a monthly challenge from the Knights’ supreme chaplain, and a wealth of supporting materials.
In addition, as part of the Cor initiative, the Knights of Columbus have produced a 12-part video series entitled “Into the Breach,” which covers faithbased topics such as the search for authentic masculinity, leadership, marriage
and family, the importance of fatherhood, sharing the faith, why men need to pray, how to embrace suffering, standing up for life, why men need sacraments and others.
James Vargas, who serves as N.J. State Cor Evangelization and Formation Director, observed, “We Knights do a lot of great work, but we will not get close to God at a business meeting,” he said. “Everything we do should be of service to God. Our major calling is to proclaim His name.”
Vargas, a parishioner of St. Magdalen, Flemington, and member of the parish’s Knights Jubilee Council 3294 for more than two decades, stated that a strong, active men’s group was crucial to the health of the parish – whether they be Knights or not.
“There should be no competition: if this kind of a men’s group is already there, we will work with it,” he said. “If not, we will build it. We must put God first in everything we do, make it intentional and align our will with God’s will.”
Deacon Thomas Sommero, who ministers in Our Lady of Mount Virgin Parish, Middlesex, has led his Knights Council #12700 Cor monthly Saturday morning meetings since March of last year. Following the parish’s 8 a.m. daily Mass, and his reflection on the topic of the day, a group of about 40 men ranging in age from their 20s and 30s to their 70s meet to discuss topics of faith.
“The most important part is our
small group discussions,” Deacon Sommero asserted. “The beauty is everyone gets a chance to talk; some need a little encouragement. They realize that it is okay to share about their life’s challenges of a Catholic man.”
Grand Knight William Maxwell of Blessed Sacrament Parish, Martinsville, calls the Cor initiative an “enriching component of the Knights of Columbus experience” and welcomes the partnership of the parish’s faith formation director,
Some 20 students from St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Edison; Immaculata High School, Somerville, and St. Joseph High School, Metuchen, who may be attending Rutgers in the fall, gather for the first “Rutgers Catholic Open House” hosted by Father Tom Lanza, diocesan Office of Vocations and held at
the Rutgers Catholic Center, New Brunswick. The day provided an opportunity for students to meet campus ministers and students, develop relationships, see how Catholic community is lived out at Rutgers and create a bridge that will lead students to continue practicing their faith in college. —Courtesy photo
Deacon John Scansaroli. The monthly meetings initially began with discussions of Catholic books; now in its second year, Maxwell is pleased about the “much more robust and defined” agenda or alternating between the “Into the Breach” videos and witnessing testimony from guest speakers.
“We recognize the need to enrich our faith as a brotherhood,” Maxwell said. “There is a lot of strength in men exploring the riches of their Catholic faith together.” He advised fellow Knights councils, “I strongly urge they do this, for it is an enriching component of the Knights of Columbus experience to reach inward and fortify their Catholic faith, put their faith into action and build upon it. There is a real synergy.”
For further information on the Cor initiative at your parish, contact your local Grand Knight or parish office.
“Into the Breach” videos may be seen on the Knights of Columbus YouTube channel at www.kofc.org/en/campaigns/into-the-breach.html
For Missy Collazo, St. Thomas Aquinas High School softball has always been home. Earlier this season, the longtime head coach added a new chapter to her storied connection with the program, earning her 300th career coaching victory.
A 2001 graduate of St. Thomas Aquinas – then known as Bishop Ahr – Collazo made her mark as a standout shortstop, helping lead the Trojans to two Greater Middlesex Conference (GMC) championships and a sectional crown. Seventeen years later, she continues to build that legacy from the dugout, now with a career coaching record of 300-89 and a .771 winning percentage.
Collazo has guided her teams to six GMC titles, including an impressive
run of five consecutive championships. She has done so while coaching in the GMC’s top division and taking on one of the most challenging non-conference schedules in the state.
“This program means everything to me,” Collazo said. “I’ve been here a long time.”
Beyond wins and titles, Collazo has played a key role in mentoring generations of players, many of whom have continued their athletic careers at the collegiate level. For her, the impact of coaching goes beyond the scoreboard – it’s about passing on the pride, work ethic, and passion that have defined St. Thomas Aquinas softball for decades.
—Courtesy photo
As children, the month of May meant proudly displaying the miraculous medal of Mary with blue ribbon on our lapels. Having these sacramentals blessed by the parish priest, our teachers would call us each by name and ceremoniously attach Mary’s medal with ribbon to the blazer of each child. Similarly in June, we received a medal of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with a red ribbon. These simple sacramentals would always spark the interest of our protestant friends and neighbors.
Throughout our diocese May is not only a month dedicated to Mary but also a month when many children receive Jesus in Holy Communion for the first time. Whether we refer to Jesus in Holy Communion, in the Eucharist, in the Blessed Sacrament or in the Lord’s Supper, we are referring to the same Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ –truly alive and truly present!
We celebrate this truth at every Holy Mass but especially each year when we celebrate one of the most solemn feasts in our Christian calendar – the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. This year we celebrate this feast on June 22. Prior to the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s, this feast was simply known by its Latin name: Corpus Christi. In the 1950’s and before, it was common for parishes to hold Corpus Christi processions throughout streets and towns of countries the world over. Then came the 1960s when honoring Jesus in the Eucharist on Corpus Christi (with special events) came to a screeching haul.
As a young priest I recall many Catholics asking for a return to such devotional practices. Only in recent years, however,
Stained-glass of the Eucharist is seen at the Church of the Holy Innocents in the Antiguo Cuscatlan borough of San Salvador, El Salvador, Dec. 10, 2024. —OSV News photo/Tyler Orsburn
has a true revival of special Eucharistic events taken place. Parishes throughout our country including parishes within our own diocese invite various parish groups including altar servers, First Communion children, young families and older people, to participate in processions and other special devotions honoring our Eucharistic Lord on the Solemn Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
As Director of the Office of Pontifical Missions I am keenly aware of how much our world is hurting and in need of healing. Pope Leo XIV acknowledged this in his first words to the world when he first came forward on the balcony as our new pope: “Christ precedes us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him ...” Ironically, many Catholics in our “land of the free and home of the brave” choose to separate themselves from Jesus in the Eucharist while those in missionary lands, especially in some African and South American countries are, more
often than not, faithful to our Eucharistic Lord – even though they do not enjoy our God-given freedoms. In fact, in my many conversations with missionaries I have learned that the act of attending Holy Mass is often considered a punishable crime in some mission countries.
What then do we share? Catholics in those far-away places, not related to us by blood, do share our spiritual relationship in Christ. It is the commonality of this spiritual relationship that we hope for more and more. Perhaps our Catholic brothers and sisters abroad can offer an example to us as we seek to renew our worship of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist by sharing the truth that to “keep the Lord’s Day” (Exodus 20:8) by attending Holy Mass will set us on the path that will help lead us to heaven.
We have something that people in missionary lands need and they have something that we desperately seek. They so often seek what we take for granted
– God-given freedoms that have been unjustly taken away. Theirs is a spiritual gift, the highest and most perfect gift of all that we seek – a greater appreciation and love for the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
As we ponder Jesus in the Eucharist, we hear our Lord speak to us: “Do this in remembrance of Me.”
What are we remembering? We remember Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross for our sins. We remember that we have the forgiveness of sins and are righteous solely because of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross for us.
We remember, too, that we are receiving in this sacrament – not just mere bread and wine but Jesus’ very Body and Blood. We remember that here in the Sacrament He gives us His very body that hung on the cross and His very blood that was offered to the Father for our forgiveness and reconciliation.
Do this in remembrance of Me. This “doing” and remembrance of Jesus expects of us, not just a general faith in His atoning death. Rather, Jesus is giving us the specific faith to receive the same body and blood He gave the disciples that first Holy Thursday. It is just as much a miracle now, just as much a mystery today, as it was then. The Lord’s Supper breaks the barriers of time and space, uniting us with Christ and making us contemporaries with Him. Do you ever wish you lived at the time of Jesus? Hurry to the altar to receive Him in the Blessed Sacrament! He is there NOW waiting to be found.
As we recall His words, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” the Blessed Sacrament is no longer just a memorial of what Jesus did on the cross, but as we receive Jesus’ body and blood, the benefits of Jesus’ sacrifice are brought into our day, into our lives and they change us, now.
Father Hillier serves as diocesan director, Office of Pontifical Mission Societies, the Office for Persons with Disabilities and Censor Luborum.
Continued from page 3
News, then-Cardinal Prevost spoke about the essential leadership quality of a bishop.
“Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to brother bishops, to priests and to all God’s people,” he said. “One must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated in a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the Church.”
“And we must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today,” he said. “The authority we have is to serve, to accompany priests, to be pastors and teachers.”
As prefect of the dicastery then-Cardinal Prevost also served as president of the Pontifical Commission for Lat-
in America, where nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics reside.
A Chicago native, he also served as prior general of the Augustinians and spent more than two decades serving in Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and later as bishop of Chiclayo.
Soon after coming to Rome to head the dicastery, he told Vatican News that bishops have a special mission of promoting the unity of the Church.
“The lack of unity is a wound that the Church suffers, a very painful one,” he said in May 2023. “Divisions and polemics in the Church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement toward unity, toward communion in the church.”
In September, a television program
in Peru reported on the allegations of three women who said that then-Bishop Prevost failed to act against a priest who sexually abused them as minors. The diocese strongly denied the accusation, pointing out that he personally met with the victims in April 2022, removed the priest from his parish, suspended him from ministry and conducted a local investigation that was then forwarded to the Vatican. The Vatican said there was insufficient evidence to proceed, as did the local prosecutor’s office.
Pope Leo was born Sept. 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Augustinian-run Villanova University in Pennsylvania and joined the order in 1977, making his solemn vows in 1981.
He holds a degree in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until 1999 when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order. In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the Pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 2020 to May 2021.
The new Pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and can read Latin and German.
A simple phone call some 50 years ago led Deacon Luke Hally Jr. to become a permanent deacon. A job transfer brought the deacon from Long Island to the Diocese of Metuchen, and he became incardinated, or transferred in a religious sense, to continue serving as a deacon in his new church home.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Deacon Hally’s ordination and, though retired from active ministry for nearly a decade, he remains listed in St. James Church of Basking Ridge’s parish bulletin by his title, with retired next to it.
He is still willing to help, if he can, and he stressed how, at age 90, he has stayed active spiritually and physically. He still attends Mass and exercises daily. He answered questions with a quick recall and robust voice.
Deacon Hally credits his former pastor in Huntington, Long Island, the late Monsignor Arthur J. Kane, with planting the seed for his religious career.
“Actually, he called me on the phone one Saturday morning and said, ‘Luke, don’t react right now, because I don’t want to upset Maureen,’” Deacon Luke recalled. (Maureen is his wife of 62 years.) “‘But how about becoming a deacon?’”
“I talked to him and got more information and said, ‘Hey, I’d love to do it,’” Deacon Hally said.
Deacon Hally was ordained in the spring of 1980 in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Long Island, and served at a parish in that diocese for three years. Then a job transfer – Deacon Hally worked decades in telecommunications – took him to the Basking Ridge area.
The deacon and his wife, while seeking a new parish, drove around the Somerset Hills region when they came upon St. James. He recalled chatting with the pastor, the late Monsignor William Capik and casually mentioning he was a deacon. “He said, ‘I’d love to have you,’” Deacon Hally recalled.
Among his many ministries at St. James, Deacon Hally was involved in helping parishioners going through divorce or separation.
“It was always tricky, because nobody wins in a divorce,” he said. “It wasn’t an easy ministry, but you got to help the people, and that’s what I tried to do: help them.”
Another role that stood out, he said, was serving as diocesan director of the Office of the Diaconate. He said part of his role was making sure the candidates became actively involved in “good ministries.”
“And I loved that job,” he said. “I think I helped a lot of guys, you know? That’s what it’s all about.”
What advice would Deacon Hally give younger men approached, like he was more than five decades ago, about becoming permanent deacons? “I tell them it’s a wonderful, wonderful vocation and you can do so much good,” he said.
By Anthony Salamone, Correspondent
45 years
Luke J. Hally Retired, St James, Basking Ridge
20 years
Stephen Gunther Sts. Peter & Paul, Great Meadows
15 years
Michael Bachynsky St. Magdalen de Pazzi, Flemington
William Barr St. Edward the Confessor, Milford
John Broehl Relocated - W/Faculties
Christopher Conroy Retired, MMOG, Hillsborough
Lawrence D’Andrea St. Rose of Lima, Oxford
John Deitchman Relocated - W/Faculties
Peter DePrima St. James, Basking Ridge
Robert Gatto Retired, Nativity of Our Lord, Monroe Twp
Patrick Hearty St. Thomas the Apostle, Old Bridge
James Kelly, Jr. Our Lady of Peace, Fords
Stephen Kern St. Magdalen de Pazzi, Flemington
George Kimball, Jr. Retired, St. Joseph, Carteret
Edward Majkowski Our Lady of Victories, Sayreville
Michael Martini Immaculate Conception, Annandale
James McCormick Retired, MMOG, Hillsborough
Michael Meyer St. Catherine of Siena, Pittstown
Gary Newton St. Joseph, Bound Brook
John Raychel Our Lady of Peace, Fords
William Rider Our Lady of Fatima, Piscataway
Earl Roberts Retired, St John Califon
Edward Rodes Relocated - W/ Faculties
Joseph Saggese St. Francis, Metuchen
Danilo San Jose Retired, Immac Conc, Spotswood
John Shelton Nativity of Our Lord, Monroe Twp
Hugo Simao Queenship of Mary, Plainsboro
James Tesoriero Relocated - W/Faculties
Nelson Torres Holy Family, New Brunswick
Michael Wojcik St. John Neumann, Califon
Peter Barcellona St. Anthony of Padua, Port Reading
Salvatore Bonfiglio Mary Mother of God, Hillsborough
Thomas Bresnan Relocated - W/Faculties
Vincent Brigande St. John Vianney, Colonia
St. James Church congratulates Deacon Luke Hally, retired, on the 45th anniversary of his ordination. May this anniversary be a time of joy and celebration for you and your family. God bless you for your service to Him and to His people.
Congratulations Deacon John Shelton on your 15th anniversary. May God bless you as you continue to serve His people. The parish family of Nativity of Our Lord.
Congratulations, Deacon Hugo Simao! Celebrating 15 Years of Diaconate Service at Queenship of Mary Church. With heartfelt gratitude, we honor your faithful ministry, compassionate service, and unwavering dedication to the people of God. May the Lord continue to bless and guide you in your sacred vocation.
The priests, deacons, religious sisters, and people of Saint John Vianney Parish congratulate Deacon Vincent Brigande on the 10th anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate. We thank God for your Baptismal Preparation ministry, thoughtful homilies, and all you do to be a true servant to the people of our parish
“Those who serve well as deacons gain a worthy place for themselves and much assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 3:13
St. Edward the Confessor Parish Community joyfully congratulates Deacon William Barr on the 15th anniversary of his ordination. We give thanks for his dedicated ministry and pray for many more years of faithful service
Congratulations Deacon Robert Gatto
We are grateful for your 15 years of faithful service. May God’s love and guidance be with you always. The parish family of Nativity of Our Lord.
Peter D’Angelo St. Mary-Stony Hill, Watchung
Kenrick Fortune St. Francis, Metuchen
Thomas Griffoul Immaculate Conception, Spotswood
Patrick Gutsick St. Peter the Apostle, New Brunswick
Mark Hennicke St. Mary of Ostrabrama, South River
Stephen Kassebaum Relocated - W/Faculties
Kevin Kilcommons St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Three Bridges
Kevin Morrison St. John the Evangelist, Lambertville
Anthony Pepe St. Cecelia, Iselin
Gregorio Rios Our Lady of Fatima, Perth Amboy
Patrick Smith Immaculate Conception, Spotswood
Thomas G. Sommero Our Lady of Mt. Virgin, Middlesex
Scott Titmas St. Thomas the Apostle, Old Bridge
David Waguespack Relocated - W/Faculties
St. James Church congratulates Deacon Peter DePrima on the 15th anniversary of his ordination. May God bless you today and in the years ahead, for your dedicated service to the church and community.
The parish community of St. Rose of Lima would like to thank Deacon Lawrence D’Andrea for his faithfulness, for his service and for the care he has shown to all of us. May God continue to bless him on this, his 15th Anniversary, and always.
“No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
Deacon Peter D’Angelo: congratulations on a decade of faithful and fruitful diaconal ministry. Your ministry has truly been a gift to your St. Mary’s-Stony Hill family and we are most grateful. Our Risen Lord continue to bless you!
By Mary Stadnyk,
who gathered for the statewide ecumen ical prayer service commemorating the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., spoke of the joy and privilege it was to have people of varying Christian traditions come together “to commemorate, to reflect upon and to celebrate a key moment, an historic development in the Christian story – the Council of Nicaea and the formulation of the Creed that bears its name.”
“It’s my honor to welcome you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, all who are gathered here to mark this significant anniversary in the history of the Lord’s disciples and all that the Council of Nicaea and the Creed it composed means for us today,” Bishop O’Connell said, adding that he was also “particularly mindful of those Christians present who express their faith through other denominations in addition to those represented formally in the day’s program.”
“In the words of the Apostle Peter to his master and ours, ‘Lord, how good it is for us to be here,’” he said May 3 in St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, Freehold.
Bishop O’Connell served at the request of Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark who, as a member of the College of Cardinals, was in Rome for the funeral Mass for Pope Francis and the conclave for the election of the new pope. The theme of the service was “We Believe In One God,” reflecting Christian unity and the beginning of the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that originated at the Council of Nicaea.
Attending on behalf of Bishop James F. Checchio, who was traveling in Rome, was diocesan vicar general Father Jonathan S. Toborowsky.
“It was a joy and honor to represent Bishop Checchio, along with others from our Diocese who attended. Week after week the Nicene Creed is recited in every
continue to seek harmony and understanding in a diverse and interconnected world,” Bishop O’Connell said. “The Council of Nicaea stands as a testament to the pursuit of unity, even in the face of profound differences – a timeless lesson for believers and nonbelievers alike.”
During the service, the congregants, including clerics and laity from Roman and Eastern Catholic traditions, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reform and Methodist churches, reflect ed on promulgation of the Nicene Creed in 325 A.D. by Christian leaders at the
Massa of Brooklyn and Metropolitan Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA. Verse by verse, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Apostolos of New Jersey led the Nicene Creed in its original Greek; then the congregation followed, reciting the same words, each in his or her own language of prayer.
Bishop Massa, former executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue and a former consultor to the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, urged those gathered to “listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches of our times. Hear the summons to continue the noble work filling the
Body of Christ and bringing its members to unity, a unity that is not uniformity, but witnessing to peace and justice in our fractured world and the caring of God’s creation. Let us listen humbly and eagerly and be ready always to be surprised, for
“Only the Spirit can heal our wounds,” Bishop Massa said. “Only the Spirit can protect us from evil. Only the Spirit can arouse our hope in Jesus, our first love.”
He said churches hear the summons “to listen to the Spirit as we look both to the ancient past and to the road ahead for Christian unity.”
“Every ecumenical synod, every church assembly, across our confessional traditions, has invoked the Holy Spirit to guide the leadership in its decision making.”
In his homily, Metropolitan Antony urged the congregation to regard the Creed not as an ancient formula but as a call to sacrificial love, unity in truth and courageous witness to the modern world.
“On this day, the 1,700th anniversary, we do not simply recall a historical gathering, we have reawakened a profound vision of unity, truth and love that animated the fathers of that sacred council. The Nicene Creed, born of that council and completed 56 years later, is not merely a liturgical recitation,” he said, referring to the Eastern bishops’ Council of Constantinople in 381. “It is a theological proclamation, a baptismal confession and a moral compass. It not only affirms what we believe but how we are to live. The Creed is not a statement carved in a particular period of time but a living memory and testimony inscribed in the hearts of all believers. It shapes our identity as Christians, of who we are.”
Mary Stadnyk serves as associate editor, The Monitor, Diocese of Trenton. This article first appeared on TrentonMonitor.com.
By Robert Christie, Correspondent
Men of the Metuchen Diocese were challenged to stand strong in their faith and unite in their mission to let their voices be heard during the May 2-3 Leadership Summit, held at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, Metuchen. Some 60 members from the 15 parishes of the Cathedral Deanery were inspired by keynote speaker John Edwards to build and strengthen parish men’s groups to answer Christ’s call to witness.
“We are under attack,” asserted Adam Carlisle, diocesan Secretary for Evangelization and Communication, at the start of the two-day conference. “The very idea of a husband, a father, a man is being questioned. The most important challenge facing the Church today is the New Evangelization, but it has failed to stem the disastrous losses of the faithful.”
Carlisle continued, “One reason is because it is missing men. … Men need to step up. I have asked John Edwards to be with us tonight and tomorrow to inspire us, to challenge us, and to hopefully equip us to live up to our most high calling: to bring light to the world.”
Carlisle introduced Edwards, founder of Pew Ministries and host of the “Just a Guy in the Pew” podcast, who shared his journey from successful businessman to fall from grace into drug addiction. Edwards’ rediscovery of Jesus Christ and rejection of the world of material rewards led to his full-time evangelical ministry. The speaker inspired the attendees to become parish group leaders, asking them to die to self and live for others so that “we can build places where men can find their way into authentic relationships with Christ and other men.”
Noting personal transformation must be not only intellectual but also of the heart, he continued, “86% of the country’s parishes have no men’s group, but true joy comes from serving others. The call of Christ to go and make disciples of all nations is meant for us… This conference will be nothing more than a pep rally without the game if we don’t go back to our parishes and put what we have learned into practice.”
In the group discussions that followed, Elvis Marmol of St. John Paul II Parish, Perth Amboy, reflected that “his testimony troubled my heart.” Mariano Santiago of Immaculate Conception Parish, Somerville, commented that “I am here to find out what God wants me to do,” while Luis Perez of Most Holy Name of Jesus Parish, Perth Amboy, noted that Edwards’ witness was “very touching, and we will not overcome trouble alone.”
Edwards asserted that men are isolated without true friendships, and they merely “check the boxes” of worldly success – school, degree, good job, marriage, kids – while having no community of their own and no relation to Christ even though “we are made for communion. Men are battling as one-man armies …” and lack what they want: “to be seen, heard, known, and loved. That’s the reason for today’s conference – to equip you to meet this need, to put boots on the ground.”
“This conference is an answer to a prayer,” said Thomas Morris of St. Peter the Apostle University and Community Parish, New Brunswick. “It makes me want to start a men’s group in the parish, which presently does not have one.”
Edwards shared the “four pillars” of men’s groups: Formation, such as showing a relevant video followed by discussion; Worshipping at a regularly scheduled Mass; Service, such as making sandwiches for the homeless; and Fellowship, some social time to further interpersonal relations, such as attending a sports event together. Other variables for a successful men’s group include reflection, selection of leaders, planning and marketing.
Now in its third year, members of the Cathedral’s “Men on a Mission” men’s group noted they regularly attract 40 to 50 men to their meetings and credit the support of Father Timothy Christy, Cathedral Rector, and Paul Zensky, the group’s communications person, as major factors in developing the membership.
