Catholics from the Diocese of Brooklyn and across the country are taking part in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
They’re following in Jesus’ footsteps and visiting the places where he performed miracles.
Leading the pilgrimage is Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello, Vicar for Development in the Diocese of Brooklyn. He joins Currents News from Jerusalem.
Students across the country are falling behind thanks to the pandemic. However, results from the national report card published this week show Catholic schools are bucking the trend. Those students are performing better than their public-school peers.
New polls are showing what the biggest concerns are for voters.
We’re learning more about the gunman who opened fire at a high school in St. Louis on Monday.
Catholic schools have been excelling post-pandemic.
The late pastor of a Queens church has left a lasting mark on the community.
Victims of Hurricane Ian are getting some help from the Knights of Columbus.
The head of the Police Benevolent Association says more officers are leaving the NYPD.
Health officials issue a warning for what they’re calling a ‘tripledemic.’
A Belgian non-profit has been training rats to help first responders.
By Jessica Easthope
Nearly one month after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida, the state’s deadliest storm since 1935, people are still desperate for the essentials, because thousands are still homeless.
“After all the TV stations are gone and everybody thinks it’s okay that’s when we step in because this goes on and it always happens that it hits the areas that have the least,” said Charles Shelley, disaster relief coordinator for Caring Knights Inc.
The group of Knights of Columbus mobilize after natural disasters, collect donations, ship them and often go themselves to help those in need.
“Until you witness the devastation, the pictures and the news don’t do it justice,” Shelley said.
“That giving was the catalyst of Caring Knights and we built the network. It’s still going, we’ve tapped into one of the great resources of our churches,” said Father Michael Gelfant, the president and CEO of Caring Knights Inc.
In Lee County, which includes Cape Coral and Fort Myers and took a direct hit from the category four storm, nearly 500 people are still living in emergency shelters. More than 5,000 properties were destroyed there and more than 13,000 suffered major damage. Damage from the storm could reach $80B.
After every natural disaster the Knights are reminded of the first one that brought them together – almost ten years ago to the day.
“Where we started is where we still are, St. Finbar’s was the hub for Coney Island and the Rockaways which were devastated by Sandy and like I always tell Father, this isn’t our first rodeo,” said Shelley.
The Knights have seen firsthand how long recovery from a powerful storm can take – and they remember who was there when they needed it.
“They came to help us, we had councils that came from all over the east coast to help people here, so that’s the reason we do this, to help those that helped us, give back, pay it forward,” Shelley said.
The shipment of essentials is enough for at least 50 families. It will travel by trucking from the Diocese of Brooklyn and be received by Knights of Columbus in Bradenton, FL at Saints Cosmas and Damian Parish.
By Paula Katinas
QUEENS VILLAGE — Angel Pipitone-Coen and her husband John Coen were high school sweethearts from Queens Village who married in 1984. But in 2011 — 27 years after they said their I do’s — their marriage was falling apart. John filed for divorce, and both he and Angel prepared to go their separate ways.
As a last-ditch effort to save the marriage, they went on a retreat hosted by Retrouvaille International, a non-profit organization endorsed by the Catholic Church that helps couples in crisis. The Coens, who now live on Long Island, repaired their damaged relationship and are still married today.
Their story is one of coming apart and then coming back together.
Angel and John both attended Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic school in Queens Village as children but didn’t know each other back then.
They met in high school. “I was a sophomore. He was a senior,” Angel, 61, recalled.
“A good friend of mine was dating Angel’s sister, and he said to me, ‘I want you to come over. Janice has a cute sister, and I want you to meet her.’ That was Angel. We started dating, and then about six years later, we got married. So we’re true high school sweethearts,” said John, 63.
They were married in 1984. The marriage seemed blissful for 20 years or so, but in the mid-2000s, they grew tired of each other and argued a lot. As a result, they started spending less and less time together.
“We were living the married but single life,” John recalled. “I was doing my own thing. She was doing her own thing. Then, it reached the point where I filed for divorce. I was done. I moved out of the house.”
Angel was upset by the sad turn their once-loving relationship had taken. “I was crying. I was praying,” she said.
But John realized that he wasn’t quite ready to call it quits. He heard about Retrouvaille, which in French means reunion, and decided to give it a try. Angel was reluctant at first, but he managed to talk her into it.
“It was a life-changing experience for us,” Angel says, recalling the help she and her husband received, which included tips on how to communicate better and avoid relationship pitfalls.
The program consists of three parts — a retreat weekend, 12 post-retreat sessions, and a monthly support group. The retreat weekend, usually held at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, consists of “presenters,” couples who have been through the program, and a priest talking to the attendees. The presenters tell the stories of their marriages.
