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Catholic News Headlines for Tuesday 6/9/26   

Today the Brooklyn Heights Promenade boasts one of the borough’s most iconic New York City views — but 250 years ago the area played a critical role in the largest battle of the Revolutionary War.

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States the country will be consecrated to the Sacred Heart during the U.S. Bishops’ spring meeting. We’ll tell you what that will mean for U.S. Catholics.

Pope Leo XIV is now in Barcelona, where he will celebrate Mass at the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia and inaugurate its newly built tower of Jesus Christ. The moment comes after 114 years of continued construction on the basilica designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudí.

A Catholic high school graduate from Long Island has his sights set on a career in sports but not in the way you’d imagine: he’s praying that his name joins a long list of great sportscasters.

Christ the King H.S. Hosts Watch Party to Celebrate Grad, Knicks Basketball Player Jose Alvarado in NBA Finals

By Currents News and Wandy Ortiz

Jose Alvarado, #5 on the New York Knicks, played on Christ the King High School’s basketball team from 2013-2017 under coach Joseph Arbitello.

The Queens Catholic school held a watch party for game 3 of the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden.

Coach Arbitello shares what maintaining that connection with Alvarado throughout his professional basketball career means to the Christ the King community.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: 6 Things You Need to Know Ahead of the U.S. Consecration

By Currents News and Tablet Staff

(OSV News) – As the U.S. bishop prepare to consecrate the United States to Jesus’ Sacred Heart June 11 during their spring meeting in Orlando, Florida, here are six things to know about devotion to the Sacred Heart.

1. The devotion has ancient roots. When the Roman soldier struck the crucified Jesus with his sword, blood and water flowed from his side. That blood and water have long been understood to symbolize an outpouring of God’s grace. Over the centuries, saints and theologians produced writings reflecting on the Sacred Heart, but it remained a personal devotion.

2. The devotion spread due to the visions of a young French nun. Beginning in 1673, Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque of the Visitation order at Paray-le-Monial, France, experienced a series of visions of Jesus over the span of 18 months. In those visions, Jesus displayed his Sacred Heart as a symbol of his love, and he told her to work to universalize devotion to his heart. These visions are the basis for the First Friday devotions and the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus we have today. The image of the Sacred Heart as a wounded heart afire, encircled by a crown of thorns and surmounted by a cross, also came from those revelations. St. Margaret Mary was canonized in 1920.

3. The devotion is rooted in prayer, liturgy and acts of reparation. St. Margaret Mary said Jesus told her that despite loving mankind so much that he gave his life for them, he was being treated with irreverence, coldness and ingratitude. He wanted the world to recognize the love he continually poured out for them symbolized by his Sacred Heart and for mankind to make amends for their ingratitude. Jesus urged St. Margaret Mary to begin a personal devotion to his divine heart by receiving holy Communion every first Friday and spending an hour in prayer the night before, both focused on seeking his pardon and making prayerful reparations for mankind’s desertion of his love.

RELATED: What Does It Mean for Bishops To Consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart?

4. The devotion includes 12 promises. Jesus shared with St. Margaret Mary 12 promises he pledged to those who developed and shared a devotion to his Sacred Heart. They are: I (Jesus) I will give them the graces necessary for their state of life; I will establish peace in their homes; I will comfort them in all their afflictions; I will be their strength in life and especially in death; I will bless their undertakings; sinners shall find in my heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy; tepid souls shall grow fervent; fervent souls shall quickly advance toward perfection; I will bless every place where an image of my heart is honored; I will give priests the gift of reaching even the most hardened hearts; those who promote this devotion will have their names written in my heart; those who receive Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays will receive the grace of final perseverance.”

5. Jesuits helped the devotion gain official approval. When St. Margaret Mary first attempted to explain the visions, many around her were skeptical. It was St. Claude de la Colombiere, her Jesuit spiritual adviser, who recognized her holiness, fervor and sincerity. However, even when she was believed, as a cloistered nun there was little she could do to foster her visions outside of her order. The devotion was also promoted by the non-Jesuit priest St. John Eudes, a former Oratorian who founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary and Sisters of Charity of the Refuge. Universal approval eventually came from the Vatican in August 1856 during the reign of Pope Pius IX. In 1899, Pope Leo XIII, encouraged by Catholics around the world, consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart. The Jesuit order officially decreed in 1883 that its members had a particular role in promoting Jesus’ Sacred Heart, and in 1915, it linked this work to the Apostleship of Prayer, now known as the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which is entrusted to the order.