Similar workshops are slated for other diocesan deaneries. For further information, contact Adam Carlisle, diocesan Secretary for Evangelization and Communication, at acarlisle@diometuchen. org or 732-529-7936.
At top, Keynote speaker John Edwards joins participants at table discussions about their role in the Church. Above, men from some 15 parishes of the Cathedral Deanery listen intently to John Edwards talk about the need to build and support men’s groups.
Bottom left, Father Ronald Machado, pastor, Most Holy Name of Jesus Parish, engages in discussion following the keynote. Bottom right, Summit participants spend time undertaking some personal reflection. —Hal Brown photos.
In the 1970’s, ecumenism, fueled by the Second Vatican Council’s Document, Noster Aetate, was very vogue. This movement toward inter-Christian unity was well-received by mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians. As a result of many synods, research and good-will, communities of faith which were once pitted against each other, were now working toward better relations with each other. Dialogues, as they were called, were published, summarizing the findings of Protestant and Catholic theologians, concerning ministry, sacraments, the role of the Pope, the nature of the Church and the role of Mary and the saints.
This academic endeavor led to a pastoral enthusiasm on the local level. Now, Catholic and Protestant churches were gathering in each other’s house of worship to pray together, especially at Thanksgiving and Good Friday. Interfaith marriages, once disdained by the Catholic Church, could now take place in the church itself and not in the rectory as had been the custom prior to the Second Vatican Council. Non-Catholics could
now be buried with their spouses or children in Catholic cemeteries. Non-Catholic Christians could serve as a Christian Witness in place of a godparent at the baptism of a Catholic child. Non-Catholic Christians could now participate as readers, bridesmaids and groomsmen at the weddings of their Catholic relatives or friends. Things definitely improved as a result of this ecumenical thrust by the Second Vatican Council.
As a seminarian, I was so impressed and intrigued by this movement toward unity, that I decided to write my master’s thesis on ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans on Ministry. In my work, I explored how the recognition of Lutheran ministry as “valid” would thereby acknowledge their “Eucharist” as “valid,” and might one day open the way to an eventual return of Lutherans to the Catholic fold, not by renouncing five hundred years of what was understood as their “tradition” but retaining their Lutheran spirituality and liturgies, maybe they could be return to the Church as “Catholics of the Lutheran Rite.”
Just as Ruthenian or Ukrainian Catholics, in union with the Pope, are known as “Catholics of the Byzantine Rite,” since their spirituality and the liturgies resemble the Eastern Orthodox church more than they do the Roman Catholic Church of which they are an integral part, so the Lutherans could have kept their own identity while being in union
During Lent, I listened to Fulton Sheen’s Good Friday sermons, “The Cries of Jesus From the Cross.” He frequently uses metaphors and analogies to get his point across. He used one example to help us realize that everything we do has an effect. He described a stone thrown into the sea “that creates a ripple that spreads out across the sea and touches far off shores.” When I heard that image, it stayed in my mind. I know that a stone tossed into a pool creates a series of circles that spread out across the surface of the water and as they spread, they weaken and become less and less noticeable, until the surface of the pond is smooth again.
Archbishop Sheen’s image is striking. We see in our mind a stone thrown into the sea and creating ripples moving across the vast expanse of the sea until it laps against the sands of a distant beach. Being a bit of a pragmatist, I can imag-
with Rome. It was only a master’s thesis, to some it was a huge pipe dream, but a verse from today’s Gospel propelled my desire to see this ecumenical vision realized: “Father, may they be one….”
Thirty years after I wrote my paper, ecumenical dialogues are rarely published. Inter-Christian services are fewer in number – and both clergy and laity seem less interested in becoming one today than they did thirty years ago. Why? I believe that a number of factors have made ecumenism lose steam. The ordination of women and gay clergy in some Protestant dominations has strained any prior efforts to underscore what Protestant and Catholics share in common. Profound differences now exist concerning Holy Orders and Ecclesiology which were not even on the horizon in the 1970’s.
Over the past decades, the Catholic Church has had to focus her energy on addressing the rampant rise in clergy sex abuse allegations and fiscal woes. While both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI are theologians in their own right, it would appear that John Paul spent much of his pontificate emphasizing the pastoral dimension of his ministry by making the papacy mobile around the world. He excelled at reconciliatory relations with the Eastern Orthodox and made huge strides with healing the rift that separated the Catholic Church from the Jewish people.
Pope Benedict XVI, in the wake of misconstrued words, has focused his
inter-faith energy on diffusing tensions with Islam. Pope Francis, on his trip to Indonesia, gladly met with the Muslim imam, however, nothing came of this. The Holy Father also met with Jewish leaders in Rome, with Protestant heads of state. Again, nothing came of these encounters, other than good will.
Another factor that has put the brakes on ecumenical dialogue and interfaith relations has been the vocation crisis. With fewer men entering the Catholic priesthood, theologians, like myself, once assigned to universities or seminaries where teaching and research often resulted in ecumenical publications, are now being asked to forgo academia in order to pastor parishes. Obviously, within this context, it is near impossible to conduct any research, read a lot or publish any articles.
While the flame of ecumenism has diminished, it has not been extinguished – it cannot be, because the Word of God is not static but dynamic. It cannot be stopped until it has been fulfilled. And Jesus’ desire is crystal clear: “Father, may they be one.” This prayer is for all Jesus’ disciples, Catholics and non-Catholics. We may not be around to see this reunion of all Christians into one Church but, please God, our children or their children will!
Father Comandini serves as diocesan coordinator of the Office for Ongoing Faith Formation.
ine such expanding ripples spreading out across a pond, but I find it difficult to picture a ripple moving across a series of waves for hundreds of miles. But pragmatism kills poetry, and I will suspend my incredulity. It’s a striking image and it gets his point across: even the smallest action that we perform has far-reaching effects.
We can picture the expanse of the sea with waves rising and falling higher or lower as the weather stirs up the surface of the water. It is an image that can be applied to many situations in life. We can imagine the present situation of the world as an uneasy sea with tumultuous waves and im petuous currents. Such an image fits many social and political circumstances.
The more tumultuous a country’s or a community’s history, the more it can be compared to an uneasy sea. Some notice able waves arose during Pope Francis’s papacy, Amoris Laetitia, Traditionis Cus todes, the Synod on Synodality All these were stones that caused more than ripples. In fact, the waves that arose because of them will give theologians and Vatican watchers much to discuss for some time.
Another stone that caused some lesser known waves was the documents issued concerning contemplative nuns, Vultum Dei quaerere and Cor orans.
These directly affected my community and all the communities of contemplative nuns around the world. Though raising less of a swell than other of Pope Francis’s decisions, they did cause some serious dissension in various Catholic groups, with articles being written criticizing and even condemning Francis’s decisions concerning contemplative nuns. These criticisms were written, with hardly any exceptions, by well-intentioned people who were not themselves contemplative nuns. They saw the situation from the outside, and therefore they misinterpreted much of what the documents said.
This situation brought about the “ripple” referred to in the title of this article: I started writing my own articles. Cloistered nuns usually do not publish articles in newspapers and news sites. They often write books and poems and meditations, but usually these are only made public after their death, when they have a reputation for sanctity. I have been writing most of my life, stuff for my own reflection, but the misinformation circulating about Pope Francis’s instructions for us nuns was too blatant. When Francis was accused of trying to destroy contemplative life in the Church, with the permission of my Prioress, I stepped into the discussion. I found a Catholic editor willing to print articles that supported Pope Francis, and I was able to make the facts and reality of contemplative life available to the general Catholic public.
Not everyone approved of what I wrote, but facts are hard to disprove. My writing is only a ripple on the surface of the Catholic sea, but that ripple is one of the effects of the various stones tossed into the Church’s sea. We will see how far it reaches and what effects it has. One unexpected effects of Francis’s papacy was to develop in me an ability I didn’t know I had.
Sister Gabriela of the Incarnation is a member of the Discalced Carmelites order in Flemington. Learn more at www. flemingtoncarmel.org.
JUNE 4-7
WEDNESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY: 6-11 PM
Call: (732) 985-5063 for directions
July 23rd -26th
Wednesday - Friday: 6 - 9 pm, Saturday: 5 - 9 pm Sacred Heart Church grounds 98 South 2nd Avenue, Manville, NJ 08835
Homemade Polish & American Foods, Games, Live Music! Call 908-725-0072 for more information.
July 8-12, 2025, 6pm-11pm
Food prepared by Tony’s Sausage
Major carnival rides
Fun kiddie rides
Wristbands every night
Entertainment
Summer splash drawing 7/12 at 11 p.m.
The National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM) Diocese of Metuchen Chapter will host Summer Choral Festival 2025, July 15-20 at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, 390 County Road 523, Whitehouse Station, NJ. The Festival is open to choral singers of all skill levels ages 18 and up. Singers will experience extraordinary repertoire, three skilled conductors, and the delight of making music with new friends.
Led by Festival director Jim Cole and co-conductors Megan Calabro and David Jules, participants will sing with fellow choral singers from the Diocese of Metuchen and beyond. Each day will start with a physical and vocal warmup. Repertoire includes the music of Malcolm Archer, Jacques Arcadelt, Barbara W. Baker, Hal H. Hopson, Mark Hayes, John Rutter, Mack Wilberg and others. The week ends with a concert on Sunday,
July 20 at 3:30 pm open to the public.
Applications are now available for a limited number of Festival scholarships. Scholarships are available for both young adult singers and those with financial need. See the website for details.
The National Association of Pastoral Musicians fosters the art of musical liturgy. The members of NPM serve the Catholic Church in the United States as musicians, clergy, liturgists, and other
Our Lady of Czestochowa 807 Hamilton Blvd, South Plainfield, NJ 07080 908-756-1333 olcsouthplainfield.weconnect.com
Tuesday through Thursday, June 3-5, 5pm-10pm Friday, June 6, 5pm-11pm; Saturday, June 7, 1pm-11pm
Homemade Polish, Italian and Vietnamese food, plus American Classics. Great rides and games.
leaders of prayer.
The Metuchen Chapter of NPM hosts numerous events throughout the year, assisting local church musicians to grow in faith and skills. The Metuchen Chapter was named Chapter of the Year in 2016.
For further information, including a detailed schedule and to register for the Festival please visit www.NPMMetuchen.org. Enrollment is limited.
students of St. Augustine of Canterbury School, Kendall Park. Excellence has become an organic daily practice where results show how students achieve success both inside and outside the classroom.
Some 20 years ago, Filippini Sister Mary Louise Shulas, former principal of St. Augustine of Canterbury School, and currently diocesan director of curriculum, brought the Odyssey of the Mind (OM™) program to life in Kendall Park. During those 20 years, the program has flourished and become highly successful.
Odyssey of the Mind, as described on their website, “teaches students how to develop and use their natural creativity to become problem-solvers. … OM brings the classroom to life as students apply what they learn and combine it with their interests and passions to solve unique open-ended problems. OM also emphasizes teamwork, budgeting, time management, public speaking, and so much more. This international program is designed to help students at all learning levels grow as individual learners, grow as team members, and to reach their full potential.”
In St. Augustine of Canterbury School, dedicated volunteer coaches and immensely talented students helped take this program to new heights. For the last four years, the St. Augustine Odyssey Program has been under the leadership of volunteer director Marissa Modzelewski, a 1997 graduate of St. Augustine School. Each
year, with her guidance, St. Augustine School has qualified to compete at the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. Her accolades also include both regional and state champion coach.
This year, the seventh grade team became the Odyssey of the Mind Skylands Regional Champions for the second year in a row, and placed second at the New Jersey State Finals against an amazing ensemble of competition.
That second place finish earned them a trip for their third consecutive year to the World Finals at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, where they will compete against the best teams
in the world on May 23 and 24.
The students are scored on two separate problems – a long-term skit where they need to use critical thinking and analytic skills to solve a problem. They are also given a “spontaneous” problem where they need to come together as a team and figure out how to best solve that problem on the spot. Seventh graders received a perfect spontaneous score and the highest overall spontaneous scores at both regionals and states.
St. Augustine of Canterbury School will proudly be the only Catholic School team representing the State of New Jersey at World Finals in East Lansing.
cent Lacsaman, Katie Lee, Mara Lesaca, Maisie Modzelewski, Luca Sparagna and Matthew Wiredu – are the perfect example of dedicated teamwork where anything can be accomplished when shared gifts and talents come together. With these kids, anything is possible.
They also have amazingly dedicated coaches, Modzelewski and Lauren Sparagna, who help guide them along the way but, most importantly, let them figure it out for themselves.
While the students and coaches are grateful for their collective and individual talents, they are fully aware that those talents are gifted to them through Jesus Christ. In their minds, it is almighty God who comes before all things. Before each performance, you can find the team huddled together with their coaches and principal asking God to watch over them, but more importantly, thanking him for helping them each step along the way.
To learn more about OM™ visit https://odysseyofthemind.com/
Contributed by Edward Modzelewski, principal, St. Augustine of Canterbury School.
1. Seventh Grade Division 2 World Finalists, pictured left to right, include coaches Lauren Sparagna and Marissa Modzelewski, Vincent Lacsamana, Katie Lee, Maisie Modzelewski, Mara Lesaca, Luca Sparagna and Matthew Wiredu.
2. 4th Grade Division 1 Team prepares for their “problem” which consists of doing a skit based on Winnie the Poo.
3. Seventh graders Mara Lesaca, far left, and Maisie Modzelewski, far right, with their older siblings, Ellie Lesaca and Makaela Modzelewski, both 2x Odyssey World Finalists and St. Augustine Alumni.
4. Seventh Grade Division 2 Team preps for their Spontaneous Problem.
By Bruce Cargill, Special Contributor
This past couple of weeks here at the Pontifical North American College in Rome have been like none other in my life. There is so much that could be said, but words only suffice for so much. To avoid spilling unnecessary ink while at the same time giving a reflection on my experience of the papal funeral, conclave, and election, I will summarize it with three themes: universality, unity, and hope
The first theme, universality, is a kind of “Catholic buzzword;” the very word “Catholic” comes from the Greek word katholikos, meaning universal You hear it thrown around in conversations, speeches, and homilies; but this is not merely a filler word. It defines something integral to our faith: it has a universal reach; it is meant for all people of all nations, as Our Lord told his disciples in the great commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…” (Mt 28:19). This universal commission was given to satisfy a universal need for Jesus. I experienced this universality in the vast multitudes of people who came to pay their respects to the late Pope Francis. People from different countries and cultures, languages and ethnicities, all came to the city consecrated by the blood of Peter to mourn the loss of his successor. I had the privilege to have a
conversation with an individual who had fallen away from his faith, but felt deep within himself a strong desire to be present for the Holy Father. As he related to me more of his story, it became clear to me that the Holy Spirit was at work in his life, moving him from within to draw him back to the arms of the Father. As we entered St. Peter’s square, with its massive colonnades reaching out to embrace the people of Rome, I couldn’t help but notice the connection; the Father holds open His arms and uses events such as these to call home those who have gone astray, from every land, and every nation.
The next theme is unity. In a press conference held at the NAC following the election of Pope Leo XIV, the cardinals were reflected on the diversity of the electors but also the sense that things just seemed to click… Cardinal Blase Cupich related that each treated the other with great respect, and listened well to each other. And when voting time came, “things seemed to just gel and go in a direction that set us on a path of unity… If only the rest of us, in our lives and in the world, could have that mad dash to unity that we seemed to have in conclave.”
That struck a chord with me. There were many who were saying that this conclave would last longer than previous ones, with a record number of electors (133).
In spite of that, the Holy Spirit worked in and through these chosen men and, within 24 hours, a unified front was presented in
the face of Pope Leo. The Church is one, as we profess every Sunday in the Creed. This is one of the many ways in which She stands out as a force for unity in diversity.
The final theme is hope. This experience began and ended with a strong sense of hope. At the funeral of Pope Francis, the emphasis was clear; death is no longer the end! We commended the late pontiff’s mortal remains to the earth, all 250,000 of us who were present at the Mass, steadfast in hope in the promise of Christ. Death is a door; a door to new life, because Christ himself has passed through this door and conquered the enemy within. As Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, sprinkled Pope Francis’s coffin with holy water, the choir chanted in Latin, “I know that my Redeemer lives: on the last day I shall rise again. And in my flesh I shall see God my savior.” This is our
faith, and I was blessed to see it lived out in such a tangible manner. This hope carried on, through the conclave, as we waited in joy-filled hope for white smoke to erupt from the Sistine chapel chimney. Even when black smoke appeared, our hope did not fail. We knew that, one way or another, those cardinals were not coming out until white smoke appeared. It will come. And when it finally did, the eruption of joy in the square was palpable. Our hope was not in vain.
Even as we have now moved past the days of the papal election, hope remains; I am hopeful for the future of the Holy Catholic Church. The witness and testimony of the cardinal electors involved left me edified and confident that the Church is in good hands. I look forward to continuing my formation journey here in Rome, united with Pope Leo XIV and the entire people of God in prayer, in love, and in hope
By Jacob Miller, Special Contributor
It was April 21st and, at the time, I was on my way to Siena; to visit the family I had lived with over the summer, when I heard of Pope Francis’ passing. I was shocked as he was just present in the Square, he did the Ad Urbi et Orbi blessing, and he seemed to be recovering. I was saddened, as the joyful man, full of humor and a zeal for peace, had passed away.
Yet, what surprise me more was the unity his death caused. In Siena, people would talk to me about Pope Francis, express their condolences, and offer their prayers and sentiments for him and the Church. Even friends and family mem-
Seminarians Bruce Cargill, left, and Jacob Miller, hold a copy of the newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, announcing the election of Pope Leo XIV.
—Courtesy photo
bers of mine, who are not Catholic, sent me messages concerning the death of Pope Francis, offering condolences and prayers. They treated his death as if he was a relative of mine, or rather, a very close friend. It struck me how important Pope Francis was to the world.
Then, in Rome, there were many crowds of people flocking to St. Peter’s Basilica, some who waited all morning, all day, and all night, just to pay their respects. I saw one religious Sister break down in tears at the sight of the Holy Father.
That week was the Octave of Easter, a time when people were on vacation. Everyone seemed to stop what they were
doing and made Pope Francis their priority. Several hundred thousand people were in attendance in St. Peter’s Square, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, all there to honor the Pope whom they loved because of the witness of Jesus Christ he was, for not just Catholics, but the world.
His messages of peace inspired the world and even inspired the new Pope to carry that mantle. The way he loved the Church and showed the world the love of the Father was seen that day by the number of people he impacted and continues to impact.
After Pope Francis’ funeral and a period of mourning, the Conclave began; an exciting event that the world could see, and so, is a huge testament to our Catholic faith. Unlike a normal election, it is through prayer and faith in the Holy Spirit the Pope is elected. This was constant comfort for me throughout the days leading up to and including the Conclave. A small group of seminarians started a novena for the Conclave nine days before it started.
After several rounds of voting and seeing black smoke, we all returned to St. Peter’s Square May 8 expecting to see, once again, black smoke. Instead, we saw white smoke, accompanied by bells, shouts, and tears of joy all around the square. While we waited expectantly for the newly elected Pope to come out of
the Loggia, the Cardinal announced his name – Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost – now to be called Pope Leo XIV. Everyone was shocked and amazed that he was an American. We all loved his chosen name, a strong papal name, Leo XIV. When the new pontiff came out of the Loggia waving and proclaiming peace to all, it was evident that it was an emotional time for him, and a great blessing to minister to God’s people as Pope. I loved everything he said, such as being in the hands of God, and wishing everyone peace. The following day, a group of us watched the Pope’s Mass in the Sistine Chapel, and not only did he have a great homily, but he spoke in English for the first minute or two of his homily, which has never been done before.
On Sunday, a group of us went to the Regina Coeli in the square, where the Pope blessed the people and sang the prayer, while addressing those gathered. I am filled with hope and joy at the election of Pope León XIV, and I am excited to see what he does, and how he further shows the love of God the Father through his Papacy. Viva Papa León XIV, ad multos annos!
Bruce Cargill and Jacob Miller are diocesan seminarians studying at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
POPE FRANCIS 1936-2025
Withheavy hearts the Diocese of Metuchen mourns the passing of His Holiness, Pope Francis. From the moment of his election as Supreme Pontiff when he took the name Francis, our Holy Father has emphasized the mercy of God, embracing in his Petrine ministry the poor, the migrant, the marginalized and all those broken by this world’s problems and concerns. We entrust his noble soul to the hands of our Blessed Mother to accompany him to our Father’s house. In this Jubilee year in which Pope Francis called us to be Pilgrims of Hope, he has now made the ultimate pilgrimage to the embrace of our loving God.
By Kurt Jensen, OSV News
In 2013, the odds against Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio being named pope were considered about 150 to 1.
That March 13, French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran intoned “Habemus Papam!” (We have a pope!”) from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, announcing that Cardinal Bergoglio – Pope Francis – had won the balloting of the College of Cardinals.
Anne Thompson, a reporter for NBC News who was there, remembered that the assembled throng in St. Peter’s Square initially responded with one voice: “Huh?”
am a sinner. I am a sinner who received the mercy of God,’” recalled Andrew Prevot, a Georgetown theology professor.
“That’s the most Ignatian thing I ever heard,” he said. “This is what it means to have a Jesuit pope.”
Initiative director Kim Daniels praised Pope Francis’ “dynamic open vision” offered especially to the poor, and his often-expressed philosophy that “the Church must be a place of mercy freely given.”
“He met people where they were at,” Thompson said. “He spoke of faith as a person who practiced it. All these things that people could relate to.”
The pope who ‘captured the imagination and heart of the entire world’
Thompson said at a Georgetown University panel on May 6 that the new Pope Francis soon afterward “captured the imagination and heart of the entire world.” The panel discussion, on the eve of the Vatican conclave beginning May 7, was the final “Francis Factor” discussion for the university’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.
Participants were reluctant to predict future developments, but warm memories of the late pope’s personality and unwavering focus on the dispossessed flowed freely.
John Carr, founder of the Initiative, remembered the “incredible sight” of the pope following his speech to Congress in 2015 during his apostolic visit to the United States. The protocol normally would have had him attending a luncheon at the Capitol. Instead, the pope was driven directly to the office of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, where he had lunch with people in need.
In advance of his visit to the United States, via satellite, Pope Francis held a virtual town hall with three cities. One city was McAllen, Texas, and with a group gathered at Sacred Heart Catholic Church there, he famously singled out Sister Norma Pimentel, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus and the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
Her abiding memory “has to be the moment when he looked at me and said, ‘I love you very much,’” Sister Norma told the panel.
“One of the first things he said (as pope) was, ‘I
As for transforming the papacy, Thompson observed that Pope Francis “did not do well reining in the Curia” and he left the Vatican in debt with unfunded pension liabilities. But, she said, “he certainly made the Church more global – the leadership of the Church more global. That will have a significant impact.”
Rabbi Abraham Skorka, a personal friend of Pope Francis from their days in Argentina, when they wrote the book “On Heaven and Earth” together, praised the late pope.
“He had a special commitment with all the documents of the Second Vatican Council,” said Rabbi Skorka, a research fellow for Jewish studies at Georgetown. He called the pope “a very, very loyal friend” unafraid to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians and Ukraine and Russia.
