Month: September 2022

CLARKS GREEN – The power of music can help people encounter Christ.

That was the main message that Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP, Ph.D., tried to explain to dozens of people during a two-day event in late August at Saint Gregory Parish.

The multi-day event, “Encountering Christ: Music & Meditation,” featured a free concert on Aug. 26 and a presentation and workshop the following day.

“I think music has always been a powerful tool to reach, to touch and to encounter God. Whenever we sing about the Body of Christ, we experience being members of the Body of Christ,” Father Manalo said.

The Paulist priest, composer, theologian and author earned the 2020 Distinguished Catholic Music Composer of the Year Award by the Association of Catholic Publishers. He also received the 2018 Pastoral Musician of the Year Award by the National Association of Pastoral Musicians.

Father Manalo credits his family for his love of music.

“My parents brought music into our family. My mother said where there is music, there will also be harmony in our family,” he added.

The Diocesan Office for Parish Life coordinated Father Manalo’s visit to the Diocese of Scranton as part of the ongoing National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year effort with the goal of awakening a desire among the faithful to encounter Jesus in the Eucharist.

As he works to compose music, Father Manalo said he often thinks about what part of the liturgy it would be used for and then a melody comes to mind.

“For me, it’s all about the context. Once I get that in my mind, my imagination just goes crazy,” he explained.

As opposed to looking at a beautiful piece of art, Father Manalo said music can go deep inside a person.

“Music allows us to experience something transcendent that actually goes all around us,” the composer stated.

There was no charge to attend either the concert or workshop led by Father Manalo. The music from his concert will be featured on the September edition of “Our Faith, Our Diocese” which will premiere on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton later this month.

SCRANTON – On Monday, Sept. 12, 2022, Sister Romaine Krug, I.H.M., celebrated her 109th birthday.

She was born in 1913 in Ashville, Pa, to parents Matilda and Herman Krug, and given the name Verna. Sister Romaine and her sister, Franceline, joined the convent at Marywood in Scranton, on Sept. 8, 1940. Their sister, Hermine, joined two years later.

An educator and dietitian, she earned a master’s degree from New York University and served many years on the faculty of Marywood College and as dietitian at the IHM Motherhouse and Marian Convent.

For the Diocese of Scranton, Sister Romaine was moderator of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart Guild. Today, Sister serves joyfully as a prayer minister at Our Lady of Peace Residence in Scranton.

Happy Birthday, Sister Romaine!

SCRANTON – “Buona Festa!”

As hundreds gathered inside the Cathedral of Saint Peter for the 46th annual Italian Mass on Sept. 4, 2022, the phrase, which can mean “good party” or “happy feast,” was heard multiple times.

The liturgy is celebrated in conjunction with La Festa Italiana, which always occurs over Labor Day weekend.

“It really is an honor to be here this morning,” said Jesuit Father Joseph G. Marina, president of The University of Scranton, as he began his homily.

While explaining he is half-Italian and half-Irish, Father Marina joked, “I have that proverbial combination of Gaelic and garlic.”

Father Marina then dove right into his reflections on the Gospel reading, Luke 14:25-33, which includes the following: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

“What self-respecting, authentic Italian would want to hear about hating their families, especially during La Festa Italiana, and from Jesus no less,” Father Marina asked.

In order to understand what Jesus is saying, Father Marina told the crowd you have to understand the original Greek from which the New Testament is written.

“When the Bible uses words like ‘love’ and ‘hate,’ the Greek version of those words, almost always refers to actions, not emotions and that is really important to take into account,” he said. “What Jesus is saying, according to Luke, and in the original Greek, is that you have to make God your first priority if you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Everything else, everything, must be secondary.”

Father Marina ended his homily by saying each day is a perfect opportunity for people to reflect on their priorities and ask themselves if Jesus Christ and His Gospel are what they truly value.

The principal celebrant for the Italian Mass was Father David P. Cappelloni, V.F., La Festa Chaplain and pastor of Saints Anthony and Rocco Parish in Dunmore. The Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, presided.

As the Mass concluded, Bishop Bambera thanked all those in attendance, saying their ancestors would be proud.

“Thank you for your presence here today, for this celebration of our faith,” the bishop noted. “It is so good, refreshing and exciting to see La Festa back in full force with thousands and thousands of visitors celebrating our great city of Scranton and the great tradition of our Italian heritage.”

