On this special edition of Currents News, a focus on the people who are the pulse of their parishes:
In Bayside, Queens, Bishop Robert Brennan placed healing hands at a Mass for those battling cancer.
Bishop Brennan’s anointing of the sick was held on May 3rd at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church at a Mass in honor of St. Peregrine, the patron saint for those afflicted by cancer.
A relic of St. Peregrine, which consists of a piece of his bone, was available for veneration at the church.
Attendees were also encouraged to bring a picture of a loved one who died from cancer or is presently suffering from cancer who could not attend.
Those photos were placed on a remembrance board near the altar.
Disaster was averted in Los Angeles on Monday, after a good samaritan jumped into action to save a baby’s life.
Gusty high desert winds pushed a stroller with a baby inside outside a car wash, causing it to roll toward the street.
Ron Nessman was waiting on a bench outside the car wash when he saw a woman in her 60s fall down on the asphalt while trying to catch the runaway stroller.
“She sees the child going into the street,” Nessman said. “And that’s all she sees, she can’t do nothing.”
Nessman immediately came to the child’s rescue without a second thought, running over to intercept the stroller, to save the baby boy inside before he made it down the driveway and into the roadway filled with passing cars.
“I said, I got it. I saw her and I felt so bad for the lady you know,” Nessman said. “I couldn’t imagine. I have nephews and nieces and I couldn’t imagine something like that.”
Protesters hit the streets and subways of Manhattan on Wednesday after the death of a man in a subway car who was put in a choke hold by another rider.
A new experimental drug has shown promising results in a large clinical trial to help those with early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
The Swiss Guard will swear in 23 new recruits on Saturday at the Vatican.
The Swiss Guard is getting almost two dozen new members on Saturday.
The ceremony will kickoff with the brand new 23 new recruits of the Swiss Guard swearing allegiance to Pope Francis and his successors in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican.
They will officially become members of the world’s smallest army.
“Living service in a communal sense is also a challenge because it involves loving individuals with different personalities, temperaments and sensibilities, but find themselves walking a stretch of road together,” Pope Francis said.
The Swiss Guards’ daily tasks consist of protecting the Pope, securing access to the Vatican and the Apostolic Palace, as well as maintaining order during papal ceremonies.
These are duties they already perform before the swearing in ceremony.
It’s a long check list in order to join the swiss guard.
For Starters, a candidate has to be a single Swiss male, between 19-31 years old.
They must also be at least 5’ 7 inches tall, in good health and a practicing catholic.
Candidates should be able to complete basic training.
The new recruits are joining an army that goes back centuries.
The Swiss Guards were founded by Pope Julius II in 1506. The swearing in ceremony remembers the 147 Swiss Guards who died defending Pope Clement VII against an invading French army.
For the ceremony, the Guards will wear the Grand Gala, a uniform normally reserved for the “Urbi et Orbi” blessing, Christmas and Easter.
Protesters in New York City took to the subway on Wednesday, and demanded answers after the death of a subway rider who was put in a chokehold by another passenger.
The City’s Medical Examiner’s office ruled Jordan Neely’s death a homicide from compression of the neck, but so far no charges have been filed and the outrage is growing.
“Jordan Neely was murdered,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Wednesday. “But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It’s disgusting.”
Witnesses told police, Neely, 30, a subway performer and homeless man, was acting erratically on Monday, when he was restrained by other riders, including a U.S. Marine veteran who wrapped his arm around Neely’s neck, forming a chokehold.
Neely lost consciousness and died later at the hospital.
So far, the former marine has not been charged.
“Let’s let the DA conduct his investigation with the law enforcement officials,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “To really interfere with that is not the right thing to do and I’m going to be responsible, allow them to do their job, and allow them to determine exactly what happened here.”
Their journey began in Antarctica, bringing them to every continent across the globe.
Ellie Hamby and Dr. Sandy Hazelip took the world by storm, leaving their homes in Texas to set out on a mission to travel every hemisphere in just 80 days.
The dynamic granny-duo made a stop in Italy to visit the Vatican then set their sights
on Finland to be amazed by the Northern Lights.
The 81-year-old best friends were all smiles in Bali as their adventure then brought them to Asia and it didn’t stop there.
Hamby and Dr. Hazelip joined Currents News to discuss their world-traveling adventure.
He couldn’t see it yet – but he could smell it. The shocking discovery plays over and over in Father Frank Tumino’s head, a tabernacle holding the body of Christ – was gone.
“We believed that because it had been covered by a steel protector by a dome that was on it we’re safe we don’t have to worry about this, we were wrong,” he said.
