Category: Diocese of Scranton News

DUNMORE – When Jessica Castro first signed up to participate in the ISLI retreat this summer, the Scranton teen would be the first to admit it was a leap of faith.

“The first day I was nervous and scared but you get comfortable with these people,” she said. “You begin to talk and then you don’t care because you’re comfortable with them.”

Castro is one of 20 high school students from parishes and schools around the Diocese who participated in the International Student Leadership Institute from June 20-23 at Marywood University.

“You learn a lot of new things. You learn communication, support and other things. You meet new people and you feel more confident,” Castro added.

ISLI is a peer-facilitated, faith-based leadership retreat designed by Father Thomas Chambers, C.S.C., at the University of Notre Dame. It is designed to help high school students excel in both leadership and membership roles of task-oriented groups.

During the retreat, participants improve their decision-making and problem solving skills through the teachings of the Catholic faith. The students also celebrate Mass together and participate in Eucharistic Adoration.

“The retreat is focused on the concept of leadership as a learned characteristic specifically rooted in our Catholic faith,” Shannon Kowalski, Director of Service and Mission in the Diocesan Office for Parish Life, explained. “The students experience small group activities that go along with five objectives to help them understand various aspects of themselves, what they have to give towards leadership and how they can improve their leadership potential.”

Zachary Schultz, a student at Holy Redeemer High School and parishioner of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Swoyersville, participated in ISLI for the first time this summer.

“I have enjoyed it … I definitely felt very welcomed and got to meet a lot of new people,” he said.

In his school and parish community, Schultz admitted he has mostly been a “follower” but after participating in the ISLI program he said, “I’m going to try and be a leader.”

Lauren Hayden, who also attends Holy Redeemer High School and is a parishioner at Saint Jude Parish in Mountain Top, attended the ISLI program for a second time after having a great experience previously.

“It has definitely had a huge impact on my own life … I’m part of the Student Council at Holy Redeemer High School,” Hayden explained.

All of the participants got a chance to meet the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, who celebrated Mass with them on the third full day of the retreat.

“Bishop Bambera has been great to us at ISLI. He comes every time we host the retreat to express his support for the kids and to get to know a little more about what we do,” Kowalski said. “He also comes to issue a challenge that we need them in our diocese. The students at ISLI are not the ‘future’ of the church. They are the church now. At the end of this, he expects them, and we expect them, to go back and use what they have learned.”

The ISLI retreat, which was first established in the 1980s, is traditionally offered twice a year in the Diocese of Scranton, once in the winter and once in the summer.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this summer’s event is the first in-person ISLI gathering in several years.

“We’re having a restart right now because we had to take a couple years off because of COVID,” facilitator Neil Albright explained. “We really want to see this program succeed. We want to bring it back and make it stronger because it meant so much to me in my life and I want nothing more than to share it with a new generation of kids.”

Albright, who first attended ISLI in 2015, made life-long friends as part of the program. He said the leadership behaviors and styles he learned have helped him in many ways.

“It has made me a stronger leader in so many ways. It has strengthened my faith. It has helped me bridge the gap between my experiences in the world and my experiences in the church so beautifully and fully. I’m just really thankful I can be a part of it,” he said.

“It is a pleasure of mine and the rest of the adult team to watch the students evolve over the time that they’re here,” Kowalski added. “Most of them come in unsure, uncertain, a little shy and nervous. By the end of the retreat they’re loud, they’re outgoing, and they’re breaking out of their shells.”

SCRANTON – Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Scranton joined several community partners June 24 in organizing and sponsoring a World Refugee Day celebration at Nay Aug Park.

The event, attended by hundreds of people, included cultural songs and music, ethnic food, activities for children and information tables about local refugee communities.

“We welcome you to the greater Scranton area and beyond and hope that you find a home in this area where you feel welcome and loved,” the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, said while addressing the crowd.

Bishop Bambera shared recent words from Pope Francis, in which the Holy Father said we are all called to show “maximum respect” for the dignity of migrants and must “construct bridges and not walls.”

While acknowledging that nations have a right to control their borders, Bishop Bambera said the international community should protect refugees and asylum seekers. He highlighted the story of his own grandmother who came to northeastern Pennsylvania from Poland in 1912 in search of a better life.

“We are so privileged to have you here, to tap into your gifts and your talents and to find ourselves better and richer because of your presence,” Bishop Bambera added.

World Refugee Day was established by the United Nations to celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution. At the end of 2022, more than 100 million people were forcibly displaced globally – a record number propelled by the War in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world.

“We became refugees because of political situations,” Chandra Sitaula of the Bhutanese Cultural Foundation of Scranton Association, said. “We are here from Bhutan, Congo, Afghanistan and many other countries.”

Sitaula came to the Scranton area in 2012 after spending two years in the Bronx. He said there are roughly 7,000 Bhutanese people living in the greater Scranton area according to the 2020 census. He said the number is even larger – roughly 42,000 people – in the Harrisburg region.

“We want to introduce our culture, traditions, values and customs to the community and we need to learn other community’s cultures, communications and religions,” he explained.

