Editor Emeritus of The Tablet, Ed Wilkinson, joins Currents News to discuss his new book “Chasing Church News” and The Tablet’s new membership program that supports Catholic journalism in Brooklyn and beyond.
To become a member visit: https://thetablet.org/become-a-member/
By Jessica Easthope
Since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria in the early morning hours of February 6, the Turkish Cultural Center has been collecting.
Thousands of items from diapers and baby food to blankets and clothes, a full flight’s worth of cargo airlifting the supplies from Newark International Airport to Turkey every day through the Embrace Relief Campaign, now they’re sending a ninth and final shipment.
“Those are our people, those are our friends and family members, when we started to see the pictures and videos from the drones we realized maybe this was the largest one,” said Jackson Guven, the coordinator of the Brooklyn Turkish community’s donation and fundraising efforts.
They asked people to bring supplies to the Brooklyn Amity School in Sheepshead Bay until Turkey said they had enough. Jackson said people of all ethnicities and faiths have supported their mission.
“It gives me hope that being united is the strongest thing in our community, we’ve tried to build bridges between communities and I saw a lot during this disaster that they opened their hearts I believe,” he said.
The lobby of the school has been a central location but principal, Adam Olimi says money and supplies have come from all over thanks to the power of social media.
“There are a lot of people on social media today and I think it’s one of the greatest things we can do, it’s fast, easy access, less resources used and of course that was the first thing we’ve done was share the link on our social media account,” he said.
Now Jackson says the Turkish community is looking toward achieving a long-term goal; getting the country’s authorities to ensure the surviving buildings and new construction can withstand another quake.
“We are looking to the future now and we are trying to encourage our people in Turkey and the authorities to bring that proof and agreements to the buildings for the people’s safety,” he said. “I hope the authorities learned a lesson from this disaster.”
By Kate Scanlon
WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The FBI is facing scrutiny after a leaked memo suggested some “radical traditionalist” Catholics pose threats of racial or ethnically motivated violence. The memo has since been retracted by the bureau, a spokesperson told OSV News.
In a leaked memo dated Jan. 23, an analyst at the FBI’s Richmond Division said “Radical Traditionalist Catholics” are “typically characterized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council.” The memo said the ideology can amount to an “adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.” The memo also names far-right personality Nick Fuentes, who publicly self-identifies as Catholic and whom the memo says has ties to “white Christian nationalism.”
However, the memo distinguishes “radical traditionalist” Catholics as “separate and distinct” from “traditionalist Catholics,” Catholics who “simply prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings.”
Nevertheless, the leaked FBI memo generated everything from unease over its contents to outrage from some quarters alleging the FBI was labeling all Catholics a threat.
Rick Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News that although the FBI retracted the memo, “that it was ever composed is troubling.”
“While it probably does not violate America’s religious freedom laws for a law enforcement agency to discuss threats in particular communities, the memo echoes an ugly, and long-standing, tendency in the United States of seeing Catholics as somehow disloyal or particularly problematic,” Garnett said.
Robert A. Destro, a professor of law at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, told OSV News the FBI’s memo overstepped the agency’s realm of authority.
If the FBI had evidence of criminal conduct from a member of one of the groups, Destro said, “then it seems to me they should do exactly what they would do in a criminal case, which is they would get a warrant to wiretap them, maybe search their house.”
Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, expressed alarm at the memo’s contents.
“People of all faith groups have long found refuge in the constitutional protections of our great nation,” Bishop Knestout said in a statement. “We all seek to share in God’s gift of life, enjoy the fruits of liberty that our nation offers and assist one another in ensuring the common good.”
Bishop Knestout noted in his statement that some of the groups named in the memo are not in full communion with the church, adding, “If evidence of extremism exists, it should be rooted out, but not at the expense of religious freedom.”
“A preference for traditional forms of worship and holding closely to the Church’s teachings on marriage, family, human sexuality, and the dignity of the human person does not equate with extremism,” he said.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, alongside attorneys general from 19 other states, sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland condemning the memo as “anti-Catholic.”
Miyares said in a statement that “Virginia is the birthplace of religious freedom and has a long history of protecting the inalienable right to live your faith free from government interference or intimidation.”
