Mass Attendance by Haitian Parishioners in Brooklyn Drops Amid Immigration Concerns

By Katie Vasquez

For years, St. Jerome Church has been a safe haven for the Haitian people as a place to share their faith in their native language, Creole.

But the East Flatbush, Brooklyn pastor Father Hilaire Belizaire has noticed that even at the parish’s most popular Mass pews are becoming increasingly more empty.

“It draws 350, 400 people on a regular basis, but that Sunday after the executive order, we had only 260 people in church,” he tells Currents News, referring to U.S. president Donald Trump’s recent executive orders cracking down on immigration.

In one of his latest actions, the Trump administration rolled back an extension of Temporary Protective Status or TPS, for Haitians. The program allows immigrants to live and work legally in the country until is safe for them to return.

“They didn’t leave Haiti by choice, you know, but out of sheer necessity, seeking a place of refuge,” explains Father Belizaire, “a place and an opportunity to rebuild their lives.”

Hundreds of thousands of Haitians have been allowed to live in the U.S. through TPS after a devastating earthquake struck the country in 2010.

Now the neighborhood they have begun to call home, known as Little Haiti, is also desolate.

“This is always busy. A lot of people and a lot of merchants,” Father Belizaire has observed of the neighborhood he ministers in. “That’s where you come to get your Haitian products and things.”

There is concern as their time to stay in the country has been cut down, the deadline for their return moving from February 2026 to August 3rd, just months from now.

“They said to everybody to carry their ID or something like that,” St. Jerome parishioners Albert Jean-Baptiste tells Currents News. “So yes, they are afraid because they don’t have any papers.”

“They’re scared to go out. They’re scared to go to work, to send the children to school, you know that. They don’t know whether ICE is coming to pick them up,” adds fellow parishioner Anne-Marie Fils-Aime.

In the meantime, St. Jerome Church is hoping to continue to be a safe space for Haitian migrants in Brooklyn.

“Sometimes I speak to them. ‘Don’t be scared to come to church, God is always there for you,'” says Fils-Aime.

“I feel, as a pastor, very helpless, powerless,” says Father Belizaire, “I only can only pray that, again, justice, compassion, humanity will prevail.”

The parish has distributed flyers informing parishioners of their rights and continues to offer them spiritual guidance.

Catholic News Headlines for Thursday 2/20/2025

Immigration legislation in the U.S. has some Haitians who moved to the Diocese of Brooklyn nervous to go to Mass and anxious about the future.

The Vatican reports that Pope Francis is in stable condition and slightly improving as he receives hospital care for double pneumonia.

President Donald Trump is expanding access to in-vitro fertilization in the U.S. – Catholic bishops are condemning the executive order.

Pilgrims are preparing to journey over 3,000 miles for the 2025 Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Currents News shares the route they’ll travel come May.

Catholic News Headlines for Tuesday 2/18/2025

Students at St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy in Queens are bringing a Jubilee site to the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint is set to be canonized in April, and Currents News is counting down the days.

A doctor from the Catholic Medical Association explains the latest updates on Pope Francis’ health.

Meet the chaplain helping the St. John’s University men’s basketball team keep strong in their faith and on the court.

A Rock In the Storm: Athletics Chaplain a Blessing for St. John’s University Basketball Team

By Currents News

The St John’s University men’s basketball team has won more games this season than it has in some 25 seasons. Their Hall of Famer coach Rick Pitino has called the team’s hard work a blessing, one that’s possible thanks to their faith is moving them forward.

But even when the starting five of the St. John’s University men’s basketball team take the court, there’s still one key member of the Red Storm who ends up riding the bench.

At six-feet two inches tall, he is their rock – Father Richard Rock, that is. Players and students know him alike as the campus minister for athletics at the Queens Catholic university.

“He’s the joy of the team,” player Simeon Wilcher tells Currents News. “All the time he’s always the one to make sure that when you’re coming out of the game or even before a game that your spirits are up, that you’re happy and excited and just grateful that God is giving us another day to go out there and hoop.”

Before each basketball game at Carnesecca Arena on the SJU Queens campus he heads to the locker room, offering the players a moment of peace before the storm of competition.

“One of the things I always tell the athletes is that we are at our best when we’re thankful and you have to be thankful to God,” he tells Currents News. “Thankful for your team, thankful for your talents, and hopefully that’s going to help you do well.”

But Father Rock doesn’t just offer an assist before and during the game. On any given day the athletes can find him in his office, ready to lend an ear.

“We try to appreciate it. What do you need to grab on today? What happens if you get hurt? What are you looking forward to for the rest of your life? You need the values of the Catholic, the Vincentians community to try to help them to learn,” Father Rock explains. “They might not always get it now but the fact is, somewhere along the line, they do.”

He lets athletes know that with god as their center their faith can help them rise above the fear of failure and appreciate the satisfaction of success.

“They’re not looking for a whole lot of knowledge, they’re looking for people who really care about them,” Father Rock says of the students he engages with. “Because as I say, in their lives as athletes and students, there’s highlights and there’s lowlights, and there’s successes and failures, there’s good days and there are bad days.”

Even on those bad days, their rock is always on the bench.

TONIGHT AT 7: Catholic Academy Brings Jubilee Doors to Diocese of Brooklyn

By Currents News

For some students in the Diocese of Brooklyn, a Jubilee site that millions around the world travel to the Vatican to see is now right at their doorstep. St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy in Queens has recreated Rome’s Holy Doors, and reporter Jessica Easthope has the story from Maspeth.

Queens Couple Credits Faith for 62 Years of Wedded Bliss

by Katie Vasquez

Maria and Ernest Pospischil have traveled the world together.

“We’ve been to England, we’ve been to Portugal,” Ernest tells Currents News.