Memorial Day weekend last year was the perfect opportunity everyone was out of the city – the tabernacle – worth millions. But that’s not what made it extraordinary. In an age old tradition, generations of parishioners at St. Augustine gave of their most valued jewelry, making up part of the tabernacles ornate façade, that’s where they thought it would be safest and enshrined forever – priceless.
“I think of the people over 100 years who thought that in their love for God that the best place for their family jewelry was in God’s house that how sad for them,” he said.
Nothing was left behind but shards of metal ground down to dust and chips of marble, no images, no frame of video. The criminals cut the internet to the church the week prior and when they left with the tabernacle – took the church’s DVRs with them. Fr. Tumino hasn’t yet cleaned up the debris – he and his church community are still grieving.
“I really wanted to respect the feeling that it was irreplaceable, we honor that sacrifice, we honor that wound by not just glossing over it, not sanitizing what happened,” said Fr. Tumino.
Fr. Tumino says the investigation is still ongoing, he gets regular updates from the police and hopes that the $50,000 reward might one day mean seeing the faces of the people responsible.
“Churches throughout history have been resilient and they’re only resilient because of our faith and one year later, we’ll get there.”
It’s been nearly a year and the tabernacle stolen from St Augustine’s Church in Park Slope is still missing.
Another busload of migrants arrived in New York City this morning from Texas.
A Utah judge blocked a ban on abortion clinics a day before it went into effect, in response to a Planned Parenthood complaint.
By Kimberley Heatherington
(OSV News) — In a bipartisan effort showing shared concern for animal welfare, Reps. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., and Ken Calvert, R-Calif., reintroduced the Companion Animal Release from Experiments (CARE) Act of 2023 in the U.S. House April 26.
The CARE Act drew praise from Catholic ethicists who noted how it reflects the Catholic Church’s biblically-based teaching to care for creation.
It requires facilities that both use research animals — dogs, cats and rabbits — and receive funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to plan for the animals’ future once they are no longer used in research. Under the CARE Act, the labs would need to design and implement adoption policies, and maintain public records of the animals.
“This is a straightforward, common sense bill: If you experiment on animals and receive funding from the NIH, you have to give them every chance to find loving homes where they can live out the rest of their lives,” Cárdenas, a member of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, said in a statement. “The least we can do is give these animals a chance at a happy, healthy life. Holding testing facilities accountable for finding animals homes is part of a larger effort to move away from animal-based testing and research wherever possible and toward more humane and sound scientific research.”
“While our first priority should always be to avoid the use of animals in taxpayer-funded research wherever possible, the CARE Act will ensure that any dogs, cats or rabbits used in NIH research studies are offered for adoption,” Calvert said in a statement. “I firmly believe that we must have research policies in place that protect animals as well as the taxpayer.”
According to Cruelty Free International, a London-based animal protection group founded in 1898 that campaigns for an end to all animal experimentation, “approximately 200,000 dogs, cats and rabbits are used in experiments in the United States each year. Even when animals survive an experiment, they may be killed and discarded if they are considered no longer useful to the laboratory.”
Fifteen states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington — have enacted laws for post-research cat and dog placement from publicly funded research institutions, but no national requirement exists.
The federal CARE Act “appropriately reflects the respect due to such animals, both because God has blessed them with awareness and subjectivity, and as a gesture of gratitude for the medical service they have provided us,” said Jesuit Father Christopher Steck, a professor of theology at Georgetown University and the author of “All God’s Animals: A Catholic Theological Framework for Animal Ethics.”
Father Steck told OSV News, “I am glad to see that the bill requires us to bestow on such animals a kindness that has been denied them during their time as subjects of experiments.”
Catholic moral theologian Charles Camosy, author of “For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action,” agreed.
“A Catholic vision of animals, one that is reflected even in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that animals — like all gifts from God through creation — do not ultimately belong to us,” said Camosy, who is professor of medical humanities at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska.
“Animals belong to God and we have a responsibility to show them kindness in ways which reflect God’s will for these creatures,” Camosy told OSV News. “It is also worth noting that Genesis 2 reveals God’s original intention for relationships between human beings and animals was related to the fact that ‘it is not good man should be alone.’”
Speaking of the accompaniment pets and other creatures can provide, Camosy observed that “animals are not our suitable partners — only another human being can be and do that — but in witnessing to the fullness of the kingdom of God, we would do well to do our best to see animals as our companions.”
With respect to the CARE Act, Camosy said, “It seems to be that adopting these animals would be a wonderful way to provide just such a witness to how human beings and animals will relate to each other when the kingdom comes in our fullness.” He added, “As the prophet Isaiah informs us: Lambs will be laying down with lions and babies will be hanging out with snakes.”