“The leaked memo from our state capital’s FBI office is unacceptable, unconstitutional, and un-American. Frankly, it’s what I would expect from Communist Cuba,” Miyares said. “As attorney general, I’m responsible for defending Virginians’ rights, and religious freedom is the bedrock of the constitutions of the United States and of Virginia. Virginians should not and will not be labeled ‘violent extremists’ by their government because of how they worship, or because of their beliefs.”
The same FBI memo noted that “conversely, deep-seated anti-Catholicism remains a characteristic of many far-right white nationalists.”
A cited source in the FBI memo is the the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that monitors “hate groups” but has faced criticism from some who say the group too widely applies that label.
Cassie Miller, senior research analyst with center’s Intelligence Project, told OSV News in an email, “There is a stark difference between traditionalist Catholics — who celebrate the Latin Mass and rebuff many of the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council — and the radical traditionalist Catholics tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
“The latter group is made up of a handful of organizations that not only reject many of the modern Catholic Church’s teachings and practices, but openly embrace antisemitism,” Miller said. “The radical traditionalist Catholics groups we identify as hate groups promote Holocaust denial and argue that the reforms of Vatican II were part of a sinister Jewish plot, in addition to other racist, bigoted, and conspiratorial beliefs. These are groups that teach hatred of people based on their religious beliefs, and for that reason we consider them hate groups.”
SPLC in 2021 identified nine organizations as “radical traditional Catholicism hate groups,” including the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary located in Richmond, New Hampshire, which is not canonically recognized by the Catholic Church.
On its website, SPLC says “(r)adical traditionalist” Catholics “subscribe to an ideology that is rejected by the Vatican and some 70 million mainstream American Catholics” and “may make up the largest single group of serious antisemites in America.”
A spokesperson for the FBI said in a statement provided to OSV News, “While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, this particular field office product — disseminated only within the FBI — regarding racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI.”
“Upon learning of the document, FBI Headquarters quickly began taking action to remove the document from FBI systems and conduct a review of the basis for the document,” the statement said. “The FBI is committed to sound analytic tradecraft and to investigating and preventing acts of violence and other crimes while upholding the constitutional rights of all Americans and will never conduct investigative activities or open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity.”
Several organizations in Brooklyn are collecting money, baby formula, diapers, and other necessities for earthquake victims.
The man who went on a deadly driving rampage through Brooklyn in a U-Haul truck will make his first court appearance today.
A vigil was held last night for one of the victims in the mass shooting at Michigan State University.
Bishop Robert Brennan, along with several others attended a dinner celebrating 123 years of the Cathedral Club.
It’s one of the most prestigious groups in the Diocese of Brooklyn. The dinner helps raise money in support of Catholic education. The lay organization has promoted the Catholic faith and provided students with scholarships for over a century.
Despite all the great work the group has already done, Bishop Brennan believes there’s a lot more potential.
(OSV News) — Michael Cook was away from the Catholic Church for a while, but around 2017, he was “amazingly pulled back in.” Not coincidentally, that was the same year that fellow native Oklahoman Father Stanley Rother — the first U.S.-born martyr formally recognized by the church — was beatified.
“I would definitely put some credit for him helping me come back to the church, 100%,” said Cook, 37, who attends St. John Nepomuk Parish in Yukon, Oklahoma. “I just was led. I think I had someone helping me realize where I needed to be.”
Now Cook has organized a walking pilgrimage from Okarche, Blessed Stanley’s hometown, to the new Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in south Oklahoma City. The group will begin walking Feb. 15 and arrive in time to attend the shrine’s dedication Feb. 17.
Stanley Rother (pronounced ROW-ther) was born in 1935, grew up on a farm and attended Holy Trinity Church and School in Okarche. After discerning a call to the priesthood, he flunked out of the seminary because he struggled with Latin. The bishop of Oklahoma at the time, Bishop Victor Reed, gave him another chance and sent him to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He was ordained May 25, 1963.
Leif Arvidson, executive director of the shrine, said he hoped pilgrims would be inspired by Blessed Stanley’s faithfulness to God’s calling in his life.
“He felt called to the priesthood, so even when he was told he wasn’t cut out for seminary studies, he found a way to press on because he really felt called,” Arvidson told OSV News.
After several parish assignments, Father Rother accepted a missionary assignment to Guatemala, serving in the mission of Santiago Atitlán. Although he struggled with Latin, he would go on to be proficient in the Tz’utujil language used by the Indigenous people he served, even helping translate the New Testament into the language. The people called him “Padre Apla’s,” or “Father Francis” for his middle name in their native tongue.
