Nearly 140 pilgrims from the Diocese of Brooklyn are preparing for a journey of faith to Rome for the 2025 Jubilee Year, an event that occurs once every 25 years.
The Jubilee is a time for Catholics to embark on pilgrimages, seek repentance, and renew their spiritual lives.
Lent, a period of reflection and preparation in the Catholic Church, was chosen intentionally for the pilgrimage.
The 2025 Jubilee promises to be a meaningful time of spiritual renewal for thousands of pilgrims worldwide.
On Election Day, Proposition 1 legalized abortion on demand in New York, prompting Bishop Robert Brennan to offer guidance on how Catholics can protect life moving forward.
Bishop Brennan was also in Douglaston, Queens, on the morning of November 7 to celebrate a special Mass for deceased bishops, priests, and deacons at the Immaculate Conception Center.
November marks Black Catholic History Month, and St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Brooklyn is celebrating with a praise concert to honor black Catholic culture and support a youth mission trip.
Young people in the Diocese of Brooklyn are dedicating themselves to service. We have the story of a St. John’s University student who spends her free time volunteering at Zion Tabernacle Church’s food pantry in Ozone Park, Queens.
by Katie Vasquez
One day a week, you will likely find Julia Goncalves in the office of Holy Family Church in Fresh Meadows where she is also a parishioner.
“I think my work strengthened my faith because I’m here interacting with the parishioners and I get to see the church in action. It fortifies that bond that I have here with Holy family,” said Goncalves.
But her day doesn’t end here, the St John’s University student heads to the Jamaica campus.
Catching up on school work as a government and politics major with a minor in French.
Although this is her second year, the Queens resident came in with enough college credits from Archbishop Molloy high school that she is technically a junior.
When doing her college search, the Catholic college always came up as her number one choice.
“At the end of the day, it was St John’s that kind of won out. All my family had gone there and I knew of the great opportunities. I knew how the staff was going to be very helpful,” said Goncalves.
St John’s has a focus on the Vincentian mission of giving back so Julia started volunteering at Zion Tabernacle Church food pantry in Ozone Park her first year and continued coming back.
“You know that you helped people and you get to see all of them, too,” said Goncalves, “I guess it’s more about the corporal works of mercy. it’s a very physical giving back.”
And she believes these experiences will give her a global perspective that will help after she graduates.
“I’d love for my future work to be giving back and to be leaving things better than I found it. Hopefully this job does it a little bit, but in the future I’d love for my profession with government and politics to emanate that,” said Goncalves.
The 19 year old plans to study abroad and complete internships as she wraps up the next two years.
By Michael Rizzo and Currents News
Misinformation, disinformation, fake news. It’s around us 24/7 on social media, and bombards us in all forms of media. It’s a big topic in my journalism courses at St. John’s University, where I teach my
students how to avoid it: Verify everything, provide balance in your stories, and be unbiased in your reporting.
But the news consumer in me also sees how disinformation is widening that dark hole that leads us down factually incorrect paths. It’s especially important this election. How can we know what to choose if we’re lied to about the facts?
Combatting it with calls to change the First Amendment is fraught with danger. Once you start curtailing more freedoms of expression, you run the risk that other Constitutional protections, like freedom of religion, could be next. Perhaps the embrace we need to make is with something intangible but powerful: our faith.
First, we need to have faith in what is right. Good journalism tells facts with context, offers multiple perspectives, and does not advocate but informs. Bad journalism and deliberately false reporting
are the opposite.
Armed with that faith, it also takes action. Perhaps it means sacrificing our presence on a website encouraging disinformation. It is better to discard these small parts of our lives than run the risk
of potentially malevolent results.
It means supporting news organizations that embody the ethics of good journalism and tell stories other news outlets don’t report. The Tablet tells stories that the secular media ignores and speaks to people with views that other outlets don’t include.
Reading and supporting this publication are tangible ways to show your faith in good journalism. Consider removing yourself from that news silo of just one perspective over and over. Try out other news outlets to see their reporting on your community. When you find the ones that tell those stories properly, add them to your action list of who to follow.