But first, he said the late pope reminded him, “We have to purify our religious elements to use them as instruments of peace.”
“On most matters of faith and morals,” Prevot observed, Pope Francis “was pretty consistent” with his predecessors Pope Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II.
With respect to Pope Francis’ famous 2013 response “Who am I to judge” – “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” – Prevot described it as the pope’s attempt to say, “I’m trying to show what mercy looks like in a concrete situation.”
Sister Norma said what was “clear to all of us was his connection to humanity: looking for the goodness in others instead of turning them away. We don’t turn our backs on anyone but embrace them.”
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
The hope Christians have is not a sign of avoiding reality but of trusting in the power of God to defeat sin and death as the resurrection of Jesus clearly shows, Pope Francis wrote in his Easter message.
“All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey,” said the message, read before Pope Francis gave his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) April 20.
The pope’s voice was weak, as it had been since he was released from the hospital March 23, and he barely raised his arms as he made the sign of the cross,
but the tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square were appreciative and clapped loudly after saying, “Amen.”
“Together with the risen Jesus,” he wrote in his message, those who trust in God “become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of life.”
The 88-year-old pope, still recovering from pneumonia, was not present at the Easter morning Mass in St. Peter’s Square but arrived shortly after noon to give the solemn blessing.
With his voice still weak, Pope Francis wished everyone a Happy Easter and then asked his master of liturgical ceremonies, Archbishop Diego Ravelli, to read his message, which insisted that “Easter is the celebration of life!”
“God created us for life and wants
Pope Francis appears on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) at the Vatican April 20, 2025. —CNS photo/Vatican Media
to “the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”
“I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace,” the papal message said.
The homily the pope prepared focused on the Easter Gospel’s description of Mary Magdalene running to tells the disciples that Jesus had risen and Peter and John running to verify the news.
Running, the pope wrote, “expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus.”
the human family to rise again,” he wrote. “In his eyes, every life is precious! The life of a child in the mother’s womb, as well as the lives of the elderly and the sick, who in more and more countries are looked upon as people to be discarded.”
Pope Francis condemned the “great thirst for death” seen in violence and wars around the world and in the “contempt” people, including government leaders, direct toward “the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants!”
As is traditional for the message, the pope also prayed for peace in wartorn nations, mentioning by name: Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, Congo and Myanmar.
Pope Francis condemned “the growing climate of antisemitism throughout the world.” But he also called attention
And because he has risen from the dead, people must look for Jesus in someplace other than the tomb, the pope’s text said.
“We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives.”
Jesus “is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us,” Pope Francis wrote.
On April 21, Pope Francis died at 7:35 a.m., the day after Easter and his final words to the city and the world.
A Pope of Faith ...Hope ...and Joy
As a writer, I’ve learned that we never know how meaningful our words might be at some point in the future, for us or for others we may never meet. It is certainly true for someone like Pope Francis, who reached out with his words to a world filled with the children of God. His words always felt personal to me, as if he were speaking or writing just for my benefit. Today, it is no different as I reread his audience from August 23, 2017, eight years before his death. They are powerful words, and we see almost immediately the word “hope” – the theme of the Jubilee Year which he so hoped to see through to the end. Though our hearts may break at his passing, he would certainly want us to be certain in hope because God does “make all things new.”
By Mary Morrell Editor-in-Chief
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
We have heard the Word of God in the Book of Revelation, as follows: “Behold, I make all things new” (21:5). Christian hope is based on faith in God who always creates newness in the life of mankind, creates novelty in history, creates novelty in the universe. Our God is the God who creates newness, because he is the God of surprises. It is not Christian to walk with one’s gaze directed downward — as swine do: they always go along in this way — without lifting one’s eyes to the horizon. As if our entire journey terminated here, in the span of a few metres travelled; as if our life had no goal and no mooring, and we were compelled to wander endlessly, without any reason for our many toils. This is not Christian.
The closing pages of the Bible show us the ultimate horizon of our journey as believers: the heavenly Jerusalem, the celestial Jerusalem. It is envisioned first of all as an immense tent, where God will welcome all mankind so as to dwell with them definitively (21:3). This is our hope. And what will God do, when we are with him at last? He will be infinitely tender in our regard, as a father who welcomes his children who have long toiled and suffered. John prophesies in Revelation: “Behold the dwelling of God is with men.... He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.... Behold, I make all things new” (21:3-5). The God of newness!
Try meditating on this passage of Sacred Scripture not in a distracted way, but after reading a chronicle of our days, after seeing the tv news or the front page of newspapers, where there are so many tragedies, where they report distressing news that we all risk becoming used to. And I have greeted several people from Barcelona: how many sad reports from there! I have greeted several from Congo, and how much sad news there is from there! And how very much more!
To name only two countries of some of you who are here.... Try thinking about the faces of children frightened by war, of the despair of mothers, of the shattered dreams of so many young people, of refugees who undertake terrible journeys, and who are so often exploited.... This, unfortunately, is also life. At times one might say that it is this above all.
This may be so. But there is a Father who weeps with us; there is a Father who sheds tears of infinite compassion for his children. We have a Father who knows how to weep, who weeps with us. A Father who awaits us in order to console us, because he knows our suffering and has prepared a different future for us. This is the great vision of Christian hope, which expands over all the days of our life, and seeks to raise us up once more.
God did not desire our lives by mistake, obliging himself and us to experience harsh nights of anguish. He instead created us because he wants us to be happy. He is our Father, and if we here, now, experience a life that is not what he planned for us, Jesus guarantees that God himself is working out his redemption. He is working to redeem us.
We believe and we know that death and hate are not the final words pronounced on the parabola of human existence. Being Christians entails a new perspective: a gaze full of hope. Some believe that life retains all its happiness in youth and in the past, and that living is a slow deterioration. Still others hold that our joys are only fleeting episodes, and that the life of mankind is bound in meaninglessness. Those who, in the face of many calamities, say: “Life has no meaning. Our path is meaningless”. But we Christians do not think this.
Rather, we believe that on mankind’s horizon there is a sun that shines forever. We believe that our most beautiful days are yet to come. We are more people of the Spring than of Autumn. I would like to ask, now — each one answer in your heart, in silence, but respond: “Am I a man, a woman, a boy, a girl of the Springtime or of Autumn? Is my spirit in the Spring or in Autumn?
Pope Francis among the people at St. Peter’s SquareMay 12, 2013 — Edgar Jiménez photo
Each one answer silently. Let us view the buds of a new world rather than the yellowed leaves on its branches. Let us not cultivate nostalgia, regret and sorrow: we know that God wants us to be heirs of a promise and tireless growers of dreams. Do not forget that question: “Am I a person of the Spring or of Autumn?” Of Springtime, which expects flowers, which expects fruit, which expects the sun that is Jesus; or of Autumn, which is always with the face looking down, disheartened and, as I have said at times, with a sour face like pickled peppers.
The Christian knows that the Kingdom of God, its dominion of Love, is growing as a great field of wheat, even if in the middle there are weeds. There are always problems; there is gossip; there are wars; there is illness ... there are problems. But the wheat ripens, and in the end evil will be eliminated. The future does not belong to us, but we know that Jesus Christ is life’s greatest grace, is the embrace of God who awaits us at the end, but who is already accompanying us now and comforts us on the journey. He leads us to the great “dwelling” of God with mankind (cf. Rev 21:3), with many other brothers and sisters, and we will bring to God the memory of the days lived here on earth. It will be lovely to discover in that instant that nothing has been lost, no smile and no tear. However long our life might be, it will seem to us to have been lived in one breath. And that creation did not stop on the sixth day of Genesis, but continued tirelessly, because God is always looking after us.
Until the day in which all shall be fulfilled, in the morning in which tears shall fade away, in the very instant in which God shall pronounce his final word of blessing: “Behold” — says the Lord — “I make all things new” (v. 5). Yes, our Father is the God of newness and of surprise. And that day we will be truly happy, and we will weep, yes, but we will weep tears of joy.
Rest in peace and the joy of the Lord, Pope Francis.
With love, The Catholic Spirit Staff
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY – To the chanting of Christ’s promise, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,” the mortal remains of Pope Francis were carried into St. Peter’s Basilica by 14 pallbearers.
Thousands of people had made an early morning pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Square April 23 to witness the transfer and pray for the late pope; they erupted in applause when his body, in an open casket, reached the square and again when it reached the top of the basilica steps.
The basilica was to be open until midnight April 23, from 7 a.m. to mid-
night April 24 and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. April 25 for visits by the public. Another rite, to close the casket, was scheduled for late April 25. The pope’s funeral was scheduled for April 26 in St. Peter’s Square with burial to follow at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major.
Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said 19,430 people had filed past the pope’s body between 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. April 23. The basilica would remain open after midnight if there were still people in line, he added.
U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, as chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, led the prayer service that accompanied the transfer of the body from the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where
the pope had lived and where he died April 21 at the age of 88.
More than 80 cardinals joined the procession ahead of Cardinal Farrell, who was wearing a red and gold cope, and immediately preceded the pallbearers flanked by members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
Directly behind the casket were the men closest to the pope in his final days: his nurse, Massimiliano Strappetti; his two valets; and his personal secretaries.
Three religious sisters and a laywoman, whom the pope had appointed to top positions in the Roman Curia, came behind them: Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist Raffaella Petrini, president of the office governing Vatican City State;
Left, people stand in line outside the Vatican to pay their respects to Pope Francis, lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 23, 2025. Public viewing was to continue until April 25, the night before the late pope’s funeral. —CNS photo/Pablo Esparza
Below, Bishops process past the body of Pope Francis as he lies in state in an open casket in front of the Altar of the Confession in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 23, 2025. The pope lay in state for three days of public viewing and prayer ahead of his funeral Mass April 26.
—CNS photo/Paolo Galosi, pool
Salesian Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops; and Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
The basilica’s bell-ringer sounded the death knell as the procession began.
To the singing of Psalms, beginning with “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23), the procession with the casket went into St. Peter’s Square amid the public and then up the central ramp – where Pope Francis would ride in the popemobile – and into the church.
Inside the basilica, the choir and assembly chanted the Litany of Saints and then “Subvenite Sancti Dei,” which begins with the petition: “Saints of God, come to his aid. Hasten to meet him, angels of the Lord. Receive his soul and present him to God the Most High.”
Pope Francis’ body, in a zinc-lined wooden casket covered in red fabric, was placed before the main altar on a low platform cut at an angle so that people coming to pay their respects could see his face.
Cardinal Farrell blessed the pope’s body with holy water and incense and led those assembled in praying the Lord’s Prayer.
Removing their red zucchettos, the cardinals bowed before the coffin, made the sign of the cross and left the basilica. They were followed by bishops, both those who work at the Vatican and those who head dioceses, then hundreds of priests and religious and top Vatican lay employees.
Mary Frances Brennan, who teaches at Kennedy Catholic High School in Seattle, was in the front row in St. Peter’s Square.
She said she had learned the pope had died just a few hours before her flight to Rome was scheduled to leave.
“It was devastating,” she said. “We really wanted to see the pope.”
“He’s my pope,” she said. “I love him and want to honor him.”
Additionally, Brennan said, “now all the people back home have a contact here and can see this through my eyes.”
Waiting in line later to enter the basilica, Adjani Tovar from Mexico City told Catholic News Service that Pope Francis “was a very disruptive pope: As a Jesuit, a true Jesuit, he naturally had a closer connection with people, especially young people.”
“He addressed topics that had been off-limits in the Catholic Church for a long time, and he’s going to be remembered as a turning point for all the openness he showed to different communities, for his focus on inclusion, his relationships with heads of state, and his constant calls for peace,” Tovar said.
By Sister Anna Nguyen Diocesan Delegate for Religious and Consecrated Life
On October 10, 2021, Pope Francis inaugurated the Synod on Synodality, initiating a worldwide effort to foster dialogue and unity within the Catholic Church. This multi-year journey focused on listening and discernment among the faithful, aiming to encourage greater involvement from all members of the Church – laity, clergy and religious – in discussions shaping the Church’s direction and priorities. The process involved listening sessions, consultations, and gatherings at diocesan, national, and continental levels, culminating in a global assembly of bishops in Rome.
During these Synodal years, I had the honor of serving as Delegate for Consecrated Life in our Diocese of Metuchen. I actively participated at diocesan, national, and continental levels, engaging in both in-person and virtual gatherings. Our task at each session was to explore the essence of our journey together, emphasizing communion, participation, and mission.
Imagine being in a room filled with people from all walks of life, each sharing their hopes, fears, issues, and dreams for the future of their local and universal Church, each concern needing prompt attention. The energy in the air was palpable, a testament to the power of collective discernment and faith. The Synodal process pushed our groups far beyond our comfort zones, at times intimidating. However, it taught us to listen in amazing ways, especially to the Holy Spirit working through each person present.
I am deeply grateful to our Holy Father for initiating the Synod on Synodality, through which he taught me/ us a new way of life – a life of personal interior conversion while engaging those on the margins and including the voices of the poor. This ongoing Synodal way requires us to choose understanding instead of criticism, acceptance instead of judgment, and reconciliation as the pathway to healing and wholeness. We were assured that there is no pressure to have everything figured out, no pursuit of
perfection, and no achievements expected. Instead, we were to shift our focus to others, allowing our neighbors to evolve in their uniqueness within the treasury of God’s love and grace.
In my view, Pope Francis, originally a Jesuit priest from Buenos Aires, Argentina, exemplifies the Suscipe, a prayer attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola. This prayer of profound surrender and trust in Jesus states, “You have given all to me –
my understanding, memory, will... I give them back to You, Lord. What I ask in return is Your love and grace – they are enough for me.” Is God’s love and grace enough for me? ...For you?
Pope Francis has given us a legacy never to be forgotten. May the Lord grant him his reward of unending joy with Jesus and Mary, our Mother forever. May he rest in peace.
Pope Francis and members of the Synod of Bishops on synodality pose for a photo after the synod’s final working session Oct. 26, 2024, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. — CNS photo/Vatican Media
POPE SERVED AS LOVING EXAMPLE
By Msgr. Charles W. Cicerale Retired priest of the Diocese
Pope Francis taught me a great deal about being a disciple of Jesus, a priest, and a pastor by his words, the choices he made, his priorities, and the way he lived.
First, fancy robes and a palace were not necessary to fulfill his mission. Neither do I need the trappings of priesthood to genuinely love my people. What we do defines who and what we are more than the words we use. The simple place Pope Francis chose to live is a witness to his truth. Living simply speaks to the way Jesus lived.
Secondly, St. John Henry Newman said: “To live is to change, and to live
well is to change often.” Pope Francis was willing to let go and take risks wanting the Church to go forward through his “synodal way.” He was eager to listen to how others experienced the Church, especially those on the margins. So must I, as a pastor, be willing, and where necessary have the courage to change how I do pastoring if it’s not effective. He showed me firsthand that we priests have a shared life with our people, and together to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading us.
Third, when first asked who he was,
Pope Francis said: “I am a sinner.” If only I could remember that about myself, I would stop judging myself and others and show consistent compassion to all I meet, and myself daily.
Lastly, I will remember this holy Pope as a highly effective Church leader and bridge-builder. He brought people together, skillfully and patiently leading us to engage in genuine dialogue, to respect the earth, and to promote peace and the well-being of our most vulnerable and marginalized neighbors, and ulti-
Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, since 2013 - Pope Francis, washes the feet of residents of a shelter for drug users during Holy Thursday Mass in 2008 at a church in a poor neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Pope Francis died April 21, 2025, at age 88. —OSV News photo/Enrique Garcia Medina, Reuters
mately to grow closer to God. He was eager to share ministry with women and preached the good news of inclusion and love. When I saw this gentle man wash the feet of the incarcerated women, both Christian and Muslim on Holy Thursday, and kiss them, I knew he recognized in them the sacramental presence of Christ. I pray for the grace to see, as he did, the face of Christ, and to imitate him in his great mercy!
As Pope’s casket is sealed, he is remembered for simplicity, humility
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – After an estimated 250,000 people had passed by the body of Pope Francis, lying in an open casket in front of the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica, the casket was sealed in a private ceremony.
Inside the casket was a scroll that summarized the life and ministry of the pope, who died April 21 at the age of 88.
It noted how, in Argentina, “he was a simple and well-loved pastor in his archdiocese, traveling far and wide, including by subway and bus. He lived in an apartment and made his own dinner, because he felt like one of the people.”
U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, presided over the April 25 prayer service and rite, explaining to the small group of people close to Pope Francis that “we are gathered here to carry out acts of human piety before the funeral Mass of our pope, Francis.”
The prayer service and rituals at 8 p.m., after the public viewing of his body had ended, followed what was prescribed in the “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis” (“Funeral Rites of the Roman Pontiff”). The rites originally were approved by St. John Paul II, and Pope Francis revised and simplified them in 2024.
A piece of silk cloth was laid over the face of the pope, who was dressed in a red chasuble and was wearing the worn black shoes he always wore.
Inside the zinc-lined wooden casket
were placed a sack of coins minted during his 12-year pontificate and a metal tube containing the “rogito” or scroll with a brief description of his life, ministry and pontificate. A copy of the scroll will be kept in the archives of the Office of Papal Liturgical Ceremonies.
Pope Francis died April 21 at 7:35 a.m., the scroll said. “The whole Christian community, especially the poor, gave praise to God for the gift of his service rendered with courage and fidelity to the Gospel and to the mystical Bride of Christ.”
“Francis was the 266th pope. His memory remains in the heart of the church and of all humanity,” it added.
The zinc cover secured to the casket was decorated with a cross, the coat of arms of Pope Francis and a bronze plate with his name, dates of birth and death.
The group present for the rite also included: Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals; Roger M. Mahony, retired archbishop of Los Angeles, and ranking member of the order of cardinal priests; Dominique Mamberti, former prefect of the Apostolic Signature and ranking member of the order of cardinal deacons; Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica; Pietro Parolin, secretary of state under Pope Francis; Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome; and Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner.
The Canticle of Zechariah from Luke 1:68-79 was read. It begins, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption to his people.” The canticle praises God for his
By Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – When Pope Francis was elected as the first Latin American pontiff, he said his brother cardinals went out of their way to pick someone from the “ends of the earth.” He spent the rest of his pontificate going back out to those peripheries, traveling to more than 65 nations, preferring those that were poor, scarred by war, marginalized and forgotten.
Then the peripheries came to him on the day of his funeral in St. Peter’s Square. More than 160 nations sent delegations April 26, headed by kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, government officials and ambassadors. All the countries the pope visited in his 12-year pontificate were represented except Kazakhstan and South Korea, according to the list of confirmed delegations the Vatican press office released late April 25.
U.S. Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, sprinkles Pope Francis’ body with holy water before his casket is sealed during a prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 25, 2025. —CNS photo/ Vatican Media
“tender mercy” and forgiveness.
The “rogito” had a brief biography of the late pope, including his birth Dec. 17, 1936, to parents who emigrated to Argentina from Italy, his entrance into the Society of Jesus, his ordination as a priest and his appointment as archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998.
“Always attentive to the least and those discarded by society, Francis, as soon as he was elected” March 13, 2013, “chose to live in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, because he could not do without contact with people,” it said.
The document noted his efforts to promote dialogue with other religions, especially Islam, the major documents he published and his expansion of the College of Cardinals.
“The doctrinal magisterium of Pope Francis has been very rich,” it said. The documents give “witness to a style that is simple and humble, based on openness to missionary outreach, apostolic courage and mercy, careful in avoiding the danger of self-referentiality and spiritual worldliness in the Church.”
“Francis left an admirable witness of humanity, a holy life and universal fatherhood,” it concluded.
The presence of so many world leaders at Pope Francis’ funeral and their praise and accolades after his death April 21 sparked accusations of hypocrisy, especially in Italy, where the government has taken a hard line against immigration. Cardinal Domenico Battaglia of Naples told the Italian daily, La Repubblica, April 26, “There is a risk of beatifying him in words, only to forget him in deeds.”
Pope Francis “spoke plainly” without mincing words as all prophets do, he said. The cardinal compared the situation to King Herod and John the Baptist. Herod “welcomed him, listened to him and then did the opposite of what John preached.”
The Pope’s funeral provided a rare opportunity for enemies and friends to come together as one and be reminded of his invitation to “build bridges and not walls.” But he also warned that the world needed action and not words.
By Paulina Guzik, OSV News
In the last years of his papacy, the world saw the more serious, concerned and suffering face of Pope Francis. But with one group he was always beaming, always smiling and always cheerful: the poor.
“Pope Francis put the poor in the center of his papacy because this meant precisely being in the center of the Gospel,” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, kept repeating throughout the pontificate when asked about initiative after initiative for the Roman homeless and disadvantaged.
For Francis, taking care of those in need meant turning the Vatican upside down. The poor were regularly welcomed inside Casa Santa Marta, where the pope lived, and the Swiss Guards were saluting them as they made their way to the Elemosineria Apostolica – the Apostolic Almsgiving office – for lunch with Cardinal Krajewski. Francis made it perfectly clear – they’re one of us, and they deserve the Vatican to be their home.
The revolution was easy to predict as the cardinal who became Pope Francis was a regular guest in the slums of Buenos Aires and a priest who wouldn’t replace his glasses until they were falling apart. For the Vatican however, the scale of the revolution was shocking.
“The task of the Apostolic Almsgiving is to empty the account for the charity of the Holy Father for the poor, according to the logic of the Gospel,” reads the main banner on the website for Cardinal Krajewski’s office.
Five months into Francis’ papacy, in August 2013, the Polish prelate was picked for the job of distributing charity funds of the Vatican – an appointment that started a whirlwind of initiatives.
tient clinic for the poor was built in that same spot, in the touristy center of the Vatican.
“Around 150 people are treated there by doctors daily. Those doctors all work as volunteers, eight to 10 doctors every day – dentists, gynecologists, podiatrists, often professors of medicine! And you know what they tell me – that this is more important to put in their resume than the famous Gemelli clinic,” Cardinal Krajewski said in November 2024 of the privilege the doctors feel to serve the poor in the name of the pope.
“I remember that in one of the first public appointments with the press, Pope Francis said how he would like a poor church, which is poor and for the poor,” Massimiliano Signifredi, Community of Sant’Egidio’s coordinator of services for the homeless, told OSV News.
island, Sant’Egidio was facilitating the visit and took care of the families in their new life journey.
A year later, Francis announced the first World Day of the Poor.
“The poor are not a problem: They are a resource from which to draw as we strive to accept and practice in our lives the essence of the Gospel,” Francis wrote in the message for the first observance Nov. 19, 2017. He asked the world to celebrate World Day of the Poor on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time – usually the third Sunday of November.
a hotel?” Silvano, a homeless man from Romania, asked OSV News in March 2023 in the premises of Palazzo Migliori. “Millions! But instead he renovated it and gave this place to us, to the poor.”
After extensive renovation carried out under the supervision of Cardinal Krajewski, and which left historical frescoes on the walls, Palazzo Migliori was opened in November 2019 in time for the third World Day of the Poor.
“The Holy Father told me to sell my desk,” Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News in November 2023. “You won’t need it,” he recalled, pointing to the pope’s primary directive – to go out and be there where the poor need you.
