The Tablet April 4, 2021
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN Jesus has risen, and the crowds are back in church!
A year after the COVID-19 pandemic closed churches, forcing Catholics to miss Easter Sunday Mass in person, the doors swung open this Easter, and parishioners came back in droves to worship together and share in the glory of the promise of the Resurrection.
Even with the 50-percent capacity limit on attendance at churches imposed by New York State as a COVID-19 precaution, churches around the diocese in Brooklyn and Queens reported large numbers of people in the pews on April 4.
“We had a full house at all of our Easter Masses, between 3,500 and 4,000 persons in total,” said Father Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez, the pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows in Corona.
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Siray, who has been living in Canmore since April 2018, was assigned to be the pastor of Our Lady of the Rockies, by Bishop William McGrattan.
âI was serving in a parish in N.W. Calgary and was very surprised to learn I was assigned to Canmore as I expected my predecessor, Father Wilbert Chin Jon, to complete the building of the new church,â Siray said. âFather Wilbert had been assigned to a new leadership in our diocese and there was need for a new pastor. Having grown up in Millarville, Alberta, in proximity to K-Country and the Rockies and having spent much of my childhood in the mountains hiking, climbing, snowboarding, etc., the chance to live in Canmore was an opportunity I was grateful to receive.â
Churches Urged to Apply for Federal Anti-Terror Funds as Hate Crimes Rise February 17, 2021
Retired Auxiliary Bishop Octavio Cisneros shows how thieves broke into the rectory at Holy Child Jesus Church in 2019. (Photo: Jorge I. Dominguez-Lopez)
WINDSOR TERRACE “Religion is a basic American value. But it is under attack. There is a rise in hate crimes,” Congresswoman Grace Meng told religious leaders at a grant workshop she hosted on Feb. 10.
Churches are eligible to receive U.S. government funds to beef up security measures under an anti-terror grant program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Meng, whose district includes Bayside, Flushing, Forest Hills, Maspeth, Glendale, and Middle Village, encouraged religious institutions and nonprofits to apply.
Raising a glass to St. Joseph January 23, 2021
Pope Francis announced the “Year of St. Joseph” on Dec. 8 to inspire believers of Christ across the globe to venerate the man who “accepted Mary unconditionally,” taught the value of “participating in the work of salvation” and was a tender earthly father to Jesus.
The God Squad Canada, a Catholic men’s society headquartered in Calgary, answered the call to honour the man who Pope Pius IX decreed in 1870 as patron of the Catholic Church by hosting a virtual fundraiser called A Dram for St. Joseph Jan. 16.
This online gathering, streamed on YouTube, featured musical performances from the St. Francis Xavier Chaplaincy choir and traditional Celtic music from Ireland while participants indulged in various brands of whiskey from the comfort of their own homes.
Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada paints a portrait of Williamsburg tradition and devotion that predates $30 brunches.
Lifeblood of the Parish is a detailed ethnographic account of Italian American Catholicism and masculinity at the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, called OLMC. Maldonado-Estrada, focusing on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Dance of the Giglio, gives readers a window into the world of male Catholic devotion in Brooklyn.
Through incredibly detailed imagery, accounts and reflections, we enter a community not just through a public-facing feast but also via planning committee meetings, church basements, money rooms, over-the-top costumes, tattoos and male kinships.