Because of his work to improve the lives of the people he served, he was labeled an enemy of the state.
“Shaking hands with an Indian has become a political act,” he once wrote. With a price on his head, he returned to Oklahoma but wanted to return to serve his people, famously writing, “The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger.” Father Rother returned to Guatemala despite repeated warnings not to do so.
“This shrine is dedicated to a faithful man, an average, ordinary man who chose to love Jesus as a missionary priest, and he did so with his whole being. That’s what we are called to do, to live fully and genuinely the life God gave us,” reflected María Ruiz Scaperlanda, author of “The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run: Blessed Stanley Rother, Martyr from Oklahoma.”
“Father Stan, the shepherd who chose to face death rather than abandon his flock — the shepherd who didn’t run — continues to model for us how to make a difference in our world,” she continued.
He visited Oklahoma one last time to serve at the ordination of his cousin, Father Don Wolf, who is now the rector of the shrine, then returned to his mission.
On July 28, 1981, three assassins broke into the rectory in Santiago Atitlán and shot and killed Blessed Stanley. He put up a fight, but chose to do so quietly so as not to wake up sisters on the property and endanger their lives. He was one of 10 priests murdered in Guatemala that year. He was buried in Oklahoma, but his heart and a jar of his blood remain in Guatemala.
“We told him, ‘Father, if they come, yell, and we’ll come and defend you.’ But he said, ‘I’m not going to yell because if they kill me, they’ll kill all of you, too,’” said Sister Felisa Muxtaytum, a Missionary Sister of the Sacred Heart of Jesus who lived in Santiago Atitlán at the time. “I pray to Father Apla’s that there are more vocations and missionaries like him, because he wanted to be with a very poor people, materially and spiritually,” she told OSV News in Spanish.
Cook named the pilgrimage walk after Blessed Stanley, calling it the “Fearless Shepherd Pilgrimage.” Participants range in age from 22 to 70. One was flying in from Washington for the last leg of the walk, and another isn’t even Catholic.
“For someone to show love and how much passion he has for not just Jesus but for his people that were there in Guatemala, and going back knowing the risk he was taking to make sure he was there with the people who loved him, I think in my life, what can I do to not be scared?” Cook said.
At least 37 bishops have confirmed they will be present at the shrine’s dedication, including Archbishop Gonzalo de Villa Vásquez of Guatemala City. The archbishop also will offer a Mass for the Guatemalan community in Spanish Feb. 19. The dedication liturgy itself will be trilingual, with English, Spanish and some Vietnamese.
The shrine also has drawn the attention of the greater Oklahoma community. Arvidson said representatives from the city’s convention center and visitor’s bureau have expressed excitement about how it will highlight the city. Gov. Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt are scheduled to attend.
“He’s a hero for all Oklahomans,” Arvidson said. “It’s a sign of the Catholic community’s growth and continued expansion in the area that I believe will continue to expand over the coming decades.”
While most American saints have come from large Catholic strongholds, Scaperlanda noted that Blessed Stanley coming from the American heartland shows us that holiness can come from anywhere.
“Having a shrine named after a farmer from Okarche, Oklahoma, reminds all of us that God can do great things with ordinary people, people like us,” she said. “The Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine reminds us that we are all called to holiness — and that we need saints who are local, who come from ordinary places like Okarche and Santiago Atitlán. Their witness strengthens us, and it surely strengthens the church universal.”
The shrine itself is modeled on a Spanish colonial style, echoing the Santiago Atitlán mission. It will hold 1,800 people.
Blessed Stanley’s body will be moved from Resurrection Cemetery Feb. 12 and placed in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cathedral — where he was ordained — for an overnight vigil, allowing people to venerate him. The next day, his body will be transferred to a small chapel in the shrine as his permanent resting place.
On the shrine’s campus sits Tepeyac Hill, a replica of the famed hill where Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to St. Juan Diego in 1531. Atop the hill stands a statue of Our Lady and Juan Diego. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City blessed the hill and statues Dec. 11 of last year, on the vigil of the feast.
By Jessica Easthope and Joseph De La Cruz
Police charged an apparently distressed man with one count of second-degree murder, and seven counts of attempted murder, the day after he allegedly drove a U-Haul box truck into nine people, killing one of them, on Monday, Feb. 13.
