Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens is ready to help any migrants who make their way to New York.
It was a bittersweet day in Douglaston on Saturday for the class of 2023 convocation at Cathedral Seminary House of Formation.
Bishop Robert Brennan joined the children of Our Lady of The Snows Catholic Academy in Floral Park for the May Crowning on Friday.
As the war in Ukraine rages on, Pope Francis met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Vatican this weekend.
A Jamaica Estates non-profit is teaching migrants valuable skills ranging from how to speak English to dicing up vegetables.
Meet the church leader who’s a different kind of savior.
We’ll introduce you to the duo that’s helping the swans of Prospect Park live a healthy and prosperous life.
The music director of St. Joseph’s church is infusing the heritage of Caribbean and African styles into services for parishioners.
By Jessica Easthope
Steve Farrelly has seen a lot of trees but he has a favorite.
“I love this tree, this one in particular is really special because of its size and its history,” Farrelly said.
Farrelly is the certified master arborist in charge of keeping the nearly 300-year-old American elm tree healthy. It lives on Fordham University’s Rose Hill campus, but this was its home long before there was a school. Fordham’s director of facilities, Ralph Rivera, says it’s seen every student come and go.
“It’s a center point if you think about the history of Fordham when this was all farmlands, how symbolic for the university, we’re still here, it’s very deep-rooted within Fordham,” Rivera said.
The tree is 140 feet tall and has a canopy spread of 120 feet, at Fordham they say it’s the oldest tree on record in New York City. Fordham’s archives has a picture of it fully mature in 1864.
The tree has been through a lot over the years – including an outbreak of Dutch Elm disease that killed more than 40 million others across the country, but this one survived. Now every other year Steve treats it with a fungicide to keep it healthy.
Just like the school’s Jesuit mission, care for the tree is rooted in faith.
“We stand for sustainability and integrity and Fordham and the Catholic Jesuit school does the same thing so it’s a great relationship we have with them,” Steve said.
“Cura personalis, care for one’s self is care for others and what we put into this we hope that as a student can just feel whole,” said Ralph.
The men have become stewards of something that was here long before they were, and if taken care of properly – it will stand long after they’re gone.
Title 42 has come to an end, prompting thousands of migrants to gather at the border.
Inside the chain link fences of a 350-acre ranch, groups of migrants wait for nightfall to make their way into the US through Eagle Pass.
The US National Guard communicated with a rancher in order to locate migrant groups on his property.
Through the use of night vision binoculars, we were able to see the laser utilized by the national guard to pinpoint a group of migrants, forging our way through the mesquite, cactus and treacherous land.
In the span of four hours migrant detections totaled more than 40 people.
Title 42, the pandemic-era rule that allowed the government to expel migrants because of COVID, expires tonight at midnight.
Meanwhile New York City has little space left for migrants, so Mayor Eric Adams is coming up with other ideas to help them.
The Vatican is hosting a new exhibit bringing attention to marginalized women.
Fordham University is on a mission to save one of its oldest living residents, an elm tree.
Young people are taking part in the Nationwide Eucharistic Revival.
A Mass at St. Peter and Paul Church in Williamsburg brought the youth of Brooklyn and Queens together in an effort to draw closer to Christ through the Eucharist.
It’s part of a nationwide campaign started by U.S. bishops, after they discovered a majority of Catholics did not know a core tenet of the faith: that the bread and wine at Mass become Christ’s body and blood, and they’re not just symbols.
Following the Mass, the youth processed through the streets with the Eucharist ending at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They were able to venerate relics of the first possible millennial saint who helped others discover the Eucharist, Blessed Carlo Acutis.
There will also be a diocese-wide celebration for the revival.
The October 7th event at Maimonides Park will include family Catechesis, a Eucharistic procession and a Mass. If you would like to attend the event, you can register Dioceseofbrooklyn.org/eucharistic-revival-2023/.
It’s the countdown to chaos over Title 42. The Trump-era policy that allows authorities to quickly expel certain migrants at the border is set to expire Thursday.
There are already struggles at the border from the Mexican side as migrants prepare to cross.
Hundreds of migrants have already made it, illegally, across the Rio Grande. They’re camped out near the border of northern Mexico between a barbed wire fence and the border wall.
The situation is growing into a humanitarian crisis and is expected to get worse as more migrants continue to enter the country.
Many have relied on coats to help keep warm during the chilly nights, and safe from the sun during the scorching 90 degree days.
After the policy expires on Thursday, Title 8 takes over as the law of the land, requiring asylum officers to process each claim.
The government estimates about 150,000 migrants are already camped out in northern Mexico, with more likely heading to the border.
Police are looking for two people after a Catholic Charities office in Brooklyn was vandalized.
