The conference provided an opportunity for Catholic schools in the Brooklyn Diocese to promote three of their attributes: They are affordable for many low-income families because of scholarships; they outperform public schools academically; and they teach faith-based values.
The vandalism, which caused more than $10,000 in damages, was part a spate of crimes at Catholic churches in northern Brooklyn and southern Queens this past summer, raising the already pressing issue of how churches in the all-urban Diocese of Brooklyn can protect their buildings and property.
“We started the event last year, on Sacred Heart’s 140th anniversary, to bring the school community and the parish together.”
Since the summer, Felix Lam has been collecting school supplies from donations at church and buying at local stores to send to two Catholic schools in Haiti. It was an idea developed after his Boy Scout troop began to work with Queens-based From Here to Haiti.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Academy students donate through Koinonia John the Baptist, an organization that sends funds and goods to needy communities around the globe. The school’s donations are routed through Koinonia’s Lourdes Mission, which is named after Our Lady of Lourdes.
Our Lady of Mercy Church, Forest Hills, marked its 90th anniversary with a Mass on Oct. 6. that was celebrated by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio.
With October as the month of the Holy Rosary, the faithful of St. Clare’s Church in Rosedale gathered to pray for healing, discernment and vocations, as cars and buses zoomed by.
It took more than nine months of planning, but for the first time, the “One Youth Rally” retreat on Oct. 5 brought together teens from the 10 different Queens parishes within Deanery 5 for a a variety of opportunities for the youth to grow in their faith.
After successfully batting cancer, Queens resident Leah Salmorin founded a dragonboat team for survivors of breast cancer.
“For a chaplain or priest to be there, it gives them some sense of peace and calm … and moments like this put us [chaplains] in a situation to exercise pastoral judgement. It’s about giving compassion, empathy and care. Bringing comfort to the family — that’s at the core of pastoral care, of what we do.”
