January 5, 2020

WASHINGTON– Catholics across the country are encouraged to observe a nationwide prayer vigil from Thursday, January 28 to Friday, January 29, 2021 marking the 48th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions legalizing abortion through nine months of pregnancy. Since those decisions, over 60 million abortions have been performed legally in the United States.

Each January, the National Prayer Vigil for Life is hosted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Pro-Life Secretariat, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and The Catholic University of America’s Office of Campus Ministry to pray for an end to abortion and a greater respect for all human life.

While thousands of pilgrims typically attend the vigil in person each year, the Basilica will not be open to the public for the 2021 vigil due to local attendance restrictions in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. In response, this year, for the first time ever, in addition to the televised Mass, bishops in dioceses across the country will be taking turns leading live-streamed holy hours every hour on the hour throughout the all-night vigil.

The vigil will begin with a live broadcast at 8:00 PM on Thursday, January 28 from the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. with a rosary, followed by Mass opening the National Prayer Vigil for Life. The principal celebrant and homilist for the opening Mass will be Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, who is chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). After the Mass and throughout the night, holy hours led by bishops from various dioceses around the country will be broadcast on the USCCB’s website. The vigil concludes at 8:00 AM on Friday, January 29 with Mass celebrated by Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore.

“Now, more than ever, our nation is in need of prayer for the protection of the unborn and the dignity of all human life,” said Archbishop Naumann. “I am happy to be joined by bishops in dioceses across the country who are hosting pro-life prayer events, including during the overnight hours of Eucharistic adoration. I invite all Catholics to spend time with Our Lord and join in this nationwide vigil for life.”

The schedule of the 2021 National Prayer Vigil for Life is listed below. (All times are in Eastern Time.)

Thursday, January 28:

8:00 PM          National Rosary for Life

8:30 PM          Opening Mass with Archbishop Naumann

9:45 PM          Holy Hour for Life

11:00 PM ~     Live-stream of holy hours throughout the night

 

Friday, January 29:

~ 8:00 AM      Closing Mass with Archbishop Lori

The live television broadcasts on January 28 from 8:00-11:00 PM and on January 29 from 8:00-9:00 AM will be provided by the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and will also be available via live-stream on the Basilica’s website. Live-streaming information for the overnight bishop-led holy hours from various dioceses will be provided on the USCCB’s website.

 

 

 

The Saint Faustina Mini/Youth Ministry partnered with the Greater Nanticoke Area Marching Band for Christmas Caroling this holiday season. The groups visited two local nursing homes, Guardian and Birchwood. The groups performed outside of the windows to put a smile on everyone’s faces during this challenging year.

 

Pope Francis delivers his Christmas message and blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) from the Hall of Blessings at the Vatican Dec. 25, 2020. Also pictured are Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, and Msgr. Guido Marini, papal master of ceremonies. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — On a Christmas like no other, Pope Francis prayed for people who could not be with their families because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he urged everyone to recognize and help those who are suffering even more.

From inside the Hall of Blessings — a long, gold-hued room above the atrium of St. Peter’s Basilica lined on the east with enormous windows and balconies facing St. Peter’s Square — Pope Francis delivered his Christmas message and his blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).

As announced by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, the solemn blessing included a plenary indulgence for everyone watching on television, listening by radio or following by computer.

Because of Italy’s renewed lockdown to slow the spread of the virus, the pope read his message in the presence of a representative group of about 50 people. The tens of thousands of people who usually would throng the square for the midday appointment Dec. 25 were all ordered to be at home, and St. Peter’s Square was closed to the public.

“My thoughts at this moment turn to families: to those who cannot come together today and to those forced to remain at home,” the pope said. “May Christmas be an opportunity for all of us to rediscover the family as a cradle of life and faith, a place of acceptance and love, dialogue, forgiveness, fraternal solidarity and shared joy, a source of peace for all humanity.”

