Without certain special interest groups, some issues could slip through the crack of inattention. Thanks to the Becket Fund, the problems with the HHS mandate in the Obama Care package will not get past the view of the public. The folks at the Becket Fund understand that religious liberty is the first of all freedoms […]

Msgr. Joe Calise, the pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish, Williamsburg, correctly summed it up.  “If they had put it to a vote of the presbyterate, these guys would have been the first two choices,” he said. He was referring to the selection of our two new bishops-elect, Msgrs. Raymond Chappetto and Paul […]

News this week that the three metropolitan area dioceses will unite their priestly formation programs highlights yet another transformation for the diocesan center in Douglaston. Immaculate Conception Pastoral Center will be the site for the Cathedral Seminary House of Formation. This residential program for college men considering vocations to the priesthood is really a step […]

At the end of the Migration Day Mass last Sunday at St. Joseph’s Church on Pacific St. in Prospect Heights, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio announced that he has petitioned the Vatican to name the church as a Co-Cathedral for the Diocese of Brooklyn. In addition, he also challenged the various ethnic apostolates of Brooklyn and Queens […]

I drove to Philadelphia last week just to take a break for a few days.  Tolls on the way down came to $24.50.  Coming back, they amounted to $16.  That’s $40 for the right to travel from one city to another. While in the City of Brotherly Love, we stayed at a nice hotel with […]

Each year, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio celebrates the Easter Vigil in the parish where there are the most baptisms produced by the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program. This year, St. John Vianney in Flushing was the big winner with 60 new Catholics entering the Church. An additional 14 will be baptized on Pentecost […]

What a pleasure it was to once again sit down and chat with Mother Dolores Hart!  The occasion was her visit to Woodside where she was a guest speaker at the Communion-breakfast hosted by Corpus Christi parish. Several years ago, Father Frank Mann, my wife Sheila and I drove up to Bethlehem, Conn., where Mother […]

The separation of church and state is the most misunderstood issue in the country.  The founders of the nation wrote in the “separation” in order to protect religion. But today, the concept is being misinterpreted to disconnect the church from the public arena. That’s impossible to do, as Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio pointed out in his […]

You wonder why so many people have given up on politicians? The waste of time known as the Reproductive Health Act, which the state legislators are currently spending much too much time on, is a case in point. Instead of trying to figure how to cut spending, lower our taxes, and balance the debt in […]