In November 2014, the news broke that showers for the homeless would be built under the sweeping white colonnade of St. Peter’s Square – the decision following a request by the pope that showers for the poor be built in 10 Roman parishes. Over the years, an outpa-
Sant’Egidio, founded in 1968 by the young Andrea Riccardi, now an esteemed professor of history, intellectual and successful negotiator of peace agreements, over the years has become a network of communities that tend to the poor, including migrants, and advocate for peace in more than 70 countries around the world.
For Francis, Sant’Egidio was a natural ally.
“The Holy Father got to know St. Egidio in the villas miseria, Spanish for shanty towns, in Buenos Aires, and he met many times with our community,” Signifredi stressed.
In 2016, when the pope unexpectedly took Syrian families with him to Rome on a papal plane from the Greek Lesbos
“This Sunday, if there are poor people where we live who seek protection and assistance, let us draw close to them: it will be a favourable moment to encounter the God we seek,” the pope said, adding, “Let us never forget that, for Christ’s disciples, poverty is above all a call to follow Jesus in his own poverty.”
The pope practiced what he preached – every year making the Vatican press corps happy with unusual pictures of the pontiff dining with thousands of the poor, joking with children from disadvantaged families and sincerely laughing with migrants from all corners of the globe.
In 2019, another milestone of the revolution hit. The pope had an empty Roman palace to allocate.
“It is a beautiful building that overlooks the colonnade at St. Peter’s Square. You can see the dome perfectly,” Signifredi said, adding it could easily become a neat Vatican curial office or a five-star hotel, “maybe even more given the location.”
“Do you know how much money he could make if he turned this place into
“It is not only a roof on top of their heads, or a bed with a bedside table, but it is the chance to start a new life,” Signifredi said.
There, in Palazzo Migliori, alms given to the homeless are transformed into “real change,” he said.
“When you give alms, you touch someone’s hand. In Palazzo MIgliori, the Lord touches the hand of the poor, and with that – he touches their heart. He touches their life so that their life changes,” Signifredi explained.
“It’s not a shelter, it’s home,” added Silvano, who only gave his first name.
The biggest change for the homeless is the fact that after stepping through the threshold of the palazzo, they regain their dignity.
“The first thing you need to do with a homeless man is to accept him, talk to him,” Cardinal Krajewski said.
That is why when the cardinal was told in the spring of 2023 that “a homeless man without a face” lives in the Aventino area, he rushed to see him.
Miroslav, a Slovak man, had his face covered with cloth since his face
was disfigured by cancer. “We took him to Palazzo Migliori and took care of him for two months,” Cardinal Krajewski told OSV News in September 2023.
“He was blind as the disease took his eyes, he didn’t have a nose, but for the last two months of his life he was surrounded by friends. Slovak bishops were paying visits to him. He had constant care and attention,” Cardinal Krajewski recalled.
“He would have his window open and would listen to Wednesday audiences of the Holy Father. And every time someone would come he just said, ‘Thank you.’ He never cursed his fate, did not hold a grudge against the doctors, because he was not surrounded by procedures, but people,” Cardinal Krajewski said.
The Polish cardinal celebrated Miroslav’s funeral in Rome’s St. Monica Church on Sept. 16, 2023. He was buried in the Prima Porta cemetery in Rome.
“Over 20 centuries of Christian history reveal that the full adherence to the Gospel has gone along with love for the poor. When the church turned away from the poor, it also lost the Gospel,” Signifredi added, underlining Francis’ legacy that he hopes will last for decades and centuries to come.
Miroslav became a symbol of dozens of homeless men, whose funerals were celebrated by Cardinal Krajewski and other cardinals in multiple Roman churches – a goodbye on behalf of the Holy Father.
Community of Sant’Egidio volunteers and collaborators filled the churches on those occasions “dressed in their best clothes, like they were saying goodbye to their own family members,” Cardinal Krajewski emphasized.
“I think Pope Francis has renewed a tradition of the church that has been there since the beginning, and with great human wisdom he has led the church to rediscover the treasure – that is – the poor,” Signifredi told OSV News.
For Signifredi, Pope Francis has shown that “the poor are not a social category, but they are faces. They are hands to be held, to be accompanied. He showed this very concretely when on many occasions he just hung out with them.”
For some, this approach was “uncomfortable,” Cardinal Krajewski said of the many critics of the showers, clinics and shelters surrounding St. Peter’s.
“Jesus loved people so much he went to the cross for them. And why did people crucify Jesus? Because they did not understand him. The fact that someone did not understand Pope Francis does not mean we shouldn’t have done on his behalf what was done,” the Polish prelate emphasized in September 2023.
“The most beautiful thing in life is to become a purpose for another human being.”
Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @ Guzik_Paulina.
By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A few days before Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, he told his fellow cardinals, “I have the impression that Jesus is locked inside the Church and that he is knocking because he wants to get out!”
With this short, simple phrase, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires gave a clear, powerful snapshot of what he felt was needed for the church today: missionary disciples who head to the peripheries with the joy of the Gospel.
He later said the Church will get sick if it stays locked up safe inside, being a “hairdresser,” fluffing and curling its flock’s wooly fleece, instead of seeking, like Christ did, the sheep who are lost. His sentences often sounded like proverbs with a recap and wise reflection wrapped in just a few lines.
Teaching high school literature before and after becoming a priest, Pope Francis possessed an extensive background in the themes and devices in literature and cinema. As a native-Spanish speaker who grew up with Italian-speaking relatives in Argentina and had Jesuit training, his wide and eclectic knowledge supplied him with elements that he’d mix and match with a religious message creating such metaphors as “the babysitter church” to describe a parish that doesn’t give birth to active evangelizers but only worries about keeping parishioners out of trouble.
“Armchair Catholics,” meanwhile, don’t let the Holy Spirit lead their lives.
They would rather stay put, safely reciting a “cold morality” without letting the Spirit push them out of the house to bring Jesus to others.
For the Pope, who saw Christ as a “true physician of bodies and souls,” there was no shortage of medical metaphors.
He pined for a church that would be “a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds.”
The consequence of pride or vanity, he warned on another occasion, “is like an osteoporosis of the soul: The bones seem good from the outside, but on the inside they are all ruined.”
Another medical problem afflicting souls is “spiritual Alzheimer’s,” a condition that renders some people incapable of remembering God’s love and mercy for them and, therefore, unable to show mercy to others.
If people were to get a “spiritual electrocardiogram,” he once asked, would it be flatlined because the heart is hardened, unmoved and emotionless or would it be pulsating with the prompting and prods of the Holy Spirit?
And whether people recognize it or not, God is their true father, he has said. “First of all, he gave us his DNA, that is, he made us his children; he created us in his image, in his image and likeness, like him.”
The Ignatian spirituality that formed him came through many of his turns of phrase. Just as a Jesuit seeks to
use all five senses to find and experience God, the Pope did not hesitate to use language that involved sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.
And, so, he urged the world’s priests to be “shepherds living with the smell of sheep” by being with and among the people, seeing their challenges, listening to their dreams and being the mediator between God and his people to let God’s grace pass through.
Food and drink held numerous lessons. For example, Catholic elders need to share with the young their insight and wisdom, which become like “fine wine that tastes better with age.”
To convey the corrosive atmosphere a bitter, angry priest can bring to his community, the pope said such priests make one think, “This man drinks vinegar for breakfast. Then, for lunch, pickled vegetables. And, in the evening, a nice glass of lemon juice.”
Grumpy, gloomy Catholics with “pickled-pepper faces” are too focused on themselves rather than on the love, tenderness and forgiveness of Jesus who sparks and fuels true joy, he said.
Even country living held lessons. He once told parishioners to bother their priests like a calf would pester its mother for milk. Always knock “on their door, on their heart so that they give you the milk of doctrine, the milk of grace and the milk of guidance.”
Christians must not be boastful and shallow like a special sweet his Italian grandmother would make: from a very thin strip of pastry, the crunchy dessert bloats and swells in a pan of hot oil. They are called “bugie” or “little lies,” he said, because “they seem big, but they have nothing inside, there’s no truth, no substance.”
To explain the kind of “terrible anxiety” that results from a life of vanity built on lies and fantasy, the pope said, “it’s like those people who put on too much makeup and then they’re afraid of getting rained on and all the makeup running down their face.”
St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, is depicted in this detail from a painting by Peter Paul Rubens. As a Jesuit, one who seeks to use all five senses to find and experience God, the Pope did not hesitate to use language that involved sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.
—CNS photo/ courtesy of Jesuit Curia General
Pope Francis never shied away from the gory or gross, calling unbridled capitalism and money – when it becomes an idol – the “devil’s dung.”
He equated the media’s love for “dirt” and scandal with “coprophilia,” a fetish for feces, and he said the lives of the corrupt are “varnished putrefaction” because, like whitewashed tombs, they appear beautiful on the outside, but inside they are full of dead bones.
Meeting once with cardinals and the heads of Vatican offices for an annual Christmas greeting, the Pope explained the reform of the Roman Curia was more than just a face-lift to rejuvenate or beautify an aging body, but a process of deep, personal conversion.
Sometimes, he said, reform “is like cleaning an Egyptian Sphinx with a toothbrush.”
By Ines San Martin, OSV News
Pope Francis, history’s first pope from the global south and a maverick who often delighted the world, died April 21 after fighting pulmonary disease for the last few months.
Elected in March 2013 as an outsider who could reform the Roman Curia, meaning the central government of the Church, but who often surprised and even occasionally alarmed the cardinals who backed him, Pope Francis died at age 88 at the Vatican.
The pope “from the end of the earth,” as the Argentine pontiff put it during his first public blessing, ended up leading the Catholic Church through two great crises: the global explosion of the clerical sexual abuse scandals and the unprecedented interruption of pastoral life caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Pope Francis succeeded Pope Benedict XVI, the first man in 600 years to resign the pontificate, creating an unprecedented scenario of two popes living side-by-side in the Vatican – as Benedict himself put it, one pope “governing” and the other “praying.”
An advocate for migrants, interfaith dialogue as a way to prevent conflict, nuclear disarmament and an end to the death penalty, and the dignity of workers, Pope Francis collected both friends and foes in his attempt to turn the 1.3 billion-strong Catholic Church into a “field hospital” with its doors open to all and with a special love for those on the margins.
Early on, Pope Francis provided perhaps the most celebrated (and arguably misunderstood) papal sound bite of the last century when he said in response
to a question about a gay cleric, “Who am I to judge?” However abused the line may have been, it captured something of the spirit of a papacy that clearly valued people more than theory and pastoral sensitivity more than law.
Pope Francis leaves behind an unfinished reform of the Roman Curia. He took several steps early on intended to promote transparency, accountability and decentralization, but as time went on the overhaul seemed to stall and fresh scandals erupted, including a $200 million Vatican property deal in London in 2019 that led to the departure of several key reformers and raised questions about whether anything had really changed.
Pope Francis also led the Church at a time when the clerical abuse crisis crossed borders far beyond the West, with an unprecedented crisis in Chile that drove the Argentine pontiff to make a U-turn when it came to addressing crimes committed by clergy.
In an attempt to face matters headon, he summoned heads of the national bishops’ conferences and the leaders of religious orders to Rome for a three-day summit in February 2019.
Critics argue the summit left behind considerable unfinished business, but others say that after Pope Francis’s leadership, no bishop in the world can claim he doesn’t know what’s expected when it comes to caring for victims and bringing perpetrators to justice.
Born in 1936 and ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969 at age 33, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires by St. John Paul II in 1992 at age 56. He was made a cardinal nine years later, in 2001, and elected pope on
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March 13, 2013, just months after turning 76.
In his first public appearance, the pope who took his name from St. Francis of Assisi demonstrated his commitment to humility, not only giving a blessing but asking people to pray for him. The line “Per favore, non dimenticatevi di pregare per me!” (“Please, don’t forget to pray for me!”) quickly became a trademark of all his public rhetoric, so much so that crowds would sometimes recite the line as the pontiff pronounced it.
From that first glimpse of Catholicism’s new chief shepherd, it was clear that Francis didn’t intend to lead merely a “transitional” papacy, just keeping the seat warm and maintaining the status quo. He was driven by a conviction that the Church had become too set in its ways, too clericalist, too distant from ordinary people and especially the poor, and he was determined to shake things up.
Loved by most, according to opinion polls, but also strongly opposed by many, the personality of this man who worked as a bouncer and enjoyed dancing to Argentina’s legendary tango music during his youth left few indifferent.
Francis was history’s first pope from the Americas, the Southern Hemisphere and the first successor of Peter to come from outside of Europe since Syrian Gregory III led the Church in the eighth century. A man coming from the world’s peripheries himself, he focused much of his pastoral attention and even his political capital on those living in the margins of society, or as he often said, “the outskirts.”
This meant that much of his ministry was focused on those who were outside the Church, either because of life choices, such as believers who are divorced and civilly remarried, or life situations, such as indigenous communities in the Amazon struggling with severe priest shortages.
Known for insisting that bishops should have “the smell of the sheep,” and for demanding priests and religious get the hems of their cassocks dirty doing God’s work, Pope Francis was never one to stand on the sidelines.
His first trip outside of Rome was to the Italian “migrant” island of Lampedusa, where he condemned global indifference to the humanitarian crisis of those fleeing hunger, war and persecution, trying to find a safe haven in Europe after a perilous trip that caused the death of thousands. Never one who enjoyed traveling before becoming pope, he acknowledged that this trip made him see the importance of his physical presence in such places.
This conviction would lead him to visit the Central African Republic in 2015, despite the ongoing religious-fueled civil war; Myanmar and Bangladesh two years later, as the military in Myanmar was systemically annihilating
the Muslim Rohingya minority that hadn’t been able to flee to neighboring Bangladesh; and to Colombia in 2017, months after a peace deal between the government and guerrilla movements ended a five-decades long civil war. His impromptu stop to pray at the wall that separates Israel and Palestine during a 2014 visit would also have global echoes, as would his 2021 trip to Iraq, which made him the first pope to visit the land of Abraham despite the threat of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the threats to his safety in a country that is in constant tumult.
Ironically, this peripatetic pope never made the one trip many of his countrymen and women wanted most, a homecoming to Argentina. Why remains one of the great unanswered questions of his reign.
Though he visited relatively few Western countries, including the United States in 2015, he often used his political capital to try to help where he felt he could influence matters. In December 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro thanked him for what became known as the “Cuban thaw,” meaning the warming of the relationship between the two countries ending a 54-year stretch of hostility.
He skipped Germany, France – except for the migrant island of Corsica, which would end up being his last trip, bringing his itinerant pontificate full circle with his first – the United Kingdom and Spain, but he wasn’t indifferent to
Europe. He made an exception to his general rule against accepting awards to receive the Charlemagne Prize in 2016, given to individuals or institutions for service to European unification. He had high hopes, and high expectations, for Europe when it came to unity, social justice and faith. When war came knocking on Europe’s door, in the form of Russia’s Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine in 2022, Pope Francis didn’t hide his disappointment, anger nor sadness, referring to the conflict almost daily during the first year.
Like St. John Paul II before him, Pope Francis also displayed an instinctive understanding of the power of gestures. Two moments of prayer were among his most iconic images: Francis’ visit to Auschwitz in 2016, where he remained entirely silent to underline the futility of speech in the face of such evil; and his unprecedented “urbi et orbi” blessing from an empty St. Peter’s Square in March 2020 during a global moment of fear and uncertainty at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. On that haunting night, Pope Francis became the world’s pastor, saying, “From this colonnade that embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s blessing come down upon you as a consoling embrace.”
Perhaps the best early epitaph is this: Pope Francis was a man who electrified the world and delivered a sort of shock therapy to the Church he led, driving it to rethink established patterns and to go boldly where it hadn’t been before. His record as a CEO may be mixed, his
positions on specific political or ecclesiastical matters debatable, but no one can say Francis didn’t have their attention.
He was a man fond of following the advice he once gave to thousands of Argentine young men and women who attended World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, when he told them to “make a mess.”
Cheered by some and feared by others, Pope Francis was a Jesuit to his core, from choosing to live in the Vatican’s Santa Marta residence rather than the Apostolic Palace in order to have a community to the way he would consult widely on important matters, even calling for a three-year global consultation dubbed the Synod on Synodality, but, like a good Jesuit superior, very much making decisions by himself.
It’s sometimes said of the sons of Ignatius that not even God himself truly knows what they’re thinking, and that was sometimes the case with Francis, who could be maddeningly ambiguous and send conflicting signals depending on who he was talking to. Yet even if Francis was sometimes slippery about answers, he was never afraid to pose questions.
That boldness born of the Gospel may, in the end, be his most lasting legacy, leaving behind a Church less confident it has all the answers but also less afraid to face new questions anyway.
Ines San Martin writes for OSV News from New York. She is vice president of communications at the Pontifical Mission Societies USA.
By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Elected in 2013 with a clear mandate to reform the Roman Curia, Pope Francis completed the project with his apostolic constitution, “Preach the Gospel,” nine years after taking office. He also published important texts outlining ways to support care for the family, the environment and young people as well as documents on being compassionate, joyful, holy and missionary disciples in today’s world, especially by contemplating Jesus’ Sacred Heart.
Here is a list of some of Pope Francis’ major documents:
– “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”). The pope’s long awaited apostolic constitution on the reform of the Roman Curia was released in 2022. It replaced St. John Paul II’s 1988 constitution, “Pastor Bonus,” reorganizing the Roman Curia to highlight its role in promoting the Church as a community of missionary disciples, sharing the Gospel and caring for all those in need.
– “Lumen Fidei” (“The Light of Faith”), was Pope Francis’ first encyclical, published in 2013. It was built largely on the work of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, completing a trilogy of encyclicals on the theological virtues of faith, hope and love. The encyclical on faith encouraged Catholics to embrace their faith more fully.
Below, Pope Francis meets with cardinals at the Vatican Aug. 29, 2022. The meeting was to reflect on the apostolic constitution “Praedicate evangelium” (Preach the Gospel) on the reform of the Roman Curia. —CNS photo/Vatican Media
Above, this is the cover of the English edition of Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship.” In the encyclical, published in 2020, Pope Francis said hope can “open us up to grand ideals that make life more beautiful and worthwhile.”
—CNS photo/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
– “Laudato si’, on Care for Our Common Home” was published in 2015. Pope Francis said his encyclical on the environment was a way to enter into dialogue with all people about humanity’s responsibility toward “the common home that God has entrusted to us.”
– “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” was published in 2020. It addressed urgent social, political and religious issues on a global scale and Pope Francis’ dream for a world where all people recognized themselves as brothers and sisters, leading to greater solidarity and concern for the poor and the Earth.
– “’Dilexit nos’ (‘He loved us’): on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ” was published in 2024. Meant to be understood in tandem with his previous two encyclicals, it presented the spiritual and theological foundation underlying the pope’s messages to the Church and the world over the previous 12 years – that everything “springs from Christ and his love for all humanity.”
A painting by Pompeo Batoni of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from 1767 is displayed in an ornate frame inside the Jesuit Church of the Gesù in Rome, Oct. 22, 2024. Pope Francis’ encyclical, ‘Dilexit nos’ (‘He loved us’): on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ” was published in 2024. —CNS photo/Lola Gomez
– “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”). This apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world was published in 2013 with the aim of encouraging ongoing missionary renewal for all members of
the Church. Calling for a new chapter in evangelization, the pope acknowledged that some Church teachings and positions on modern issues are confusing to many people, especially outside the Church. But he affirmed that women cannot be priests since Jesus chose only men as his apostles and insisted that the defense of the life of the unborn flows from the conviction that every life is sacred.
– “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”). The pope’s 2016 post-synodal exhortation on marriage, love and family life brought together the results of the two synods on the family, which were convoked by Pope Francis in 2014 and 2015. The document looked at the challenges experienced by families and affirmed the importance of accompaniment when providing pastoral care.
– “Gaudete et Exsultate” (“Rejoice and Be Glad”). The 2018 apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness challenged modern Christians to take the dignity of all human life seriously, viewing it in light of Christ’s incarnation. The pope offered a road map for simple ways that everyday people can be holy.
– “Christus Vivit” (“Christ is Alive”), the post-synodal exhortation published in 2019, was a reflection on the discussion at the 2018 Synod of Bishops on young people, the faith and vocational discernment. It called on young people and all people of God to seek hope and the youthful newness of life in Christ. The pope reminded young people of their impact and challenged them to do their best for their families, communities, the Church and the world.
– “Querida Amazonia” (“The Beloved Amazon”) was his 2020 post-synodal exhortation in response to the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region in 2019. Addressed to Catholics and all people of goodwill, the pope encouraged greater respect for the people and cultures of the Amazon region, given the plight of the people and ecosystem, and he offered reflections – based on the wisdom of the Church and the Amazonian people – on the way forward.
– “Laudate Deum” (“Praise God”) was a 2023 apostolic exhortation “to all people of goodwill on the climate crisis.” This follow-up document to his 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’,” covered similar themes: the urgency of addressing environmental and social crises, the importance of listening to the scientific community and the need to build an inclusive culture of caring for the common home through personal action and national and international institutions. The root of today’s injustices against people and the planet, the pope wrote, is the desire “to claim to take God’s place.” The answer is “rethinking our use of power,” which requires an increased sense of responsibility and “sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.”
‘LIKE A GRANDPARENT,’ SEMINARIAN REMEMBERS
By Jacob Miller Diocesan Seminarian Pontifical North American College
I had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis once, this past August, and he spent some time with my classmates and me in the morning before praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square. In addition to him telling us that we should stay active and play sports, he told us to have a spirit of joy and to pray for him.
During our visit with him, he had a remarkable sense of humor, and he was very down to earth and humble. Later, a number of my classmates made an excellent point – it felt like being with
a grandparent, for we could feel how much he loved us and cared about us. Two of my classmates were able to ask him questions, and he travelled around to meet all of us in a wheelchair. He shook each of our hands, as we introduced ourselves, and offered up our prayers for him as well as our gratitude. That was a wonderful experience, that the Pope went to each one of us, and spoke with us.
For others, the Pope made jokes and had good conversations. As the Holy Father left us, we all sang, ad multos annos, or in English, “to many years.” I can remember that day, and even now, how privileged I was to meet him. Despite hearing of him, seeing his Papal Addresses online,
and even reading some of his works, I never thought I would ever meet the Pope, and he seemed so far away. But the man that I met was humble and very loving, and he had the people of God in his heart. He made known his love for the Church and for all the faithful, and what we all felt in that room with him is something that I am sure many people have felt. Because of that he made known to all the love of God the Father. Pope Francis has always asked, and it is all the more important now, that we pray for him, and we give thanks for his ministry, work, and service he has given to us. May Pope Francis rest in the mercy and peace of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord.
By Bruce Cargill Diocesan Seminarian Pontifical North American College
It has been such a blessing to be a seminarian in Rome, to live, study, and pray within walking distance of the Holy Father. When we first arrived, Rome was overwhelming: ancient ruins standing in broad daylight, centuries-old, ornate churches on every street, in tandem with the hustle and bustle of a modern city. The first time our class met Pope Francis, he gave us some advice regarding this phenomenon which I will never forget: “Rome is like whiskey; a little is good, but too much can be dangerous!”
