Category: Diocese of Scranton News

SCRANTON (December 26, 2022) – The administration of the Cathedral of Saint Peter is deeply saddened to report an act of vandalism to parish property discovered on Christmas evening, Dec. 25, 2022.

During an evening inspection of Cathedral grounds, Father Jeffrey Tudgay, pastor, discovered the numbers “666” carved separately into three front doors of the Cathedral church.

Scranton police have been notified of the vandalism and Cathedral staff will cooperate with the law enforcement investigation. Officers will be working to determine if surveillance cameras on Cathedral property might provide any information on who is responsible for the damage.

The discovery of the vandalism comes after hundreds of people joyfully celebrated Christmas at the Cathedral during five different Masses on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25. While it is currently unknown exactly when the vandalism occurred, the final Mass on Christmas Day took place at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday.

In response to the vandalism, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, and Father Tudgay, Cathedral pastor, released the following statements:

“The vandalism discovered at our Cathedral, especially as we celebrated the Nativity of Our Lord, saddens me greatly. The doors of our Cathedral have been used countless times to bring people closer to God and it is my hope that the person who did this will regret his or her actions,” Bishop Bambera said. “I am offering my prayers for whoever did this and for their reconciliation to God.”

“I am hoping the individual responsible for the vandalism will come forward and allow me to have a conversation with them. We are a people of prayer who minister in a troubled world but the mission and message of Christ’s Church is one of forgiveness and reconciliation,” Father Tudgay added. “While we are upset at the actions that took place, we also understand the need to forgive and be forgiven.”

Anyone who might have information on the vandalism at the Cathedral of Saint Peter is urged to call the Scranton Police Department at (570) 348-4130.

CHICAGO (CNS) – Private citizen groups have arranged for Nativity scenes to be on display at 43 state capitols around the country, a record number, according to a not-for-profit law firm’s tally.

The Chicago-based Thomas More Society said Dec. 20 that the number of displays is notable despite the secularization of Christmas throughout the U.S.

Four new displays depicting the biblical description of the birth of Jesus in a manger have been erected this year, the society said: Alaska, New York, Utah and Virginia.

“The message of hope delivery by the baby Jesus celebrates the joy of new life. This troubled world can benefit from more hope and more joy,” Ed O’Malley, president of the American Nativity Scene, said in a news release from the society.

The organization works with the law firm to ensure that private citizens can sponsor a manger scene on public property.

Thomas Olp, Thomas More Society vice president and senior counsel, said in a statement that state laws in large part allow government entities to erect and maintain celebrations of the Christmas holiday season or allow private citizens to put up manger scenes as long as “the sole purpose is not to promote its religious content.”

In addition, such displays must be “placed in context with other symbols of the season as part of an effort to celebrate the public Christmas holiday through traditional symbols,” Olp said.

“We pray that the Nativity scenes of the Christmas season will help to foster a sense of unity and peace on earth,” he added.

The state capitol sites without a privately sponsored Nativity display in 2022 are Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Tennessee.

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily stopped the Biden administration from ending a pandemic-related border restriction with a one-page order Dec. 19.

It gives the Supreme Court time to consider the emergency request filed by 19 states asking the justices to keep in place what is known as Title 42 of the federal Public Health Services Act.

The Trump administration used the public health measure during the pandemic to allow U.S. border officials to expel migrants quickly without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States.

Roberts’ administrative stay ensures the policy — which a trial judge had ordered be ended by midnight Dec. 21 — could stay in place while the full court considered it. His order also asked the Biden administration to respond Dec. 20 by 5 p.m. (EST).

The Republican state attorneys general opposing the discontinuation of this policy warned that if the court did not block a federal judge’s order to end the policy it would “cause a crisis of unprecedented proportions at the border.”

The Biden administration had extended the policy last August, but this April they announced plans to end it, saying it was no longer necessary to protect public health.

Migrant advocates, including Catholic church organizations, women religious and Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, who is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee, have strongly supported ending Title 42.

Texas border cities, like El Paso, had been preparing for the surge of new migrants as the pandemic-era policy was scheduled to end.

