The national media converged on New Orleans Sept. 12, 1987, when Pope John Paul II — now a saint — became the first pontiff to visit the historic city at the edges of Louisiana’s bayous.
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The national media converged on New Orleans Sept. 12, 1987, when Pope John Paul II — now a saint — became the first pontiff to visit the historic city at the edges of Louisiana’s bayous.
Respect for human life — in all forms, and at all stages — underpins Catholic Church teachings regarding some of the world’s most polarizing issues: abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia.
Josephine Bakhita chose to love. She eventually reached Italy, where she won her freedom, embraced Catholicism, and became a nun. In 2000, she became Saint Josephine Bakhita.
Bishop Mroziewski, a native of Poland, helped organize the annual Polish Heritage Mass. He had attended Cardinal Wyszyński’s beatification Mass Sept. 12 at Warsaw’s Church of Divine Providence.
Auxiliary Bishop Witold Mroziewski of the Diocese of Brooklyn was among an estimated 8,000 people at the beatification Mass of Blessed Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński last month in Warsaw, Poland. Now, he said, Polish Catholics pray on the canonization to give the world “Saint Stefan Wyszyński.”
Jesuit priests may have educated the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro but, as a Communist dictator, he sought to separate people from religion — a grim legacy that Catholics still struggle to overcome.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the beatification in Poland for the late Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński. Still, Polish Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens maintain their support for the cardinal’s cause for sainthood.
Sandy Gross of Longmont, Colorado, believes there is redemption in suffering. She knows, having endured aggressive treatments in her nearly two-year fight with breast cancer.
Pope John Paul II established Pro Orantibus Day (“For Those Who Pray”) in 1997 as a way to provide spiritual and material support to “the church’s vanguard,” whose silent, separated life serves as “a leaven of renewal and of presence of the spirit of Christ in the world.