His jovial, paternal, and tender disposition came through in this line, and as a chuckle spread through our ranks, my fear began to diminish. He recognized the overwhelming nature of Rome and set us on the path to live in the city, but not be of the city, remembering the reason for which God called each of us here. This helped me to appreciate Rome as it should be appreciated; sipped like a good whiskey, piano a piano
The tender disposition of Pope Francis also comes through in his offi-
cial teaching. In Evangelii Gaudium, he calls for a “revolution of tenderness” that should define the priest’s preaching. As one preparing for Holy Orders, his words in this document help me to develop my preaching ability to better draw the people of God into the wonderful mystery of the Christian life. The Holy Father urges preachers to follow the via pulchritudinis, or “the way of beauty,” in their homilies. He notes that “proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with splendor and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties” (EG 167).
As I write and deliver my practice homilies, these words stay with me and guide my prayer and work. This message is especially important in today’s world, where many deny the objectivity of truth (or even deny its very existence). Pope Francis is calling for preachers who penetrate into the depths of the hearts of his listeners, and present the One who can fulfill their deepest desires to them as true and beautiful, as Savior and Friend.
As a future preacher, I pray that I can follow this example, and to reach out
to people’s deepest desires, the desire for truth and beauty that is written on their hearts, and help to guide them deeper into friendship with the One who calls them.
Left, fourteen pallbearers carry Pope Francis in his casket into St. Peter’s Square for his funeral Mass April 26, 2025.
Below, an estimated 200,000 people gather in St. Peter’s Square and the neighboring streets to attend funeral Mass for Pope Francis at the Vatican April 26, 2025. —CNS photos/Pablo Esparza
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
Pope Francis was “a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, as he presided over the funeral of the pope, who died April 21 at the age of 88.
And the people – an estimated 200,000 of them – were present as 14 pallbearers carried Pope Francis’ casket into St. Peter’s Square and set it on a carpet in front of the altar for the funeral Mass April 26.
His burial was scheduled for later the same day in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major after being driven in a motorcade
through the center of the city where he served as bishop from the day of his election to the papacy March 13, 2013.
Security around the Vatican was tight, not only because of the number of mourners expected but especially because of the presence of kings, queens, presidents – including U.S. President Donald J. Trump – and prime ministers from more than 80 countries and official representatives from scores of other nations.
Also present were the residents of a Vatican palace Pope Francis had turned into a shelter for the homeless and the 12 Syrian refugees he brought to Rome with him from a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos in 2016.
The Gospel reading at the funeral was
mobile among the people who had come to celebrate Christ’s victory over death.
“The outpouring of affection that we have witnessed in recent days following his passing from this earth into eternity tells us how much the profound pontificate of Pope Francis touched minds and hearts,” Cardinal Re said. The Vatican estimated that 250,000 people – many of whom waited in line for three or four hours – filed past the late pope’s body in St. Peter’s Basilica April 23-25.
Within the church, the cardinal said, “the guiding thread” of Pope Francis’ ministry was his “conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open.”
For Pope Francis, he said, the church was a “field hospital,” one “capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds.”
With President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Olga Lyubimova, Russian minister of culture, seated near the altar, Cardinal Re said that “faced with the raging wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and countless deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions.”
‘”Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times, and his service of faith as successor of the Apostle Peter always was linked to the service of humanity in all its dimensions,” the cardinal said.
Cardinal Re also recalled Pope Francis’ constant concern for migrants and refugees from his first papal trip outside of Rome to pray for migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, his visit to Lesbos and his celebration of Mass in 2016 on the U.S.-Mexican border.
At the end of the Mass, Cardinal Baldassare Reina, papal vicar of Rome, offered special prayers for the city’s deceased bishop, Pope Francis. Then Eastern Catholic patriarchs and major archbishops gathered around the casket and led funeral prayers from the Byzantine tradition in honor of the pastor of the universal Catholic Church.
John 21:15-19 where the Risen Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” And when Peter says yes, Jesus tells him, “Feed my sheep.”
“Despite his frailty and suffering toward the end, Pope Francis chose to follow this path of self-giving until the last day of his earthly life,” Cardinal Re said in his homily. “He followed in the footsteps of his Lord, the Good Shepherd, who loved his sheep to the point of giving his life for them.”
The 91-year-old cardinal told the crowd that the image of Pope Francis that “will remain etched in our memory” was his appearance on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica the day before he died to give his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) and then to ride in the pope-
Sister Norma Pimentel, a Missionary of Jesus and director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, had knelt in prayer before the body of Pope Francis April 25 and was present for the funeral.
“The funeral of Pope Francis is a very important part of who we are as people of faith,” she told Catholic News Service. “We walk together, we cry together, we work together ... doing what we believe is important in our lives as people of faith, and we say farewell together at the end.”
The funeral, she said, is a time “to join him in this last farewell and say thank you: Thank you for being you, for being there with us, and we’ll see you.”
By Msgr. Joseph J. Kerrigan Pastor, St. Joseph Parish, Bound Brook
In January 2015, I was very fortunate to be among the concelebrants and an estimated 150,000 faithful gathered in the early morning in a field at the Tacloban City airport in the Philippines. We were all there to celebrate an openair Eucharist with Pope Francis, in his long-anticipated visit to the region struck by the brutal Super Typhoon Haiyan
By Deacon Stephen F. Kern Director, Office of the Diaconate
Pope Francis was a deacon. Indeed, we could say that every pope is a deacon.
The deacon is the lowest of the three orders of the sacrament of Holy Orders, with priest being the second order and bishop being the highest order. When you are ordained a deacon, we Catholics believe that it leaves a permanent mark on your soul. So, we can say that since every bishop (and priest) was ordained a deacon first, that diaconal mark stays with him all his life.
How is that diaconal quality lived?
A man ordained to the diaconate is conformed to Christ the Servant. He is what Pope St. John Paul II often called the Church’s sacramental (outward) sign of its mission to serve. To be effective in ministry, a deacon must humbly and freely offer the gift of himself to those around him. His calling is to serve God’s people from the standpoint of Liturgy, Word and Charity. And that calling is not necessarily limited to parishioners at his parish – to live as Christ the Servant is to minister to all those with whom we come into contact, be they relatives, co-workers or strangers on the street.
This is where Pope Francis comes in. What stands out so obviously when I think of his papacy is how much his ministry mirrored what a Catholic deacon’s should be. Of course, he constantly reminded all of the faithful of our obligation to serve those on the peripheries – the margins. As he said at the conclave that eventually elected him pope: “The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indiffer-
fourteen months prior. More than 6,000 people were killed in the 2013 cyclone.
As readers may remember, the Metuchen Diocese – thanks to our strong and generous Filipino community –might have been the top contributing financial and pastoral U.S. diocese to respond to the disaster. As the Catholic Relief Services diocesan director at the time, I was entrusted with working with the local Filipino church in Tacloban, CRS Philippines, and our own Metuchen
Pope Francis arrives in the rain at the cathedral in Palo, Philippines, Jan. 17. Fourteen months after Typhoon Haiyan devastated much of the central Philippines, the pope braved a tropical storm to encourage survivors in their ongoing work of recovery.
—CNS photo/ Stefano Rellandini, Reuters
volunteers in coordinating the successful construction of a village to house dozens of displaced people.
As that January morning unfolded, the skies darkened as the wind and rain became intense. In approaching the airport, the papal plane had to thread the needle to avoid the worst of what was now itself a tropical storm. Because of the rapidly deteriorating conditions, the Mass was truncated to a simple Liturgy of the Word, and the event turned tragic
as a CRS staffer was killed when a blown object fell on her in the crowd.
The image of Pope Francis flying through – and weathering – a tropical storm returned to mind a few months later, with the release of his landmark 2015 encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. This time, for me, the storm was a double-barreled one. On the one front: a slow-motion storm of planetary ecological crisis that the pope was addressing, and on the other: a storm of resistance, anger and denial from a wide range of people who opposed climate action.
“Care for our common home” and “everything is interconnected” became basic takeaways from the encyclical that even children could grasp. Over time, Laudato Si became emblematic of Francis’ papacy, spurred action and advocacy for the planet at all levels, and demonstrated that Francis was a worthy namesake of the 13th century patron saint of ecology, St. Francis of Assisi. May we have the same courage to fly through the storms we face, for the sake of others and for the glory and praise of God.
ence to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.” This was a consistent message throughout his papacy.
His message of the primacy of service particularly resonates with deacons. In a 2016 homily given, the Pope said: “We are not called to serve merely in order to receive a reward, but rather to imitate God, who made Himself a servant for our love. Nor are we called to serve only now and again, but to live in serving. Service is thus a way of life; indeed it recapitulates the entire Christian way of life: serving God in adoration and prayer; being open and available; loving our neighbor with practical deeds; passionately working for the common good.”
That quote encapsulates the ministry of deacon. In February 2025, deacons
of the world gathered in Rome for their Jubilee Year Mass. In his homily, Pope Francis wrote: “For you as deacons, selfless service is not a secondary aspect of your activity, but an essential dimension of your very being. Indeed, through your ministry, you devote yourselves to being ‘sculptors’ and ‘painters’ of the merciful face of the Father, and witnesses to the mystery of the Triune God.”
Pope Francis was especially gifted at backing up what he said in gestures and actions. Taking Jesus’ washing of the feet of the apostles as his model, he typically went on Holy Thursday to a prison or homeless shelter or other place where people on the margins of society might be and washed the feet of the residents or inmates. What is so striking about this
Deacons lie prostrate during ordination Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica during the Jubilee of Deacons at the Vatican Feb. 23, 2025. —CNS photo/ Pablo Esparza
to me is that before he would wash their feet, he would take his stole (which a priest or bishop wears around the back of the neck with the ends hanging down in front of them) and rearrange it to be a deacon stole – worn over one shoulder and the opposite hip so it appears diagonally across the chest. With this simple action, he emphasized the Church’s mission of service for every Catholic, be they pope, bishop, priest, deacon or layperson. In that homily he also wrote: “Through your cooperation and generosity, you will be a bridge linking the altar to the street and the Eucharist to people’s daily lives.” Pope Francis fulfilled that role of linking the altar and the street, and thus, he was a consummate example of deacon.
Pope Francis prays as he holds his crosier during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 1, 2025, the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day. —CNS photo/Vatican Media
By Jennifer Ruggiero Secretary, Secretariat for Family and Pastoral Life
This year, as part of my Lenten journey, I read the fictional biography, St. Francis of Assisi by Greek writer, Nikos Kazantzakis. I found the novel to be an extremely moving account of a man who preached poverty, peace and love and who had an unquenchable love for God and all of His creatures. I was deeply inspired by his belief that “perfect joy” comes from embracing suffering and the cross. Pope Francis believed in the evangelical purpose of joy and chose his papal name to honor Saint Francis. I find myself reflecting on both of their lives as I pray for the repose of the Holy Father’s soul.
Like his namesake, Pope Francis was renowned for his great humility and simplicity as well as for his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and all of God’s creation. Perhaps best known for his pastoral leadership, the Holy Father’s inspiring vision for the Church as a “field hospital,” where “wounds are healed and hearts are warmed,” helped to reshape the work of our diocesan pastoral outreach in a number of ways.
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis emphasized the “art of accompaniment” and “showing compassion” as key elements of evangelization and a way to serve others, reflecting the love of Jesus. Embracing the Pope’s theme of accompaniment, our Office of Human Life and Dignity has promoted the U.S Bishops’ “Walking with Moms in Need” initiative to help parishes in the Diocese to provide
resources to women facing unplanned or difficult pregnancies, surrounding them with community and support. In an effort to accompany broken families, our Family Life Office has expanded outreach to those in troubled marriages, to couples who are separated or divorced and to adult children of divorce.
In what he often termed as a “throwaway society,” and “out of concern for the way in which older persons can all too often be abandoned and their lives devalued,” Francis became a strong advocate for the elderly. In 2021, he established the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. Our Pastoral Offices now organize an annual event to acknowledge and honor our seniors. We have also started to help to build parish-based ministries for senior adults to help engage them in various ways in their faith community and to ward off loneliness.
To promote a culture of encounter, Pope Francis encouraged the practice of “synodality,” a term coming from the Greek syn-odos, meaning “walking together.” In his book, Let Us Dream, written in response to the COVID crisis, the Holy Father explains, “The synod experience allows us to walk together not just in spite of our differences, but seeking truth and taking on the richness of the polar tensions at stake.”
During his tenure as Pope, Francis oversaw four Synods, with the most recent in 2023-2024, the Synod on Synodality. Our Pastoral Life Offices helped to oversee the diocesan phase of this synod, which involved increased prayer, a series of listening sessions and opportunities
to more intentionally listen to the Holy Spirit. I was struck by how many faithfilled people, particularly those most at risk of being excluded, came out to participate in what was ultimately an exercise in mutual listening and discernment about ideas for renewing the Church and society.
Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to meet Pope Francis but I was in his presence in September of 2015, when he made his only visit to the United States. I was honored to be among the tens of thousands of Catholics who attended the closing Mass of the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia which he celebrated at the end of his six-day trip. In his homily he stressed the importance of families, as true domestic churches where faith is lived and nurtured. For me, the two-hour outdoor liturgy was a profound experience with a beautiful blend of joyful celebration and prayerful reflection.
Today the world mourns the “People’s Pope” who visited prisoners, ate with the homeless and stopped to kiss children and those with disabilities. Like Saint Francis, he was a man of encounter whose life was filled with loving gestures. Like Saint Francis, he will be remembered as “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.” Reflecting on his pastoral witness and following Christ’s example, may we continue the tasks of being a more “listening Church,” bringing the Gospel to the “periphery,” spreading the message of God’s infinite mercy and proclaiming the joyful news of salvation.
By Judith Sudilovsky, OSV News
With the declining situation in Gaza always in his heart, in his final months, Pope Francis bequeathed his popemobile to Caritas Jerusalem and directed the agency to turn it into a mobile health station for the children in Gaza.
Preparation of the new health station is to be completed by mid-May, said Peter Brune, secretary general of Caritas Sweden, who together with Caritas Jerusalem’s Anton Asfar developed the idea in February. Upon Asfar’s suggestion, Brune visited Bethlehem in February to view the popemobile that had been stored in Bethlehem since it was used by Pope Francis on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2014.
Pope Francis readily agreed to the idea after Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden, approached him, Brune told OSV News in a phone interview.
“There is an urgency in the need to help children in Gaza. There has been a full blockage of aid since March 2,” Brune said. “This is not the way we should treat our children.”
When access to food, water and health care is cut off, children are often the first and hardest hit, with infection and other preventable conditions putting their lives at risk, Caritas Sweden and Caritas Jerusalem said in a press release. Brune said in the release that the mobile clinic will be a “concrete, life-saving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has almost completely collapsed.”
The vehicle will be staffed by a driver and medical doctors and is currently being fitted with equipment for diagnoses, examination and treatment, includ-
Final work is being carried out to transform the popemobile used by Pope Francis during his 2014 Holy Land pilgrimage into a mobile health unit for the children of Gaza which will be ready for use once the humanitarian corridor is opened. In his final months, before his death April 21, 2025, the Pope approved and blessed the project. —OSV News photo/courtesy Caritas Jerusalem
ing rapid tests for infections, suture kits, syringes and needles, oxygen supply, vaccines and a refrigerator for medicines, and will be ready for use once the humanitarian corridor to Gaza reopens.
“This vehicle represents the love, care and closeness shown by His Holiness for the most vulnerable, which he expressed throughout the crisis,” Asfar said in the press release.
Since the outbreak of the war Pope Francis called the Catholic Holy Family Parish every night and spoke with the parish priests including parish pastor, Father
Gabriel Romanelli, to express his support of the parish community sheltering at the compound. In his last “urbi et orbi” blessing on Easter, April 20, the pope called for a ceasefire and the release of the 59 hostages still held by Hamas, up to 24 of who are believed to still be alive, and aid for “a starving people who aspire to a future of peace.”
The main message of the new health mobile is to assure that the children of Gaza are not forgotten, said Brune. The unit will be called “Vehicle of Hope,” he said.
“It will be conveying a message of hope,” he told OSV. “The children will be sitting on the chair of the Holy Father and treated as the miracles that they are. If nothing more symbolically the pope was interested in bringing attention to the situation of the children of Gaza.”
In the meantime Israeli media reported that the Israeli cabinet approved plans which included “conquering of Gaza and holding the territories” as well as a plan for the distribution of humanitarian aid that Israel says would prevent Hamas from controlling its distribution.
Judith Sudilovsky writes for OSV News from Jerusalem.
By Msgr. Joseph G. Celano Pastor, Immaculate Conception Parish, Somerville
I had the privilege of meeting Pope Francis twice in 2016 and again in 2018. The first occasion was the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy and the commissioning of the Missionaries of Mercy in Rome on Ash Wednesday 2016. The subsequent meeting was during the con-
Msgr. Joseph Celano with Pope Francis during the convocation of the Missionaries of Mercy in Rome, March 2018, in Vatican City. —Courtesy photo.
vocation of the Missionaries of Mercy in Rome in 2018.
The heart of the Holy Father was turned to proclaiming the mercy of God throughout the Church and to the world, not just during the Jubilee, but as an insistent and necessary message for our times. To this end, he commissioned over 800 priests globally to be preachers of God’s merciful love and he entrusted to them faculties to absolve from certain sins usually reserved to the Holy See, of which I was one. Though the Jubilee lasted a year, the Holy Father insisted that the message and the ministry of mercy continue, extending the mandate and faculties indefinitely to the priests entrusted with them.
I clearly remember the gentleness and kindness in his eyes as he took my hand in both of his at our convocation in Rome. His eyes seem to reveal the special place we held in his heart as priests he was entrusting with a mission. Drawing from the themes of which he often spoke during the Jubilee Year, he reminded us that “mercy is not a finite resource but a
constant and renewing grace” offered to all. He asked us to encounter anew the mercy of God in our own lives through the sacraments and especially through the Eucharist we celebrate. He spoke of wanting us to be transformed from within by this encounter with Christ, whom he called “the Face of the Father’s Mercy,”so that we might be more compassionate confessors, more persuasive preachers, and more effective witnesses to hope and new life in Christ. Through this mission I have encountered many people who have fallen under the weight of their sins and regrets, people looking for mercy. But the mercy of God is not just a platitude. Mercy is a person, Jesus Christ. He is the healing balm our wounded souls seek.
I will always remember Francis as the Pope who strove to reawaken us to this truth, “God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones (cf. Ez 37:1-14). ... Let us be renewed by God’s mercy… and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish” (Angelus, March 17, 2013).
May he now rest in the arms of mercy Himself.
By Father Gregory Zannetti Parochial Vicar, St. John Vianney Parish, Colonia
“You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church,” are some of the most important words in all of Scripture, as Our Lord bestowed upon St. Peter and his future successors the authority to sanctify, teach, and govern the One True Church. The Church teaches: “The Pope … and Peter’s successor, is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.” One of the ways we know we are Catholic is by submitting ourselves to the Pope’s authority, the Vicar of Christ on earth.
I had the privilege to meet one of St. Peter’s successors, Pope Francis, at the Vatican on Thanksgiving Day 2018. It was during the American Bishops “Ad limina” visits that we New Jersey seminarians lined up to meet him. My interaction with the Pope was not long. When it was my turn to shake his hand, I told the Pope that I pray for him every day. Bishop Checchio told the Pope that I had recently lost my grandfather (Louis Leva, who was a devout Catholic and a big part of my vocation) and so the Pope said he would pray for my grandfather.
Though the exchange was very brief, it was certainly a blessing to meet him. My parents made sure I got the picture that is taken when each person meets the Pope, a picture which remains visible in my parents’ house. When I see that picture there, I often think “I can’t believe I met the Pope.”
As I reflect on Pope Francis’ pontificate, the quote which stands out to me
most, is what he said regarding the Sacrament of Confession, He said: “the God of mercy; He does not tire of forgiving. We are the ones who tire in asking for forgiveness, but He does not tire.” As it was through reading the diary of St. Faustina that I experienced the call to the priesthood, which is all about the unfathomable mercy of God. And as someone who goes to confession often, (certainly one of the best moments of my week!), there is always the temptation for the devil to have us think that God has had enough of us, that He will no longer forgive us.
Pope Francis has helped remind me of this fact: ‘God never tires in forgiving us’ and so we should never tire in asking for forgiveness. Certainly, God never wants us to sin, nor should we ever want
to hurt Him in the slightest more than we already have. But we can be assured, if we meet the conditions of God’s mercy. If we are sorry for our sins, do all we can to avoid them, and are willing to do penance for our sins, God will always forgive us, nor does He tire in this! As St. John Vianney tells us, “God is quicker to forgive our sins than a mother is to pull her child out from the fire.” Pope Francis has helped to re-enforce the necessity and remedy of the Divine Mercy of God for all. He established the Year of Mercy (Dec 2015-Nov 2016), appointed missionaries of mercy who can forgive sins typically reserved for the Holy See, and often speaks of the infinite mercy of God.
Pope Francis has also promoted the other main necessity and remedy for
Mercy – the cornerstone of Pope Francis’ teaching and ministry – must guide the Catholic Church through its period of mourning and the uncertainty that lies ahead, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, former Vatican secretary of state. Here, Cardinal Parolin venerates the icon of “Salus Populi Romani” while celebrating Mass on the second day of the “novendiali” – nine days of mourning for Pope Francis marked by Masses – in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican April 27, 2025. —CNS photo/Pablo Esparza
all, Our Lady! He promoted the Marian Devotion, Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, a devotion I was unaware of until he became Pope. It is an image of our Lady undoing the knots in a ribbon. I believe Pope Francis has promoted this devotion, as more and more Catholics are living in difficult situations to show us that Our Lady, Undoer of Knots reminds us that these situations though difficult are never insurmountable with her help.
For there is no problem, no matter how difficult that Our Lady cannot undo or untie, if we totally entrust them to her. He showed we should go to Our Lady for everything, and she will never fail to help us! For me, Pope Francis reaffirmed the two unfailing remedies and necessities for all time: Divine Mercy and Our Lady!
Young people participate in Mass on the second day of the “novendiali” – nine days of mourning for Pope Francis marked by Masses – in St. Peter’s Square April 27, 2025. The Mass coincided with the Jubilee of Teenagers at the Vatican. —CNS photo/Pablo Esparza
faithful visit Rome’s
The world watches with interest as cardinals gather in conclave - literally under lock and key - to elect the next pope. The rarity of the event, the ceremony and secrecy add to the intrigue.
The centuries-old chapel adorned with Michaelangelo’s frescoes has been the site of every papal election since 1878.
Its marble floor is covered with wood. The windows and doors are shut as the Master of Papal Liturgical Ceremonies exclaims, “Extra omnes!” (“Everybody else, out!”)
A sweep is performed for electronic devices, even on the electors.
Placing a hand on the Gospels, each one swears to uphold the rules and secrecy of the conclave. Any communication with people outside is forbidden. They may not receive messages or news.
Cardinals under the age of 80 when the see became vacant may vote in the conclave. There are 135 eligible cardinals at this time.
