The visions of peace, equality, and love will resonate powerfully during the 2021 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, as the tumult of 2020 continues into the new year, said clergy and laity in the Diocese of Brooklyn. The annual MLK day prayer service is set for noon Jan. 18 at Our Lady of Victory Church, in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Several families of Coptic Catholics from Egypt have settled in Staten Island where they continue their pursuit of the Focolare movement, sharing the Gospel in Arabic and English, urging unity, and welcoming all.
The Test for Admission into Catholic High Schools (TACHS), which was administered online last month due to the pandemic, seemed to go off without a hitch. More than 10,000 eighth-graders from Catholic, public, and private schools in the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Archdiocese of New York, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre, took the exam this year.
Probably it should come as no surprise that reaction to the Nov. 25 U.S. Supreme Court decision granting an injunction against limits on public worship imposed by New York State was immediately swept up into the broader political fulcrum of 2020.
There is no doubt that this has been a difficult year for all of us due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the spirit of Christmas is alive and well! This joyous time of year gives us all a wonderful opportunity to count our blessings, and celebrate our faith, which we place in Jesus Christ.
The Diocese of Brooklyn has filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, asking that the highest court in the land agree to hear its case against Gov. Andrew Cuomo on First Amendment grounds. The diocese charged that imposing strict attendance — in some cases, as little as 10 people at the Mass — violates religious freedom.
Loretta Watz is an example of the kind of devout Catholic who is the backbone of the Diocese of Brooklyn — the parishioners who faithfully attend Mass every week. In Watz’s case, that would be St. Pancras Church.
It has been five months since George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis — a tragedy that unleashed massive protest demonstrations in cities across the country and ushered in a new era of racial reckoning in America.
Catholic voters choosing between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden on Election Day need to keep in mind the church’s teachings when they enter the voting booth, prominent figures in the Diocese of Brooklyn said.
Though the coronavirus pandemic forcibly canceled all large, outdoor events, the 39th Annual Great Irish Fair of New York continued virtually on Sept. 19. Maureen O’Malley-Byrnes, executive director of the Irish American Building Society, remained steadfast in ensuring the end-of- summer tradition would not be forgotten.