6. The annual feast of the Sacred Heart occurs in June. The solemnity of the Sacred Heart falls on the third Friday following the feast of Pentecost, this year June 12. In one vision, Jesus asked St. Margaret Mary to establish a Church feast day to honor his Sacred Heart. On that day, those faithful to Jesus would attend Mass, receive holy Communion, profess their love and offer reparations for the way he had been insulted by mankind. A solemnity is the highest ranking feast on the Church calendar. The Church also dedicates First Fridays and the month of June to the Sacred Heart.

Pope Leo XIV Meets With Clergy Abuse Survivors in Madrid

By Currents News andJunno Arocho Esteves

(OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV met with several survivors of clergy sexual abuse in an hourlong meeting in which he listened to their experiences and their proposals on how the Catholic Church can promote safety and healing for survivors, the Vatican said.

According to a statement released by the Vatican press office June 8, six people who had been abused by members of the clergy, who were “accompanied by Church personnel engaged in working close with victims,” met with the pontiff.

“In the course of the conversation, which lasted nearly an hour, starting from their own painful personal experiences, each of those present offered the pope some proposals to make the Church’s response to such dramatic cases more effective,” the statement read.

The Vatican said Pope Leo “listened with affection and attention” and renewed his commitment “so that the proposals received may serve as a foundation for further efforts and the Church can truly be a safe and spiritually healthy place, where wounds find comfort and healing.”

Before meeting with the survivors, the pope met with the country’s bishops, calling on them to listen to those “who have been wounded precisely by those who were supposed to care for them, including members of the clergy.”

“Faced with this scourge, the ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care. Every wounded person must be able to find sincere listening, welcome, protection and real paths to healing,” the pope told the bishops.

RELATED: Pope Leo XIV’s Corpus Christi Mass and Procession in Madrid Draw 1.2 Million

Earlier in the day, during the pope’s visit to parliament, Francina Armengol Socias, president of the Congress of Deputies of Spain, called for further cooperation on concrete issues.

Among the many issues, she said, were the “specific tasks to which Your Holiness made reference, such as ‘the open wound’ represented by abuses in the Church and the reparation and compensation to curvivors, which has been discussed so much in Parliament following the rigorous report presented by the ombudsman.”

Armengol’s description of the abuse crisis as an “open wound” referred to a comment made by Pope Leo aboard the papal flight to Madrid June 6.

The government’s independent commission, led by Angel Gabilondo, Spain’s national ombudsman, revealed in a 700-page report, published in October 2023, that more than 200,000 minors have been abused by clergy since 1940.

It also stated that when accounting for abuses committed by lay members of the Church, the number of victims rose to 400,000.

While greeting journalists on a plane to Spain, the pope spoke briefly with Iñigo Dominguez, correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El País, and was given a USB drive containing six reports sent to the Vatican and Church officials in Spain featuring 800 testimonies.

According to El País, the files also included a list of 64 bishops and 26 religious superiors accused of concealing or covering up cases of abuse.

Dominguez also “conveyed the message from dozens of victims who have contacted the newspaper in recent days, urging him to address the scandal forcefully, as no pope has yet spoken about this scourge in Spain,” the newspaper said.

“I emphasize the fact that, not only I personally, in the places where I have been, I have always worked to establish norms, to follow them, and I will continue to do so at the level of the entire Church because it is still an open wound,” the pope told Dominguez.

In 2021, El País published the results of its three-year investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain and uncovered 251 unpublished cases of abuse dating back 80 years.

Since the publication of its report, the newspaper maintains a database of accusations of abuse which, as of June 8, revealed an estimated 3,109 victims abused by clergy.

RELATED: Spain Prepares To Welcome Pope Leo XIV

The abuse crisis gained significant attention in 2019 with the release of the Netflix documentary “Examination of Conscience,” which featured testimonies from survivors of abuse by members of the clergy.

Among the survivors featured in the documentary was Miguel Angel Hurtado, who shared his story of abuse by a Benedictine monk from Montserrat Abbey in Catalonia. Pope Leo is scheduled to visit the abbey June 10.

The Spanish survivor recently criticized the pope’s upcoming visit to Montserrat Abbey, which is connected to several abuse allegations, and said that he received no response from the Vatican after requesting an audience with the pope in April, Europa Press reported.