Votes are handwritten and cast individually into special urns. The top of the ballot reads “Eligo in Summun Pontificem” (“I elect as the Supreme Pontiff”).
Ballots are counted by three “scrutineers.” The work is checked by three “revisers.” The ballot counters and verifiers are chosen by lot at the start of the conclave.
One round of voting is expected the first day. Each day after, two votes are taken in the morning and two votes in the afternoon until a successful vote. Should the conclave extend longer than 4 days, the electors will spend additional time in prayer and discussion before voting resumes.
A two-thirds majority is required to elect the new pope.
The Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512. He also painted “The Last Judgment” fresco above the altar between 1535 and 1541.
A light shines on a
of
The last seven conclaves lasted only a few days.
A chimney is installed on the roof of the Sistine Chapel for the conclave. In the back corner of the chapel, a stove is set to burn ballots and related papers, including notes taken by the electors, each morning and afternoon.
If balloting is not successful, the smoke burns black with the help of an added chemical. If balloting is successful, a chemical is added to produce the celebratory white smoke - the signal that the Church has a new pope.
The one who is elected is asked if he accepts the election as pope. If he accepts, he chooses the name he will take. From the central balcony of St. Peter’s basilica, the senior cardinal deacon proclaims, “Habemus papam!” (We have a pope!”), and announces his name. The new pontiff appears on the balcony and imparts his first papal blessing.
Archbishop
ceremonies, comes to close the doors of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican May 7, 2025, at the start of a conclave to elect a new pope.
Calling on the Holy Spirit and all the saints, cardinals begin conclave
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
Invoking the help of the Holy Spirit and recognizing that millions of people all over the world were praying for them, 133 cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel with a singular goal: to elect “a worthy pastor” for the Universal Church.
Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the top-ranking cardinal among the electors, led the cardinals in prayer at 4:30 p.m. May 7 in the Apostolic Palace’s Pauline Chapel, just a short distance from the Sistine Chapel.
“The whole Church, united with us in prayer, insistently invokes the grace of the Holy Spirit so that a worthy pastor for the whole flock of Christ would be elected by us,” he told them.
“May the Lord direct our steps on the path of truth so that, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holy apostles Peter and Paul and all the saints, we may always do what is pleasing to him,” the cardinal prayed.
Behind altar servers carrying a cross and candles, priests assisting the cardinals processed toward the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals, walking two-bytwo, followed in the reverse order of their rank within the College of Cardinals. Indian Cardinal George J. Koovakad and Italian Cardinal Fabio Baggio – cardinal deacons created by Pope Francis in December – were the first cardinals to cross
the chapel’s threshold.
Only cardinals under the age of 80 were eligible to enter the conclave, but it still was the largest group of cardinal electors ever assembled. In 1975, St. Paul VI set a limit of 120 cardinal electors and ruled that cardinals over the age of 80 could not enter a conclave. When he died in 1978, 111 cardinals elected Pope John Paul I; there also were 111 electors at the 1978 conclave that chose St. John Paul II. After he died in 2005, 115 electors chose Pope Benedict XVI and when he resigned in 2013, there also were 115 cardinals in the conclave that elected Pope Francis.
Entering the Sistine Chapel to elect Pope Francis’ successor, Cardinal Koovakad and the other cardinals from the Eastern Catholic churches wore their traditions’ “choral habit.” The Latin-rite cardinals were dressed in red cassocks with a white rochet over top, a mozzetta (a short cape), their pectoral crosses, a zucchetto (skull cap) and a biretta, the three-cornered red hat they received when they were made cardinals.
The cardinal electors began their walk to the Sistine Chapel chanting the Litany of Saints, which started with prayers that God would have pity on them. They then invoked the saints, archangels and ancient biblical prophets to pray for them. They pleaded for the aid of Christ, asking for his mercy and protection. They
also prayed for those who have died and those threatened by hunger and war.
The cardinals asked God to give the world peace, to “comfort and enlighten” the Church, help Christians reconcile with each other and to lead all people to the truth of the Gospel.
Once in the chapel, they called on the help of the Holy Spirit by singing the ancient hymn, “Veni Creator Spiritus” (“Come, Creator Spirit”).
Then the cardinals from more than 70 countries vowed that, if elected pope, they would faithfully fulfill the ministry of universal pastor of the church and would defend the rights and freedom of the Holy See.
They also solemnly swore to scrupulously follow the rules for the election of a pope and keep secret the results of the votes, unless they have express permission from the new pope to reveal details.
After reciting the oath together, each cardinal walked up to the Book of the Gospels, put his right hand on it, said his name and sealed his oath, “So help me God and these holy Gospels that I touch with my hand.”
The Book of the Gospels was open to the page with Matthew 4:12-23, which recounts Jesus calling his first disciples.
Cardinal Parolin took the oath first, followed by the cardinals in order of rank, ending with Cardinal Koovakad.
The portion broadcast by Vatican
Media ended with Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, saying, “Extra omnes,” ordering out everyone not authorized to remain. The ceremony lasted about 75 minutes.
However, 90-year-old Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, the retired preacher of the papal household, stayed behind. Before the conclave, the cardinals had chosen him to give a meditation “on the problems facing the Church” and “on the need for careful discernment in choosing the new pope.”
The average age of the 133 cardinals was just over 70, slightly younger than the average age of electors who participated in the last conclave, in 2013, when the average age was close to 72.
Ten U.S. cardinals were among those filing into the Sistine Chapel: Cardinals Raymond L. Burke, retired prefect of the Apostolic Signature; Blase J. Cupich of Chicago; Daniel N. DiNardo, retired archbishop of Galveston-Houston; Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life under Pope Francis; Wilton D. Gregory, retired archbishop of Washington; James M. Harvey, archpriest of Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls; Robert W. McElroy of Washington; Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis; and Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey.
Continued from page 9
Very Rev. Thomas J. Serafin, V.F., KCHS, and the Parish Family of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Three Bridges, offer our heartfelt prayers and sincerest thanks to Deacon Kevin M. Kilcommons for the generous and constant support you give to us. May God bless you on your 10th Anniversary of Ordination to the Diaconate. Your Parish Family is richly blessed by your service and gracious giving of your time and talent. May God continue to bless you!
Congratulations, Deacon Mike Wojcik, on your 15 years of dedication and service to our Lord and His people. Your faith inspires us! The Catholic Community of St. John Neumann.
Congratulations to Deacon George Kimball on his 15th Anniversary. Beloved minister and Messenger of the Lord. St Joseph Parish, Carteret
Congratulations Deacon Thomas Griffoul on your 10th Diaconate Anniversary. Immaculate Conception Church, Spotswood, is blessed to have a true servant of the Gospel.
Congratulations Deacon Patrick Smith on your 10th Diaconate Anniversary. Immaculate Conception Church, Spotswood, is blessed to have a true servant of the Gospel.
Our Lady of Peace Church, Fords, NJ, would like to congratulate Deacon John Raychel on his 15th Anniversary of Diaconate.
Deacon Michael Meyer on the 15th anniversary of Diaconate Ordination, St. Catherine of Siena Parish offers our heartfelt congratulations and gratitude for sharing your vocation with us. Your tireless efforts and loving spirit have been a true blessing and inspiration. May God continue to guide and bless you and your family in your ministry.
The parish family of Our Lady of Mount Virgin, Middlesex, congratulates Deacon Thomas Sommero on the 10th anniversary of his diaconate ordination. We celebrate his dedication to serving God and our community through the blessing of his ministry.
Congratulations Deacon Michael Martini on your 15 year Anniversary. May God Bless you as you continue to serve His people. The Parish of Immaculate Conception Church, Annandale.
Congratulations Deacon Bill Rider on your 15th Anniversary of Ordination. We give thanks to God for you and all you do for our parish. God bless you! Our Lady Fatima Church, Piscataway, New Jersey
Deacon Chris Conroy and Deacon James McCormick, Congratulations on your 15th year Anniversary of the Diaconate. May God continue to be with you and bless you all the days of your life. The Parish Family of Mary Mother of God Church, Hillsborough NJ.
Congratulations, Deacon Kevin Morrison, on your 10 year Anniversary of Diaconate Ordination! With prayers of gratitude for your dedicated service and for sharing so generously the gifts you have received from God. May God bless you on this special day. Very Rev. Robert Kolakowski and St. John the Evangelist Staff and Parish Family.
Dear Deacon Peter Barcellona, we, your parish Family of St. Anthony of Padua, Port Reading, NJ, give thanks to God for your 10 years of joyful service as a Deacon. May our good Lord continue to bless His holy people through you. “Do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God...I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).” Ad Multos Annos.
Congratulations, Deacon Gregorio Rios, with gratitude to God for your 10 years of faithful diaconal service. May the Lord continue to bless your ministry abundantly. —Your family in Christ at Our Lady of Fatima Parish, Perth Amboy, NJ.
Deacon Sal Bonfiglio, Congratulations on your 10 year Anniversary of the Diaconate. May God continue to be with you and bless you all the days of your life. The Parish Family of Mary Mother of God Church, Hillsborough NJ.
By Adam Carlisle Special Contributor
There has been a lot of discussion online recently about whether the Catholic Church is growing, particularly in the United States. A number of high-profile converts to the faith have led many to believe that the Church is, in fact, growing. Unfortunately, a new Pew Research Center study suggests otherwise.
At the center of this controversy is an article written by Eric Sammons of Crisis Magazine, entitled “Catholics are Rapidly Losing Ground.” In the article, Sammons points out that “Only 19% of Americans self-identify as Catholic, down from 24% in 2007. This is a 20% decrease.”
Sammons’ article has sparked a lot of controversy, with many Catholic influencers pushing back, noting, among other things, that the global Catholic population actually increased between 2022 and 2023. Some have even cited evidence of a rise in young people converting to Catholicism, particularly in the United States, with some dioceses reporting significant increases in new converts.
While the situation may not be as bleak as Sammons suggests, the reality is that “for every 100 people who join the Catholic Church, 840 leave.” According to the study, “No other religion has nearly as bad of a join/leave ratio.” Even though the Religious Landscape Study suggests that the decline in Christianity in this country may have “leveled off,” Church leaders should be concerned.
These statistics are even more troubling when viewed in light of the Church’s ongoing emphasis on the New Evangelization, a term first coined by Pope St. John Paul II in an address to Latin American Bishops in 1983. In his encyclical letter, Redemptoris Missio, published in 1990, Pope St. John Paul II described three different situations for evangelization: mission ad gentes, Christian communities, and the new evangelization.
Pope Francis, for his part, shared his predecessor’s views regarding the
Pope Francis offers comfort to an individual during a meeting with a group of the sick, people with disabilities, and the poor, supported by various charitable organizations, at the Indonesian bishops’ conference headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sept. 5, 2024. —CNS photo/Lola Gomez
importance of evangelization, publishing an apostolic exhortation in 2013, entitled Evangelii Gaudium, or “On the proclamation of the Gospel in today’s world.”
Pope Francis began his remarks, however, by urging the Church “to embark on a new chapter of evangelism.”
Much will be written about Pope Francis in the days and weeks ahead. The Holy Father will, in all likelihood, be remembered for his advocacy for the poor, migrants, and refugees, as well as his environmental activism, particularly his encyclical letter, Laudato Si’ (which, coincidentally, is celebrating its tenth anniversary later this month), but I believe one of his greatest, and perhaps most successful contributions to the Church is his teaching on evangelization.
Having converted to the Catholic faith – I grew up Protestant – in the late 1990s, I was deeply influenced by John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). Their writings on the New Evangelization, among many other topics, led to my own con-
version. While these men, significant figures in the implementation and reception of Vatican II, were right to focus on fallen-away Christians, the results have been mixed (as the recent Pew Research Center study suggests).
While some people may view Pope Francis as a “disruptor,” I believe his contributions, particularly as they pertain to the Church’s missionary activity, may be one of his greatest and longest-lasting legacies. In January of 2023, some ten years after his election to the Chair of Peter, Pope Francis began a new series of talks on evangelization and “apostolic zeal” in his weekly general audience.
There were several things that stood out to me about these talks, but chief among them was the Holy Father’s emphasis on “the importance of witness and, in particular, the effectiveness of attracting people to the faith by the way one lives.” Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis said that “the church does not proselytize, but rather she grows by ‘attraction’” to the beauty of God’s love.
Pope Leo: A pope is nothing more than a humble servant
By Catholic News Service
The Catholic community is alive, beautiful and strong, and it is up to its pastors to protect and nourish the faithful and to help bring God’s hope to the whole world, Pope Leo XIV said. For that reason, the pope invited the cardinals “to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council,” and that “Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set it forth in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), he said May 10, in his first formal speech to the College of Cardinals. He also said that he chose his name in homage to Pope Leo XIII, recognizing the need to renew Catholic social teaching to face today’s new
industrial revolution and the developments of artificial intelligence “that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.” The Pope, who was elected in a conclave of 133 cardinal electors on the fourth ballot May 8, met with members of the college, including non-electors, in the New Synod Hall at the Vatican. Pope Leo reminded the Cardinals that, “beginning with St. Peter and up to myself, his unworthy successor, the pope has been a humble servant of God and of his brothers and sisters, and nothing more than this.”
Many popes, including Pope Francis, demonstrated this with his “complete dedication to service and to sober simplicity of life, his abandonment to God throughout his ministry and his serene trust at the moment of his return to the Father’s house.”
Evangelization, according to the Holy Father, “does not begin by seeking to convince others, … but by bearing witness every day to the beauty of the Love that has looked upon us and lifted us up. And it is this beauty, communicating this beauty, that will convince people – not communicating ourselves but the Lord himself.”
Sharing the faith may be the “oxygen” that “invigorates and purifies” Christian life, but, as Pope Francis reminded us, “being missionary, being apostolic, evangelizing, is not the same as proselytizing.” Pope Francis’ successor, the newly elected Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pontiff, in his opening remarks on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, noted that “we must seek together how to be a missionary Church.”
Apologetics, or the practice of defending a belief system, particularly religious beliefs, through reasoned argumentation and discourse, is necessary, but, as Pope Francis taught us, it is not the same thing as evangelization. “We need,” he said, “to put Jesus in contact with the people, without convincing them but letting the Lord do the convincing.”
Pope Leo XIV’s remarks suggest that, some two thousand years after Jesus instructed his disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations,” we are still trying to figure out how to “communicate Jesus” to a world in desperate need of salvation. St. Anthony of Padua famously wrote that “Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. We are full of words but empty of actions.”
As we reflect on the legacy of Pope Francis and look with great hope to the future of our Church, and the canonization of the first millennial saint, let us “consider whether our gaze [the opposite of proselytism] resembles that of Jesus, to attract the people, to bring them closer to the Church.” In the words of the Holy Father, “Let us think about that.”
Adam Carlisle serves as diocesan Secretary of the Secretariat for Evangelization and Communication.
Pope Leo XIV speaks with the College of Cardinals in the New Synod Hall at the Vatican May 10, 2025, during his first formal address to the college since his election May 8. —CNS photo/Vatican Media
“If you truly loved me, you would rejoice to have me go to the Father” (John 14:28). The disciples must have been dumbfounded by Jesus’ words. How could he expect them, his closest friends and followers, to rejoice when he had just said he was about to leave them? He had earlier promised them that “I will not leave you orphaned” (John 14:18; now he explained how he would fulfill that promise. Jesus’ physical presence, bounded as it was by space and time, was to be succeeded by his Presence in the Spirit, available and active forever. The disciples were called to rejoice because Christ’s Presence, so dear to them, was about to fill the whole world even as it empowered them to remain faithful to his command and reap his blessings: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23).
Jesus had promised that he would ask his Heavenly Father to send “another Paraclete.” Jesus himself had been the first Paraclete (see 1 John 2:1). He identified this second Paraclete as the Spirit of truth, that is, as the Holy Spirit who communicates truth and guides his followers in the way of truth. Scripture scholars suggest that “Helper” is the best translation for Paraclete; various passages in St. John’s Gospel indicate that this other Paraclete will teach the disciples and remind them of what Jesus had taught, will bear continuing witness to Jesus, will point out the errors of the world, and will render glory to Jesus. In sum, the Paraclete will permanently continue the presence of Jesus in this world; what Jesus had been, done, and taught over several years, the Holy Spirit would continue forever.
Like the Risen Jesus himself, this other Paraclete will be visible through the eyes of faith. The world’s lack of faith often sadly blinds it to the presence and action of the Spirit. For those with faith, however, Jesus promises that this Helper will be visible because he will dwell both in each individual Christian as well as in the Church. Jesus’ promise, “I will come back to you,” was fulfilled when the indwelling Spirit descended upon his first followers on the Day of Pentecost. Jesus states that the ultimate goal of his abiding presence is that each Christian may be assumed into the life and love shared between himself and his
Heavenly Father; “the ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity, but even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 260).
The power of the indwelling Spirit is made manifest in this Sunday’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The apostles began their formal instruction to the Gentiles, “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us …” (Acts 15:28). Having gathered together to solve one of the key problems facing the early church – the question of whether circumcision was required for Gentile converts to Christianity, the apostles realized their dependence upon the Holy Spirit as they sought to authentically guide the early Church. It was only through the continuing presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit that Jesus’ church could remain faithful to his teaching as the years progressed. In one of his general audience talks, Saint John Paul II emphasized that “arriving at a deeper awareness of Christ demands a deeper awareness of the Holy Spirit. To know who Christ is and to know who the Spirit is are two indissolubly linked requirements.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states even more directly “one cannot believe in Jesus Christ without sharing in his Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to men who Jesus is” (par. 152).
Jesus’ abiding presence is intended to have as powerful an effect upon the world throughout the centuries as it did in the lives of his first disciples. To John’s community at the time of the writing of his Gospel, Jesus’ promise to never abandon those who loved and followed him must have been a supreme comfort. The Helping Spirit ultimately sustained the faith of that early Johannine community through the difficult times they were experiencing (for example, the persecutions, the deaths of the original apostles, etc.). Jesus continues to be just as present to his followers in our day, both individually as well as collectively in the church. His presence empowers us to share in the life and love of the Trinity, assured of a permanent place in the Heavenly Father’s Kingdom. His presence via the Spirit brings the offer of peace to our world, a peace which entails the totality of loving relations between God and his people. It is this peace which uplifts all the followers of Jesus, empowering and inspiring them to fulfill his mission in the world in every age, that is, to begin to build in this world the city foretold in the Book of Revelation, a city that has “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God [gives] it light, and its lamp [is] the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23).
Msgr. John N. Fell serves as Episcopal Vicar for the Vicariate for Clergy.
Gospel for May 25, 2025
John 14: 23-29
Following is a word search based on the Gospel reading for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle C: The promise of the Holy Spirit. The words can be found in all directions in the puzzle.
WILL KEEP WORD FATHER WILL LIVE COME TO WHOEVER LOVES ME HEAR NOT MINE SENT ME ADVOCATE HOLY SPIRIT PEACE I LEAVE I GIVE HEARTS TROUBLED HEARD REJOICE GREATER BELIEVE
That the world might grow in compassion
Let us pray that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from his Heart, learn to have compassion on the world.
By Robert Christie, Correspondent
In a weekly presentation aimed at demystifying the Book of Revelation, Father Glenn Comandini, diocesan co ordinator of the Office of Ongoing Faith Formation, used historical and literary sources to reveal the book’s practical and theological value.
The Thursday morning sessions be gan March 27 at the diocesan center in Piscataway and continue through May 26. The Book of Revelation has 22 chapters.
Bill and Kathy Gibson of St. Joseph Parish, Hillsborough agreed the subject was “intimidating” but both agreed Fa ther Comandini makes it “understand able and applicable to our lives so that it’s not scary.”
The Gibsons were among more than 50 attendees at Father Comandini’s initial session, at which he presented the book’s nine divisions and its objective: to confront the churches’ apathy and accommodation of the times.
He said the author writes under the pseudonym of John, and the Book of Revelation dates to the reign of the Emperor Domitian, 81-96 A.D., and Roman persecution of the Church. The author lived in Ephesus, and Father Comandini said until the 20th century, the book was thought to have been written by the apostle John, but modern scholarship holds that is no longer the case. Both Sts. Athanasius and Augustine advocated its canonical status.
The first of nine divisions is the seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor, today’s western Turkey. Father Comandini distributed a map to assist with understanding their locations.
He said Chapter One indicates that John is a wandering charismatic prophet, writing to give witness, and blessed by God seven times, significant in that the number seven is a literary device meaning totality, in this case representing the universal Church. Jesus is a witness and martyr and the “Davidide” — descendent of the house of David. Also, Christ is always with people, is the “vindicator” and the Alpha and Omega, as the day of atonement is at hand.
Chapters Two and Three consist of the seven letters to the churches, each offering praise, reproof, exhortation, and finally a warning. Father Comandini said the speaker, the “I know” section, is always Christ, the God of prophecy,
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addressing what each church needs. The churches consist of two groups, the guilty and the nonguilty. Each letter concludes with a promise.
Father Comandini noted these letters are faith documents rather than historical documents, with accordingly stylistic differences. They are part of the resistance literature of the time, calling all churches to action, even though they were struggling.
On April 3, Father continued his analysis of the churches. Ephesus is identified as a “loveless church”; Smyrna is where Christians were persecuted. Other cities, such as Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis and Laodicea, were described as bad churches for the actions of their cit-
izens. Philadelphia was known to be the only good church, leading Jesus to say, “I will protect you.”
Chapter Four begins a new division in the book, which “is not to be feared. It is not scary,” Father Comandini said. This chapter addresses worship of the Father and the Old Testament covenant. Chapter Five introduces imagery of the lamb representing Christ, as well as that of the lion, the ox, man, and the eagle, representing in order the evangelists Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John.
Barbara MacNeill of the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, Metuchen, called Father Comandini’s sessions “brilliant. I want to attend every class he teaches. I love it.”
By Tiffany Workman Special Contributor
Catholic Charities is pleased to introduce a new outpatient, faith-based counseling program which aims to accompany clients in their journey – helping them not only to navigate their psychological challenges, but also to rediscover God’s healing presence within them.
The Faith-Based Counseling Program at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen (CCDOM), was established in response to the growing need for mental health care that integrates the richness of the Catholic-Christian understanding of the human person – for those who desire it. Too often, we compartmentalize our lives, viewing physical health, mental health, and spirituality as separate realms. However, Christian anthropology affirms that these aspects are deeply interconnected; our spiritual life is not only related to, but essential for, our overall well-being and human flourishing.
Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Brother Pius Gagne, a clinician for the faith-based counseling program said, “I have been a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal since 2006, serving in a variety of apostolates – from homeless shelters to youth ministry at our center in the South Bronx – offering both practical support and pastoral care. Through these experiences, I felt a deepening call to accompany others more intentionally in their emotional and psychological struggles, which led me to pursue a vocation as a therapist.”
He continued, “With the blessing of my Community, I enrolled at Divine Mercy University and completed my internship at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen (CCDOM), where I worked with clients facing a broad range of men tal health challenges. I graduated with an M.S. in Mental Health Counseling in September 2024 and began working full time shortly thereafter. I currently serve in the AFY (Alternatives for Youth) pro gram at our Phillipsburg office, where I support children, teens, and their families in navigating mental health concerns.”
and beyond, and his contributions contin ue to enrich our agency in a truly positive way.”