John recalled the weekend he and Angel spent in 2011 as two people with a fractured relationship seeking healing.
“Hearing other couples talking about their very personal stories about their own crisis was eye-opening for me. These people had gotten to a point where they could forgive each other and rebuild their marriage. That was transformative — that they could make things work out and move beyond whatever their crisis was,” he said.
Angel had a revelation that fateful weekend as well. “I learned that love is a decision. It’s not just a set of emotions. You can decide to save your marriage,” she explained. “I really do feel that God led me to do this program and to look at my marriage differently.”
Today, Angel and John feel their relationship is stronger than ever. “We are certainly closer than we’ve ever been,” Angel said.
The Coens were so impressed with the organization they became involved with Long Island/Metro New York Retrouvaille, the group’s local entity serving the five boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey. Now, the couple are presenters.
“It’s a peer-to-peer experience,” Angel said. “We don’t lecture people. We give them tools to improve their relationships.”
Mary Ginnane, a coordinator for Long Island/Metro New York Retrouvaille, is also a “graduate” of the program, having gone through it with her husband, Kevin. The Ginnanes have been involved with the program for 20 years. Mary estimated that the local group has helped 2,000 couples over the years.
“I’ve seen miracles happen,” Mary said. “Couples come in on Friday, barely looking at each other. And they leave on Sunday holding hands, talking again, smiling, hugging, and kissing.”
For married Catholic couples going through rough patches, the Church is there to help. Retrouvaille is just one of the programs the Diocese of Brooklyn recommends to couples seeking assistance.
Another program, Refoccus, uses a “marriage enrichment inventory,” a series of questionnaires that husbands and wives fill out separately and then go over with a trained facilitator.
Refoccus is part of Foccus Marriage Ministries. Foccus stands for Facilitate Open Couple Communication Understanding and Study.
“When they finish the questionnaire, a report is generated, and it is sent to the facilitator,” said Christian Rada, director of Marriage, Family Formation and Respect Life Education for the diocese. “The facilitator, with the couple, meet either in the rectory, parish office, or wherever it may be [and] simply discuss their answers together.”
Refoccus is a way for couples to address issues affecting the relationship, and it helps couples come up with ways to move forward, Rada explained.
“These are people who don’t want to go down the road to divorce because they feel that there is something left there to be saved,” he added.
Refoccus also sponsors weekend retreats where couples can work with facilitators to improve their relationships.
Rada, who is a trained Refoccus facilitator, said that many, but not all, priests in the diocese are trained in the program.
In some cases, the couple needs professional help. In those instances, Rada recommends a website called catholictherapists.com, where couples can find a therapist.
The Catholic Church discourages divorce. In the Catechism, divorce is described as “a grave offense against the natural law.”
However, divorce does happen among Catholics, even if not as frequently as in the general population. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 44% of all U.S. marriages ended in divorce in 2019. But the divorce rate among Catholics was much lower — 19% — according to the Pew Research Center.
Rada said there are many reasons couples turn to the Church for help.
“The biggest issues that we’ve encountered, especially during Refoccus, are communication skills, problem-solving skills, and religion and spirituality. And then fourth would be financial issues,” he explained.
There are also unusual reasons as well, Rada added, citing instances in which couples have fought over the custody of pets.
He said all of the programs have a common goal, to help the couple “re-establish their relationship as a living body and a living embodiment of the Holy Spirit.”
Sometimes, couples get into trouble because they don’t understand exactly what marriage is.
The diocese’s pre-Cana program, required for all couples seeking to get married in the Catholic Church, tries to give them a clear understanding of the meaning of their wedding vows, Rada said.
“Our Pre-Cana program really strives on giving couples the ability to get the skills that they need, in order to communicate, but also to figure out exactly what you are stepping into,” he explained. “There’s a theological dimension. There is a difference between the covenant that you’re entering into with God and each other versus the signing of a document with the justice of the peace in the city clerk’s office.”
Marriage is a sacrament that mirrors “the love that Christ has for the church,” explained Father Joseph Gibino, vicar for Evangelization and Catechesis for the diocese. “And that comes directly from St. Paul, when St. Paul writes that the husband is to love his wife, as Christ loves the Church.”
But while Father Gibino said the church “is always going to always defend the sanctity of the sacramental marriage,” he added that annulment is possible.
“What the annulment recognizes is that one or both of the members of the couple did not truly enter freely into the sacrament,” he said. “What that really means is that no sacrament took place.”
