Category: Diocese of Scranton News

(OSV News) – Early morning phone calls aren’t unusual for Father Joseph Friend – a busy pastoral administrator of three parishes in the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas – but a recent ring at 7 a.m. left him “100% blown away.”

On the line was Bishop Anthony B. Taylor of Little Rock, who advised Father Friend to get ready to head to Rome at the request of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“I kind of laughed, because I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, Bishop — they want Father Joe to go to Rome,'” Father Friend told OSV News. “And he didn’t laugh back.”

Instead, Bishop Taylor simply said, “I’m not joking.”

As it turned out, Father Friend was among five U.S. priests tapped to share their experiences of parish life with the ongoing Synod of Bishops on synodality.

The group — selected by the USCCB as part of a 300-member worldwide delegation — will also speak with Pope Francis during the April 28-May 2 meeting.

The U.S. priests, who were chosen by synod leaders, had all been involved locally in their synod processes, with some participating as well in the national and continental phases of the synod, Julia McStravog, a theologian and co-coordinator of the North American team for the synod’s continental phase, told OSV News.

A Feb. 3 Vatican statement said the 300 priests will be involved in “roundtables for the sharing of best practices, workshops around pastoral proposals, dialogue with experts and liturgical celebrations.” The results of the meeting will then be incorporated into the working document drafted ahead of the second synod assembly.

The gathering — which will take place at a retreat center in Sacrofano, near Rome — is also an opportunity for parish priests to “experience the dynamism of synodal work at a universal level,” said the statement.

Joining Father Friend will be Byzantine Catholic Father Artur Bubnevych of the Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix; Father Don Planty of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia; Father Luis Navarro of the Diocese of Stockton, California; and Father Bill Swichtenberg of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Father Bubnevych told OSV News that his first reaction to the news was “shock” and a deep sense of being “unworthy.”

“I was shaking,” he admitted.

Both he and Father Friend each said they feel a sense of responsibility to represent those to whom they minister.

“I (feel) a call to be responsible to bring our unique experience of the Byzantine Ukrainian Catholic Church here in the U.S. (to the synod),” said Father Bubnevych. “The Byzantine Catholic Church … (has been) kind of marginalized, and even nowadays, (I find) in my priestly ministry the Roman Church is often lacking knowledge about our presence and our work among the faithful.”

He said Catholics of Byzantine-rite churches enrich the universal church through their Divine Liturgy, which he described as “a very powerful point of unity, growth and thriving.”

The strictness of the Byzantine Church’s fasts are “challenging to the modern world,” as are the Byzantine expressions of humility through prostrations during the liturgy and observances such as Forgiveness Sunday, during which “people to come out and extend forgiveness in front of the community, to the priest and to each other,” said Father Bubnevych.

As pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Byzantine Catholic Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he also wants to highlight the charism of his “small parish community” at the global synod’s priest gathering.

“It’s like a family environment where everyone knows everyone,” he said. “(It’s) a kind of a model of this small primitive church that I think existed at the very beginning (of Christianity), where people were very bonded, welcoming and just united in Christ, listening to the Holy Spirit.”

Father Friend said his parishioners — many of whom are immigrants — now feel that “Rome has seen us” by virtue of his selection.

“I wish you could see their faces,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Rome is going to hear of Hamburg, Crossett, Lake Village in Arkansas.’ (The) people feel seen and they feel meaning.”

Father Friend — whose uncle is a monsignor and whose brother also is a priest — said he hopes to represent fellow hardworking clergy who remain steadfast in their mission, particularly in challenged areas.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who just have their heads down — kind of dogs in the field — who love the church and what it is, and love our people,” Father Friend said. “I think that there are a ton of priests out there that are radically in love with Jesus, that love the church, that love the structure of the church, that love the pope (and) the sacraments, and also radically love our people.”

Father Bubnevych said he plans to “be led by the Spirit” during his time in Rome.

“I’m praying to the Holy Spirit in order to be able to really listen to what the other brings,” he said. “So (I have) no (particular) expectations, but a great expectation from the power of the Holy Spirit to guide me.”

ROME (CNS) – Pope Francis’ envoy for peace in Ukraine asked his fellow bishops and all Catholics in Italy to continue their prayers for peace in Ukraine and in the Holy Land, but also to make those prayers concrete through acts of solidarity.

For example, Italian dioceses should expand summer camp programs to welcome Ukrainian children “who are orphans or victims — and they all are — of the catastrophe that is war,” said Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, president of the Italian bishops’ conference and the pope’s envoy for Ukraine.