In a last-minute addition to his text, Pope Francis called for “vaccines for all,” especially the world’s most vulnerable people.

“At Christmas, we celebrate the light of Christ that comes into the world, and he comes for all, not just for some,” the pope said. “Today, at this time of darkness and uncertainty because of the pandemic, there appear different lights of hope, such as the discovery of vaccines.”

“But so these lights may illuminate and bring light to the whole world, they must be available to all,” he said. “I cannot put myself before others, placing the laws of the market and of patents above the law of love and the health of humanity.”

Pope Francis pleaded with the leaders of governments, pharmaceutical companies and international agencies “to promote cooperation and not competition” in ensuring the widespread availability of the vaccines.

Peace and family — in the sense that all people are brothers and sisters — were the central themes of the pope’s message, echoing the teaching in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship.”

“A birth is always a source of hope; it is life that blossoms, a promise of the future,” he said. But Jesus’ birth is even more powerful since he was born “‘to us’ — an ‘us’ without any borders, privileges or exclusions. The child born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem was born for everyone: he is the ‘son’ that God has given to the entire human family.”

“Thanks to this child, we can all call one another brothers and sisters, for so we truly are,” the pope said. “We come from every continent, from every language and culture, with our own identities and differences, yet we are all brothers and sisters.”

Recognizing that connection, he said, is even more important “at this moment in history, marked by the ecological crisis and grave economic and social imbalances only worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.”

As children of God and brothers and sisters to one another, the pope said, the kinship existing between everyone is not sentimental, but is “grounded in genuine love, making it possible for me to encounter others different from myself, feeling compassion for their sufferings, drawing near to them and caring for them even though they do not belong to my family, my ethnic group or my religion.”

“For all their differences, they are still my brothers and sisters,” he said “The same thing is true of relationships between peoples and nations.”

Pope Francis prayed that the newborn Jesus would help everyone “be generous, supportive and helpful, especially toward those who are vulnerable — the sick, those unemployed or experiencing hardship due to the economic effects of the pandemic, and women who have suffered domestic violence during these months of lockdown.”

Migrants, refugees and the innocent victims of wars around the world were also on the pope’s mind as he celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace.

The faces of the suffering children in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, he said, should touch people’s consciences and make them pray and work for peace.

“May the Babe of Bethlehem grant the gift of fraternity to the land that witnessed his birth,” the pope said. “May Israelis and Palestinians regain mutual trust and seek a just and lasting peace through a direct dialogue capable of ending violence and overcoming endemic grievances, and thus bear witness before the world to the beauty of fraternity.”

Pope Francis also made specific pleas for reconciliation and an end to conflicts in eastern Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ethiopia, northern Mozambique, South Sudan, Nigeria and Cameroon.

“May the Eternal Word of the Father be a source of hope for the American continent, particularly affected by the coronavirus, which has intensified its many sufferings, frequently aggravated by the effects of corruption and drug trafficking,” he prayed. “May he help to ease the recent social tensions in Chile and end the sufferings of the people of Venezuela.”

Praising those who “work to bring hope, comfort and help to those who suffer and those who are alone,” the pope insisted that Jesus’ birth “tells us that pain and evil are not the final word. To become resigned to violence and injustice would be to reject the joy and hope of Christmas.”

 

Forgiveness is love, as Pope Francis declared in his apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia,” when he refers to “the Christian ideal” as “a love that never gives up.” (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

As the fifth anniversary of his apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” approaches, Pope Francis announced that the Catholic Church will dedicate more than a year to focusing on the family and conjugal love.

During his Sunday Angelus address Dec. 27, the pope commemorated the feast of the Holy Family and said that it served as a reminder “of the example of evangelizing with the family” as highlighted in his exhortation.

Beginning March 19, he said, the year of reflection on “Amoris Laetitia” will be an opportunity “to focus more closely on the contents of the document.”