This year’s Italian Mass was offered in memory of all those members and friends of La Festa Italiana who passed away since the last Mass was celebrated, including Most Reverend John M. Dougherty, Ed Balderson, Anthony J. Cali, Paul Casparro, Carole Coccodrilli, Rocco Damiano, Rosemary Gallagher, Jennifer Gregory Martin, John “Yogi” Jagodzinski, Marilouise Agnone Ruane, Alice Vanston and Pasquale “Pat” Yanni.

WILLIAMSPORT – Parishioners from Saint Joseph the Worker Parish in Williamsport participated in the Little League Parade which took over the downtown streets on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022.

The parish represented our Catholic faith to the community and those visiting the Williamsport-area from around the world!

In addition to having parishioners participate in the parade itself, the parish also had a food stand at the parade.

The local Knights of Columbus Assembly #942 helped escort Saint Joseph the Worker in the parade.

Members and friends of Saint Ann Catholic Church in Williamsport served up thousands of burgers, hot dogs, soft pretzels, and refreshments during the Little League World Series held in Williamsport August 17th through 28th.

This is the third year Saint Ann has “welcomed the world” by serving spectators and players from around the globe as part of the concessions team during the series, fundraising thousands of dollars for the parish.

Pictured to the right, left to right: Caroline Cipriani, Becky Goonan, Susie Heilmann and Tim Heilmann.

SWOYERSVILLE – On Sunday, Aug. 28, 2022, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop Bambera, celebrated Mass with the faithful of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Swoyersville, in honor of the saint’s birthday on Aug. 28, 1774.

The bishop also blessed the new granite staircase at the parish. The extensive staircase work took place over the last few months and included new railings, lanterns and porch ceiling.

The bishop is pictured in the photo at the right with Father Joseph Pisaneschi, Pastor, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish.

Before blessing the new steps, Bishop Bambera told the parish faithful, “Look at them as more than steps, look at them as an entranceway that welcomes more and more people to experience the goodness of this community of faith.”

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (CNS) – As war, violence and extremism in countries around the world threaten the lives of countless men, women and children, religions must rise above differences and be examples of peace and harmony, Pope Francis said.

“It is time to realize that fundamentalism defiles and corrupts every creed; time for open and compassionate hearts,” the pope said Sept. 14 at the plenary session of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

“We need religion in order to respond to the thirst for world peace and the thirst for the infinite that dwells in the heart of each man and woman,” he said.

On the second day of his visit to Kazakhstan, the pope addressed 80 religious leaders and hundreds of delegates participating in the interreligious meeting Sept. 14-15 in the Palace of Independence, a blue-glassed trapezoid-shaped building in the heart of the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan.

The congress, which is held every three years, was the initiative of Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, as a way of promoting dialogue among religions, the congress’ website stated. It also aims to prevent “the use of religious feelings of people for the escalation of conflicts and hostilities.”

Arriving at the meeting, the pope took his place at a huge round table with the other leaders and was immediately greeted by Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar in Egypt. Smiling, the pope affectionately embraced him.

The event began with a moment of silent prayer.

After the formal session, Pope Francis held private meetings with a dozen of the leaders, including the sheikh, but also with Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, head of external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church. The metropolitan took the place of Russian Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who canceled his attendance at the congress.

Metropolitan Anthony told reporters his 15-minute meeting with the pope was “very cordial” and that the pope had asked him to pass his greetings to the patriarch, whom the pope had hoped to meet in Nur-Sultan. The patriarch’s withdrawal from the congress was seen by many observers as a protest of Pope Francis’ decision not to meet Patriarch Kirill in Jerusalem in June because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and of Patriarch Kirill’s support for the war.

“We had worked to prepare the second meeting (between a pope and patriarch — the first was in Havana in 2016), and then it was canceled by the Vatican,” Metropolitan Anthony told reporters at the Palace of Independence. “We’ll see what we can do” to arrange a new meeting time.

Asked if Patriarch Kirill was still bothered by Pope Francis’ comment in May to an Italian newspaper that “the patriarch cannot turn himself into Putin’s altar boy,” the metropolitan said, “I can say it was something very unexpected, this interview, and it is clear that expressions of this kind are not helpful for Christian unity.”

In his formal talk to the congress, Pope Francis said that “authentic religiosity” is needed to fight fundamentalism and extremism in religion and to show the world that it has no reason to distrust or have “contempt for religion as if it were a destabilizing force in modern society.”