In 2018, Pope Francis described journalists as “protectors of news” and said that “ensuring the accuracy of sources and protecting communication are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.” Let’s stand with these protectors to promote understanding, correct information, and reporting in which we can believe.
Michael Rizzo is an associate professor and director of the journalism program at St. John’s University. You can find more of his writing and insights at thetablet.org.
By Currents News
According to political analyst Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University, the fact that the 2024 U.S. presidential election was largely over by midnight on November 6 night is indicative that the race for the White House between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris wasn’t even close.
The associate professor of political science tells Currents News that this election season President-Elect Donald Trump seems to have made inroads with basically every single group of voters.
Burge, who also conducts polls on the interaction between religion and politics, says Catholics had a big say in the election outcome: “White Catholics are becoming, every election cycle, an increasingly stronger GOP voting block.” Not only this, he explains, “but one thing we’re seeing is the Hispanic vote mattered a whole lot and I think Hispanic Catholics were a huge part of that.”
Despite Puerto Rico being disparaged at a Madison Square Garden Trump rally, Hispanics helped carry the former president to victory once again.
According to CNN exit poll results, 56%t of catholic voters supported Trump, while 41% backed Vice President Kamala Harris. While issues important to Catholics – like abortion and immigration – were factors when they cast their ballots, there’s one issue that Burge says trumped the rest.
“It’s not even being a Catholic, it’s being an American,” he explains. “Having to pay for gas and groceries – I think if you look at the data it’s about the economy, economy, economy. I think clearly what we see is this was a referendum on that one topic of, ‘Are you financially doing better today than you were doing four years ago?’ and it looks clearly like a lot of Americans said, ‘No, I’m not’”
With the results settled, among those congratulating President Trump on his win was the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio. He asked Catholics to pray for the President-Elect as well as all leaders in public life, that they may rise to meet the responsibilities entrusted to them.
Former President Donald Trump, now president-elect for the second time, will return to the White House after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris. Currents News is digging deep to see how the Catholic vote contributed to his victory.
A disappointing result for many Catholics, New York voters approved Proposition 1, a pro-abortion measure labeled a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” by local bishops, with 62% voting to enshrine abortion on demand in the state’s constitution.
In the Archdiocese of Newark, Elvis may have left the building, but one local deacon brought him back to the chapel. Anthony Liguori, better known as “Deacon Elvis,” pays tribute to the king of rock and roll while serving the King of Kings.
As voters across the U.S. head to the polls on Election Day, New Yorkers face a pivotal choice beyond the presidential race, including Proposition 1, which would enshrine unrestricted abortion rights in the state constitution. Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan has spoken out against the measure, highlighting the divisive nature of this election season.
Security has been stepped up across New York City. Mayor Eric Adams says two police officers will be present at each polling site, and the FBI in New York also has a command post assessing any threats, including targeting election workers, voter fraud, and civil rights violations.
Join Current News and Bishop Brennan for the last day of our nine-day novena as we pray for our country and prepare to vote with our conscience.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have made their final push for votes right down to the wire, hitting all of the battleground states leading up to Election Day. Hours ahead of the polls opening, Trump campaigned in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he closed out his 2016 win.
Kamala Harris made her big push in Pennsylvania, where votes are crucial. However, on Election Day, both presidential candidates hope these last-minute stops will make a difference.
Meanwhile, voters in New York State weigh in on more than just the next president as they head to the polls: Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan has been urging voters to say no to Proposition 1, which, if passed, cements abortion on demand without any restrictions at any point during pregnancy. Catholics are called to oppose this measure, as it disregards the sanctity of human life and risks normalizing the destruction of innocent lives.
St. John’s University’s political analyst and government affairs professor Brian Browne joins Currents News to discuss what voters weigh in on as they head to the polls.
by Jessica Easthope
When Elvis Presley’s “Amazing Grace” rings out of Corpus Christi Church in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, the music has the power to bring you back in time.