“I invite everyone to take part in the initiatives that will be promoted during the year and that will be coordinated by the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life,” he added. “Let us entrust this journey, with families all over the world, to the Holy Family of Nazareth, in particular to St. Joseph, the devoted spouse and father.”

According to the dicastery’s website, the “Amoris Laetitia Family” year “aims to reach every family around the world through several spiritual, pastoral and cultural proposals that can be implemented within parishes, dioceses, universities, ecclesial movements and family associations.”

The dicastery said that the goals of the celebration include sharing the contents of the apostolic exhortation more widely, proclaiming the gift of the sacrament of marriage and enabling families to “become active agents of the family apostolate.”

The “Amoris Laetitia Family” year will include forums, symposiums, video projects and catechesis as well as providing resources for family spirituality, pastoral formation and marriage preparation.

The commemoration will conclude June 26, 2022, “on the occasion of the World Meeting of Families in Rome,” the dicastery said.

Pope Francis already had declared a year of St. Joseph, which began Dec. 8 and ends Dec. 8, 2021.

In his Angelus talk, the pope said that the Holy Family is a model in which “all families of the world can find their sure point of reference and sure inspiration.”

Through them, he said, “we are called to rediscover the educational value of the family unit; it must be founded on the love that always regenerates relationships, opening up horizons of hope.”

Families can experience sincere communion when they live in prayer, when forgiveness prevails over discord and “when the daily harshness of life is softened by mutual tenderness and serene adherence to God’s will,” he added.

“I would like to say something to you: If you quarrel within the family, do not end the day without making peace,” the pope said. “And do you know why? Because cold war, day after day, is extremely dangerous. It does not help.”

Pope Francis also reflected on the theme of forgiveness during his Angelus address on the feast of St. Stephen Dec. 26.

Recalling St. Stephen’s martyrdom, the pope said that although it may seem that his death was in vain, among those who witnessed and consented to his stoning was St. Paul, who eventually became “the greatest missionary in history.”

St. Stephen’s example “was the seed” of St. Paul’s conversion, he said. “This is the proof that loving actions change history: even the ones that are small, hidden, every day.”

Christians, he added, can become witnesses of Christ through their everyday actions, “even just by fleeing the shadow of gossip” or refusing to speak ill of others.

“When an argument starts at home, instead of trying to win it, let’s try to diffuse it,” and forgive one another, Pope Francis said. Small efforts and gestures, he said, “change history because they open the door, they open the window to Jesus’s light.”

 

 

 

Show in the photo, left to right: Mary Theresa Malandro, diocesan secretary for Catholic human services and CEO of Catholic Social Services, Bishop Joseph C. Bambera and Sandra Snyder, Diocesan Grant Writer.

The Robert H. Spitz Foundation, administered by the Scranton Area Community Foundation, supported Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton with a $20,000 grant for a project titled “Reviving a Core Model for Self-Sufficiency: A Return To Evidence-Based Relief Assistance.”
The grant is helping Catholic Social Services provide relief assistance in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties in a manner that has measurable impact on recipients’ lives. Clients who receive relief assistance, for example, are tracked in their progress toward achieving individualized goals, such as maintaining stable housing, obtaining or retaining employment or repairing family finances through better credit management.

“It has always been our goal to show that clients who benefit from our services have achieved meaningful milestones in their lives as a result,” said Mary Theresa Malandro, diocesan secretary for Catholic human services and CEO of Catholic Social Services. “This grant is helping us to revive a service delivery model with proven reliability as we strive to continue to measure impact even as client numbers greatly increase during the pandemic.”

Relief assistance, especially via case management, has always been a hallmark of Catholic Social Services’ work.

“We are especially grateful to the Robert H. Spitz Foundation and to the Scranton Area Community Foundation for their continued partnership during these particularly troubling times,” Malandro said.

For more information about Catholic Social Services’ relief assistance program, call (570) 207-3808.

