By Currents News
The Diocese of Brooklyn’s Lenten pilgrimage paused to honor St. Patrick with a special visit to St. Patrick Church in Queens.
Bishop Robert Brennan celebrated bilingual Mass and thanked the parish for welcoming pilgrims on the feast day of Ireland’s patron saint, making the stop especially meaningful along the Lenten journey.
By Currents News
Eight public speeches, seven Masses, and 11 African cities make up Pope Leo XIV’s trip across Africa.
It is expected to be marathon of meetings, celebrations, and visits, according to the Vatican.
The Holy Father’s first stop will undoubtedly be one of the most special moments: the Augustinian pope will go to Algeria, where the founder of his Order, Saint Augustine of Hippo, once lived.
It’s a visit Pope Leo XIV made clear would happen some time ago.
“Personally, I hope to go to Algeria to visit the places connected with the life of Saint Augustine and to continue promoting dialogue and the building of bridges between the Christian and Muslim worlds,” he previously said.
It is estimated that less than 1% of the population of Algeria is Catholic.
The pontiff will meet with this community at the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa. He will also visit the Djamaa el Djazair, one of the largest Islamic places of worship in the world.
Pope Leo XIV will also stop at the Maqam Echahid, dedicated to those who died during the Algerian War of Independence against France.
The trip will then continue to Cameroon, a country that has both French and English as its official languages and where roughly one third of the population is Catholic.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI visited the country in 2009.
While in Cameroon, Pope Leo will focus on meetings with political and Church authorities. He will also visit an orphanage, promoting the protection and education of the most vulnerable children.
He will additionally go to the St. Paul Catholic Hospital, highlighting the Catholic Church’s social work.
Pope Leo XIV will also pray for peace, and plans to hold a meeting and celebrate Mass at the international airport. He aims to send strong message of peace in a country where internal conflicts are still persistent.
The penultimate country of the trip will be Angola, which Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also visited. It is a Portuguese-speaking nation with a Catholic majority.
By Katie Vasquez
New York City has been enduring a wave of bitter cold with temperatures repeatedly dropping below freezing.
The deadly conditions have claimed more than a dozen lives across the metropolitan region.
In response, one Manhattan restaurant owner has been opening his doors to provide a warm place for those in need to sleep, and says his actions are driven by his faith.
By Katie Vasquez and Bill Miller
MIDTOWN MANHATTAN — On a bone-chilling winter night in 1986, a 20-year-old immigrant from Ankara, Turkey, who arrived just three days earlier, stumbled through the streets of a New Jersey town, lost and unable to speak English.
Ali Riza Doğan had no way to call his uncle for help or directions. There weren’t any cell phones yet, and the young restaurant worker couldn’t find a payphone.
Feeling lost, alone, and not knowing English, Doğan said he “almost cried.”
But then he found an unlocked door to a boarded-up building, which he entered to escape the wintry blast.
“I went to the fifth-floor hallway, and they had carpet and heat on there,” Doğan recalled. “I slept there overnight. It was like a five-star hotel.”
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When morning came, he went to a shopping area, where he got help calling his uncle, who came and picked him up.
Doğan operates the popular Ali Baba Mediterranean & Turkish Cuisine on East 53rd Street in Midtown. Yet his humble beginnings in the U.S. stay with him.
“I never forget that day,” Doğan said of the time he was lost. “It is a very bad memory for me still.”
And when that happens — like the 14 degrees below zero on Feb. 8 — he prints out a sign that he tapes to his restaurant’s window. It reads: “If anyone is staying outside tonight, you can stay inside. The heat is on overnight.
“We can sleep in peace when we remember God is awake.”
Like that hallway 40 years ago, shelter seekers can sleep inside the restaurant’s vestibule. There is no access to the dining area or kitchen, but the small space is heated and dry.
Doğan sat down with The Tablet on March 10 when the mercury reached 77 degrees. Just days earlier, the daytime temperatures were frigid enough to retain the snow that blanketed the city for several weeks.
But Doğan’s charity doesn’t end when spring arrives.
Each Wednesday, he joins other volunteers in serving food from his restaurant and other eateries to homeless people. He shares savory entrees of lamb and chicken, along with various Mediterranean side dishes.
Doğan’s Muslim faith calls upon believers to help the poor, but he noted that all people deserve kindness. Christians can relate.
Matthew 25:40 says, “And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ ”
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Also, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1397) says, “The Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest.”
To that end, the Church calls upon Catholics to perform or support “corporal works of mercy,” such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and visiting the sick, including those in prison.
That’s easy to do, Doğan said, when people never forget where they came from, including the bad memories of being cold, lost, and unable to communicate in a new country.
“Make someone happy,” he said. “That’s the most important thing in life. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, what country you [are from], what color you are — it doesn’t make a difference.
“We are all human beings, and we only want God watching us.”
By Currents News
Father Kevin Abels is being celebrated by his Bay Ridge community after being named grand marshal of Brooklyn’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, with students from Bay Ridge Catholic Academy among those offering congratulations.
By Currents News
St. Anselm Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn has dedicated its rosary chapel to Monsignor Michael Phillips, honoring the longtime former pastor whose leadership shaped the parish for nearly two decades.
By Jessica Easthope and Paula Katinas
New York’s Fifth Avenue was a sea of green for the 265th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17, a grand march that turned one of the world’s most famous thoroughfares into a feast of festive sights and sounds.
Hundreds of thousands of people lined the parade route to cheer for the marchers, marching bands, and floats as they passed by. Many of the spectators were also dressed for the occasion, wearing green hats and green sweaters and waving Irish flags.
The New York parade has become so legendary that spectators came from all over — including Ireland, the birthplace of St. Patrick — to see it. Patrick Guinan lives in County Offaly in the Midland Region of Ireland, but flew all the way to New York.
“This is very exciting! I wanted to come to this parade because I heard it’s the biggest and the best,” Guinan told The Tablet.
This year marked newly installed Archbishop Ronald Hicks’ first parade as the archbishop of New York.
“We are going to celebrate all day long!” Archbishop Hicks said during the pre-parade Mass he celebrated. “And it is good to be here, and it is good to begin right here in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
In his homily, Archbishop Hicks paid tribute to Irish immigrants who came to New York in the 19th century and helped build the city despite facing hardship and discrimination.
“Through their faith, their hard work, and their devotion to family and to church, they helped build parishes and schools, neighborhoods, and communities,” he said.
Archbishop Hicks reminded the faithful that New York is still the arrival point for immigrants today. “As followers of Jesus Christ, we are called not to see them as strangers,” he added. “But as brothers and sisters, welcoming them with respect and walking together in faith.”
The grand marshal of this year’s parade was financier Robert J. McCann, co-chairman of NewEdge Capital Group and chairman of the board of the Irish Arts Center.
Bishop Robert Brennan, whose maternal grandfather arrived in the U.S. from County Sligo 99 years ago, said Irish immigrants were guided by faith.
Many, he said, were “very poor people with great hope that wanted to give glory to God.”
Bishop Brennan said that new waves of immigrants coming to the U.S. now are continuing to make contributions, just as newcomers did years ago.
“They are reviving our faith with a sense of enthusiasm,” he added.
By Currents News
Currents News offers a special look at St. Patrick’s Day Mass at Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.