So does the musician playing the guitar – with the hair, clothes and voice to match. But Deacon Anthony Liguori doesn’t impersonate Elvis, he pays tribute to him. Better known as “Deacon Elvis,” Deacon Anthony says he and the king of rock and roll were both fans of a greater King.
“Elvis became more to me, I wasn’t obsessed in the sense of some of these fans,” he tells Currents News. “:I just really, genuinely, connected with him… Elvis would be in concert and sometimes people would scream out in the audience, ‘Elvis, you’re the king!’ And he would say, ‘No, I’m not the king. Jesus Christ is the king.’”
Deacon Anthony has been an Elvis tribute artist for decades, packing up his guitar and traveling the country performing as the late entertainer in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Nashville. He’s someone who became a fan early on in life.
“My grandmother and my great-grandmother would watch Elvis movies, with the whole guitar and the hairdo and the motorcycles and everything that went along with it,” he recalls. “I became an instant fan.”
While wearing out the grooves on his Elvis records as a kid, Deacon Anthony realized that what kept his attention was much deeper than what first caught it.
“I guess I was intrigued by everything about his life and his generosity and the way he treated other people and his gospel music as well was a big, important influence in my life,” he explains.
But in his twenties, Deacon Anthony had a nearly fatal health scare and an experience that would go on to shape the rest of his life. “I was on the forefront of paradise, of heaven,” he tells Currents News. “I could see the golden glow and the angels singing. And that’s when I met Jesus. I could feel this warmth of love coming through him. And then ultimately, he had sent me back and said it wasn’t my time.”
Today Deacon Anthony – who is a singer-songwriter himself – still performs as Elvis, and the look and music have become his tools for evangelization.
“For me, it’s Jesus, one-on-one love, compassion. That’s where my ministry takes me,” he says, “And in the end, that’s all that really matters. And maybe someday He’ll say, ‘well done.’ I don’t know, but hopefully.”
In the end, his goal will always be to be remembered as someone who helped and made a difference – not as Elvis – but as Anthony.
For Margarita Manhardt, her Uncle George Cerrito’s memory was all she thought she had left. But after more than three decades, a lost Purple Heart medal and other mementos have reconnected her with his life story.
George Cerrito was a man full of life. He wore a suit every day, loved a good day at the racetrack, and served as a devoted usher at two New Jersey parishes. But what Manhardt remembers most was his smile.
“He couldn’t explain his feelings very well,” Manhardt said, “but you could see the joy in his face. He was a very happy, jovial guy all through his life.”
During World War II, Cerrito served as a turret gunner in General Patton’s 3rd Army.
In the Battle of Bastogne, a mortar shell hit his tank. He was shot in the head, sustaining a traumatic brain injury.
Another crew member pulled him to safety, but Cerrito returned home needing intensive therapy to walk and talk again.
“The first time I saw Uncle George after he was wounded, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk. But he could laugh, and his face lit up when he saw the family,” Manhardt recalled.
One thing that kept him going was his Purple Heart, his most treasured possession.
After his death in 1993, his belongings, including the Purple Heart, were taken by a relative’s fiancée who was unknown to the family.
For decades, the medal was lost.
“We no longer had access to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and I knew in my heart his things were gone,” Manhardt said.
Then, after 31 years, Manhardt received a life-changing call.
Cerrito’s Purple Heart and other medals had been found at a flea market in Dallas, Texas, and returned to Purple Hearts Reunited, an organization that returns lost military medals to veterans’ families.
“I almost fell out of my chair,” she said. “It was so emotional. I couldn’t believe it. Knowing what he did for us, what it cost him. This means everything.”
Manhardt doesn’t know how her uncle’s medals ended up 1,500 miles away. But now, they’re back in her hands, where she believes they belong.
“He’d be thrilled that they’re found, and that the family has them again. I can see his smile. He wouldn’t be able to talk, but the smile would be so great,” she said.
Recently, Manhardt discovered more of her uncle’s wartime items, including a blood-stained coat and shirt. With his Purple Heart home, George Cerrito’s legacy and sacrifice are safe in the family’s memory, alongside his unforgettable smile.