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Pope Francis Accepts Resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Raymond F. Chappetto

By Currents News Staff and John Lavenburg

PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Pope Francis on Monday morning accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Raymond F. Chappetto of Brooklyn.

“It has been an honor and a privilege for me to serve for 51 years as a priest, 10 of those years as a Bishop, for the great Diocese of Brooklyn,” Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Chappetto said in a statement. “I am grateful to our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and to Bishops DiMarzio and Brennan, for their support of my ministry.”

Bishop Chappetto was ordained as an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Brooklyn on July 11, 2012. He was named the diocese’s vicar general in September 2013 by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio. 

He submitted his resignation to the Holy Father on his 75th birthday, as all bishops are required to do by Canon law, on Aug. 20, 2020.

Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn on Monday morning thanked Bishop Chappetto for his service in the diocese, and for helping him have a smooth transition after his installation as bishop in November.

​“I share the appreciation of so many in the diocese for Bishop Chappetto’s many years of dedicated service here in Brooklyn and Queens,” Bishop Brennan said. “Personally, I thank him for staying on beyond the retirement age to assist with the transition, and to Pope Francis for allowing that.”

Bishop Emeritus DiMarzio told The Tablet it was a pleasure to work with Bishop Chappetto over the years. He described him as “a pastoral man in everything that he did.”

“He was always first a priest and a bishop and administrator second,” Bishop DiMarzio said. “He brought a certain human touch to the work he did so it was very encouraging.”

Bishop Chappetto was born on Aug. 20, 1945, in Astoria. He studied at Cathedral College in Brooklyn and was awarded a Master of Divinity from Our Lady of Angels Seminary in Albany. He holds a Master of Arts in religious education from St. John’s University and is certified in pastoral counseling.

St. John’s University spokesperson Brian Browne said the school is grateful for Bishop Chappetto’s service to the diocese and his continued visibility at the university.

“For more than 50 years, Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Chappetto has been a wonderful shepherd to the people of [the diocese], particularly in the ways of serving the less fortunate, reaching out to young people, and being a visible presence in the everyday life of the faithful,” Browne said. “A frequent visitor to his alma mater, St. John’s University, we are grateful for his service, his years of diocesan leadership, and his continued example of a well-lived and faith-filled life.”

Bishop Chappetto was ordained to the priesthood on May 29, 1971, and served a number of parishes in Brooklyn and Queens, and as an episcopal vicar for Brooklyn West. In 1997, then-Father Chappetto was named a monsignor by Saint John Paul II.

Bishop Chappetto’s longest time at one parish was from 1999 to 2012 when he was pastor of Our Lady of the Snows in Floral Park. While there, Bishop Chappetto was named Pastor of the Year by the National Catholic Educational Association in 2008. During his time at Our Lady of the Snows he was also named minister for priests, and in 2009 vicar for clergy and consecrated life, a position that he held until 2021.

How a Catholic Education in the Diocese of Brooklyn Led This Student to the Air Force Academy

Currents News Staff

A shy kid from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn is about to start a new chapter – one he says he knew he was destined for. When Thomas Tong graduates from Xavier High School this year, he’ll be entering the Air Force Academy – a goal only 10 percent of applicants can say they’ve achieved.

“It’s surreal and it’s a big commitment but it was always my first choice and I always just wanted to be part of something greater than myself,” Thomas said.

But long before Thomas dreamed of being in an airman’s uniform, he was in this uniform at St. Mark’s Catholic Academy. Thomas isn’t Catholic, but he says his Catholic education transformed his view of the world.

“It gives you another view on life and how you want to bring yourself through,” Thomas said, “it gives you another perspective on life and you can use parts of Catholic teaching and influence to better yourself and the way you live and I feel like that’s what I’ve taken from it.”

Coming from St. Mark’s, Thomas took that foundation and soared at Xavier. He became a track star and rose through the ranks of the school’s intensive JROTC Program, surprising himself with what he could achieve and completely shocking his former teachers.

“Thomas was always a good student,” said his former teacher Mark Wilson. “He was insightful. He read well. He wrote well but I never took him as a military-type student so that took me by surprise. Just his demeanor, he was soft spoken, polite, quiet, not someone who was going to be barking out orders or doing any kind of military activities.” 

His middle school teacher is now the principal of St. Mark’s Academy. Mark says he couldn’t be more proud.

“He was always willing to help and lend a hand,” Mark said. “When he was here, he would collect the homework sheets every day so he was always a helper and that part of him has never changed. But he has matured, so there are parts of Thomas that will always be the same. Even this exceeded my expectations of what he was capable of so I’m really happy for him and his family.” 

Thomas said he’s hoping the family he found during his Catholic education will also be found once again in the Air Force.

“I felt like having that family environment really helps in learning and having someone to support you,” he said, “and having someone there knowing that you can go to someone and talk to them to relieve any stress. It just makes it easy to learn and do your best.” 

And his teachers say his story can serve as an example for all students.

“Anyone who wants to enter the military or service to their country has to have a background of helping others and treating people they way they want to be treated and defending others and being a righteous person,” Mark said, “and I think that’s the type of foundation that’s laid in a Catholic school for every student and to have a student like Thomas to take that and run with it and make that into a career is the ultimate goal for Catholic education.”