This program is unique in that it draws upon spiritual tools and truths to help clients cope with and heal from mental illness, while also exploring how these struggles can impact one’s faith journey. The program includes treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, addictions, relationship challenges, and family discord for people all across the lifespan.
“It is my hope for the future that this program will expand, and can be a place where people of faith can feel safe and supported as we work together on their mental health, guided by the light of faith.” Brother Pius said.
CCDOM offers compassionate, faith-based counseling serving all four counties of the Diocese: Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon, and Warren. To make a referral, please contact their Cli ent Service Specialist for a phone intake at: 908-454-2074.
For more information about Catho lic Charities Diocese of Metuchen, please visit ccdom.org. LIKE & Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X @ccdom1 to stay updated on upcoming events and ways we help clients get the services and assistance they need.
Lisa Mermini, clinical supervisor, Hunterdon and Warren Counties, said, “I have had the pleasure of supervising Brother Pius since he began his internship with us in November 2023. His personal values align closely with the mission of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen. Mermini continued, “Brother Pius brings both professionalism and genuine care to his work, and his presence has made a meaningful and lasting impact on our organization. He consistently goes above
Saint Peter’s Healthcare System, New Brunswick, has a long-standing reputation for delivering quality healthcare services in tandem with compassionate care while also honoring its Catholic mission of humble service to humanity. A destination for superior care in Central Jersey and beyond, there exists a kind of “magic,” that leads people to choose Saint Peter’s for their care. That “magic” goes beyond a staff of qualified physicians, caregivers, and support staff, and extends to every employee, regardless of their responsibilities.
This year, seven individuals were recognized with Saint Peter’s Service Awards marking 40 years of service or more, along with Carolyn Reeves, a registered nurse on the Mother-Baby Unit, who was honored posthumously for her 40 years of service. Each of those honored shared their personal story and the secret behind what’s kept them at the organization well beyond the average term of employment anywhere.
Linda Carroll, Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer
Linda Carroll of Colonia explained that she’s always had a personal connection to Saint Peter’s and the New Brunswick community. “My calling to be a nurse was born from great admiration
Linda Stroumtsos, NICU Nurse
Linda Stroumtsos of Belle Mead started as a nurse’s aide on the medical-surgical unit. She began working as a registered nurse in the nursery and after a year, transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). After 45 years, she said she is still learning something new every day. Linda attributes the close-knit community of the NICU as one of the reasons she has stayed at Saint Peter’s.
“I truly value the close friendships throughout the years. My friends have all touched my heart in their own special ways,” said Linda. “The teamwork in the NICU is exceptional. We often find ourselves in a crisis situation, but I know I can always count on my co-workers to help out. While some say that we are providing comfort by tending to these fragile infants and their concerned families, I find it’s a comfort for me to be serving them.”
Always a workhorse, yet humble to the core, Eileen said, “My team makes me look good! Yes, we’re successful and to date, we haven’t lost a challenge yet, but I couldn’t do it without them.” An example of the unbreakable bond of teamwork: one of her waitresses has been with her for 30 years and another back-of-house employee has been on staff since 2010.
When asked about what keeps her here, Eileen said, “Saint Peter’s is an amazing place; it’s about the sum of the whole.”
Carol Negvesky Communications
Manager
Pictured from left, June-Ann Garafano, vice president and chief human resources officer, Saint Peter’s Healthcare System; 40year celebrants Eileen Lombardi; Carol Negvesky; Linda Carroll; Ann Scotti; Tracey Mulqueen; Maureen Gugliotta, and Leslie Hirsch, FACHE, president and CEO of Saint Peter’s Healthcare System. Carolyn Reeves was honored posthumously.
Left, 45 year honoree, Linda Stroumtsos, is pictured center.
—Courtesy photos
for how my mother, a 15-year nursing supervisor at Saint Peter’s, cared for her patients,” she said. “I am endeared to my personal connection to Saint Peter’s and the New Brunswick community.”
Her grandfather lived down the street from the hospital, so she was in the area often and her great-grandfather helped to build Saint Peter’s Church in New Brunswick. Linda first came to Saint Peter’s when she was 5 years old, accompanying her mother as she picked up her paycheck. “I remember thinking back then, “I want to work here!” Later, Linda attended and graduated from Saint Peter’s School of Nursing, and “never left”.
Today, as Chief Nursing Officer, Linda says she’s “always a nurse at heart,” and is “passionate about advancing the professional development of our loving nurses and nurse leaders.”
What keeps her here? “There is no place like Saint Peter’s. The words ‘we’ and ‘us’ ring out over ‘I’ and ‘me.’ Together, we live our faith-based mission as humble stewards caring for patients and their families during the most vulnerable times in their lives,” said Linda. “We are also passionate about caring for our staff. I am honored and grateful to partner with an amazing nurse and executive leadership team to help staff be successful in every way.”
Linda describes the fact that quality and safety are tantamount in the NICU, but the bond with her team is palpable. “We are striving in this together!” Linda celebrated 46 years at Saint Peter’s in March.
Eileen Lombardi
Yolanda’s Restaurant Manager
Eileen Lombardi of Kendall Park talks about Saint Peter’s with great pride and interspersed with her narrative is the word “family,” which for Eileen is both a literal and figurative reference. Her mother was a switchboard operator at Saint Peter’s for 30 years; her sister is a switchboard operator there now. Eileen started working at Saint Peter’s hospital-based restaurant as a waitress. Later she became a cook, then assistant manager and for the past 27 years, she has been the manager of Yolanda’s.
“There is such a family atmosphere here,” says Eileen. “I’ve worked with other people’s kids. For example, the daughter of the hospital’s head of transport came to me when she was only 14 years old and worked at the restaurant through college. Now she’s a nurse here. There are two other girls that started working for me and now they’re working in the Emergency Room. I have lots of stories like that.”
Eileen credits her staying power to her non-stop energy. She explained that during the pandemic when most restaurants closed completely, Yolanda’s kicked into high gear. “We made 80 family meals a day. These were complete meals that employees could pick up at the end of their shift and take home to their families because folks here were working overtime and just didn’t have time after leaving work to go home and prepare meals for their families. In addition, we opened a grocery store, a mini-market where we offered staples for nurses and others working 15 to 16-hour shifts!
“During COVID, the restaurant also became a cafeteria, expanding hours from 6:30 AM to 8 PM,” Eileen explains.
“I first came to Saint Peter’s because my mother-in-law worked as assistant manager in the medical records department,” said Carol Negvesky of Somerset. She began working at Saint Peter’s in 1984 as the evening switchboard operator, working from 5 PM to 11 PM so she could be home with her kids. Carol has held many positions over the years–more than she can count. According to Carol, it was always family first, but as her kids grew, over time she continued to take on more responsibility. She explains that regardless of the changes in management over time, her values remained the same and her employer always respected that.
In her current role as Communications Manager, Carol supervises approximately 35 people. She explains that Saint Peter’s was always her home away from home. At various points in time, her kids also worked at Saint Peter’s. One worked in Yolanda’s with Eileen Lombardi, and another as an aid in the Pediatric Emergency Room and later as a Labor and Delivery Nurse. Her son worked in the Medical Records Department and then moved to the Sterile, Processing and Distribution Department before pursuing another career. For Carol, the familial connections continue. Eileen’s mom previously worked for Carol, and now Eileen’s sister works for her. Carol refers to it as the “Saint Peter’s bloodline.”
Maureen Gugliotta of Freehold started as a medical-surgery nurse. What is the “magic” of Saint Peter’s that she attributes to her 40-year tenure? According to Maureen, it’s the culture and the people. She describes a family atmosphere that she says exists not just in Labor and Delivery, but in other departments as well.
“Saint Peter’s has become our home away from home,” says Maureen. “People here have your back, and, in an emergency, you don’t have to ask for help from your colleagues; they eagerly come forward to assist.”
Maureen also attributes the Christian culture as a reason she feels so connected to Saint Peter’s. “It aligns with my values and as a child, I was hospitalized here often, so I grew up here. I was born here,
In his recent Lenten Mission Sermon, Fr. Chad Ripperger, renowned theologian, psychologist and exorcist, said, “You will never attain perfection unless you are willing to suffer.” Addressing the men he told them, “You will never attain any semblance of masculinity or any semblance of perfection until you conquer the curse of Adam, which is effeminacy and irresponsibility.” To the women he said, “You will never reach sanctity until you have conquered the curse of Eve, which is the desire to control in relationship to your husband.”
Living up to our true calling as men and women is hard. Honestly, subduing my desire to control has been a lifelong battle for me. Praying the Surrender Novena has been very helpful. “Jesus I surrender myself to you, take care of everything” means I must relinquish control to him.
It seems postmodern feminists cannot contend with the idea of needing a savior, especially if it is a man. Yet, male heroes abound in countless epic and beloved stories whose genre runs the gamut from fairytale, to sci-fi, to action hero, to romantic classic. Think Cinderella, King Kong,
recent live-action Disney remakes: Snow White, The Little Mermaid, and Mulan, the female protagonist, instead of the male, becomes the heroine. Snow White is deemed predestined “to lead and not be led”, a recurring central theme. I find it irritating when male heroic characters are diminished or devalued in classic film remakes. Perhaps it has something to do with being a mother of three sons.
To endure a story must be worthy of enduring. And to be authentic a story must express authentic truths, goodness and beauty.
The idea that I can be autonomous, that I don’t need a savior and I can save myself is an ancient ruse of the devil that dates back to Adam and Eve. He knows that the loss of masculine leadership will eventually become the refusal to allow Christ to lead us. But we all are in need of a savior, which is why Jesus came. Christ, our Eternal Bridegroom, pursues us like the stag in Song of Songs. He can be found in every good classic story because he is the embodiment of truth and love.
Walt Disney once said that he relied on prayer and Divine Inspiration, which is evident in his films. In his 1937 classic, Snow White and the prince speak loving words of praise to one another reminiscent of the pureness and innocence in Song of Songs. The prince rides a white horse and climbs the castle wall singing, “One song my heart keeps singing of one love only for you.” In the modern version they are cynical and argumentative. “Your princess problems don’t apply to
A stained-glass window depicting “The Wedding at Cana,” is seen in the Cathedral of St. Peter in Wilmington, Del. —CNS photo/Chaz Muth
of a masterwork. These films should not be dismissed as insignificant as they have the power to influence a whole generation.
BLUE ARMY OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA SHRINE
674 Mountain View Road E., Asbury, NJ 08802 908-689-7330 • retreat@bluearmy.com
Lift Up Your Soul at the tranquil 150-acre Fatima Shrine. Host Your Retreat for Youth, Couples, Parish or Vocational Group.
MOUNT ST. MARY HOUSE OF PRAYER
1651 U.S. Highway 22, Watchung, NJ 07069 908-753-2091 • www.msmhope.org
e-mail: msmhope@msmhope.org Retreats, Spiritual Direction, Programs
SAN ALFONSO RETREAT HOUSE
755 Ocean Avenue, Long Branch NJ 07740 732-222-2731 • info@sanalfonsoretreats.org www.sanalfonsoretreats.org
A Redemptorist Spiritual Center overlooking the Atlantic Ocean offering preached retreats, days of prayer and use of the facility for outside groups.
LOYOLA JESUIT CENTER
161 James Street • Morristown, NJ 07960 973-539-0740 • Fax: 973-898-9839 www.loyola.org • retreathouse@loyola.org
Retreats for lay men, women, priests, religious; days/evenings of prayer. Groups planning their own programs are welcome.
THE SHRINE OF ST. JOSEPH 1050 Long Hill Road, Stirling, NJ 07980 908-647-0208 • www.stshrine.org Day & Overnight Retreats Gift & Book Shop - open daily
ST. JOSEPH BY THE SEA
400 Route 35 North, S. Mantoloking, NJ 08738 732-892-8494 • sjbsea@comcast.net • sjbsea.org
A Retreat House Sponsored by the Religious Teachers Filippini overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay. Offering days of prayer, retreat weekends, spiritual programs, meetings and staff days.
is, the more feminine a woman can be, and vice versa. Pope John Paul II referred to the complementary nature of man and woman as a “communion of persons” living in accord with the “spousal meaning of their bodies,” which is not only meant for married couples.
In humble submission to God, Mary conceives Jesus in her womb. Joseph leads Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape the murderous King Herod. Jesus performs his first miracle at the Wedding at Cana after Mary informs him of the problem of no wine. In selflessness and love she says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
While Jesus is a role model for us all, to be truly masculine, a man must be willing to love like Christ: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25). We women today need to let men be masculine, which means let them be like Christ, not try to usurp them. In marriage, elevating your spouse is elevating yourself, for you are one flesh.
This does not mean that women should never lead, but they should not do so out of pride or envy. A woman should not seize leadership at the risk of abandoning her true calling or undermining her natural feminine gifts.
God created us male and female in His Image and Likeness. We are called to cherish our masculine and feminine gifts, and the Holy Family provides the perfect model for us to follow.
Men and women each have unique gifts that we should foster and cherish in each other. Harming masculinity harms femininity. The more masculine a man
Please see our website for a full list of upcoming retreats and programs. sanalfonsoretreats.org info@sanalfonsoretreats.org 732-222-2731, x140 755 Ocean Ave., Long Branch, NJ 07740
VILLA PAULINE RETREAT AND SPIRITUAL CENTER
Anna M. Githens is a freelance writer with a career background in finance, teaching and journalism. She holds an MA in Theology, a BA in Economics and a Certification in Theology of the Body.
Retreat for Deacons: June 6 - 8
Theme: Be Not Afraid: The Journey of Christian Hope
Priests and Deacons Renewal Week: June 9 - 13
Theme: U.S. Catholicism and Pastoral Ministry in a Brave New World; Retreat Director and Facilitator: Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP, Ph.D.
Retreats for Women: June 20 - 22
Retreat to Broadway Dinner Theater Fundraiser June 30, 5 - 9pm, $150 pp
Join us for a fabulous dinner and a show! Actor Jenn Gambatese will lead an entertaining evening of music and faith as we celebrate 100 years of ministry here at San Alfonso.
Come to the Water Relax and Renew Week August 8 - 13. Design your own schedule with time for quiet prayer outside by the ocean, in our prayer garden or chapel. Daily Mass and other optional activities available. Open to all.
352 Bernardsville Road, Mendham, NJ 07945 Sr. Joseph Spring • 973-919-9874 • srjspring@gmail.com sccus.org • Preached/Directed/Guided & Private Retreats, Spiritual Direction, day & weekend programs
To join this retreat guide, email mgregory@diometuchen.org
“GOD’S LOVING LIGHT SHINES THROUGH US AND OUR ACTIONS”
For Angela Fede, St. John Vianney School, Colonia, holds significance in
Not only is she a world language teacher at the school, but she is also the parent of a kindergartener and a child in the preschool program.
“As a teacher, I’m incredibly proud of our students and grateful to work alongside such a supportive and caring staff. The administration does a wonderful job supporting both faculty and students –it is a special place to be,” she said, adding that her own children are also succeeding there. “My children are thriving academically and love their teachers.”
Fede shared that members of the SJV community live out their mission of faith, knowledge and service each day. Students begin the day gathering in the cafeteria for prayer and reflection, including prayer for any special intentions.
“We pray together for any special intentions offered by our students and staff, creating a beautiful and unifying start to the day that reflects our values and brings us closer as a school family,” said Fede. Faith is woven into the fabric of the student experience, not only through morning prayer, but prayer in the classrooms, monthly Masses and through how students are taught to treat and support each other.
This year, students in the Colonia school have the opportunity to be part of a new initiative – a monthly, student-led newsletter that is featured on the school’s
website. Faculty and students collaborate to share news and reflections, promote upcoming events and show case student writing.
“It’s been a wonderful opportunity for students to practice their writing skills while actively contributing to the school community,” said Fede. “The newsletter has quickly become something everyone looks forward to each month.”
Another defining feature of the student experience is centered on service to others. The school participants in annual service projects like the Have-A-Heart Food Drive, and earlier this year, their Catholic Schools Week celebration was tied to this mission of serving others.
“One of the most moving moments was when the entire student body gathered in the cafeteria to pack over 300 bagged lunches for those in need in our local community,” she said. “Watching our eighth graders guide and encourage our kindergarteners as they worked together was truly a heartwarming reminder of what makes SJV so special.”
For students, there are many reasons to be excited to come back to St. John Vianney each day.
“I’m always excited to come and learn new stuff,” said Mia P., a fourth grader.
One of her fourth-grade peers, Bryson M., shared what he loves about school: “I like gym and coming to school to hang out with my friends.”
On a similar note, kindergartener Nicolas F. said. “I love playing with my friends at recess.”
Fede said that the students’ reflec-
fill the halls of St. John Vianney School each day.”
“SJV is more than just a school –it’s a family rooted in faith, committed to excellence, and united in service,” she said. “We are proud of our students, our faculty, and our shared mission, and we look forward to the continued growth of this extraordinary community.”
The school’s principal, Nancy Tannucilli, echoed Fede’s sentiments about the sense of family at their school.
“Our community fulfills a commitment to caring for one another and working together to make it the wonderful place that it is,” she said. “As we continue to educate our students’ minds, we nourish their hearts as well.”
Fifth and sixth grade language arts teacher and moderator of the National Honor Society Amanda Cleveland-Miller has been part of the faculty since 2008, when her youngest child graduated from the school. She noted that students come from many parts of New Jersey – as far south as Monmouth County and as far north as Somerset County – and even from as far as Staten Island, and that the school is like a second home.
“This feeling of being home with family is what makes St. John Vianney School so very special,” she said. “The students, faculty, and administration, together, have faced great sadness –COVID, the passing of a student, the passing of beloved teacher, facing the loss of a parent, loss of homes due to storms or fire – and moments of great
joy – First Penances, First Communions, Confirmations, the Baptisms of class mates, the ‘cancer free’ pronouncement of a student … At Saint John Vianney, while we are many, we are one.”
Cleveland-Miller, who also leads the school’s track team boasting more than 115 student athletes, also noted the school’s strong music and arts offerings for students of all ages, as well as a vibrant student council program.
When parent Gina Rysinski first found St. John Vianney for her son, she knew it was the right choice.
“Our son was where he was meant to be,” she said. “That was 2014, and although choosing a Catholic Education has been a sacrifice, the benefits for our children academically, spiritually, and socially have been invaluable.”
Her son graduated last year and chose to continue his Catholic education at Union Catholic High School. Rysinski’s daughter still attends the school and is now in the fifth grade. She shared that, as parents, they have also been able to become part of the school’s family, and to be involved in their children’s educational journeys.
“St. John Vianney offers a rigorous, faith-based education. The students are academically challenged, while at the same time strengthening their spirituality,” she said. “I can attest first-hand to the incredible education my children have received.”
To learn more about St. John Vianney School, visit https://school.sjvianney. com/.
— St. John Vianney Facebook photos
It was in the fall of 2021 when David Hobson, an assistant for Immaculata’s football team and the head coach of the boys lacrosse team, experienced maturity beyond his years from a high school athlete.
There were whispers the year before that a talented eighth grader, whose parents had been athletes at the school, would be enrolling. But what Hobson didn’t anticipate was that this student would approach him as a freshman football player, shake his hand, look him in the eyes and tell him that he was excited to join his lacrosse program that spring.
“I was just so taken back by this young man coming up to me and introducing himself and being so bold and so focused, committed to what he wanted to do and being successful on the field and whatever that meant to get it done,” Hobson said. “I knew he was a special kid right from the start.”
That special kid’s name is Cole Hayden, and he has since produced not only one of the most impressive athletic careers in Immaculata history, but in all of New Jersey.
Hayden totaled 27 touchdowns as the football team’s starting quarterback and also played defense in the fall; joined the basketball program’s 1,000-point club in the winter; and recently surpassed 200 points for the lacrosse team – all while being a standout student who plans to study finance and play Division I lacrosse at the University of Richmond.
multiple sports including baseball, but he ultimately chose lacrosse in the fourth grade as his dedicated spring sport.
Daily weightlifting and getting good grades in school became the priorities as Hayden got older, and playing three sports helped him develop a well-rounded skill set.
“I use football and basketball to my advantage with lacrosse to get stronger and faster and build my IQ,” said Hayden, who now stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 195 pounds. “I see basketball like lacrosse, just a smaller version with no contact.”
Hayden used to dream about the possibilities of playing collegiately in all three sports, but he realized that his lacrosse prowess was on another level, especially when he started
By Greg Johnson, Correspondent
playing Leading Edge club lacrosse in middle school.
“You meet a bunch of kids that you build good bonds with over multiple sports,” Hayden, who has never been infatuated with accolades, said when reflecting on the journey. “I feel like at Immaculata I’ve done that. I have friends in every sport that I talk to all the time and hang out with.”
For the Hillsborough native, it began with playing sports as a toddler in his backyard. His father, a former football player at Northeastern University, offered guidance to his three sons. Hayden loved
Hobson, who is also the manager for a premier travel program called 3D Garden State, remembers Hayden coming in as a freshman and having good size, speed and shiftiness, and he was already a dominant scorer with his right hand.
“What we asked him to work on was getting his left hand better so that he could be a little more versatile and attack from both sides of the field, and shoot it with both hands and feed it with both hands,” Hobson said. “We told him to trust the process and trust his teammates. He does a great job of drawing
the slide – even two or three guys on him – and being able to dish the ball out to his teammates and let them score I think highlights that he’s an unselfish player, for sure.”
Hayden is a two-way midfielder, an attackman and even sometimes plays with a defensive pole for Immaculata because of his high-level IQ and athleticism.
He is also the leader – first by example and then vocally – of a program that has transformed under Hobson, going from having only about 10 kids on the team five years ago to now having 34. With a 11-2 record as of May 9, the Spartans are on pace to finish with the most wins at the school since Immaculata won a state championship in 2014.
“I really just want to give a lot of credit to my teammates because they put me in positions where I can be the best version of myself,” Hayden said. “It’s also lots of work outside of lacrosse that nobody sees. I’m hitting the wall for 20 minutes with my weak hand trying to make it as good as my strong hand. It makes you two times harder to guard, and I’ve also really emphasized working on my speed, because as strong as you are, my dad always told me that I need to be a strong kid, but I need to always have lots of speed.”
Hayden also thanks his parents for raising him into a respectful, outgoing kid. He has tried to set a good example for his
two younger brothers. Bryce is currently in eighth grade while Quinn is a sophomore, and Cole has embraced playing high school lacrosse with him for two years.
“When you’re playing with the kid that you’ve grown up playing with in the backyard, throwing (a ball) around – ‘Yo, let’s go have a catch,’ all that – it’s truly amazing,” Hayden said. “I really love playing with him. As much as we argue … my brother is my best friend. I’ve done everything with him when I was younger, and it’s just amazing that we have that kind of chemistry with each other where we know what we’re going to do.”
That is one of countless memories that Hayden will cherish from his time at Immaculata.
There may never be another athlete like him at the school, and yet his legacy has not really crossed his mind yet. He has always been more concerned with the team than himself.