At a protest outside the Holy See’s nunciature in Madrid June 7, Hurtado said that Montserrat Abbey was “ground zero for clerical pedophilia in Catalonia” and that a visit from the pope would be “controversial.”

Hurtado also joined several abuse survivors organizations who gathered outside the nunciature June 8 during the pope’s private meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

According to El País, the organizations accused the Spanish bishops’ conference of not choosing survivors who have denounced the Catholic Church to meet with Pope Leo, and instead chose survivors who participated in Church abuse prevention programs.

Juan Cuatrecasas, president of the National Association of Stolen Childhood, said both the bishops’ conference and the Archdiocese of Madrid were attempting “to whitewash” their image and give the impression that they “are doing a great job with victims.”

Yago de la Cierva, layman and general coordinator of the pope’s visit on behalf of the Spanish bishops, told OSV News that criticism “is a blatant lie.”

“Survivors who met Pope Leo were chosen by the Archdiocese of Madrid, the interdiocesan center for the protection of minors and by the ombudsman himself,” de la Cierva said, mentioning the government representative who led the government’s investigation.

“Some of those that are protesting have already met the pope – Pope Francis – and are now aiming to represent all victims without their approval,” de la Cierva said, highlighting that a choice of victims who met the pope was an effort “coordinated with the government.”

“The pope never receives associations. He receives victims,” de la Cierva pointed out.

Following public outcry over the abuse revelations, a proposal was made and passed in 2022 by the Spanish Parliament to establish a government-led commission to investigate the Church’s handling of abuse allegations.

The Spanish bishops’ conference, which was initially hesitant to establish an independent commission, made an about-face in 2022 and hired a law firm to conduct a yearlong investigation into clerical sexual abuse in the country.

The findings of the Spanish bishops’ investigation, which were published in June 2023, found evidence of 728 abusers in the Church, according to the testimony of 927 victims.

An agreement between the Catholic Church and the Spanish government that would seek to provide reparations to survivors of clergy sexual abuse was signed in January.

The agreement, which was posted on the Spanish bishops’ conference website, establishes the creation of a system to provide reparations in cases where criminal action is no longer possible due to the statute of limitations or the death of the abuser.

Spain’s Justice Ministry and its national ombudsman will evaluate cases that qualify for reparations, which will then be passed on to the Church’s advisory commission. The commission will then agree or oppose the reparation proposal.

Chaminade Senior Earns Sports Broadcasting Scholarship

MINEOLA — For years, Thomas Gamba has been a familiar voice behind Chaminade High School athletics, providing play-by-play coverage for basketball, football, lacrosse and volleyball games.

That talent recently earned the senior national recognition when he attended the Sports Emmy Awards and received the $10,000 Jim McKay Memorial Scholarship, an honor awarded to students pursuing careers in sports broadcasting.

“It was incredible,” Gamba said. “Just seeing some of my idols there was just awesome. And for me to present two Emmys and be interviewed in front of everyone in that crowd was just an amazing moment.”

The scholarship is highly competitive, according to Gamba.

“When I spoke to some people with the selection committee, they said it was really competitive,” he said.

Patrick Reichart, head moderator of Chaminade’s sports media program, said Gamba’s broadcasting abilities were evident from the beginning.

“A freshman behind the microphone, he can be a little timid or overwhelmed,” Reichart said. “Thomas got behind the mic and started just delivering the most incredible ‘starting at guard.’ You would have thought you were in Madison Square Garden.”

Gamba said sports journalism became an unexpected path after he was cut from the school’s crew team during his freshman year.

“It’s been awesome,” he said. “I got cut from my crew team in my freshman year, and I thought it was over for me with sports. But to be able, like I said, to have an impact on fans and just to be integrated in the sports world here at Chaminade has really been awesome.”

As he prepares to leave behind his high school broadcasting career, Gamba credits his family, supporters and Catholic education for helping him reach this point.

“My family and just all my supporters. I wouldn’t be here without them, especially Chaminade,” he said. “I’m just so thankful for the infrastructure that Chaminade has put together with this sports media program.”

Gamba plans to attend Syracuse University in the fall, where he will continue pursuing a career in sports broadcasting.

‘Hard Guys Cry’: As Advocates Push for Faster Rikers Island Closure, Authors Speak on the State of Criminal Justice

By Currents News

Advocates are pushing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to speed up the closing of Rikers Island.