Addressing the conference’s permanent council March 18, the cardinal also encouraged the bishops to promote the full participation of their dioceses in the annual Good Friday collection for Christians in the Holy Land.

And, he said, the late May plenary assembly of the Italian bishops’ conference will include a day of prayer, fasting and solidarity for peace in the world.

“Can we still accept that war is the only solution to conflicts?” Cardinal Zuppi asked his fellow bishops.

“In this time of conflicts, divisions, nationalist sentiment, hatred and opposition,” he said, the Catholic Church’s work for unity “shines as a light of hope.”

The commitment of each bishop and every Catholic community, the cardinal said, must be to be “artisans of peace, weavers of unity in every context, peaceful in words and behavior.”

Cardinal Zuppi said he knows many people view Pope Francis as naïve in his constant pleas to stop sending weapons to war-torn regions and in urging negotiations even when, like in Ukraine, the identity of the aggressor is clear.

“The Holy Father’s words on peace are anything but naïveté,” the cardinal said. Rather, the pope is trying to share “a pain that we will never be able to measure.”

“We are living through a very long Good Friday when darkness covered the whole earth, and darkness erases life and all light, and sometimes, it seems, even hope and consciences themselves,” he said. “The church is always Mary at the foot of the cross of her children; she cannot get used to the darkness and believes in light even when there is only darkness.”

“The church is a mother and experiences war as a mother for whom the value of life is superior to reasoning or alliances,” Cardinal Zuppi said.

(OSV News) – As the Supreme Court prepares to take up two cases on access to pills commonly used for early abortions, U.S. Catholic bishops have issued a nationwide call to prayer to end abortion and protect women and unborn children.

The invitation was issued March 14 by Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for Military Services, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

The prayer campaign, which seeks the intercession of St. Joseph as the “Defender of Life,” begins March 25, the day before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments for Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Both cases center on the drug mifepristone and its widespread availability.

The start date also marks the anniversary of the release of Pope St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”). The encyclical itself was published on that year’s observance of the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord, which in 2024 will be celebrated Monday, April 8.

The daily prayer for the campaign is available in English and Spanish at respectlife.org/prayer-to-st-joseph.

“We ask Catholics to offer this prayer daily, from March 25 through June, when a decision is expected,” wrote Archbishop Broglio and Bishop Burbidge.

First approved by the FDA in 2000, mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which maintains proper conditions in the uterus during pregnancy. The drug is paired with misoprostol (initially created to treat gastric ulcers) as part of a chemical regimen used in more than half of all U.S. abortions in 2020.

More recently, the same pill combination has also been prescribed to women who experience early pregnancy miscarriage in order to expel any fetal remains and residual pregnancy tissue from the womb. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its protocols to recommend a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol as more effective than misoprostol alone for early miscarriage care based on research published since 2018.

Last year, the doctors and medical professionals represented by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenged the FDA’s greenlighting of mifepristone as unsafe.

While it struck down the alliance’s request in August 2023, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did revoke the FDA’s efforts to increase access to the drug. Nonetheless, an earlier stay issued by the nation’s top court has maintained broad access to the drug.

The bishops acknowledged that the upcoming Supreme Court case “is not about ending chemical abortion,” but still has the potential to “restore limitations that the FDA has overridden.”

“When a Supreme Court decision is released, probably in June, we can expect a public and political reaction similar to the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade,” they wrote.

On March 11, Bishop Burbidge issued a statement expressing “great sorrow” after the body of a preterm baby was discovered in a pond in Leesburg, Virginia.

The bishop asked the faithful to pray “for the child’s mother and for anyone involved in this incident” and offered burial services while highlighting diocesan resources for women in challenging pregnancies.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Faced with decades of rising secularism, the Catholic Church must invest in families and in strengthening other forms of community to transmit the faith, Pope Francis said.

“The big issue before us is to understand how to overcome the rupture that has been established in the transmission of faith,” the pope told members of the Dicastery for Evangelization’s section for new evangelization March 15. “To that end there is an urgent need to recover an effective relationship with families and formation centers.”

Developing faith in Christ “requires a meaningful experience lived in the family and in the Christian community as a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ in order to be transmitted,” he wrote in his message to members of the dicastery during their plenary assembly. “Without this real and existential encounter, one will always be subject to the temptation to make faith a theory and not a testimony of life.”

