Author: Eric Deabill

HARVEYS LAKE – Exactly 100 years to the day of the first Mass celebrated at Our Lady of Victory Church on Sept. 3, 1923, parishioners filled the pews for a special centennial celebration.

The Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, was the principal celebrant and homilist for the church’s 100th anniversary Mass on Sept. 3, 2023.

“There is a lot to give thanks for this day, most especially thanks and gratitude to God for the blessing of faith and for the gift of one another in and through whom the Lord is present and all of whom are truly the Church of Jesus Christ,” Bishop Bambera said in welcoming the faithful to the liturgy.

Dorothy Lutinski, 97, is the oldest living parishioner of the Harveys Lake parish. She was thrilled to attend the special Mass.

“I can’t believe it that I’m here to celebrate this special occasion. Everything turned out so beautiful,” Lutinski said. “I was a member of the choir for 35 years.”

Many of those in attendance for the anniversary Mass have deep connections to the church building itself – including the descendants of those who helped to dig the foundation of the building who presented Bishop Bambera a special basket as the Mass began.

“Every gathering of God’s people has special meaning,” Bishop Bambera noted in his homily. “We give thanks today for the living presence of God here in our midst on this altar as countless other individuals have done in this church for 100 years.”

Bishop Bambera thanked all of the people in attendance for helping to build up the Luzerne County church in his/her own way.

“It was just a beautiful celebration. Bishop Bambera said this is just a real treasure here and we are just blessed to be a part of this faith and this community,” parishioner Sara McGrath said.

“What is overwhelming to me is the vitality of the parish. There are a lot of young people here, there is life here, they’re willing to be active in the ways of the faith,” Rev. Andrew S. Hvozdovic, pastor, Our Lady of Victory Parish, said.

During his homily, Bishop Bambera also gave parishioners a little history lesson. He asked if they were aware of the reason by the Most Rev. Michael Hoban, Second Bishop of Scranton, named the church Our Lady of Victory. He answered his own question – saying it was to honor soldiers from Harveys Lake (and the Diocese of Scranton) who served during World War I.

“What a wonderful way to commemorate the lives of those veterans who served and most of the recruits from this area, interestingly enough, served in Spain during the War. Hence, the reason for the architecture of your church which has a little bit of Spanish flavor to it,” Bishop Bambera noted.

While parishioners know the church is truly the People of God, many say the building itself is a critical piece of infrastructure for the lakeside community.

“One of the reasons that my husband and I bought the house that we did, is that when we sit on our porch we can see this beautiful church and everything that means to us. Our faith is here,” parishioner Merry Ann Edwards said. “Everybody here is just so loving and giving. We all enjoy working together to do what we can for the church and our community. I’m honored and blessed to be part of this parish.”

“I think everyone in the community carries on the work of Christ as we see them around the lake and on the lake and in church,” McGrath added. “Every one just has such a loving and welcoming spirit here.”

(OSV News) – A decrease in religious belief remains a “significant challenge” in cultivating vocations to the priesthood, said a vocations expert at a recent conference.

Diocesan vocations directors continue “to work against a culture of secularism in which the purpose and meaning of one’s life for so many of our young people … is defined by themselves,” Father Chuck Dornquast, director of vocations for the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, told OSV News.

Father Dornquast shared his thoughts during the Aug. 28-Sept. 1 convention of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors, or NVDVD, of which the priest is vice president.

Founded in 1962, the nonprofit works closely with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to promote and support priestly vocations. Membership is open to all Catholic dioceses and eparchies in the U.S., with associate memberships available to Catholic dioceses outside of the U.S.

The convention, now in its 60th year, drew more than 218 priests, some 20 men and women religious, and lay men and women from six countries to the Immaculate Conception Retreat Center in Huntington, New York, NCDVD executive director Rose Sullivan told OSV News.

“Prayer, fraternity and conversations about the sacred ministry of vocations” were at the heart of the gathering, said Sullivan.

The solidarity experienced at the convention bolstered participants for the work of inviting young adults to consider vocations — their living out the particular call to discipleship that Jesus Christ calls them to — that are diametrically at odds with the prevailing culture, said Father Dornquast.

Youth and young adults have “become the determiner of the meaning of their lives,” he said. “Seeking their own happiness is their primary goal, and (it’s) what they’re formed to seek after.”

Vocations directors are “working against that culture of secularism,” he said.

At the same time, those labors are not in vain, he added.

“Thankfully, we’re also witnessing great fruit,” said Father Dornquast. “There is a spirit of holiness which is coming about in many young people across our country, and (we’re) finding the ways to work with them.”