The prison complex is legally mandated to close by 2027, which experts worry will be unlikely because the four borough-based jails won’t be completed until the 2030s.

Advocates are looking to use funding for Rikers for prison diversion programs, alternatives to incarceration and community reentry efforts so the population at Rikers can drop low enough to allow closure by 2027.

Former NYPD Detective Jimmy Dennedy knows a lot about recidivism, reentry, remorse and reconciliation from both sides of the badge.

His story is told in the new book “Hard Guys Cry,” written by longtime Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vecchione

One passage from the book reads: “Jimmy’s weapons were his ears, his compassion, his humor, and his heart, as he ministered to the spiritual needs of men who were serving decades in prison, some without hope of ever returning to their families.”

Vecchione tells Currents News people need to hear the story because follow-ups are rarely given to those serving 30 years or life sentences, noting that they are human beings.

Recidivism rates in New York State stand at nearly 20 percent. When counting rearrests within two years, the rate is more than double that.

With measures such as the Second Look Act, which would allow judges to reevaluate cases where individuals have served at least 10 years or half their sentence, the push to close Rikers Island and legislation addressing disparities in healthcare for people reentering society, the message from the guests was clear.

“This is the criminal justice system at work,” one said. “Alternatives to incarceration work. I’ve seen it.”

Both Dennedy and Vecchione, lifelong Catholics educated in the Diocese of Brooklyn, said the book shows what it means to live out compassion for one’s neighbor.

A physical or digital copy of Michael Vecchione’s book, “Hard Guys Cry,” is available on Amazon.

Catholic News Headlines for Monday 6/8/26   

The Diocese of Brooklyn has ordained its newest – and youngest – priest. Father Paul Zwolak says ordination day is something he’d been praying for his whole life.

Hundreds of Catholics processed through the streets of Brooklyn and Queens for Corpus Christi Sunday, shutting down the streets of New York City as they walked with Christ.

Advocates for prison reform in New York City are pushing for Mayor Zohran Mamdani to speed up the closing of Rikers Island in Queens – they want the funding for the complex to be put towards prison diversion programs.

As the New York Knicks take the court at Madison Square Garden for Game 3 of the NBA Finals, they have divine support waiting for them in the wings: one Bishop from Long Island is hoping for “Knicks in 4.”

Hundreds of Catholics Process Through Brooklyn and Queens for Corpus Christi Sunday

By Currents News

Hundreds of Catholics processed through the streets of Brooklyn and Queens on Corpus Christi Sunday.

The faithful of St. Sebastian’s Church shut down the streets of Woodside as they walked with Christ in Queens.

In Brooklyn, about 575 people took part in a tri-parish procession.

They began their prayers with the Blessed Sacrament at St. Anselm Church before traveling to Our Lady of Angels and ending at St. Andrew the Apostle.

Pope Leo XIV’s Corpus Christi Mass and Procession in Madrid Draw 1.2 Million

by Courtney Mares, OSV News

MADRID (OSV News) — More than 1.2 million people filled the streets of Madrid as Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass and led a Eucharistic procession through the heart of the Spanish capital June 7 for the solemnity of Corpus Christi, the liturgical feast celebrating the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

“We are gathered around the Eucharist, the gift of Christ’s living presence among us. He who wished to offer us his life so that we might enter into communion with the Father and become his children, is here as the living Bread come down from heaven, to nourish us with the very life of God, with a love stronger than death,” Pope Leo said in his homily.

“Just as Christ gives himself as food in the Eucharistic celebration, the procession shows that he is not confined to the church, but comes out to meet us,” he added. “Jesus travels the streets, crosses the squares and visits our neighborhoods, dwelling in the settings of our daily lives.”

Eucharistic Grace To Transform People’s Lives 

The pope offered Mass in the Plaza de Cibeles, the city’s iconic neoclassical fountain square where several of Madrid’s grand avenues converge, before leading the Corpus Christi procession that wound nearly a mile and a half through streets adorned with elaborate floral carpets crafted by local artisans from more than 30,000 carnations.

Children who recently received the sacrament of First Communion scattered flower petals and religious sisters carried candles near the front of the long procession of priests and bishops, culminating with a golden canopy under which Pope Leo carried the large monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. People in the crowd knelt down and tossed flowers as the Eucharist passed by.