 

Shown at the check presentation, from left: Ann Rapoch Super, PenFed Advisory Council Member; Ryan Pollock, Saint Francis Commons Program Supervisor; Paulette Fabricatore, PenFed Scranton Financial Center Manager and Lawrence Catanzaro, PenFed Advisory Council Member.

SCRANTON (Dec. 22, 2020) – PenFed Credit Union of Scranton supported Saint Francis Commons in Scranton with a $6,000 donation on Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. The money will support programs and services for local homeless veterans.

Saint Francis Commons, located at 504 Penn Avenue, is an affordable, transitional housing facility for homeless veterans operated by Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton. The facility is currently home to 25 veterans. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Saint Francis Commons has enacted safety protocols to keep all veterans living at the facility safe and comfortable. To date, there have been no reported COVID-19 cases at Saint Francis Commons.

 

 

 

A health care worker at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles holds a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine Dec. 17, 2020. (CNS photo/Lucy Nicholson, Reuters)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Vatican’s doctrinal office said that when alternative vaccines are not available, it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines developed or tested using cell lines originating from aborted fetuses.

However, “the licit use of such vaccines does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses,” said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental health agencies are therefore encouraged to produce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that do not create problems of conscience for either health care providers or the people to be vaccinated,” it added in a note published Dec. 21.

The note “on the morality of using some anti-COVID-19 vaccines” had been reviewed by Pope Francis Dec. 17 and he ordered its publication, the doctrinal office said.

As vaccines against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 are being distributed in some parts of the world, the doctrinal office said it has been receiving requests for guidance regarding the use of vaccines which, “in the course of research and production, employed cell lines drawn from tissue obtained from two abortions that occurred in the last century.”

The “diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements in the mass media by bishops, Catholic associations, and experts have raised questions about the morality of the use of these vaccines,” the congregation said.

Even though there are already some notes and instructions by the doctrinal office and the Pontifical Academy for Life regarding vaccines prepared from such cell lines, it said, “this congregation desires to offer some indications for clarification of this matter.”

The Catholic Church teaches that there are differing degrees of responsibility of cooperation with evil. That means that the responsibility of those who make the decision to use cell lines of illicit origin is not the same as those “who have no voice in such a decision,” the doctrinal office said, quoting from its 2008 instruction, “Dignitas Personae.”

“When ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available — e.g. in countries where vaccines without ethical problems are not made available to physicians and patients or where their distribution is more difficult due to special storage and transport conditions or when various types of vaccines are distributed in the same country but health authorities do not allow citizens to choose the vaccine with which to be inoculated — it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process,” the doctrinal congregation wrote in the new note.

Using these vaccines is morally licit when the “passive material cooperation” with the evil of an abortion “from which these cell lines originate is, on the part of those making use of the resulting vaccines, remote.”

“The moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is a grave danger, such as the otherwise uncontainable spread of a serious pathological agent — in this case, the pandemic spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19,” it said.

Therefore, in such a case, “all vaccinations recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion,” it said.

However, the doctrinal congregation emphasized that “the morally licit use of these types of vaccines, in the particular conditions that make it so, does not in itself constitute a legitimation, even indirect, of the practice of abortion, and necessarily assumes the opposition to this practice by those who make use of these vaccines.”

The congregation repeated the Vatican’s call on pharmaceutical companies and governmental agencies to produce, approve and distribute ethically acceptable vaccines, that is, without using morally compromised cell lines at all.

The doctrinal office also said that “vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”

From an ethical point of view, “the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good,” it added.

If there are no other means to stop or prevent an epidemic, the congregation said, “the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed.”

Those who wish, for “reasons of conscience,” to refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, “must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission” of the virus.

They must avoid putting at risk the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons and who are the most vulnerable, it said.

Lastly, the congregation said it is “a moral imperative for the pharmaceutical industry, governments and international organizations to ensure that vaccines, which are effective and safe from a medical point of view, as well as ethically acceptable, are also accessible to the poorest countries in a manner that is not costly for them.”