As he has done at several meetings in past weeks, the pope had an aide, Msgr. Filippo Ciamanelli, read his speech to the group.

In his message, the pope wrote that the secularism of recent decades “has created enormous difficulties” for the church, “from the loss of a sense of belonging to the Christian community to the indifference regarding the faith and its contents.”

As a result, he wrote, it is time for the church to “understand what effective response we are called to give to young generations so that they may recover the meaning of life.”

He noted that lure of personal autonomy, “promoted as one of the pretenses of secularism, cannot be thought of as independence from God, because it is God himself who grants the personal freedom to act.”

And while technological advances offer many ways for humanity to progress, including through developments in medicine and methods of protecting the environment, they also can create a “problematic” vision of humanity that fails to satisfy “the need for truth that dwells in every person,” he wrote.

Pope Francis urged members of the dicastery to develop a “spirituality of mercy” as the foundation of their work in evangelization. People are more receptive to evangelization when done with a “style of mercy,” he wrote. By communicating mercy, he added, “the heart opens more readily to conversion.”

The pope thanked the dicastery for its work in developing resources for catechists, referencing the latest “Directory for Catechesis” published by the dicastery in 2020, and praised the support they have given to those who serve as catechists.

“I hope that bishops will know how to nurture and accompany vocations to this ministry especially among young people,” he wrote, “so that the gap between generations and may be reduced and the transmission of the faith may not appear to be a task entrusted only to older people.”

The pope also discussed plans for the Holy Year 2025, which he has asked the dicastery to organize. The theme for the holy year is “Pilgrims of Hope.”

“This theological virtue has been seen poetically as the ‘little sister’ of the other two, faith and charity, but without it these two do not move forward, they do not express the best of themselves,” he wrote. “The holy people of God has such a great need” for hope.

Bro

 

 

 

SCRANTON – The Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate the annual Chrism Mass on March 26, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter.

The Chrism Mass is one of the most solemn and important diocesan celebrations of the liturgical year and all parishioners are invited and encouraged to attend.  

Priests serving across the Diocese of Scranton concelebrate this Mass, during which they also renew their commitment to priestly service. 

Oils that will be used in all parishes in the coming year are presented for the Bishop’s blessing. These include the oil for the sick, used in anointing the sick; the oil for catechumens, used during baptism; and the oil for the sacred chrism, which is the primary anointing oil. It is used in the sacraments of initiation and holy orders as well as special acts of dedication. 

For those unable to attend the Mass in person, CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will broadcast the celebration live at 4:00 p.m. Livestream links will also be made available on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and across all Diocesan social media platforms.

The word “chrism” means “consecrated oil.” To learn more, see Chrism Mass Symbols and Meaning.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The work of protecting minors and other vulnerable people in the Catholic Church involves holding those in positions of power accountable for the abuse they commit, Pope Francis said.

The church’s safeguarding efforts “must undoubtedly aim at eradicating situations that protect those who hide behind their positions to impose themselves on others in a perverse way,” the pope wrote in a message to participants in a safeguarding conference.

In the message, released March 12, he also said the church must try to understand why such people are “unable to relate to others in a healthy way.”

The papal message was sent to a three-day conference in Panama City organized by the Research and Formation Center for the Protection of Minors, also known as CEPROME Latin America.

Titled “Vulnerability and Abuse: Toward a Wider View of Prevention,” the conference was designed to discuss “the handling of power and authority in the church” and to broaden conversations about abusive conduct beyond the crime of sexual abuse to include “abuses of power, authority, conscience and spirituality,” organizers said.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was one of the groups involved in organizing the conference, had announced March 8 the approval of a study group “to examine the reality of vulnerable persons in the context of the Church’s ministry and how this informs safeguarding efforts.”

In his message to the participants in Panama City, Pope Francis wrote that God is calling the church to “an absolute change in mentality regarding our conception of relationships,” and that Christians must give priority to “the least, the poor, the servant (and) the uneducated over the greater, the rich, the master, the learned, based on the ability to accept the grace that is given to us by God and to make ourselves a gift to others.”

“Seeing one’s own weakness as an excuse to stop being whole persons and whole Christians, incapable of taking control of their destiny, will create childish, resentful people and in no way represents the littleness to which Jesus invites us,” he wrote. Instead, the pope urged the participants to imitate St. Paul who “boasted in his weaknesses and trusted in the grace of the Lord.”

Yet Pope Francis wrote that the church “cannot be indifferent to the reasons why some people accept to go against their own conscience, out of fear, or allow themselves to be deceived by false promises, knowing in their heart of hearts that they are on the wrong path.”

