Deacon Jaime Varela is the driver for the Bishop of Brooklyn. His job title is Assistant to the Ordinary of the Diocese — in this case, the “ordinary” is Bishop Robert Brennan. It’s a job Deacon Varela loves.

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Deacon Jaime Varela is the driver for the Bishop of Brooklyn. His job title is Assistant to the Ordinary of the Diocese — in this case, the “ordinary” is Bishop Robert Brennan. It’s a job Deacon Varela loves.
The Sunset Park parish has the unusual status as a breeding ground for no fewer than five bishops currently serving in the Diocese of Brooklyn and three nearby dioceses.
Catholic Relief Services’ annual Lenten Rice Bowl program helps fund efforts to teach “best practices” for growing abundant, nutritious food for 159 million people in more than 100 countries. Last year’s donations were about 47 percent below normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but CRS leaders hope this year will be much better.
Bishop Caggiano made his remarks two days after the release of results of an independent investigation that identified 281 victims of abuse in the Diocese of Bridgeport over the diocese’s 65 years and found 71 priests who were credibly accused.
Bishops from the United States addressed the sex abuse scandal back home during a popular event in Panama aimed at American and other English-speaking World Youth Day pilgrims.
Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has become one of the most closely watched American prelates at a time when the Church in the United States is in full crisis mode, making it perhaps unsurprising that he was the first bishop to raise the issue of clerical sex abuse during this month’s Vatican summit on young people.
That was the message from Bridgeport Bishop Frank Caggiano as he addressed the annual Diocesan Diaconate Convocation in Douglaston. The April 15 meeting at the Immaculate Conception Center was a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the permanent diaconate to the Brooklyn Diocese and the 50th anniversary of the revival of the Order by the Second Vatican Council.
Brooklyn-born Bridgeport Bishop Frank Caggiano can say some very profound things in a very simple way. When he told the Diaconate Convocation in Douglaston last weekend that our permanent deacons were on the front line of the New Evangelization, his words sounded nice but they should have made every deacon in the chapel stop and think.
Twenty-five years ago, Wyn Powers felt inspired to “do something” to help end abortion. Her idea was simple: pray the Holy Rosary to promote respect for life, especially the unborn, and encourage others to do the same.
This week’s Tablet TALK highlights a novena to Our Lady of Velankanni, anniversary events in Astoria and Brooklyn, an upcoming event with Bishop Caggiano in Brooklyn and much more.