“He knows when it’s time for him to step up and be the voice of reason and sometimes that positive energy that the team needs, but he also knows that there’s times where you can lead by example and you don’t need to say anything,” Hobson said. “He does a nice mixture of both. But I think he just plays each sport with such passion that the guys around him just feed off his passion and his energy and how he wants to compete – his will to compete.”
Right, Head Coach Dennis McCaffery talks to the St. Joe’s players during a home game against St. Thomas Aquinas on April 30. Below left, Coach McCaffery interacts with longtime St. Joe’s fan Stephen Sorokac before a home game. Below right, St. Joe’s senior Joseph Barca throws a pitch during the April 30 home game. —Hal Brown photos
By Greg Johnson, Correspondent
His team was about to play a baseball game, but for Dennis McCaffery, this was bigger than baseball.
The new coach at St. Joe’s, Metuchen, wanted to take a few minutes to interact with Stephen Sorokac, one of the Falcons’ biggest supporters and their unofficial team manager who attends every home game and even some away games with his mother, Gloria, despite using a wheelchair.
This was an opportunity to embrace the essence of high school sports.
“I think it’s incredibly important because we all have to realize how fortunate we are,” McCaffery said. “It’s giving back to others. Baseball, sports allow a lot of paths and allow a lot of avenues to be able to reach out to others. Kids that can play sports are very fortunate that they’re physically able to do it and athletically capable of doing it, and they always have to be very appreciative of the fact that they’re capable of doing
it. And you get someone that it brightens their day by just going and talking to them for five, 10 minutes.”
St. Joe’s gave Sorokac something to smile about that day in late April when it defeated conference rival St. Thomas Aquinas.
While McCaffery certainly wants to win in his new role as head coach of St. Joe’s, he has done plenty of that already in a lengthy coaching career that has included 511 victories and three state championships at Cranford High from 1999-2024.
McCaffery, who also spent 27 years as principal at Lincoln School, retired last year at the age of 55 to devote more time to his family. His daughter is a softball player at Rowan University and his son is a baseball player at the University of Tampa.
When St. Joe’s athletic director Bill Tracy reached out in January to see if he had interest in coaching again, McCaffery was enthused but had reservations.
“I’ve always thought St Joe’s was a great school,” said McCaffery, who also became the school’s Assistant Dean of
Students. “I let them know that I certainly had some restrictions because of my schedule. The President, Mr. Nolan, and the principal, Mrs. Anne Rivera, couldn’t have been more accommodating and understanding. They’ve been very empathetic of my schedule, and it’s worked out well so far. I just truly appreciate what they’ve done.”
In terms of shifting from a public school to a private school for baseball, McCaffery says that “coaching is coaching.” He wants to be consistent, fair and empathetic toward his players. The difference is that at Cranford he had known the kids since kindergarten, whereas at St. Joe’s he has had to build relationships from scratch.
“I think it’s (about) being fair and respectful, to understand that it’s not easy being a kid these days,” McCaffery said.
“The student-athletes at St Joe’s are very impressive young men, and it’s been a very good experience so far. The school, the staff and the students have been very welcoming.”
McCaffery says the players have bought in to his vast experience and his dedicated approach to practices and games. He believes that a blue-collar mindset is paramount in order to have success because baseball is such a mental game.
He also wants to help place the kids into colleges, so he introduced some of them to a coach from Fairleigh Dickinson University who was scouting them at the St. Thomas Aquinas game.
Among the players who have already committed to schools are Bobby Christiansen (Babson College), Richard Zangara (Ithaca College), Damian Pipitone (Delaware Valley University) and John Palermo (Susquehanna University).
“They’re trying to recruit very talented, good academic students,” McCaffery said. “I’ve been reaching out to a bunch of coaches so far because I think there’s a lot of kids that have a lot of ability here.”
McCaffery is molding the student-athletes into charitable young men as well. They enjoy interacting with Sorokac at games, and they recently attended Buddy Ball of Edison to play sports with special needs kids.
“I really think it’s important to do things off the field,” McCaffery said. “We would do that a lot in Cranford, too, but I’m not one to do it and hopefully get recognition for it. You do it because it’s the right thing to do and, more importantly, you’re capable of doing it.”
In what has been a reinvigorating experience late in his career, McCaffery is eager to stay at St. Joe’s for the foreseeable future if it remains mutually beneficial.
“I’ve always taken it year by year,” McCaffery said. “I literally take it one day at a time, one practice or one game at a time. I don’t really look ahead too much in anything I do. If St Joe’s is interested in having me back there next year, I would certainly welcome that opportunity.”
Above, white smoke rises from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, indicating a new pope has been elected, March 13, 2013. The conclave to elect a new pope met over two days before making a decision. —CNS photo/Dylan Martinez, Reuters
AI think ultimately, events in the life of the Church like conclaves bring us to the mysterious place where God’s providential ordering of history intersects with human free will.
On one level, there is nothing miraculous about a conclave. That is, the assembled cardinals are human men who use their human powers of reason and prudential judgment to vote on a decision. In real life I think it’s fair to assume that the vast majority of cardinals today are essentially good men who will undertake this responsibility with the care it deserves, but in theory there is nothing to stop the cardinals from making a careless or deliberately bad choice of a new pope.
And indeed, although in the past century we as a Church have been “spoiled” with a number of saintly popes, the Church’s 2000-year history has unfortunately seen some popes who were cowardly, faltering or even notoriously immoral.
But at the same time, we also believe that God loves and continues to guide his church. Jesus himself said that he would “be with [us] always, until the end of the age,” (Mt 28:20) and that “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn 14:26).
We also believe that God’s guidance of the Church is manifested in the concept of papal infallibility, meaning that in certain very specific circumstances, when a pope is teaching on faith and morals specifically in his role as pope, God will protect him from error (see the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” No. 892).
While papal infallibility as applied to the teaching of Catholic doctrine is different from the process of electing a pope in the first place, it still serves to underscore how God “will not leave us orphans” (Jn 14:18).
There is also some scriptural suggestion that God would have a hand in choosing bishops at least. In the book of Acts, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the remaining 11 apostles gathered to choose a successor and replacement to Judas Iscariot, who had taken his own life after betraying Jesus. After determining two suitable candidates, the final de-
cision was made by casting lots, with the idea that God would take advantage of that occasion of randomness and chance to put forth his own preferred candidate (Acts 1:15-26).
Even today, in our liturgy we can sometimes glean hints of the idea that God himself chooses bishops. For example, in the Good Friday passion liturgy, during the general intercessions we pray for the current Holy Father with the words: “Let us pray also for our most Holy Father Pope [Name], that our God and Lord, who chose him for the Order of Bishops …”
Yet, this sense that God calls and chooses bishops still co-exists today with a rather prosaic administrative process for determining candidates for the episcopate, involving such mundane things as recommendations and “short lists” of names. So here, too, it seems that the Church expects God to make his will known, but usually through very ordinary means rather than by extraordinary divine intervention.
This dynamic interplay between God’s will in all its perfection and our fallible human capacities for discernment is one reason for the many special customs surrounding a conclave. For example, the cardinals pray explicitly to the Holy Spirit before their voting and deliberation.
The solitude and isolation of the conclave is meant to foster almost a retreat-like atmosphere, which should make it easier for cardinals to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And in St. John Paul II’s document “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which spells out the official rules for a conclave, it is noted that: “the election will continue to take place in the Sistine Chapel, where everything is conducive to an awareness of the presence of God, in whose sight each person will one day be judged.”
Jenna Marie Cooper, who holds a licentiate in canon law, is a consecrated virgin and a canonist whose column appears weekly at OSV News. Send your questions to CatholicQA@osv.com.
By Christina Leslie Contributing Editor
Readers in search of a spiritual roadmap on suffering, a guidebook to assure them they will have all the gifts they need along the way, would do well to read “Finding God in Suffering,” written by Father Christopher M. Mahar (208 pages, Pauline Books and Media, 2023). Father Mahar, a Providence, R.I. based pastor who holds a doctorate in theological ethics, examines Pope St. John Paul II’s message of redemptive suffering in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering) and how it applies to people from diverse backgrounds and situations.
Divided into two sections – when we suffer and how we suffer – the book’s chapters follow the questions, challenges and themes of the apostolic letter and attempt to unfold the drama of suffering, allowing the reader to understand that God will stop at nothing to communicate his redemptive and healing love to those who suffer.
Each scriptural parable, personal anecdote or news brief is examined through the filter of faith and trust in the Almighty; the author spiritually walks with reader –not ahead with the solutions to suffering prematurely revealed; not lagging behind so that readers’ footsteps are misdirected, but alongside, subtly examining the apostolic letter, peeling back the layers in order to find the pure center of God’s love in their soul. Father Mahar writes, “However valuable and instructive suffering may be,
we once again conclude that there must be more to suffering than a lesson learned. … what [God] gives the soul searching for meaning is nothing less than his only begotten Son.”
One might benefit most if the book is not read all at once, as if it were a novel, but instead in chapter-sized bites, as a daily homily, a textbook, a step-by-step manual on understanding, absorbing, even rejoicing in suffering and making it applicable to the reader’s life. The author-priest explains, “We are not to feel hopelessness or powerless; we can still use our freedom and make difficult decisions even in the darkness of suffering. We are not helpless when we face the cross.”
Relating the closing section of Salvific Doloris, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Father Mahar adds, “Too many people today suffer without the support and solidarity they need to make it on the road to healing. The Church stands in the unique position to succor the suffering with the salve of charity. Today, more than ever, the Church needs to find the broken road and walk in it with the suffering person … It is prayer that allows the suffering soul to find courage and faith to weather the storms of life and to know that it is not alone.”
Reviewed by Christina Leslie, longtime contributing editor for The Catholic Spirit, who has also served as contributing editor and correspondent for The Monitor, Diocese of Trenton; Catholic Star Herald, Diocese of Camden, and JerseyCatholic. org, Archdiocese of Newark.
By John Mulderig, OSV News
(OSV News) – From the moment of his election in early 2013, Pope Francis naturally became one of the world’s most newsworthy individuals. But it was especially in the latter half of his pontificate that he proved an intriguing figure for moviemakers. Both documentarians and the creators of feature films were drawn to him over that time. As the first pontiff from the Americas, the first Jesuit successor of St. Peter and as an innovator in other respects, he seems to have struck many in the world of visual media as a breath of fresh air. Add to that his informality and his often lively turns of phrase and it’s understandable that those behind the camera were avid to focus on him.
Celebrated German director Wim Wenders was just one example. In 2018, he mostly allowed the pontiff to speak for himself in the well-received profile “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word.”
As a result of this strategy, audiences were not only treated to Francis’ views on a wide range of subjects – including problems often neglected by other world leaders – but witnessed his interaction with those seeking his guidance and care. Francis’ global travels, the significance of his choice of a papal name and his vision for the future of the Church were also highlighted.
Rodrigo de la Serna stars in a scene from the movie “Call Me Francesco,” the first movie based on the life of Pope Francis, shown in the Vatican audience hall Dec. 1, 2015 —CNS photo/ Angelo Di Pietro, TaodueFilm, distributed by Medusa
In 2021 came award-winning documentarian Evgeny Afineevsky’s film “Francesco.” While providing some biographical background, the movie served primarily as a vehicle for showcasing Pope Francis’ stance on a variety of contemporary issues. Along with other questions, it dealt with migration, the environment and the need to break down self-imposed social divisions in favor of human solidarity.
Afineevsky grabbed headlines but also caused widespread confusion by his treatment of Francis’ views on homosexuality. Yet his analysis of the pope’s outlook on other subjects – including the role of women in the governance of the church – is generally accurate and therefore helpful to viewers.
Eighteen months after the release of Wenders’ more-or-less straightforward documentary came Netflix’s tangled drama “The Two Popes.” Exaggerating a tendency that was already discernible, to a lesser extent, in the earlier film, screenwriter Anthony McCarten and director Fernando Meirelles attempted to laud Francis by deprecating his predecessor, Benedict XVI.
Yet it was not all clear sailing for Francis himself. Instead, the movie’s creators reenacted what they imagined to be then-Father Bergoglio’s insufficiently courageous interaction with the military regime that ruled his homeland of Argentina from 1976 to 1983. They thereby rashly asserted a certainty about the nature of the future pontiff’s actions that has eluded more serious students of the topic.
Such distortions were only rendered more convincing – and, therefore, pernicious – by the redoubtable acting ability of the movie’s two leads, Jonathan Pryce (Francis) and Anthony Hopkins (Benedict). The upmarket production does close on a warm and amusing note. Yet, overall, it remains a highly conjectural and rather jaundiced chronicle requiring caution and careful discernment.
As its title suggests, 2023’s “In Viaggio: The Travels of Pope Francis” was intended to highlight only a single aspect of the pontificate just passed, albeit a significant one. In surveying the 37 journeys to 53 different countries Francis undertook during the first nine years of his reign, filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi struck a careful balance between challenging material and an even-keeled tone.
Thus his production did not shy away from the grave global difficulties Pope Francis confronted on his varied voyages. Yet, by emphasizing the pontiff’s encouraging attitude in the face of such problems – as typified by his exhortation, “Do not be afraid to dream” – Rosi’s movie came across as a calm narrative of distressing events.
Anthony Hopkins portrays retired Pope Benedict XVI and Jonathan Pryce portrays Pope Francis in a scene from the movie “The Two Popes.” —OSV News photo/ Peter Mountain, courtesy NETFLIX
While the treatment of the late pontiff on film varied from the well-grounded to the tendentious, both his outlook and his activities proved unusually compelling to some who might otherwise have ignored the Vatican altogether. How the visual media will depict Pope Francis’ legacy going forward, of course, remains an open question.
Diocesan Bilingual Mass with Hispanic Youth and Young Adults – St. Joseph Church, 111 E. High St, Bound Brook. All are welcome. This is part of the Jubilee Mass Series. For more information about dates, times and locations, please email Lescobar@diometuchen.org.
Diocesan pilgrimage, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in celebration of Jubilee 2025. The faithful will join Bishop James F. Checchio as they travel to Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 2,025th anniversary of the Incarnation of Our Lord. For parish bus trips please email Angela Marshall at amarshall@diometuchen.org or call 732-562-1643.
Women’s Cursillo Weekend. The Metuchen Cursillo Movement will conduct the Women’s Cursillo Weekend at the Blue Army Shrine in Asbury. For information about the Cursillo experience please visit metcursillo.org.
Adoration at Pastoral Center – The faithful are invited to Eucharistic Adoration at the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Monday through Friday, from 9 -11:45 a.m. As Pope St. John Paul II noted. “The Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic adoration.” Anyone interested in signing up should contact Angela Marshall at amarshall@diometuchen.org.
Perpetual Adoration - Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament The Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Raritan, is looking for adorers to sit with the Blessed Sacrament Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament is also being offered the first Saturday of each Month (Night Vigil) from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. Anyone interested in signing up should visit https://blessedsacramentshrine.com.
June 7 – 8 – Catholic Life in the Spirit Seminar is being offered Pentecost weekend at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Whitehouse Station. For more infor-
mation call Fran Zangara at (H) 908-534-9068 or (C) 908-258-0116 or email fmz56@hotmail.com Church is at 390 County Road 523.
June 7 – Noon- 7 p.m., Festa di San Antonio at Good Shepherd Parish at Most Holy Rosary Church, 625 Florida Grove Rd., in the Hopelawn section of Woodbridge. Held in Msgr. Gambino Hall, the day will include Italian food and desserts (eat in/take out), activities and games for children and more. Elevator service is available. In addition, a classic car show hosted by the Raritan Bay Cruisers will be taking place in the church parking lot from 11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. (rain or shine). For information on the Festa, call (732) 826-4859 or visit goodshepherdpanj.org. Also, check out Facebook, Instagram and X.
June 19 – 1- 7 p.m., Blood Drive, conducted by New Jersey Blood Service and held in Most Holy Redeemer Parish, Desmond Hall, 133 Amboy Road, Matawan. At this time, the blood supply is critically low – PLEASE HELP. Donors must wear a mask and may not donate if they have had a positive diagnostic test or experienced symptoms of COVID-19 in the last 14 days. Remember to eat, drink and bring Donor ID or ID with name and photo.
Honor the classes of 2025 by advertising in our June, 2025 edition. Deadline for space reservations is May 23. Call Mary at 732-529-7934 or email mgregory@ diometuchen.org for details
Willing to buy your home or townhouse in as-is condition. Quick 30 day cash closing. I’m a Licensed realtor in the State of NJ. Eugene “George” Pantozzi 908-392-2677 (call or text) georgepantozzi@hotmail.com
PART-TIME DIRECTOR OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Monday and Wednesday Evenings approximately 20 hrs week. Salary depending on experience.
PART-TIME CHOIR DIRECTOR/ORGANIST-PIANIST/CANTOR
St. Andrew Church, Avenel, NJ. Call rectory at
That’s what’s missing from The Catholic Spirit!
Send your ideas for stories about your parish or school to mmorrell@diometuchen.org. We’ll be glad you did!
The June issue of The Catholic Spirit
• goes to press June 16
• ad space reservation deadline - May 23
• ad artwork deadline - May 30
• late requests considered if space allows
Continued from page 22
was a patient here, and feel truly lucky to have a job here. Today, it is my privilege to be part of the Labor and Delivery team.”
Gugliotta continues, “As nurses in Labor and Delivery, we are bound by the shared experiences of patient care and it gives me confidence to know that I have a team behind me, supporting me whenever the need arises. I have confidence in my team and in the care we provide.”
Tracey Mulqueen
Pediatric Emergency Department Nurse
One of the reasons Tracey Mulqueen of Dunellen continues to remain at Saint Peter’s is the culture of family. She describes an environment where everybody looks after each other. During her time at Saint Peter’s, Tracey has worked in medical-surgery, the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and the adult Emergency Department. She said she’s changed shifts and hours as her schedule needed to adapt to her growing family that includes three kids.
“I feel lucky that I’ve been able to do what I love professionally, while having a job that could adapt to my family life and my priorities at home,” said Tracey. “My role at Saint Peter’s has allowed me to use my experience, education and my faith to bring comfort to families in need – what a privilege.”
Ann Scotti, Care Coordination Director
Ann Scotti of Hillsborough first came to Saint Peter’s as a social worker for the NICU and perinatal services department. Today she is the director of Care Coordination, responsible for managing interdisciplinary teams that provide support and services to patients who are experiencing problems or issues adjusting to illness. Her summation as to
Left, painting of our Lady of the Rosary venerated in Pompeii. —Wikipedia photo
“Today is the day of the Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii. Our Mother Mary always wants to walk with us, to stay close, to help us with her intercession and her love.
So I would like to pray together with you. Let us pray together for this new mission, for the whole Church, for peace in the world, and let us ask for this special grace from Mary, our Mother.”
Pope Leo XIV, first speech as Pope, May 8.
The Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii, a devotional practice composed by Blessed Bartolo Longo, is recited on
May 8 and the first Sunday of October. It is connected to the construction of the Pontifical Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary, in Pompeii, which was later elevated by Pope Leo XIII in 1901 to a major papal basilica
To read more about Our Lady of Pompeii, her shrines in Chicago and Pompeii, as well as learn about Blessed Bartolo Longo, visit https://ourladyofpompeii.org/
June 3-7
the “magic” of Saint Peter’s and why so many people have a longevity of employ ment there: “It’s a combination of clini cal expertise and a mutual dedication to a mission of service.” She explains that magic is dependent on the dual existence of these elements.
When she surveys her 40 years at Saint Peter’s, Ann says, “I see an extraordinary level of clinical competence, plus high expectations for a caring approach and in combination with these things, a collaborative environment within departments, across teams and institution-wide.”
“As Director of Care Coordination, I work with nurses and social workers, and provide guidance for circumstances where patients are struggling with unexpected situations, the length of time they’re anticipated to be hospitalized, unexpected diagnoses and anticipating what can often be a complex plan of care and adjustment which needs to be continued after the hospital stay,” said Ann. “It takes so many working together to meet the care needs of patients and their families. At Saint Peter’s, it is truly the organization that’s the exception, not a single individual.”
“Saint Peter’s is a very extraordinary place,” said Leslie D. Hirsch, FACHE, president and CEO of Saint Peter’s Healthcare System. “We have been here for the community for the past 117 years and while many have been the recipients of our tangible efforts to heal the sick, save lives, and welcome new lives into this world, the intangible ‘magic’ of Saint Peter’s is its compassionate and caring staff who deliver the best in patient care to everyone who come to us in their time of need and leave as members of our family.”
Our Lady of Czestochowa Feast of St. Anthony 807 Hamilton Blvd., South Plainfield, NJ 07080 Tues-Thurs, June 3-5, 5:00 pm -10:00 pm Fri, June 6, 5:00 pm - 11:00 pm Sat, June 7, 1:00 pm - 11:00 pm Traditional homemade food. Great games and rides! 908-756-1333 olcchurch@verizon.net
June 4-7
St. Matthew the Apostle Carnival 100 Seymour Ave, Edison NJ 08817 (behind Wick Plaza) Wed-Sat 6:00 pm- 11:00 pm Great food, rides and games. Fun for the entire family! Pay One Price wristbands available every night! Call for directions 732-985-5063 stmatthewtheapostle.com
June 7
Good Shepherd Parish, Festa Di San Antonio 625 Florida Grove Road, Hopelawn, NJ 08861 Msgr. Gambino Hall, Noon-7:00 pm Italian Food & desserts- Eat in or Take out! Activities for kids. Classic car show 11:30 am3:30 pm in church parking lot. 732-826-4859 goodshepherdpanj.org
June 6-8
Saint Sharbel Church Lebanese Festival 2025 526 Easton Ave, Somerset, NJ 08873 Fri, June 6, 5:00 pm - 10:00 pm Sat, June 7, Noon - 11:00 pm Sun, June 8, Noon - 10:00 pm Lebanese Food and pastries, live music and dancers. Magic show, artisan items, games and crafts 732-828-2055 saintsharbelnj.org
June 18-22
Immaculate Conception Parish 22nd Annual Festival
316 Old Allerton Road, Annandale, NJ 08801
Carnival rides, nightly entertainment, games. Great assortment of foods and more! 908-735-7319 www.icfestival.org
June 24-28
St. Ambrose Parish Carnival
83 Throckmorton Lane, Old Bridge, NJ 08857
Tues, Wed, Thurs & Sat- 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm Fri 6:00 pm - 10:30 pm
Rides, games, food and fun! $35 per night/prepaid. $45 per night at the Carnival. See website for details. 732-679-5666 stambroseparish.com
July 8-12
St. John Vianney 52nd Annual Fair 420 Inman Avenue, Colonia, NJ 07067 6:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Food prepared by Tony’s Sausage. Major carnival rides, fun kiddie rides, entertainment. Wristbands every night. Summer Splash drawing Sat., July 12 at 11:00 pm 732-574-0150 sjv_fair@sjvs.net
July 23-26
Christ the Redeemer Parish Festival 57th Annual
Sacred Heart Church Grounds
98 South 2nd Avenue, Manville, NJ 08835
Wed - Fri 6 pm - 9 pm, Sat 5 pm - 9 pm
Homemade Polish & American food, music, games and more! Volunteers register online. 908-725-0072 ctrmanville.com
To advertise your carnival, call Mary Gregory at (732) 529-7934