“Humanizing relationships” in society and the church, he wrote, “means working hard to form mature, coherent persons who, firm in their faith and ethical principles, are capable of confronting evil (and) bearing witness to the truth.”

He added that any society that lacks such moral integrity will be “ill, with human and institutional relationships perverted by selfishness, distrust, fear and deceit.”

More than 20 members of CEPROME’s advisory board from throughout Latin America met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in September 2023. They discussed methods for advancing abuse prevention and the pope condemned the accessibility of child pornography.

(OSV News) – A profound experience with the Eucharist during Mass in his freshman year at Texas A&M University compelled Charlie McCullough to make Jesus the center of his life.

“Every decision that I’ve made after that has been a small step in that relationship and a small response to that invitation,” said McCullough, a 22-year-old north Texas native. “And now the invitation is him saying, ‘Come and follow me,’ as we go on pilgrimage across the United States.”

McCullough is one of 24 young adults who will be journeying with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament along four National Eucharistic Pilgrimage routes leading to the National Eucharistic Congress. The “perpetual pilgrims” will begin their treks May 17-19 — the weekend of Pentecost — from San Francisco; New Haven, Connecticut; Brownsville, Texas; and the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota.

Their routes — a combined 6,500 miles — will converge eight weeks later in Indianapolis for the July 17 opening of the five-day congress in Lucas Oil Stadium. Along the way, the pilgrims will go through small towns, large cities and rural countryside, mostly on foot, with the Eucharist carried in a monstrance designed particularly for this unprecedented event.

“This will be the biggest Eucharistic procession in world history,” said Kai Weiss, a perpetual pilgrim studying theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington. “I think Jesus will sanctify this land in an unimaginable way, even invisibly and in an unseen way. But obviously, we will be visible and we will be easily noticed, and I just look forward to what Christ in the Eucharist can bring to other people.”

Weiss, 27, grew up in Regensburg, Germany, where elaborate Corpus Christi processions are commonplace, and people are familiar with Europe’s long history of walking pilgrimages, he said. Last year, he participated in a two-day walking pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Altötting with about 4,000 people, where pilgrims sang hymns and prayed the rosary along the way.

“That really communal aspect is so beautiful about professions and pilgrimages — that they bring us together as a church, and that since they’re also public, they can also bring in other people,” Weiss said. “It’s a wonderful way of expressing our faith and our joy.”

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and National Eucharistic Congress are major parts of the National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year initiative launched in 2022 by the U.S. bishops to inspire a deeper love and reverence for Jesus in the Eucharist. The pilgrimage is modeled on the Gospel account of Jesus’ journey with two disciples to Emmaus after his resurrection.

In October, the National Eucharistic Congress issued a call for perpetual pilgrims and received more than 100 applications. Criteria included being a baptized and practicing Catholic between the ages of 19-29, be in good physical condition and capable of walking long distances, and be committed to upholding church teachings. Backgrounds in ministry, service, leadership and pilgrimage experience were of special interest, according to organizers.

The perpetual pilgrims were chosen after multiple rounds of interviews and follow-up screenings, organizers said in a March 11 media release announcing the pilgrims.

In February, the pilgrims met for a retreat in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they received spiritual formation from Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, who serves as chairman of the National Eucharistic Revival, as well as National Eucharistic Congress staff and priests with pilgrimage and media experience.

Most of the pilgrims are graduate or undergraduate students, and some work for mission-oriented apostolates and nonprofits. “A common thread for all was a profound encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist that they were inspired to share with others,” according to the media statement.

Organized by Modern Catholic Pilgrim, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that promotes U.S. walking pilgrimages and biblical hospitality, the pilgrimage routes include stops at sacred landmarks including saints’ shrines and diocesan cathedrals.

“I am humbled by the commitment demonstrated by those selected to serve as Perpetual Pilgrims this summer,” said Will Peterson, Modern Catholic Pilgrim’s founder and president, in a media statement. “Their excitement at serving as stewards of this unprecedented National Eucharistic Pilgrimage shook the walls at our kickoff retreat. I cannot wait for the rest of the U.S. Catholic Church to walk with our Eucharistic Lord alongside these amazing individuals.”

Each day will include Mass, a small Eucharistic procession and 10-15 miles of travel. Along the way, parishes are planning to host Eucharistic devotions such as adoration, praise and worship, and lectures. Parishes, religious orders, schools, shrines and retreat centers will offer the pilgrims hospitality and offer fellowship and meals.