Kazakhstan and other nations of the former Soviet Union “are all too familiar with the legacy of decades of state-imposed atheism: that oppressive and stifling mentality for which the mere mention of the word ‘religion’ was greeted with embarrassed silence,” the pope said.

Religion, he said, “is not a problem, but part of the solution for a more harmonious life in society.”

Focusing on the meeting’s theme, which reflected on the role of religious leaders “in the spiritual and social development of mankind in the post-pandemic period,” Pope Francis said the COVID-19 pandemic was among several challenges that “call all of us — and in a special way the religions — to greater unity of purpose.”

“COVID-19 put us all in the same boat,” he said. “All of us felt vulnerable, all of us in need of help, none of us completely independent, none completely self-sufficient.”

Now, he said, religions must not squander “the sense of solidarity” or act as “if nothing happened.”

Instead, the pope said, religious leaders must confront the urgent needs of the world and be “promoters of unity amid the grave challenges that risk dividing our human family even further.”

With the world “plagued by the scourge of war, by a climate of hostility and confrontation, by an inability to step back and hold out a hand to the other,” he said, it is time for religions to purify themselves from evil, particularly the “presumption of feeling self-righteous, with no need to learn anything from anyone.”

“Let us free ourselves of those reductive and destructive notions that offend the name of God by harshness, extremism and forms of fundamentalism, and profane it through hatred, fanaticism and terrorism, disfiguring the image of man as well,” he said.

“And let us learn also to be ashamed: yes, to experience that healthy shame born of compassion for those who suffer, sympathy and concern for their condition and for their fate, which we realize that we too share,” he said.

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (CNS) – Arriving in Kazakhstan, a country that borders Russia, Pope Francis said he came as a “pilgrim of peace” at a time when “our world urgently needs peace; it needs to recover harmony.”

“I am visiting you in the course of the senseless and tragic war that broke out with the invasion of Ukraine, even as other conflicts and threats of conflict continue to imperil our times,” the pope said Sept. 13 in a speech to the country’s civil authorities, representatives of civic groups and members of the diplomatic corps.

“I have come to echo the plea of all those who cry out for peace, which is the essential path to development for our globalized world,” he said.

After a nearly seven-hour flight from Rome, Pope Francis arrived in the capital city, Nur-Sultan, where he will attend the Sept. 14-15 Congress of World and Traditional Religions. As he arrived in Kazakh airspace, his plane was escorted by fighter jets.

Arriving at the presidential palace, Pope Francis, who continues to suffer from knee pain, remained seated while Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stood next to him as an honor guard played the national anthems of Vatican City State and Kazakhstan.

Welcoming the pope, President Tokayev thanked him for his “tireless and dedicated efforts in the name of the human family around the world” at a “critical juncture in human history.”

As Islamophobia, antisemitism and Christian persecutions continue to rise, the president said, “humanity could really go one way or the other if we are not vigilant.”

“I believe it is high time for moderates from different cultures and religions to pool their wisdom and energy to unite people behind the ideas of peace, social harmony and mutual support,” he said.

Tokayev said the pope’s presence at the interreligious meeting would ensure its success “and instill a true joy and happiness in the hearts of all devout Catholics in Kazakhstan and beyond.”

Responding to the president and addressing the civil leaders, the pope reflected on the two-stringed “dombra,” a traditional Kazakh musical instrument, and noted its use for centuries, thus “linking the past to the present.”

“As a symbol of continuity in diversity, its rhythm accompanies your country’s memory,” he said. “It thus serves as a reminder of how important it is, amid today’s rapid economic and social changes, not to neglect the bonds that connect us to the lives of those who have gone before us.”

Because of its history, St. John Paul II regarded Kazakhstan as a “land of martyrs and of believers, land of deportees and of heroes, land of intellectuals and artists,” he said.

That history, the pope said, is one of “culture, humanity and suffering,” particularly during the Soviet era that brought prison camps and mass deportations.

Nevertheless, “Kazakhs did not let themselves remain prisoners of these injustices,” the pope said. “The memory of your seclusion led to a deep concern for inclusion.”

“In this land, traversed from ancient times by great displacements of peoples, may the memory of the sufferings and trials you endured be an indispensable part of your journey toward the future, inspiring you to give absolute priority to human dignity, the dignity of every man and woman, and of every ethnic, social and religious group,” he added.

Noting the hundreds of ethnic groups peacefully coexisting in Kazakhstan, the pope said he was honored to take part in the Congress of World and Traditional Religions to “emphasize the importance and the urgency of this aspect of encounter, to which religions are called especially to contribute.”