In mid-December, Dylan Corbett, director of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization helping migrants, said constant changing policies make it hard for organizations like his to plan.

“You have a lot of pent-up pain,” he told The Associated Press, noting that with government policies in disarray, “the majority of the work falls to faith communities to pick up the pieces and deal with the consequences.”

In October, Bishop Seitz issued a statement expressing his disappointment that Title 42 had been expanded to Venezuelans seeking to cross the border.

“Now we must all work harder, especially the faith community, to build a culture of hospitality that respects the dignity of those who migrate, and to continue to press lawmakers and the Biden administration to establish a safe, humane, functioning and rights-respecting system to ensure protection to those in need,” he said.

Title 42 is among other immigration policies brought to the Supreme Court this year. In June, the court ruled that the Biden administration could potentially end  the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” policy, which sent those seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico to wait for a hearing in U.S. immigration court.

But the Supreme Court also sent this back to a lower court to determine if the Biden administration’s efforts to end the policy complied with administrative laws. In mid-December, a federal judge in Texas put the administration’s attempts to end this policy on hold.

In late November, the Supreme Court also heard arguments challenging a 2021 policy that prioritizes certain groups of unauthorized immigrants for arrest and deportation. A ruling is expected next June.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis spent part of his 86th birthday paying tribute to people who have gone above and beyond in the exercise of charity.

At a ceremony in the Vatican Dec. 17, the pope presented the Mother Teresa Prize to: Franciscan Father Hanna Jallouf for his service to the poor of Syria; Gian Piero, also known as Wué, a homeless man who gives a portion of the alms he receives to people who are poorer than he is; and Silvano Pedrollo, an Italian businessman who builds schools, wells and health clinics in India, Africa and Latin America.

The award was sponsored by the Dicastery for the Service of Charity to honor people who, like St. Teresa of Kolkata, dedicate their lives to serving the poorest of the poor.

Two dozen members of the Missionaries of Charity and 20 guests housed in one of their Rome shelters joined Pope Francis and the award winners for the audience.

And soon after the ceremony, the Vatican press office announced that Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, head of the dicastery, had set off again for Ukraine with a truckload of generators, thermal clothing and other donations for the victims of war.

Pope Francis thanked his guests, including the cardinal, for their affection and for their witness to fraternity and the need for prayer, “which is the legacy that Mother Teresa always gave us. Even prayer in dark times — because this woman went through real spiritual storms with darkness inside, but she kept praying. She was a brave one!”

The pope prayed that “Mother Teresa from heaven” would help Christians to live “with simplicity and prayer.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Leading the recitation of the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis asked thousands of people joining him in St. Peter’s Square to pray for peace in the Caucasus region, in Peru and, of course, in Ukraine.

As tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan continued and the Lachin Corridor, a road linking Armenia and the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, remained closed, Pope Francis said Dec. 18 he was particularly worried “about the precarious humanitarian conditions of the population which risk further deterioration during the course of the winter season.”

“I ask everyone involved to commit themselves to finding peaceful solutions for the good of the people,” Pope Francis said.

The pope then turned to Peru, where violent protests have taken place since early December, when President Pedro Castillo announced he was closing the national Congress, and was impeached, arrested and replaced.

“Let us also pray for peace in Peru, that the violence in that country might cease and that the path of dialogue might be embarked upon to overcome the political and social crisis that is afflicting the population,” the pope said.

And he asked Mary “to touch the hearts of those who can stop the war in Ukraine. Let us not forget the suffering of those people, especially of the babies, the elderly, the people who are sick. Let us pray. Let us pray.”

In his main talk, Pope Francis drew attention to the day’s Gospel, which recounted how St. Joseph found out Mary, his intended bride, was pregnant with Jesus, and how that turned his plans for their life upside down.

Joseph thought he had two choices: accuse Mary publicly or dismiss her quietly, the more merciful option and the one he chose, the pope said. But then, an angel spoke to him in a dream, explaining the pregnancy was the work of the Holy Spirit and that he should not be afraid to take her as his wife.