Thomas starts six weeks of bootcamp at the Air Force Academy on June 23.

Catholic News Headlines for Monday, 3/7/22

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Brooklyn Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Chappetto.

We check in with the residents of a tight-knit Russian and eastern European neighborhood known as “Little Odessa”.

Mayor Eric Adams says the city is working with the federal government to help Ukrainians reunite with family here in NYC.

A crucifix is re-dedicated at Saint Athanasius Church in Bensonhurst on the first Sunday of Lent.

Russians and Ukrainians in Brooklyn’s ‘Little Odessa’ Strongly Stand Together Against War

By Jessica Easthope

On the boardwalk, people are expressing their anger about the war in Ukraine and about the man who started it, Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“I think that he’s drunk with power, and I’m not sure what goals he is trying to pursue but I just hope that he will wake up one day and look in the mirror and ask himself; is he happy with what he’s done,” said protester Anastasiia Stepanova.

The boardwalk is in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, where the elevated train noisily rumbles over businesses that have signs in Russian.

So many people from the countries of the former Soviet Union live here in the neighborhood also known as “Little Odessa.”

“Putin is a killer,” said Liliia Rakhmangulova, “We live together with Ukrainian brothers and sisters. This has to be stopped.”

Brighton Bazaar grocery store customer, Michael, moved here about 20 years ago from Moscow.

“The government of Ukraine and the government of Russia should negotiate. The war shouldn’t be. I agree with this,” he said.

Up the road a bit is the Brooklyn Banya, a traditional Russian bath house, with a TV tuned to Russian news and clientele from the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Ukrainian owner, Alona Kruglak says everyone has always gotten along here.

“And now, all of a sudden, we’re being divided, saying ‘you’re Ukrainian, I hate you, you’re Russia, I hate you,'” she said. “It’s just not so, nobody hates anybody. Nobody wants this war.”

Back at the beach, protesters say this is unbearable.

“I cry every day. I read the news. And I just can’t take it,” Stepanova said. “Please hold on, and we are together here for you, and we are there for you, and everything will be good because there is no other way.”

A Million Refugees and No Refugee Camps as Poland Opens Homes to Ukrainians

By Currents News Staff and Paulina Guzik

KRAKÒW, Poland (Crux) — It was Saturday, three days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine when a friend called Jerzy Donimirski, a hotel owner from Kraków.

“He told me that while half of the country stands in the line at the border to pick up a Ukrainian family, there are people that have nowhere to go, no friends, no relatives,” he told Crux.

So Donimirski decided to open his four-star hotel in the heart of Kraków, by the Floriańska historical gate, to refugees.

“It is war everyone fears. I just had to do it.”

On Monday, Feb. 28, the first 20 people — six adults and 11 children — occupied rooms in his hotel.

“I thought it’s not too much of a burden for our hotel to take 20 more,” so he sent another bus to the border with Ukraine. Today, he has 45 refugees in Hotel Polski.

It is because of people like Donimirski, a Catholic and member of the Order of Malta, that Poland has a million refugees in its territory and not a single refugee camp.

As the Polish Ambassador to the United States, Marek Magierowski, told CNN: “This is probably the first migration crisis in Europe’s history, in which the host country doesn’t need to build refugee camps.”

“Here in Poland, I really felt what fraternity is,” Olga Panivnyk told Polish Television on March 6. She escaped Ukraine a week ago.

“It was scary — there were planes flying over our heads” she recalled. “Some of our friends had to stop on the way because there was a shooting in the fields.”

Refugees crossing the border with Poland are welcomed with a greeting from the Border Patrol: “You are safe now.”

Waiting for them are volunteers from government and Church organizations, but also ordinary Poles who are bringing everything from food to toys to the border.

There is not a town in Poland without Ukrainian refugees.

Bishops are calling on the people of the country to welcome Ukrainians to their parishes and private homes. Some are hosting Ukrainian themselves, like Bishop Andrzej Jeż of Tarnów.

“On Friday, four members of the family from Iwano-Frankowsk inhabited our Curia. Today another family from Zytomir will arrive,” the diocese of Tarnow wrote in a tweet on March 5.

Dominican Sisters from Broniszewice, in central Poland, are officially running a humanitarian corridor with trucks moving regularly between Poland and Ukraine, where their sisters serve in Żółkiew, which is outside L’viv.

“We load trucks of food and supplies, and a minivan always accompanies them — it has several seats. They never go back empty. We take those that want to flee,” Sister Tymoteusza Gil told Crux.

One of the boys living with them now is 13-year-old Bogdan Barabash. His mother was working for the Dominican sisters before the war.

“I tell my friends in Ukraine every day what happens in Poland,” he told Crux. His grandmother and uncle stayed in Ukraine.

While Poland has opened its doors to those fleeing Ukraine, a constant influx of refugees may become challenging soon.

“It is only the beginning,” Bishop Krzysztof Zadarko, head of the Council for Migration of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, told Crux.

“What Poles do is fantastic, and our hearts are big, but vast expert knowledge is needed to host that many refugees in the long term,” he said.