With the Catholic Church in the U.S. celebrating the National Eucharistic Revival, nurturing devotion to the Eucharist is one of the ways in which vocation directors can encourage young men to discern whether Jesus has called them to the priesthood.

According to the 2023 “Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood” by Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, regular Eucharistic adoration figured heavily in the pre-seminary prayer practices of the class of 2023, cited by 73% of the survey participants.

Following adoration was the rosary (66%), prayer group or Bible study (45%), high school retreats (37%) and “lectio divina” (35%).

Parish youth groups, as well as participating in liturgical ministries such as altar server and lector, were also significant factors in vocational development.

A majority of the survey respondents (63%) cited parish priests as those who most encouraged their priestly vocations.

(OSV News) – Legal abortions most likely increased in the United States in the first six months of 2023 compared with 2020, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the Guttmacher Institute, which opposes abortion restrictions.

The data from Guttmacher, based on what it calls a representative sample of legal abortion providers, is from the first half of 2023; it follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned prior rulings by the high court making abortion access a constitutional right. Following the Dobbs ruling, 22 states have moved to ban or restrict abortion, although not all of those efforts are currently in effect amid court challenges.

The analysis found that about 511,000 abortions were estimated to have occurred in states or territories where the procedure was legal within the first six months of 2023, an increase from about 465,000 abortions nationwide in a six-month period of 2020.

Most states where abortion remains legal saw increases, the analysis found, particularly in states like Illinois that border states greatly restricting the procedure.

The data does not account for what may be illegal procedures, such as abortion pills ordered from overseas; however, the increased number of abortions may also reflect other efforts to broaden access to abortion by the Biden administration, including through telemedicine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion, is currently facing a legal challenge but remains on the market.

Patrick Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told OSV News that Guttmacher’s numbers show a steady decline in abortion from 1980 until 2017, “when they started to rise again.”

“We don’t have reliable data beyond 2020 yet,” Brown said, noting the Guttmacher data surveying clinics is essentially “a best guess, but imperfect approach.”

“They are essentially trying to extrapolate what the change has been since 2020,” he said.

Since the abortion rate had already been increasing, Brown said, an estimated increase since 2020 may not necessarily be attributed to an increase in women seeking out-of-state procedures.

“It’s too soon to tell with any certainty what the national trend is right now,” he said.

Although it “is still a big question as to why abortion rates started rising again in 2017, after decades of decreasing,” Brown said, “One real possibility is that the FDA’s changes to regulations around chemical abortions (mifepristone) may have made a difference, and they expanded access again during COVID.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Rather than engage in petty gossip which leads to scandal, Christians are called by Jesus to be direct yet loving in offering help to an errant friend, Pope Francis said.

Fraternal correction is “one of the highest expressions of love, and also one of the most demanding,” the pope said before praying the Angelus with some 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square Sept. 10.

Unfortunately, when someone makes a mistake, one of the first things that follows is gossip, he said, through which everyone but the person concerned comes to know the details of the incident.

“This is not right, brothers and sisters,” Pope Francis said. “Gossip is a plague on the life of people and communities because it leads to division, it leads to suffering, it leads to scandal; it never helps anyone improve or grow.”

Alternatively, the pope recalled the day’s reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus says to tell someone of their fault “between you and him alone.”

“Speak to him about it ‘face to face,’ speak about it fairly, to help him understand where he has erred,” the pope said. “And do this for his own good, overcoming shame and finding true courage, which is not to slander, but to tell him to his face with meekness and gentleness.”

If speaking one-on-one is not enough, the pope said, Jesus suggests involving one or two others to talk with the person — “not from the group that gossips,” but “people who genuinely want to lend a hand to this misguided brother.”

And if a small-group encounter proves insufficient, then involve the community, Pope Francis said. “But here too, this does not mean to pillory a person, putting him to shame publicly, but rather to unite the efforts of everyone to help him change.”

“Pointing the finger is not good; in fact, it often makes it more difficult for the wrongdoer to recognize his mistake,” he said, underscoring the need to condemn the mistake while being “close to the person with prayer and affection, always ready to offer forgiveness, understanding, and to start over.”

Pope Francis urged Christians to ask themselves how they behave with people who wrong them. “Do I keep it inside and accumulate resentment?” he asked. “Do I talk about it behind their backs?”

The pope ended his reflection by posing a question to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square: “Do you point the finger or open your arms?”

(OSV News) – A coast-to-coast observance this month commemorates the souls of children lost to abortion.

The National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children takes place Sept. 9, with services and gatherings at some 225 locations across the country. About 56 of those locations are gravesites for the remains of aborted children, while the majority are memorials.