But their journey in love started in Manhattan, when they met at a popular dining and dance spot on June 19, 1961.

“The ladies asked the men to dance, rather than reverse,” Ernest recalls.

“And I chose him and that was, you know, love at first sight,” his wife Maria says of that night.

The Queens couple would get married two years later at Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria, Queens. From the moment they said “I do,” they knew they would be on an adventure together, forever.

“We are one. We are not two anymore,” Maria tells Currents News. “We become one, and that is so important that you carry that through your life.”

The pair, who both grew up in traditional Catholic families from different parts of Europe, say it was God who has fueled their lives and their love.

To this day, they attend Mass six days a week at St. Matthias Church in Ridgewood, Queens.

“When you’re married, you’re supposed to help each other to get to heaven,” Ernest explains.

“So, that’s what we try to do,” agrees Maria.

Although they have had their share of bad days, they always remember the good traits in each other.

“He likes to listen to me,” says Maria.

“When they made Maria, they threw away the mold,” says Earnest.

62 years later with one child, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, they still keep the spark alive.

“We always, always trusted each other,” explains Maria, “and we trusted in God and that, I think, is so important.”

“I was just totally convinced that this was what was meant to be. And I couldn’t be happier,” adds Earnest.

They hope to keep exploring the world, together and happily in love.

Catholic News Headlines for Friday 2/14/2025

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’ll introduce you to a Queens Catholic couple who is sharing the secret to staying in love for over 60 years.

Pope Francis is in the hospital for his ongoing bronchitis.

Presidents’ Day is coming up – Currents News takes a look back at all the historic meetings that have occurred between presidents and popes.

Faith Stitched Together: Queens Ministry Creates Prayer Shawls for Charity

By Currents News

Currents News first introduced you to this group as part of our series “Pulse of the Parish,” but now a group of women who put prayer in every stitch of the shawls they make at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Queens Village, New York, have added to their rows.

The ministry tells Currents News they gained new members after the news report aired in May of 2024.

The group has been hand-making the beautiful items for over 25 years and giving them away at no cost to those in need of comfort and solace, or to those celebrating life’s joys like the birth of a new baby.

Members who make the shawls pray for recipients before starting each stitch, and they say it’s nice to think of where the shawls will end up.

“People are very happy to get a visit and to get the prayer shawl because some of them are elderly and they’re sick, and they’re just happy to have the prayers,” Rita Watson, a member of the group, tells Currents News.

“They send nice, beautiful letters thanking us for the prayer shawl,” explains ministry member Carol Washington. “And that thrills me, I guess. But it’s fulfilling work and it makes somebody happy, makes me happy.”

“The ones that are in nursing homes and places like that, to get a gift like that, it’s just wonderful,” adds member Clare Glennon. “All the work that goes into it, and the people are happy to do it, and they’re just so happy that they have one.”

The pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes, Father Patrick Longalong, blesses the shawls before they’re gifted.

To keep the ministry going, around Christmas time they sell handmade items to help buy their yarn for the year.

Catholic News Headlines for Thursday 2/13/2025

In Bushwick, Brooklyn, one priest is sticking to his decades-long promise of helping migrants, no matter who they are.

The Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle Sassoon, stepped down on Thursday instead of obeying a Department of Justice order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. This, as Adams meets with President Trump’s border czar at the city’s ICE headquarters.

The Anne Frank House exhibition in Manhattan was scheduled run for a limited time, but now visitors will be able to get tickets well into 2025.

Brooklyn Priest on a Mission To Help the Newly Arrived

By Katie Vasquez

The sidewalk outside District Three Youth and Adults, Inc. is empty, a different scene from a few weeks ago.

“We had lines, long lines that now they’re scared. They’re scared to come out. They don’t know what’s going to happen,” Monsignor James Kelly, an attorney at the Brooklyn organization, tells Currents News.

Responding to the panic from President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders and directives on migration, Monsignor James Kelly and the staff at his Wyckoff Avenue office are doing what they can to help the 50 to 100 people that still show up every day hoping to live and work in New York legally. Monsignor Kelly offers them a deep discount on legal assistance without any funding, because he understands their plight as a former new arrival from Ireland.

“As an immigrant myself, I appreciate the difficulties,” he explains.

The 87-year-old retired priest doesn’t go to court anymore, but he’s well known in Bushwick, where he’s been working with immigrants since before he got his law degree.

“I couldn’t do anything for them because I couldn’t go to court,” he says of that time in his life.

Once he got his degree from St. John’s University in 1980, he was inundated with requests from families looking to become U.S. citizens.

“I started off with Italian immigrants. They were easy. We made hundreds of them citizens very, very easy,” he recalls.

Richard Reinoso’s family was helped by Monsignor Kelly 20 years ago.

Now as a legal counselor at his office, Richard understands the power of having a priest in your corner.

“It’s that trust through the Catholic church that most of the Latino community, most of the immigrant community, most of the Catholic community has that really helps us file,” he tells Currents News. “Not only my family, but those around us, because people trust Father.”

Monsignor Kelly has physically slowed down over the years as he’s struggled with health issues, but mentally he’s just as strong, still coming into the office six days a week.

Richard is hoping to get his law degree so he can take over.

“We hope and pray every day that he lives until 150,” Richard says. “but he’s at least helping me in the ropes, coaching us from behind so that we may be the next generation to carry his torch for him.”

Despite all the challenges ahead, Monsignor Kelly says he will continue to fight the good fight.

“Keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best,” is what he’s doing.

For more information on their services, you can email: [email protected] or visit their office at 265 Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick Brooklyn, 11237.

You can also help Monsignor support migrants by mailing a check or money order to that address, making the check out to “District Three Youth and Adults, Inc.”