A support vehicle will accompany the pilgrims and transport them through legs of the journey where “safety, terrain, and/or climate may present obstacles,” according to the media statement.

The pilgrimage routes are named for key saints for North America: the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Route from the east, the St. Juan Diego Route from the south, the St. Junipero Serra Route from the west, and the Marian Route from the north, which includes a stop in Wisconsin at the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, the only approved Marian apparition site in the United States.

Weiss is traveling the Marian Route with fellow perpetual pilgrims Sarah Cahill of Virginia; Matthew Heidenreich of Ohio; Danielle Schmitz of California; Jennifer Torres of Colorado; and Megan Zaleski of Illinois.

With McCullough on the Juan Diego route will be Camille Anigbogu of Texas; Shayla Elm of North Dakota; Issy Martin-Dye of Ohio; Joshua Velasquez of Texas; and MacKenzie Warrens of Missouri.

On the Serra route will be Chima Adiole of Texas; Chas Firestone East of Virginia; Patrick Fayad of Nebraska; Jack Krebs of Wisconsin; Madison Michel of Minnesota; and Jaella Mac Au of Georgia.

On the Seton route will be Dominic Carstens of Wyoming; Zoe Dongas of New York; Marina Frattaroli of Texas; Natalie Garza of Texas; Amayrani Higueldo of Pennsylvania; and Christopher Onyiuke of Florida.

Along the way, 30 Franciscan Friars of the Renewal will rotate time on the routes as chaplains. In addition, Father Roger Landry, a chaplain at Columbia University in New York, plans to accompany pilgrims the entire length of the Seton route.

Higueldo, a recent nursing school graduate, told OSV News she is thrilled to be among the perpetual pilgrims. “Through nursing school, I had no time whatsoever,” she said. “My prayer to the Lord was like, ‘Lord, I just want to spend more time with you’ … and lo and behold, here we are a couple months later, and I get to spend two whole months with our Eucharistic Lord, and to go on this crazy adventure, beautiful adventure.”

While she is grateful for what the opportunity will mean for her own life and relationship with Jesus, she is also excited for what it will bring to people they encounter along the way, including those who have questions about the Eucharist or react negatively to the pilgrimage. She is getting ready by reading Scripture, prayer and daily Mass, to “let him (Jesus) work in me and prepare me,” she said. “Because really I don’t know what it’s going to be like until we get there.”

Like her fellow perpetual pilgrims, Higueldo, 26, is also investing in good footwear and increasing the length of her daily walks. She’s noticing the difference it makes in her body.

“My calves are definitely hurting,” she said.

While she expects to carry a light load, she won’t leave behind her journal, she said, “just being able to be a witness to all the graces that the Lord wants to pour out during this pilgrimage and be able to document those and just fall back on those.”

As McCullough thinks about the people the pilgrims will meet along the way, he reflects on the way Jesus encountered people in the Gospels.

“It was always unique and different because he met them where they were at,” said McCullough, a college senior studying mechanical engineering. “I’m just so excited for the look of love from the Eucharist to be extended time and time again to whoever we encounter.”

Weiss said he thinks the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage could be a unifying balm in a polarized country.

“It’s him (Jesus) who brings us all together; he desires and yearns for all of us,” he said.

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – Three Philadelphia priests have been made auxiliary bishops of their archdiocese, providing “a great sign of hope and of joy” as they “walk in the midst of the people” on the journey to eternal life in Jesus Christ, said their archbishop.

Bishop Keith J. Chylinski, Bishop Christopher R. Cooke and Bishop Efren V. Esmilla were ordained as auxiliary bishops by Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia during a March 7 Mass at that city’s Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, and Auxiliary Bishop John J. McIntyre of Philadelphia served as concelebrants and co-ordaining bishops.

Pope Francis named the three auxiliaries Dec. 8, 2023, and their appointments were shared at a news conference hosted by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia that day.

Joining Archbishop Pérez at the liturgy were Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., and the permanent synod of bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church led by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. The permanent synod members’ visit marks the first official travel to the U.S. by a Ukrainian Catholic delegation since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The permanent synod’s presence at the ordination reflected the close collaboration between the Latin Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia in prayer and support for Ukraine. Major Archbishop Shevchuk presented to Archbishop Pérez — who described Ukraine’s sufferings as “redemptive for the world” — a framed fragment of a drone that had targeted his residence in Kyiv, Ukraine, with Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia asking Archbishop Pérez to receive it “as a sign of our passion, which you have shared.”