A judge in Rockland County is putting a stop to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to send migrants there.
Congressman George Santos is in federal custody after being charged in a 13 count indictment.
The newest horror movie to hit the big screen, Nefarious, is all about good versus evil.
By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Two popes sat side by side before a crowd of rain-soaked pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square May 10.
Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, was at the Vatican to mark the 50th anniversary of a joint declaration signed by St. Paul VI and Pope Shenouda III in 1973 outlining the beliefs shared by their churches.
Before his general audience, Pope Francis embraced Pope Tawadros and kissed his encolpion, an icon Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic bishops wear instead of a pectoral cross.
During the audience, the two publicly exchanged greetings and took turns addressing the crowd.
“Despite the differences in our roots and affiliations, we are united by the love of Christ who dwells within us and the host of our apostle fathers and saints who guide us,” Pope Tawadros said, speaking in Arabic. “Let us walk together in life bearing in mind the promise (God) has made to us — eternal life — accompanying and supporting each other with prayers according to this promise.”
Calling for Catholics and Copts to love one another, Pope Tawadros said that “even though we go against the tide of the greedy and selfish world, we have accepted the challenge of love that Christ asks of us, and we will be true Christians, and the world will be more human, because it will know that God is love and that this is his highest name.”
After congratulating Pope Francis on the 10th anniversary of his pontificate, celebrated in March, Pope Tawadros recalled his trip to Rome and meeting with Pope Francis in 2013, which, he said, was “filled with brotherly love.”
Now each year on May 10, the anniversary of the 1973 meeting between their predecessors, the two popes speak over the phone and exchange greetings. That tradition, said Pope Tawadros, “embodies the Christian spirit and love that unites us in serving God and serving our brothers and sisters in humanity.”
Pope Tawadros also thanked Pope Francis for his visit to Egypt in April 2017, which he called a “great blessing for all of Egypt,” and recalling Pope Francis’ messages for their church communities to together become “a living image of the heavenly Jerusalem.”
Putting aside his typical weekly catechesis, Pope Francis thanked Pope Tawadros for his visit to Rome and commitment to the “growing friendship” between their churches.
He referred to the 21 Coptic Christian martyrs, who he said, “are also ours,” that were killed by the Islamic State in Libya in 2015, and he asked for their intercession in fostering communion between the two churches. The two popes then jointly blessed the crowd of visitors in St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Tawadros was scheduled to meet privately with Pope Francis May 11 before meeting with officials from the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. He also was scheduled to meet with Rome’s Coptic Christian community and celebrate Divine Liturgy May 14 in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome.
In a jointly written preface to a book about the 1973 declaration, the two popes expressed their desire for their churches to “journey toward full communion,” and gave thanks for “the steps already taken, and the distance already traveled, which are often much more important than we imagine.”
by Jessica Easthope
The lunch rush at Community Help in Park Slope or CHiPS usually ends quickly, but the challenge of feeding more than 400 people with limited resources starts all over again the next day.
New people come onto the line at CHiPS every day, it could be 10 or 100, director of food services Pauline Auguste says she has no way of knowing – or preparing.
“New York City is being hit very hard at the moment, a lot of soup kitchens are being hit hard, we need help, we need additional help,” she said.
New York City’s migrant crisis has redefined CHiPS’ operation, stretching the food, paid for mostly with private donations, has become a daily juggling act. Pauline says her focus is on the food, but with Title 42 set to expire by Friday, she can’t ignore the politics any longer.
“Without Title 42 we don’t know how long it can last, we’re being depleted and what are we doing on the federal level to help the situation,” said Pauline.
For three years the Trump-era immigration policy has been used more than 2.7 million times to turn away migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador, many have tried several times to gain entry into the United States.
The sign on the Holiday Inn Express just around the corner from CHiPS has been covered up – it’s one of the city’s 120 emergency shelters. Mayor Eric Adams says he needs more for the 61,000 who have settled in the five boroughs – reaching out to city agencies for any available space.
The city has proposed housing migrants in airplane hangars at JFK Airport, tents in Central, Prospect and Flushing Meadows Corona Parks, Citi Field and Aqueduct Racetrack, this as families with young children have been forced to sleep in shelters used to house single men.
“We can’t have kids and adults sleeping in the same shelters that’s not okay and that’s not safe, please just help, I don’t know where you’re going to put these people when they do come, we’re running out of places to put them, we’re going to have a lot of homelessness, I don’t know,” said Pauline.
CHiPS’ promise has always been to turn no one away, but Pauline says even if a fraction of the people who will undoubtedly cross the border when Title 42 ends come to New York City and make their way to Brooklyn – they may have to start.