Msgr. John Vesey is quick to laugh with everyone, but prompt to cry with the sick and suffering. Just ask the members of St. Michael’s Parish in Flushing, Queens, where he was pastor during the grim early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. They honored him recently with a special Mass.
Author: Bill Miller
Mother Cabrini Monument Procession Is A Victory Lap For Her Devotees
A few hundred Catholics from all over the Diocese of Brooklyn marched through Carroll Gardens Sunday, Oct. 3, expressing their devotion to the patron saint of immigrants, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. She began her U.S. ministry in that neighborhood more than 130 years ago.
Despite Changes Over 125 Years, Dunwoodie Seminarians Stay True to Calling
As St. Joseph’s Seminary & College celebrates its 125th anniversary, seminarians reflect on the vast differences between their experiences and those of their predecessors in the 1890s.
Catholic Teen from Brooklyn Identified 71 Years After MIA in Korean War
Raymond Smith, 18, became missing in action during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in December 1950. He is home now, after military forensic experts used DNA to identify his remains. His sister’s son said she was heartbroken for several decades over the loss, but now has closure.
Astoria Native Works ‘Overtime’ Taking Care of Business (Degree)
John Lenehan, now retired, first enrolled at Fordham University in 1956, but he never finished his degree because family and career took priority. But now he is re-enrolled at Fordham to finish up the last few credits he needs to graduate on May 21, 2022. He will be 88, and the oldest graduate ever at the university, officials there said.
St. Thomas Aquinas Pastor Credits Flatlands Parish for Food Pantry Accolade
Father Dwayne Davis said that if he is ever called upon to run a food distribution program again, he knows how to do it, and parishioners will make it happen.
From Season of Creation to Calls for Creative Ecological Plans
The annual Season of Creation traditionally ends on Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology. On that day, Catholics worldwide will start planning long-term strategies to reverse the consequences of climate change.
Opening Mass at Dunwoodie Celebrates 125th Anniversary
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio joined hundreds more for Mass celebrating the 125th year of St. Joseph’s Seminary & College at Dunwoodie, Yonkers. Auxiliary Bishop James Massa, the rector, said the hill-top campus is “merely a branch campus of the one that the Great Teacher founded back in Galilee, two millennia ago.”
Legion of Mary Celebrates 100 Years of Bringing Souls to Jesus
The Legion of Mary has been winning souls for Jesus, through his Blessed Mother, for 100 years. There are 1,251 “legionaries” and 1,910 auxiliary members in parishes throughout the Diocese of Brooklyn. An estimated 250 of them came to a Mass of Commemoration on Sept. 7 at St. Therese of Lisieux Parish in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Former Governor Pataki on Cuomo, Religious Freedom, and NY’s Need For a ‘Change in Direction’
George Pataki, former New York governor, made his personal “state-of-the-state” comments in the wake of Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as governor.