Now in its 15th year, the event — annually held on the second Saturday of September – is jointly sponsored by two Midwestern-based organizations, Citizens for a Pro-life Society in Michigan and the Pro-Life Action League in Illinois.

Tracing its origins to the 1988 burial of some 1,200 aborted babies at Holy Cross Cemetery in Milwaukee, the occasion — which was initiated in 2013 — has become “an important opportunity for healing from abortion,” Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, told OSV News.

Participants have “really appreciated” the chance to “put the focus on the children’s lives and express sorrow at their passing,” he said.

For women who have had abortions, the chance to express their “regret and mourning” is cathartic, Scheidler said.

He noted the events take place in “locations already set up for difficult emotional experiences: churches and cemeteries,” where “we expect people to shed tears.”

“Whether you were pushed into that choice, or you made it yourself, the reality is that abortion is an incredible tragedy,” said Scheidler. “To hide from that, to deny the impact it had on your life and the shame that goes along with that, isn’t doing anyone any good.”

A willingness to face such pain offers a chance to “reconcile with our pasts … and to ask for God’s healing, to come and infuse our memories and experiences, and transform us.”

He and his fellow organizers have “heard stories of transformation,” he added.

“A grandmother came up to me in tears after one of our services, and she was very upset but incredibly grateful,” Scheidler said. “She couldn’t stop thanking me for allowing her the opportunity to come out and publicly mourn for her grandchild. She’d found out earlier in the week, through an insurance bill, that her first grandchild had been aborted by her daughter, who was on her health plan.”

The various gatherings have taken on renewed significance even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, he said.

“In some states, a whole lot of pro-life activities, such as sidewalk counseling, have come to a halt,” Scheidler said.

Ensuring the “visibility of and education on” the issue of abortion is critical, Lois Dark, coordinator of the Respect Life ministry at St. Simon Stock Parish in Berlin, New Jersey, told OSV News.

With the blessing of its pastor, Father Michael A. J. de Leon, the parish installed a memorial to aborted children at the front entrance of the church.

“Everything we do is in prayer and education,” said Dark, who along with her fellow parishioners will mark the observance with a rosary in front of the memorial. “So many people just don’t know the truth.

“The mourning process never ends,” said Scheidler. “Until the end of the world, we will have to remember all of our dead, including those who were killed through abortion. I think this event points to the future, and we’re modeling the mourning and reparation that will have to be done by the whole of society, if we ever achieve that goal of protecting children from abortion through the whole land.”

INDIANAPOLIS (OSV News) – Local and national organizers of the National Eucharistic Congress – which will take place in Indianapolis July 17-21, 2024 – have been meeting virtually for some time.

But for the first time, scores of them met in person in Indianapolis Aug. 30 at Lucas Oil Stadium, where in less than a year tens of thousands Catholics will gather for the closing Mass of the historic event — the first such event in 83 years. The congress will launch the third year of a three-year National Eucharistic Revival, an initiative of the U.S. Catholic bishops to renew devotion to the Eucharist.

“The Holy Spirit is inviting the United States to find unity and renewal through a grassroots National Eucharistic Revival,” Jaime Reyna, event lead for the National Eucharistic Congress, said, quoting remarks from a letter written by executive director Tim Glemkowski. “This movement — discerned and approved by the bishops of the U.S. — is critical to rekindling a living faith in the hearts of Catholics across America, unleashing a new missionary chapter at this pivotal moment in church history. … The goal is to start a fire, not a program.”

More than 25,000 have already registered for the event, said Reyna.

“We just have a lot of people who are excited about gathering,” he noted. “Remember that feeling after COVID when people just wanted to come back together? It’s almost the same way, that there’s that spiritual connection of wanting to come together and pray and for the many different reasons that people are just wanting to come together.”

In addition to general and breakout sessions, the five-day event will be filled with opportunities for prayer, worship and the sacraments, said Father Patrick Beidelman. The pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis is chair of the National Eucharistic Congress liturgy committee.

“We’ll have a large Mass each day, three at the Indiana Convention Center and the closing Mass at Lucas Oil Stadium, … and opportunities for confession all over the place,” he said, adding that St. John the Evangelist Church across from the convention center “will be turned into a place of perpetual adoration starting on Wednesday evening through Sunday.”

The route of a massive Eucharistic procession during the congress is still being determined, he noted.