“Before God, who disrupts his plans and asks that he trust him, Joseph says ‘yes,'” the pope said. “Joseph’s courage is heroic and is exercised in silence – his courage is to trust, he welcomes, he is willing, he asks for no further guarantees.”

Anyone today who has plans and certainties that get overturned should look to St. Joseph’s example, the pope said.

The best reaction is not to give in to anger or to withdraw, the pope said. “Instead, we need to attentively welcome surprises, the surprises in life, even crises.”

Pope Francis cautioned people that “when we find ourselves in crisis, we should not make decisions quickly or instinctively,” but rather gather the facts and sift through them like St. Joseph did and always be certain of God’s mercy.

God is “an expert in transforming crises into dreams,” Pope Francis said. And God’s dreams are “infinitely grander and more beautiful than ours!”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis said he wrote a resignation letter in 2013, his first year in office, to be used in case he became physically or mentally impaired and unable to fulfill the duties of the papacy.

In an interview published Dec. 18, the day after his 86th birthday, Pope Francis said that during the time that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was Vatican secretary of state, a position he left in October 2013, he gave a resignation letter to the cardinal.

“I signed it and said, ‘If I should become impaired for medical reasons or whatever, here is my renunciation. Here you have it,'” the pope told the Spanish newspaper ABC.

Pope Francis joked that now that the letter’s existence has been made public, someone will go after Cardinal Bertone and say, “Give me that piece of paper!”

But he also said he was certain Cardinal Bertone gave it to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who succeeded him as secretary of state.

The interviewer also noted that Pope Francis had named several women as secretaries or undersecretaries of Vatican offices, but that he had not appointed a woman to lead a Vatican dicastery, although his reform of the Roman Curia says it is possible for a layperson to head a dicastery.

Pope Francis responded that he has been thinking of appointing a woman to lead “a dicastery where there will be a vacancy in two years.” He did not say what office that was.

“There is nothing to prevent a woman from guiding a dicastery in which a layperson can be a prefect,” the pope said.

However, “if it is dicastery of a sacramental nature,” presumably like the dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith, for Bishops, for Clergy or for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, “it has to be presided over by a priest or a bishop,” the pope said.

Asked if he worries about active Catholics who may feel neglected by the pope paying so much attention to people who feel far from the church, Pope Francis responded, “If they are good, they will not feel neglected.”

But if they do feel shunned, he said, they may share the fault of the elder son in the biblical parable of the prodigal son, echoing his complaint to his father, “I’ve served you for years and now you take care of him and don’t pay any attention to me.”

That attitude, the pope said, “an ugly sin, one of hidden ambition, of wishing to stand out and be considered.”

Pope Francis also told ABC that he believes the church is making progress “little by little” in tackling clerical sexual abuse and in becoming more transparent in handling the cases.

Asked what he would say to Catholics whose faith in the church falters every time a new case is made public, the pope said, “It is good that you feel outrage about this. That leads you to act to prevent it, to make your contribution.”

“It doesn’t scare me,” the pope said. “If their faith is faltering, it’s because it is alive. Otherwise, you would feel nothing at all.”

Also Dec. 18, Italy’s Canale 5 television station aired an interview with Pope Francis in which he was asked about Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, when he began a prayer asking Mary to intercede for Ukraine and had to pause because he was crying.

War is “madness,” the pope said. “I tell people, please, don’t be afraid, but let’s cry a little bit. We should be crying today about these cruelties” that always go with war.

Pope Francis said he has met many children from Ukraine in the 10 months since Russia began the war. “None of them smile. Not one. They greet you, but they cannot smile. Who knows what they have seen.”

WILKES-BARRE – Saint Vincent de Paul Kitchen, which is operated by Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton, will hold its annual Christmas food distribution for the community on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022, at its facility at 39 East Jackson Street, Wilkes-Barre.

Food will be distributed between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. as well as between 4:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. No pre-registration is required and anyone in need of assistance before Christmas is welcome.

The annual Christmas food distribution at Saint Vincent de Paul Kitchen is held in addition to the regular meals that are provided by the kitchen daily between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Those meals are provided every day of the year, including weekends and holidays.