Law enforcement officials say Weng Sor, 62, went on a vehicular rampage across three Brooklyn neighborhoods that lasted more than an hour, hitting multiple victims, including one police officer, with the rented truck.
“We believe Mr. Sor was suffering from a mental health crisis,” NYPD Chief James Essig said at a press conference on Tuesday. “At this time there is no nexus [linking the incident] to terrorism.”
Essig said the suspect may have been triggered by a delusional episode he had while operating his vehicle.
“He states when he’s driving his van, he sees an invisible object come towards the car. And at that point he says, ‘I’ve had enough.’ And he goes on his rampage.”
Authorities said Sor told police “you should have shot me,” after he was placed under arrest.
Police refused to say whether Sor was on any medication during the ordeal but did say family members confirmed he was in fact off of his medication.
Sor began his path of destruction at 10:20 a.m., hitting one victim on his bicycle in the Sunset Park neighborhood and taking off, according to police. He then drove south through the nearby neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights before making a U-turn and heading north via the Gowanus Expressway.
He was finally boxed in by NYPD vehicles on Hamilton Avenue and Columbia Street near the the entrance to the Battery Park Tunnel.
One victim, a 44 year-old man whose name police did not release during a press conference on Tuesday, succumbed to his injuries after he was mowed down by Sor while riding his bike on Bay Ridge Parkway at Fifth Avenue. Another victim remains in critical but stable condition at the NYU Langone Medical Center in Brooklyn.
The injuries sustained by the remaining victims include broken bones, cuts and bruises, with the police officer suffering an injury to one of his legs.
Sor is originally from the Las Vegas, Nevada area where he has a lengthy rap sheet that includes several battery charges, including two for battery with a deadly weapon in 2017 and 2020.
He was also arrested on February 5th, a week before, in South Carolina while on transit to New York for reckless driving and marijuana possession.
Police believe he came to Brooklyn to visit his estranged wife and son, who live within the vicinity of the area where the carnage took place, after renting his U-Haul vehicle from Florida for a month.
PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Unimaginable images of a father holding onto his teenage daughter’s hand as she lay dead under a collapsed building and babies being pulled from the rubble of an earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6 hit especially close to home for families in Brooklyn and Queens with relatives in the ravaged region.
The original earthquake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, was followed by another tremor of almost equal magnitude and resulted in at least 145 recorded aftershocks.
With a death toll of more than 36,000 and rising, local parishes have issued pleas to their parishioners to help aid relief efforts. Among the Turkish areas with the most casualties are Hatay, Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, and Adiyaman. In Syria, the most casualties were reported in the provinces of Aleppo, Hama, and the western coastal seaport city of Latakia.
The once thriving city of Aleppo has endured more than a decade of suffering from a civil war raging between government-controlled areas and rebel-held towns, not to mention a recent cholera outbreak.
The Church of the Virgin Mary, a Melkite Catholic parish in Park Slope, has many families from Aleppo in its congregation, according to the church’s pastor, Father Antoine Rizk.
“Many of our parishioners have families in Aleppo, and the country was already facing the tragedies of war,” said Father Rizk. “It badly affected our parishioners here, with many of them in a state of panic, wondering how their families are surviving in Aleppo.”
Father Rizk said those families are being offered spiritual consolation and a measure of hope along with financial assistance from his congregation. He added that their foremost thought is how to take care of their families as they struggle through the aftermath of the earthquake. He specifically mentioned prayers for Father Imad Daher, a Melkite Catholic priest who was killed in the quake, and for a parishioner from the Syrian border city of Qamishli, who is still awaiting word about the fate of her parents.
Father Thomas Zain, pastor at St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights, called the devastation heartbreaking.
“We’ve heard from our Patriarch John X, who is the patriarch of Antioch and all the east, where the majority of the devastation happened,” Father Zain said. “And the devastation is just unbearable, with so many buildings, churches, and mosques having been destroyed as the toll of people killed or trapped under buildings rises by the hour.”
All Catholic and Orthodox Churches have united to issue a joint statement, signed by the three patriarchs of the region: Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Youssef I, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II, and Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X, demanding that the U.N. lift sanctions so humanitarian aid can be delivered.
“I have a parishioner who is from Antioch whose mother and sister are buried under the rubble of their building,” said Father Zain. “He heard reports that his sister was crying out for help, but no sounds from the mother.”