If one partner enters the marriage without being truthful with their spouse about a vitally important manner — such as hiding a crime or an addiction of some sort, according to Father Gibino — it could be grounds for annulment.
According to the website Catholic.com, domestic violence is not, in itself, grounds for annulment.
But if the violence took place around the time of the wedding vows or before, and the abused partner felt threatened, the church would view that as a situation in which the abused partner did not enter into the marriage of free will, and an annulment might be possible.
Annulment could also be granted if a spouse hid a history of domestic violence or substance abuse from the partner at the time the wedding vows took place.
And while Retrouvaille strives to help most couples, there are some situations where a marriage is truly in crisis — situations involving domestic abuse or substance abuse, for example — and it would be better to seek assistance from other resources, the Coens explained.
In those cases, Retrouvaille refers the couple to abuse prevention centers or programs like Alanon and Alcoholics Anonymous. “We’re not qualified to help in those cases,” Angel told The Tablet.
Father Gibino said it’s important to look at marriage “as a covenant relationship” that is different from other sacraments.
“The couple actually confers the sacrament on each other,” Father Gibino explained. “Usually, it is the minister, a priest or deacon … that confers the sacrament. But in the sacrament of marriage, the couple confers the sacrament on each other. And the priest is the official witness.”
Bishop Robert Brennan joined St. Ephrem Parish in Dyker Heights for a special Mass of thanksgiving as they celebrated 100 years of service this past Sunday.
The church had kicked off their anniversary year last October after it was delayed due to the pandemic.
Despite the setback, Bishop Brennan recognized the remarkable milestone and noted how the parish has lived up to the name of their patron saint throughout the past century.
St. Ephrem Parish was founded in 1921 and has since educated tens of thousands of students and participated in countless charitable events and food donations.
Residents of the Bland Houses in Flushing, Queens say their gas was shut off on May 3rd.
There were more attacks in the subways over the weekend.
Thanks to the pandemic students across the country have fallen behind.
St Ephrem’s Church in Brooklyn held a special Mass of thanksgiving yesterday.
Currents News Staff
City and state leaders are scrambling after a recent string of subway crimes have left many terrified to take mass transit.
On Sunday a 14-year-old girl was stabbed on a train in Manhattan after she got into a fight with two other teenage girls.
Later that day an attacker punched a 62-year-old man in the back of the head, knocking the victim onto the tracks in a Mott Haven subway station.
On Friday, a 32-year-old waiter suffered a broken collarbone in an unprovoked attack in Brooklyn.
According to the victim’s mother, the attack left her son traumatized to the point of being suicidal.
These are just some of the latest incidents of crime in the city’s subway system.
According to NYPD, as of October 17th, reported transit crimes increased 41% compared to the same time last year.
Because of that sharp rise Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul have unveiled a new plan to stop subway crime, and it involves more police being deployed underground.
By Jessica Easthope
Vanessa Sumpter and her husband, James Proctor look forward to hosting their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren for Thanksgiving every year. When their gas was shut off on May 3, they never thought this year it wouldn’t be possible.
Vanessa and James haven’t been able to cook anything in their oven or on their stove for the last six months.
“I’m trying to survive and cooking on these hot places this is just getting to me I’m beginning to feel like when I do start back cooking I won’t know how,” said Vanessa.
A leak in the main gas line is what prompted NYCHA to shut off the gas in the Bland Houses in Downtown Flushing. Since then, 80 families have been relying on hot plates to cook.
Vanessa and James both need to stick to a certain diet, James is a diabetic. Since May they’ve spent more than $1,000 on outside food. With inflation and the recent rise in food prices – it’s money burned.
“We’re used to cooking in the oven the foods that I do prefer and need and none of that’s been possible, we’ve been spending a lot of money on outside food which is ridiculous with the prices now a days, it’s breaking us, it’s taking us to the poor house,” said James.
He and Vanessa have lived in the same apartment for 22 years and they say having no gas is only the latest in a long line of issues.
NYCHA told them they’re ineligible for food stamps or any financial assistance because they didn’t have a welfare case open before the gas was shut off.
“We don’t have money to go to the restaurant, once again NYCHA can pester you to death about your rent but they ain’t worried about this gas that we might not even have another holiday. So once again we’re being let down,” said Vanessa.
Vanessa says it’s been one disappointment after another – and now her holiday season feels ruined before it’s even begun.
“You ain’t making no Thanksgiving dinner on two hot plates that’s not how I get down, I’ve been doing it for years so this is gonna be a little work that I said this is overwhelming because I really had my plans for Thanksgiving,” she said.
A NYCHA spokesperson did not offer a timeline as to when gas would be restored but said the outage is still in the permitting and construction stage.