Gulnar Siddiqi, a staff member with Catholic Social Services and refugee herself, said the agency works with hundreds of refugees each year.

“We are always here for refugees. Catholic Social Services has been working for many years with refugees as soon as they arrive in the country,” Siddiqi said. “We want to show our refugees how important they are. We want to show our refugees that we are all one.”

This year’s theme was ‘Hope Away from Home,’ which focused on the power of inclusion and solutions for refugees.

“As a community, we must promote empathy and compassion towards those who have been forced to leave their homes and seek safety in a new country,” Fikile Ryder, Director of Community for Catholic Social Services, added.

Since coming to the United States in 2017, Claudin Nyota of Congo says she has become a U.S. citizen and has found her neighbors to be very welcoming.

“I am happy. I love Scranton,” Nyota said. “I’m happy to see friends here that have helped me, have shown me something good. I’m so happy to see everybody.”

In addition to Catholic Social Services, World Refugee Day 2023 was sponsored by the Church of Saint Gregory in Clarks Green, The University of Scranton, United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania, Ignatian Volunteer Corps, Islamic Center of Scranton, Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, Congolese Community of Scranton, Bhutanese Cultural Foundation of Scranton Association, Saigon Corner Vietnamese Restaurant and the Pennsylvania Department of Education – Migrant Education Program.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals, including U.S.-born Archbishop Robert F. Prevost, who took the helm at the Dicastery for Bishops in April, and French Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The pope announced the names after his recitation of the Angelus with the faithful in St. Peter’s Square July 9. He said he would formally install the cardinals during a special consistory at the Vatican Sept. 30.

Cardinal-designate Prevost expressed his surprise and joy upon hearing the announcement, he said in an interview with Vatican News July 10.

“Certainly I felt happy for the recognition of the mission that has been entrusted to me — which is a very beautiful thing — and at the same time I thought with reverence and holy fear: I hope I can respond to what the pope is asking of me. It is an enormous responsibility, like when he called me to Rome as prefect,” he said in Italian.

“I see it as the continuation of a mission that the pope has decided to give me,” he added.

Speaking in English, Cardinal-designate Prevost said it is not a coincidence that Pope Francis scheduled the consistory before the start of the first general assembly of the synod on synodality, saying he is firmly convinced that “all of us are called to walk together.”

The new cardinals represent more than a dozen countries on five continents. Three of the new cardinals are current Vatican officials, three are current or retired apostolic nuncios, 13 are current or retired heads of archdioceses around the world, one is a rector major of the Salesians and one is a 96-year-old confessor in Buenos Aires. Six belong to religious orders; two of them are Jesuits.

Continuing a papal custom, among the new cardinals were three churchmen — two archbishops and a Capuchin Franciscan priest — over the age of 80, whom Pope Francis said he wanted to honor because they were particularly deserving because of “their service to the church.” Being over the age of 80, they are ineligible to vote in a conclave.

After the new cardinals are installed in late September, there will be 137 potential voters and the total membership of the College of Cardinals is expected to be 243.

The nomination of Cardinal-designate Prevost brings to 18 the number of U.S. cardinals; after the consistory, the U.S. contingent will include 11 potential papal electors.

The September ceremony will mark the ninth time Pope Francis has created cardinals since his election to the papacy in March 2013. After the ceremony Sept. 30, he will have created a total of 131 new cardinals in that College of Cardinals, which would make up about 54% of the total college and 72% of potential electors.

With the addition of six new cardinals under the age of 60, the average age of cardinal electors will get one year younger going from today’s average age of 72 years 8 months to 71 years 6 months. Cardinal-designate Alves Aguiar of Lisbon, 49, will be just six months older than the youngest elector, Cardinal Giorgio Marengo of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 49.

Cardinal-designate Prevost, 67, was born in Chicago, and had served as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, for more than eight years before being appointed to lead the Vatican body responsible for recommending to the pope candidates to fill the office of bishop in many of the Latin-rite dioceses of the world. Recommendations made by the dicastery are typically approved by the pope. Archbishop Prevost has been a member of the dicastery since November 2020.

He also oversees the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, established in 1958 by Pope Pius XII to study the church in Latin America, where nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics reside.

The cardinal-designate holds degrees from Villanova University in Pennsylvania and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. An Augustinian friar, he joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until in 1999, when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order.

In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 2020 to May 2021. The pope then appointed him to succeed the retiring Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in early 2023.

Cardinal-designate Pierre, 77, was born in Rennes, France. Ordained to the priesthood in 1970, he served as apostolic nuncio to Haiti, Uganda and Mexico until Pope Francis named him nuncio to the United States in 2016.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of Military Services, USA, and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops offered his congratulations and prayers to the new cardinals on behalf of the bishops of the United States July 9.

“Please join me in praying for Cardinal-designate Prevost and Cardinal-designate Pierre as they continue their lives of service to the universal church,” Archbishop Broglio said. “For the church in the United States, their ministry has been a true blessing. Our episcopal conference rejoices in this sign of recognition of these distinguished churchmen.”