He also praised Kazakhstan’s constitution, which defines the country as a “secular state” and thus, “provides for freedom of religion and belief.”

“A healthy secularity, one that acknowledges the important and indispensable role of religion and resists the forms of extremism that disfigure it, represents an essential condition for the equal treatment of each citizen, while fostering a sense of loyalty to the country on the part of all its ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious groups,” he said.

Freedom also recognizes basic human rights, the pope said, praising the country’s abolition of the death penalty “in the name of each human being’s right to hope.”

The pope lauded Kazakhstan’s commitment to peace and expressed his appreciation for the country’s “decisive repudiation of nuclear weapons” as well as its environmental policies that invest in clean sources of energy.

“Together with a commitment to interreligious dialogue, these are concrete seeds of hope sown in the common soil of humanity,” Pope Francis said. “It is up to us to cultivate those seeds for the sake of coming generations, for the young, whose desires must be seriously considered as we make decisions affecting the present and the future.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – If trends of the past 30 years continue for the next 50, Christianity will lose its majority status in the United States by 2070, according to a new demographic study by the Pew Research Center.

If those trends, first identified in 1990, accelerate over the next half-century, Christianity will have fewer adherents than Americans who are not affiliated with any church, according to the study, “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” released Sept. 13.

Even with the demographic modeling used by Pew, the numbers vary widely. Christians, put by Pew currently at 64% of the U.S. population, could slide to 54% – or plunge to 35% – by 2070.

By the same token, the religiously unaffiliated – called “nones” in some circles – currently at 29%, could rise to 34% of the population in the next half-century, or soar to 52%.

Pew used four different scenarios in making its projections. One was “no switching,” meaning that Americans would not switch from religious affiliation to disaffiliation, or vice versa. It counterpart was “steady switching,” in which 31% of Christians become unaffiliated, while 21% of the unaffiliated become Christian.

The other two models are “rising disaffiliation.” One model put limits on the share of Christians who leave the faith at 50%. The other model set no limits on disaffiliation. Under the “rising disaffiliation” scenarios, nones outpace Christians sometime between 2050 and 2060.

Only the no-switching model, which Pew called “counterfactual,” allowed Christianity to retain its U.S. majority. The steady-switching scenario gave Christians a 46%-41% plurality. Under the rising-disaffiliation models, Christianity was relegated to minority status, with with less than 40% of all Americans.

Pew did four alternative scenarios, in which every mother transmitted their faith to each of her children; if religious groups had equal birthrates; if immigration stopped after 2030; and if older Christians stopped switching from belief to unaffiliated status. Christianity would lose its majority status but retain plurality status through 2070 under all four scenarios.

“It is possible that events outside the study’s model – such as war, economic depression, climate crisis, changing immigration patterns or religious innovations – could reverse current religious switching trends, leading to a revival of Christianity in the United States,” the report said.

Pew said that the U.S. experience could model what’s happened in Europe. “In Great Britain, for example, nones surpassed Christians to become the largest group in 2009, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey,” it noted. “In the Netherlands, disaffiliation accelerated in the 1970s, and 47% of adults now say they are Christian.” The study noted that most disaffiliation ends by the age of 30.

The report focused on sociological trends that played into its projections.

“In this study, transmission rates are calculated based on the share of children who inherit their mother’s religion – or their mother’s unaffiliated identity – because mothers tend to successfully transmit their religious identities more often than fathers do. Also, roughly a quarter of children under 18 live in single-parent households, which are overwhelmingly headed by mothers,” Pew said.

“The four main scenarios presented here vary primarily in their assumptions about the future of religious switching among Americans between the ages of 15 and 29 — which are the years when most religious change happens,” it added. “Only a modest amount of switching is modeled among older adults.”

Pew suggested at reasons behind the growing move over the past generation to disaffiliate from Christian denominations.

“In the U.S., an association of Christianity with conservative politics has driven many liberals away from the faith. Still other theories involve declining trust in religious institutions, clergy scandals, rising rates of religious intermarriage, smaller families, and so on. When asked, Americans give a wide range of reasons for leaving religion behind.”

Men bear some responsibility for the shrinking numbers of Christians, according to the report.

“Americans who have moved away from Christianity are more likely to be men, while women are more likely to retain their Christian identity,” Pew said. “A slight majority of U.S. adults who were raised Christian and are now unaffiliated (54%) are male. Among people who have remained Christian, 57% are women.”

