Mass Changes – Most Parishioners Cope with Change While Others Struggle with New Words

With the opening of the Advent season, English-speaking Catholics in the diocese and around the world experienced the arrival of the revised translation of the Roman Missal.  The updated translation, announced by Pope John Paul II during the Jubilee Year 2000, is a more literal rendition of the original Latin text. Local Catholics were largely […]

Calif. Diocese Will Buy The Crystal Cathedral

ORANGE, Calif. (CNS) – A bankruptcy court judge has ordered the sale of the Crystal Cathedral and its nearly 31-acre campus in Garden Grove to the Catholic Diocese of Orange for $57.5 million. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert N. Kwan’s Nov. 17 ruling confirmed a decision by the Crystal Cathedral Ministries board of directors to […]

No Soda, H2O Only At Queens School

by Marie Elena Giossi This Thanksgiving season, children at St. Margaret’s parish, Middle Village, have been learning an invaluable lesson – the power each person has to make a difference in the world. Almost 500 children in the parish school and religious education program are wrapping up a two-week H2O Project, organized by the parish’s […]

Church Finally Wins One in San Francisco

by George Raine SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) – A Superior Court judge Nov. 18 issued an opinion that would throw out an attempted multimillion-dollar “delinquent” tax bill imposed on the Archdiocese of San Francisco by the San Francisco assessor-recorder after a more than three-year legal fight. Judge Richard A. Kramer issued a 43-page “Tentative Statement of […]

Lighting Up the Season in Crown Heights

Massgoers at St. Gregory the Great Church, Crown Heights, clapped and sang as the parish gardens were illuminated with white and multi-colored lights to proclaim the start of Advent. Following the 5 p.m. Vigil Mass on Nov. 26, Father Lamartine Petit-Monsieur, assisted by Deacon Andres DeLeon II, began the lighting ceremony with a prayer. Head […]

Fast Learners in College Point

In 2009, St. Agnes Academic H.S., College Point, began a cross-country track program under the direction of Kimberly Daly, a guidance counselor at the school. Sister Joan Martin, O.P., principal, wanted to expand the inter-scholastic athletic opportunities for the girls. It began with a highly popular running club and has developed into one of the […]

Maronite Rector Named Monsignor

On Saturday, Dec. 3, Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral, Brooklyn Heights, will be the site of the elevation of its rector, Very Reverend James A. Root, to the rank of Periodeut with the title of Monsignor. Msgr. Root heard the surprise announcement at the Divine Liturgy concelebrated at the Cathedral by Patriarch Bechara Peter Rai […]

Cathedral Club Remembers Its Deceased

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio was the main celebrant of the annual Memorial Mass for deceased members of the Cathedral Club of Brooklyn on Nov. 19.  Above, at left, the bishop processes into Visitation Monastery, Bay Ridge. At right, he greets Massgoers following the liturgy.

Seminaries in U.S. Report Increase in Enrollments

by Nancy Frazier O’Brien WASHINGTON (CNS) – In his first months as rector of Theological College in Washington, Father Phillip J. Brown has been confronting a problem that the national diocesan seminary for the U.S. Catholic Church “has not had for a long time” – it is bursting at the seams. Enrollment is maxed out […]

Pope Will Use iPad to Light Christmas Tree

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – With a tap on an iPad, Pope Benedict XVI will light the world’s largest electronic Christmas tree in the Italian town of Gubbio without having to leave his home in Vatican City. The City of Gubbio and the Diocese of Gubbio announced at a news conference that the pope would light […]