Before he read the 21 names, Pope Francis told the estimated 15,000 people in St. Peter’s Square that the diversity of the new cardinals “expresses the universality of the church, which continues to proclaim God’s merciful love to all people on Earth.”

The order in which the cardinals are announced determines their seniority in the College of Cardinals, which has little practical effect except in liturgical processions.

Here is the list of the new cardinals:

— U.S.-born Archbishop Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, 67.

— Italian Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, 67.

— Argentine Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández of La Plata, Argentina, incoming prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He will turn 61 July 18.

— Swiss Archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig, the apostolic nuncio to Argentina, 76.

— French Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, 77.

— Italian Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, 58.

— South African Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, 66.

— Argentine Archbishop Ángel Sixto Rossi of Córdoba, 64. He is a member of the Society of Jesus.

— Colombian Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio of Bogotá, 61.

— Polish Archbishop Grzegorz Rys of Lódz, 59.

— South Sudanese Archbishop Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of Juba, 59.

— Spanish Archbishop José Cobo Cano of Madrid, 57.

— Tanzanian Archbishop Protase Rugambwa, coadjutor archbishop of Tabora, 63.

— Malaysian Bishop Sebastian Francis of Penang, Malaysia, 71.

— Bishop Stephen Chow Sau-yan of Hong Kong, 63. Born in Hong Kong, he is a member of the Society of Jesus.

— Bishop François-Xavier Bustillo of Ajaccio in Corsica, France, 54. Born in Spain, he is a member of the Conventual Franciscans.

— Portuguese Auxiliary Bishop Américo Alves Aguiar of Lisbon, 49.

— Spain-born Salesian Father Ángel Fernández Artime, rector major of the Salesians, 62.

Those named cardinal and over the age of 80:

— Italian Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, a retired papal nuncio, a former curial official and a respected historian of the Second Vatican Council, 82.

— Retired Archbishop Diego Rafael Padrón Sánchez of Cumaná, Venezuela, 84.

— Capuchin Father Luis Pascual Dri, confessor at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei, Buenos Aires, 96.

DUNMORE – As he weighs many important decisions in his life, Antonio Ingargiola says the idea of becoming a priest has crossed his mind on more than one occasion.

“I have definitely thought about seminary and going into the priesthood,” he said. “I still feel like I have a lot more discernment, prayer and reflection to do, but I feel very strongly towards it.”

Ingargiola, a parishioner of Saints Anthony and Rocco Parish in Dunmore, was one of 30 high school students who attended Quo Vadis Days from June 26-28 at Marywood University. Twenty-one of the students this year, including Ingargiola, were attending Quo Vadis Days for the first time.

“It’s very empowering because I feel like for other young men who might be discerning priesthood, sometimes you can almost feel alone, you can feel like you’re alone in this vast city,” he added. “But coming to things like this, you realize you’re not alone. There are other young men who are also discerning the same position as you, which is really nice to know and comforting to know.”

Each summer, the Diocesan Office of Vocations holds its Quo Vadis Days retreat to help young men explore vocational opportunities and ask the question about where God is calling them. In Latin, “Quo Vadis” means, “Where are you going?”

“It is a time of prayer, fun, community building and fellowship,” Father Alex Roche, Diocesan Director of Vocations and Seminarians, said. “It’s a great opportunity for them to realize that priests, bishops and seminarians are human beings just like them, men who have gone through all the same ups-and-downs of life and who were teenagers themselves once. It gives them the opportunity to experience the priesthood in a new way and discover, maybe, if God is calling them in that direction.”

Throughout the three days, speakers visit to talk not only about the priesthood but also about many other topics including religious life, marriage and dating. The young men grow in their faith by participating in Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Mass and Eucharistic Adoration. They also have plenty of free time to play sports, pool, foosball, capture the flag and more.

“I loved Holy Hour. I loved it. It was so beautiful,” Joaquin Sierra, a participant from the Church of Saint John in East Stroudsburg, said.

Sierra said he made several new friends attending Quo Vadis Days this summer and loved the fact that many of the priests and seminarians took the time to get to know each person individually.

“They really want to get to know you,” he explained.

Reflecting on his time at Quo Vadis Days, Sierra added he is considering speaking about his experience when he gets back to his parish in the Poconos.

“I think I’ll definitely be more thoughtful in everything that I do at home,” Sierra stated.

That is exactly what Father Roche is hoping that participants take away from their time together.

“I hope what they take away is a new passion for their faith, a new experience of Jesus Christ and the desire to carry whatever they receive here back into their parishes so that they can continue to grow with everything they’ve experienced here throughout the whole year,” Father Roche said.

Having just been ordained a Transitional Deacon for the Diocese of Scranton, Rev. Mr. William Asinari felt many of this year’s Quo Vadis Days participants were very receptive to listening to God’s voice as they discern vocational opportunities.

“God loves them and made each of them for a purpose,” Deacon Asinari said. “No matter what it is, it is going to be amazing and God will fulfill everything in them through what He calls out of them.”