In addition, Major Archbishop Shevchuk presented Archbishop Pérez with a traditional Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated in the pysanky style, as a sign of “this paschal experience” and as the “sign of Resurrection.”

Addressing the new bishops, Archbishop Pérez said, “Now you know what it’s like as my brother bishops to receive a call from ‘you know who’ (Cardinal Pierre) asking if you’re alone … and in the name of the Holy Father … (asking) you to become a bishop.

“Thankfully, you all said yes,” said the archbishop. “Very joyfully you have accepted.”

The liturgy spanned more than three hours and drew hundreds of clergy, religious, seminarians, family and friends to the cathedral and featured multiple choirs, whose members performed in Latin, English, Spanish and Tagalog.

During the ordination rite, the bishops-designate were presented to the archbishop, and promised to “proclaim the Gospel of Christ faithfully and unfailingly,” to “guard the deposit of faith” and to “build up the body of Christ, his church” under the authority of, and in obedience to, the pope.

In addition, the bishops-designate pledged to encourage and guide the “holy people of God” as “a devoted father … to reach out in kindness and mercy to the poor, to strangers and to all those in need … to seek out the sheep who stray and gather them into the Lord’s fold … to pray without ceasing to almighty God for his holy people and to carry out the office of high priest without reproach.”

Following a litany of supplication, the archbishop laid his hands on the kneeling bishops-designate, as did the co-ordaining bishops and the other bishops present. As the Book of the Gospels was placed over the head of each bishop-designate, Archbishop Pérez prayed the prayer of ordination, conferring the sacrament of episcopal holy orders, which included anointing with sacred chrism, handing on the Book of the Gospels, and bestowing the episcopal insignia — the ring (worn on the right hand), the miter and the crosier or pastoral staff.

Each bishop also was appointed to a titular see, a diocese (often ancient) that has ceased to function, but the assignment of which enables the auxiliary bishop to fulfill the canonical norm of leading a specific diocese. Bishops Chylinski, Cooke and Esmilla were respectively named to the titular sees of Gunela (formerly in what is now Tunisia), Malliana (now Algeria) and Ottana (a former Sardinian diocese restored as a titular see in 2004)

Cardinal Pierre, who had most recently held the titular see of Gunela, told Bishop Chylinski to take care of his former territory, saying it was a “very good” one.

Archbishop Pérez said that “the bishop at times walks in front of his people leading” while at other times he “walks behind the people, pushing them.”

“Most of the time, the bishop is called to be in the midst of his people,” said Archbishop Pérez.

The three new bishops already have significant pastoral experience.

Bishop Chylinski currently serves as rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. After his 2007 priestly ordination, he served at several parishes throughout the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In addition, he has directed counseling services at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and has been a member of the archdiocese’s racial healing commission since its formation in 2021. From 2018 to 2022, he was the national chaplain of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association, which he joined in 2013.

Bishop Cooke is currently dean of men for the theology seminary at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Ordained a priest in 2006, he has served at several parishes in the archdiocese. From 2013 to 2021, he directed the spiritual year of formation at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Fluent in English and Spanish, he is a member of the archdiocesan council of priests.

 

Born in the Philippines, Bishop Esmilla was ordained to the priesthood in 1993. Among a range of pastoral assignments throughout the Philadelphia Archdiocese, he has served as chaplain of the Filipino apostolate since 2005, and as spiritual director of the Legion of Mary since 2001. He has served as pastor of two parishes since 2020, as well as a number of archdiocesan governance positions, and speaks English, Spanish, Tagalog, Latin and Portuguese.

In their post-ordination remarks, all three bishops expressed their profound gratitude and humility regarding their episcopal elevation.

“I’ve received such a great outpouring of love and support from so many in the church, (and) it has struck me very powerfully how the church is truly a family,” Bishop Chylinski said, adding, “It’s Jesus — that’s what this is all about. That’s why we’re here today.”

“Today did not happen because of my own efforts. I’m here because of the power of prayer. So many of you lifted me up for many, many years,” Bishop Cooke said. “I know I still have a lot to learn, and I am committed to being the best auxiliary bishop I can with both my gifts and my faith.”

“My ordination today … started from love — love of Christ, love of Mary, love of faith, love of my family and friends,” Bishop Esmilla said. “It starts with love, continues in compassion, and endures with trust.”