He added that he has been told that 20% of the Christians in Antioch had perished in the earthquake.
Father Michael Ellias, pastor of St. Mary’s Antiochian Orthodox Church in Bay Ridge, said that his parish has many parishioners with families living in Syria. The tragic effects of the earthquake were especially brutal, he noted, because “it struck [a war-torn] area that is not under the control of the Syrian government but rather under the so-called rebel control.”
“In fact, the area it struck was Antioch itself, the original biblical Antioch where the disciples were first called Christians in the Book of Acts,” Father Ellias explained. “We will pray for those people continuously so that we can support their relief and recovery.”
Father Khader Khalilia, pastor at Redeemer St. John’s Lutheran Church in Dyker Heights, also emphasized the need for immediate relief to the region and echoed the call for sanctions to be lifted to allow humanitarian aid to reach those who need it.
“We have parishioners who still do not know if their families are alive or not. Some of them had their homes destroyed and are currently displaced. Some are awaiting word of their relatives who are under the ruins and still not accounted for,” Father Khalilia said.
Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, explained that the church has three Maronite bishops in the region, one in Damascus, whose residence sustained structural damage, another in Latakia, and the third in Aleppo.
Bishop Mansour, who also serves as pastor at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church in Brooklyn, added that the Diocese of Brooklyn has always been the first to serve the poor and emphasized that 10% of the Syrian population is Christian and must not be forgotten.
John Abi-Habib, who serves as honorary consul of Lebanon from New Jersey, said his family in Lebanon felt the magnitude of the earthquake’s aftershock.
Abi-Habib, who officially speaks on behalf of the Lebanese government and is a parishioner at Our Lady of Lebanon added that the Salaam Club of New York has already taken up collections from its members, many of whom have family living in Syria. He said this united effort on behalf of all the churches is a testament to the Christian faith and the true meaning of evangelization in a time of need.
“This is a prime example of the good work that the Catholic Church and the other churches do,” he said. “While people sometimes focus more on the bad publicity, this is a perfect example of the millions of people the Church helps daily through its many organizations and charities.
“Whenever there is a need, the Church is always there.”
We’re learning more about the man who ran over several people with a U-Haul truck yesterday in Brooklyn.
Police are trying to figure out why a gunman opened fire on students at Michigan State University last night.
An update on the rescue and recovery efforts happening after the Turkey – Syria earthquake.
By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Just days after Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Pope Francis expressed concern over his condition.
After praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square Feb. 12, the pope said he was “pained” by the news coming out of Nicaragua and recalled “with concern” the situation of Bishop Álvarez, who had been arrested in August by the regime of President Daniel Ortega; the bishop was sentenced Feb. 10 and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship.
Pope Francis prayed for Mary’s intercession to open the hearts of the “responsible politicians and all citizens” to the pursuit of peace, which he said is achieved through the “patient exercise of dialogue.”
Bishop Álvarez played an important role in mediation efforts between the Nicaraguan government and protesters in 2018 following waves of civil unrest which killed more than 360 people. Ortega, who has been in power since 2007, has since accused the bishop and the church of attempting to overthrow him.
In his comments the pope also noted the 222 political prisoners deported from Nicaragua to the United States Feb. 9, a group which included five priests, a deacon, two seminarians and two media professionals employed by the Diocese of Matagalpa. Bishop Álvarez was on the list of deportees to be sent to the United States but refused to leave Nicaragua.
Those who did go to the United States were stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship and were given a two-year humanitarian visa by the U.S. government. Spain has offered to give them citizenship.
One day after the deportees reached the United States, Bishop Álvarez was convicted of treason and undermining national integrity, among other charges, resulting in the 26-year prison sentence. He had been under house arrest since August.
The bishop’s arrest followed other moves by the Ortega regime targeted at the Catholic Church, including expelling Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity and Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, the former papal nuncio to Nicaragua.
In August, Pope Francis publicly called for dialogue to resolve the tensions between the church and the Nicaraguan government but did not specifically address the arrest of Bishop Álvarez.
Speaking after a Mass in the Nicaraguan capital Feb. 12, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, archbishop of Managua, asked for prayers that the Lord would give Bishop Álvarez strength and discernment in all his actions. He also asked his congregation not to be hateful, because Christians “must love and forgive intensely.”