Immigration was once seen as adding more Christians to the U.S. population. “In the 1990s and early 2000s, the largest number of recent arrivals to the U.S. were from Mexico and other Christian-majority countries in Central and South America,” the report said.

“Today, new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia. In 2018, the top country of origin for new immigrants was China (which is majority unaffiliated), followed by India (which is majority Hindu).”

The study issued a conjecture that Christianity could rebound if it falls into minority status if adherents focus on retaining Christian identity, although nones currently show little tendency to join a religion. “While this bottoming out and regrowth of Christianity is theoretically possible,” Pew said, “it would require a reversal of the current trends in switching.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – A new documentary about St. Teresa of Kolkata, produced by the Knights of Columbus, aims to show how her mission and spirit continues in the work of her order, the Missionaries of Charity.

“Mother Teresa: No Greater Love,” directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker, David Naglieri, was shown at the Vatican Sept. 2 and had its American premiere Sept. 11 at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington. On Oct. 3-4, the film will be shown in about 900 theaters as part of Fathom Events’ Saints series.

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly told the audience that the film intends to reach a younger audience that might not be as familiar with the work of the saint who died 25 years ago.

He also said Pope Francis praised the film in a letter.

The papal letter of Aug. 25 says: “Thank you for promoting this type of initiative that helps, in a creative manner, to make accessible the zeal for evangelization, especially for the young generations promoting the desire to follow the Lord who loved us first.”

The Washington screening capped a weekend of events dedicated to the saint, including a special Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the dedication of the Mother Teresa Institute in Washington, designed “to preserve, protect, promote, and develop the authentic legacy of St. Teresa of Kolkata to the church and to the world.” The institute will offer resources to scholars and researchers.

During the Mass, which marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Mother Teresa, Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory encouraged the faithful to look to the holy woman as a role model and “continue to fill up what she left undone in serving and loving the poor.”

“While we admire her work and extraordinary example of love, mere admiration is not enough when it comes to saints who inspire our lives,” Cardinal Gregory said. “St. Teresa was a woman of uncanny abilities, and she used all the gifts that God gave her for others. Her example must spur us all on to emulate God’s Mercy in caring for those whose lives continue to be at risk.”

The cardinal noted that Mother Teresa “has not been exempted from criticism in our contemporary world that always needs some how to find fault in even the most generous and loving individuals.”

“St. Teresa herself would be the very first to acknowledge that there was so much more that she could and would have loved to have done to care for God’s poor,” Cardinal Gregory said. “Becoming a saint does not mean that a person has done everything perfectly — just that they did everything that they did do heroically and generously.”

In a panel discussion about the new documentary after its screening, Naglieri said the process of filming new interviews and finding footage for the new documentary took 11 months and was “very much the work of the Holy Spirit.”

The particular challenge was that there’s not much vintage film footage of Mother Teresa available. She was not a seeker of personal publicity and didn’t become well-known until British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge made a 1969 documentary, “Something Beautiful for God,” about Mother Teresa’s work beginning in 1948 in India serving the physical and spiritual needs of “the poorest of the poor.”

Public fascination with this practitioner of “radical poverty” developed instantly and built for the rest of her life. Mother Teresa, born in North Macedonia in 1910, went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was elevated to sainthood by Pope Francis on Sept. 4, 2016.

“We didn’t want to do a chronological biography,” Naglieri said. Instead, the goal was to “show how her mission and her spirit continues today.”

As a result, the documentary shows the Missionaries of Charity working with children and adults in Brazil, India, Kenya and New York City. The sisters are currently in more than 130 countries.

Sister Mary Bernice, a Missionary of Charity in the Bronx, New York, retells a story in the film about Mother Teresa encountering a gang-infested neighborhood in Chicago in the 1970s that quickly moved into legend.

She ordered the sisters: “Take me now to the door where they are shooting us.”

“We could not believe it. As we were walking toward the door, all these buildings surrounding us, the rifles were pointed out and kept shooting at us. Not one bullet touched us. And when we reached the door, this big man said to Mother Teresa: ‘Mother, you can’t come in here. I have business in here.

“And Mother put her head down. And she looked up at him and she said: ‘I, too, have business in here. Let us make a deal.’ The man was so shocked that Mother would speak this way. He said: ‘You can come in here, Mother. I can’t stop my business. But I will protect your sisters.'”