“Poland needs to work immediately with migration experts from other countries because with what we still see in Ukraine regarding war devastation we need to be ready for many more refugees,” the bishop added.

Donimirski said he understands the challenge. Hosting 45 refugees is not an easy operation, even for a hotel owner.

“I asked the prestigious Nowodworek high school in Krakow for help — every day a different classroom will be providing food supplies and our cooks will cook them,” he told Crux.

“But we need systemic help and for sure after a month we will have to think of relocating those families to apartments and more of permanent places of stay so that they can integrate fully,” he added.

Despite the warm welcome, what Ukrainian families dream of most is returning home.

“On one hand I would love to do that,”, said Panivnyk. “On the other, I don’t know whether it will be possible, our district in Kyiv is constantly shelled and shot at.”

“One day you just wake up and the life you had to this moment is gone,” she told Polish television. “And then you realize the most precious thing you have is the people you love and can take with you.”

Bogdan says he just wants one thing: “That the war is over.”

Saints Perpetua and Felicity: Journey with the Saints (3/7/22)

Saints Perpetua and Felicity

Feast Day March 7th

“Stand fast in the faith, and love one another, all of you, and be not offended at my sufferings. (Last words of Saint Perpetua, as testified to by the eyewitness to her martyrdom, as preserved by Tertullian in The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.)”

Former U.S. Nuncio Cardinal Cacciavillan Dies at 95

By Currents News Staff and Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Italian Cardinal Agostino Cacciavillan, a former nuncio to the United States and the retired head of the Vatican investment office, died March 5 at the age of 95.

The longtime Vatican diplomat served in Washington as nuncio to the United States and Vatican representative to the Organization of American States from 1990 to 1998.

Returning to the Vatican after his assignment in the United States, he was named president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See by St. John Paul II and made a cardinal in 2001. He retired the following year.

In a message of condolence sent to the cardinal’s sister, Pope Francis remembered how, with “exemplary dedication and sharpness of thought,” the cardinal had generously used “the many talents he received for the good of the church.”

Cardinal Cacciavillan carried out his service to the Vatican with “great competence, untiring self-sacrifice and jovial openness of spirit,” the pope said.

Born in the northern Italian town of Novale in 1926, Agostino Cacciavillan was ordained to the priesthood in 1949. After three years of parish ministry, he was sent to Rome, where he earned a degree in social sciences from the Pontifical Gregorian University, a degree in canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University and a degree in civil law from the University of Rome.

His first assignment as a Vatican diplomat was in the Secretariat of State in 1959. Later postings took him to Vatican nunciatures in the Philippines, Spain and Portugal before he returned to the secretariat in 1968. While working at the Vatican, he also taught at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the school in Rome for Vatican diplomats.

In early 1976, he was named an archbishop and left the Vatican again to serve as ambassador to Kenya. After five years in Africa, he was named ambassador to India and in 1985 he was given a concurrent assignment as ambassador to Nepal.

While in India, he was praised for his delicate handling of rivalry among the church’s Latin-rite, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara communities. The disputes were solved amicably in 1987 after a final intervention by Pope John Paul.

During his tenure in Washington, then-Archbishop Cacciavillan’s greatest visibility came from announcing the appointments of bishops and attending episcopal ordinations and installations. He joined celebrations marking many milestones in U.S. church life, such as diocesan jubilees and the ordination anniversaries of bishops. Repeatedly, he appealed in the pope’s name for clemency for prisoners scheduled to be executed.

His death leaves the College of Cardinals with 212 members, 119 of whom are under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave.

Pope Francis Is Sending Two High-Ranking Cardinals to War-Torn Ukraine

Currents News Staff

Pope Francis has made the decision to send two of his best men to Ukraine, which continues to be battered by the war. They leave this week, with a very clear mission.

“To serve the people, to help,” Pope Francis said, “Cardinal Krajewski, the Almoner, to bring aid to the needy, and Cardinal Czerny, interim Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.”

Armed with the Gospel and rosaries from the Holy Father, their objective is to bring some solace to the people. Cardinal Krajewski will cross into the country from Poland, his country of origin. This cardinal has shown, on other occasions, his determination to fight injustice.

He personally knows many of Rome’s homeless people, and even offered them refuge in a parish at the height of the pandemic. In 2019, he became known for illegally turning on the power in a building where immigrants, including children, were spending the winter.

Then there is Cardinal Czerny, who was born in the Czech Republic and migrated to Canada. For years, he has been in charge of the Migrants and Refugees section of the Dicastery he currently leads. He will enter Ukraine from Hungary.

They are two men of action, capable of bringing concrete solutions to poverty and the challenges of migration. Sending them is the Holy Father’s way of expressing his closeness to the Ukrainian people.

“The presence of the two cardinals there is the presence not only of the Pope,” the pontiff said, “but of all the Christian people who want to draw near and say, “War is madness! Stop, please! Look at this cruelty!”

The mayor of Kyiv has asked men and women religious to remain in Ukraine, to sustain those still in the capital with prayer. Sending two high-ranking cardinals to Ukraine is a gesture of solidarity but also a diplomatic move directed at Putin.