Otherwise, this lack of access would become yet another sign of discrimination and injustice “that condemns poor countries to continue living in health, economic and social poverty.”

 

 

Shown at the check presentation, from left: Joseph Holland, Treasurer; Patrick O’Malley, Ancient Order of Hibernians President; Mary Theresa Malandro, Diocesan Secretary for Catholic Human Services & Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Social Services; Mark McDade, AOH Member; and Father Richard Fox, Pastor of Saint Patrick Parish, AOH Division Chaplain and 2020 AOH “Man of the Year.”

 

SCRANTON (Dec. 21, 2020) – The Paul “Hook” O’Malley Ancient Order of Hibernians Division #4 made a $500 donation to Saint Francis of Assisi Kitchen in Scranton on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. The money will support the kitchen’s ongoing daily effort to provide a hot, nutritious meal to individuals and families in need seven days a week. This is the second donation the organization has provided to the kitchen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, the group provided a separate $600 donation to the kitchen.

 

 

Statement of Bishop Joseph C. Bambera

As Bishop of the Diocese of Scranton, I am delighted to extend prayerful congratulations to Bishop-elect Larry J. Kulick, who has been appointed  by our Holy Father, Pope Francis, to become the sixth Bishop of the Diocese of Greensburg.

As a native of the Greensburg Diocese, Bishop-elect Kulick has proven to be a humble servant of the Lord Jesus. He will undoubtedly continue serving the faithful with a genuine and caring heart as he assumes his new ministry.

I join with the faithful of the Diocese of Scranton in praying for Bishop-elect Kulick.

Pope Francis Names Monsignor Larry Kulick of Diocese of Greensburg as Bishop of Greensburg

Msgr. Larry J. Kulick, the diocesan administrator of the Diocese of Greensburg, Pa., is seen in this undated photo. Pope Francis appointed him bishop of Greensburg Dec. 18, 2020. (CNS photo/courtesy Diocese of Greensburg)

December 18, 2020

WASHINGTON—Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor Larry James Kulick as the Bishop of Greensburg. Monsignor Kulick is a priest of the Diocese of Greensburg who has been serving as Diocesan Administrator of the diocese since September 2020.

The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on December 18, 2020 by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States. The Diocese of Greensburg has been a vacant see since July 2020 following the appointment of Bishop Edward C. Malesic to Cleveland.

Bishop-elect Kulick was born on February 24, 1966 in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, and ordained to the priesthood on May 16, 1992 for the Diocese of Greensburg. Monsignor Kulick graduated from Saint Joseph High School in Natrona Heights. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy (1988) and a Master’s degree in Theology (1992) from Saint Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and a Licentiate in Canon Law (JCL) from The Catholic University of America in Washington in 2012.

After ordination, Father Kulick was assigned to Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg as parochial vicar where he served until 1995; he was assigned as parochial vicar at Immaculate Conception parish in Irwin from 1995-1997. In 1997, he was named pastor at Parish of the Good Shepherd in Kent, where he served until 2004, and pastor at St. Joseph parish in New Kensington from 2004-2008.

From 1996-2001, Father Kulick served on the diocesan Priests’ Council as a consultant on priestly vocations. From 2008-2012, he served as co-episcopal master of ceremonies, co-director of the Office of Clergy Vocations and co-director of the Permanent Diaconate Office for the Diocese of Greensburg.

Since 2012, Bishop-elect Kulick has been pastor of Saint James parish in New Alexandria, while also serving as a judge, defender of the bond, and advocate in the diocesan tribunal. During the same period, he has also served as vicar general, moderator of the curia, and acting chancellor for the diocese. He received the title of Monsignor by his office as Vicar General of the Diocese of Greensburg on May 21, 2014. Bishop-elect Kulick has also served as a member of the Administrative Board for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and as chaplain for the Council of Catholic Women.

The Diocese of Greensburg is comprised of 3,334 square miles in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and has a total population of 659,596 of which 126,649 are Catholic.