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on the power of Eucharistic grace to transform people’s lives.

“It is not merely a matter of bringing out the monstrance, but of allowing ourselves to be brought out of our selfishness and indifference, of a comfortable, private faith, so as to respond to his invitation to conversion, to change our perspective, and to welcome his presence which transforms us,” the pope said, telling Spaniards to live their faith courageously in the public square.

The task of Spain today and in the future, the pope said, is to “ensure that the religiosity which has shaped and defined this country for centuries is not a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today.”

In a country struggling with extreme political polarization and unhealed wounds of the Civil War, the pope said the living faith can transform society as “no one can kneel before the Lord” and at the same time “despise their brother.”

Catholic roots of Spain can be “a school” that “teaches us of the gratuitousness of love that becomes a gift, so that it may flow among us and break the chains of all selfishness,” and one “from which we learn that God is a real presence and that we too are called to be present in the realities and challenges of society, not shying away, but personally committing ourselves to the building of the common good.”

Silent Fidelity to the Eucharist

As Pope Leo passed by in the procession, he may have recognized one of the faces in the crowd.

Twenty-eight-year-old Erci Torres from Peru, was confirmed by Pope Leo when he served as her bishop at the Santa Rosa de Lima parish in Chiclayo. Today she lives in Madrid and was thrilled to see the pope again.

“It was a very unforgettable experience,” Torres told OSV News. “And to imagine that he is now the pope is incredible.”

During the Mass, Pope Leo invoked St. Manuel González García, an early 20th-century Spanish bishop who passionately urged people to recognize the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

RELATED: How Spain Got Ready To Welcome Pope Leo XIV

Today the saint is known as “the bishop of the abandoned tabernacle” because on his tomb in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Palencia Cathedral, it is written, “I ask to be buried next to a tabernacle, so that my bones after my death, like my tongue and my pen in life, may always be repeating to those who pass by: ‘Jesus is here! Jesus is here! Do not leave him abandoned!’”

Pope Leo said, “His life reminds us that the Eucharist should be honored not only during great celebrations or on special occasions, but also through the silent fidelity of those who accompany the Lord with a humble and quiet friendship that is nourished day by day.”

The pope also drew on the poetry of St. John of the Cross, who, while imprisoned in Toledo around the time of Corpus Christi in 1578, found the Lord in the darkness of his cell, which the pope described as “a presence from which emanates a light that never fades.”

Special Moment for Madrileños

Crowds lined the major avenues leading to the plaza for hours before the Mass began, with 2,300 Eucharistic ministers needed to distribute communion to the assembled faithful. About 400 musicians provided music for the liturgy, including an orchestral ensemble.

Among the crowd was the Adam family, eight siblings who waited together for hours to take part in the papal Mass. Seventeen-year-old Patricia Adam is the second oldest of the 8 siblings. Her older sister played violin in the orchestra for the papal Mass.

“For me, my Catholic faith is living a relationship with God and with Jesus in intimacy,” Adam said. “Being here with my family means a lot because it is not just a relationship one to one, but all together with God.”

Nearby 23-year-old Lucia waited with her four siblings and 17 cousins as they attended the Mass together.

“Faith has always been so important to me,” she said. “I have an aunt who is a nun. She is from the Missionaries of Charity. She’s my best example of faith.”

RELATED: Pope Leo XIV Leads Corpus Christi Procession Through Streets of Rome

The elaborate floral carpets lining the Calle de Alcalá were created by artisans from the Galician town of Ponteareas, working alongside more than 160 volunteers. The 16 large carpets depicting Eucharistic and Christian symbols lined the streets.

“The solemn processions held on this day have for centuries shaped the piety, art, music, architecture and life of the Spanish people,” Pope Leo said. “Even today, they still express and manifest the spiritual sentiments of this country through the beauty and elegance of the floral carpets, the altars erected in the streets, the carefully crafted monstrances and stands, the hymns and the liturgical vestments.”

For Spaniards, Corpus Christi remains one of the country’s most beloved public expressions of faith and an example of how deeply rooted popular piety remains in Spanish culture.

“This is not an exhibition,” the pope said. “It is a profession of faith in the presence of the risen Lord, who is alive and continues to walk among us, who becomes bread to satiate our hunger for life, and visits the recesses of our hearts and history, even those shrouded in darkness.”

“May the Lord Jesus, present in the Eucharist, transform you into bread that is broken, given, and