The day before the five-day congress opens, Catholics from around the U.S. participating in pilgrimages leading to Indianapolis will converge on the city. Planning is well under way for “Eucharistic caravans.” There will be four, each following a different route and each with its own name: the “Marian Route” the “Juan Diego Route,” the “Seton Route” and the “Junipero Serra Route.” Pilgrims on all four routes will begin their journeys with Pentecost weekend celebrations May 17-18, 2024, leaving May 19. They will all reach Indianapolis July 16, 2024.

In his remarks Aug. 30, Reyna spoke with excitement about the speakers scheduled for the general and breakout sessions at the National Eucharistic Congress. Among them are well-known Catholic speakers, including priests, religious and bishops.

The church is diverse, Reyna also noted, and event coordinators are taking that into consideration. In addition to programming in English and Spanish, he said the congress team is working with existing ministries to address other language needs as well.

“We’re talking about Vietnamese, Native Americans, Asian-Pacific Islanders and others,” he said.

The team also is cognizant of engaging those with special needs.

“We are working with national ministry organizations, like the National Catholic Office for Deaf Ministry,” said Reyna. “We also (are) trying to be as inclusive as possible for all our brothers and sisters, including those who may have some physical disabilities, to make sure that they are able to participate and to see how we can accommodate and serve them.”

The event will involve “hundreds if not thousands” of volunteers, said Nikki Slater of Maribeth Smith & Associates, the Indianapolis-based event planning firm contracted to coordinate the National Eucharistic Congress.

While registration for specific volunteer opportunities and shifts will go live next spring, Slater noted that a section of the congress website — https://www.eucharisticcongress.org — will be created soon for people to sign up as interested in volunteering.

The Knights of Columbus are providing many volunteers as well.

“I’m on the volunteer committee, so I’m working with NEC to figure out where they need volunteers,” Scott Schutte said after the meeting in an interview with The Criterion, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. Schutte is state deputy of the Indiana Knights of Columbus. “I’ve got guys who are all excited about being part of the event.”

His current efforts are focused on the four routes pilgrims will walk from the north, south, east and west portions of the United States, all meeting in Indianapolis just before the National Eucharistic Congress begins.

“We’re trying to get with diocesan coordinators (for the routes) to find out where the Knights can provide water, food, a place to rest, maybe direct a little traffic, whatever, or at least participate in some way,” said Schutte.

He noted that the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council is a national sponsor for the congress.

“We want to give our 33,000 men the opportunity to be involved,” he said.

Speaking on behalf of Indianapolis Archbishop Charles C. Thompson, Christopher Walsh, the archdiocesan chancellor, said it is “a tremendous honor to be the host diocese for this historic event.”

He noted the archdiocese’s commitment to the effort. But he also recognized the vital help from all of the local organizers — including state and local police, firemen and emergency medical services — for their help “in making this event the success that we certainly know it is going to be.”

Walsh called the National Eucharistic Congress “truly an event for all, as all are united in the mystical body of Christ.

“That is what this is about, and certainly about representing the real presence of Christ in the world today through this event.”

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM MONGOLIA (CNS) – The Synod of Bishops is not a television show or a parliamentary debate, and its discussions will not be open to the public or to reporters, Pope Francis said.

“We must safeguard the synodal climate,” the pope responded Sept. 4 when asked by journalists about access to the discussions at the assembly of the Synod of Bishops Oct. 4-29.

“This isn’t a television program where you talk about everything; no, it is a religious moment, a religious exchange,” he told reporters flying back to Rome with him from Mongolia.

The synod process began in October 2021 with a succession of listening sessions on the parish, diocesan, national and regional levels focused on creating a more “synodal church,” where each person feels welcomed, valued and called to contribute and to share the Gospel.

After so many Catholics around the world devoted their time and their prayers to the process, an initial idea was to livestream the general discussions from the synod hall or at least allow reporters some access.

Pope Francis made it clear on the plane that would not happen. An official summary of the day’s discussions — without saying who said what — will be made by the synod’s communication committee, led by Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication.

Beyond the anonymous, summarized points, journalists will try to interview participants to at least get individual points of view about the day’s synod work.

Pope Francis told reporters that each synod member — including women and laymen for the first time — would have three or four minutes to address the assembly. Each address will be followed by three or four minutes of silence “for prayer.”

“Without this spirit of prayer, there is no synodality, it’s just politics, parliamentarianism,” he said.

Having a committee summarize the discussions for the press is necessary “to safeguard the religiosity (of the synod) and safeguard the freedom of those who speak” but may not want to do so publicly, he said.

“But more open than that, I don’t know,” he said. “The commission will be very respectful of the speeches of each person and will try not to gossip, but to recount things about how the synod is progressing that are constructive for the church.”