By Jessica Easthope
While winter blankets New York City in snow, students at Incarnation Catholic Academy are keeping things green indoors. Through a hands-on hydroponics lab, young scientists are growing fresh vegetables while learning how faith, science, and sustainability come together — proving that learning doesn’t stop when the temperature drops.
By Jessica Easthope
A warm hello was exactly what students needed on a freezing cold day at St. Leo Catholic Academy in Corona. It came from Bishop Robert Brennan, who stopped by the school to mark the start of Catholic Schools Week.
“When you see the effect of, for example, Catholic education on our young people and our children, it’s always a reminder of what it’s all about,” Bishop Brennan said.
The theme of this year’s nationwide celebration of faith-filled education is “United in Faith and Community.” But community looks different in third grade than it does in eighth. Bishop Brennan started the day by listening in and participating in a discussion about the history of the rosary and the role Mary plays in Catholic prayer. Eighth-grader Layla Vera said she now knows a lot about it.
“They misclassify her. We don’t worship her, we honor her,” Vera said. “She’s able to, like, lead us to Christ.”
“The young people were talking about the rosary, the power of prayer, what’s important, how they pray. It was very impressive,” Bishop Brennan said.
But the younger students couldn’t get over the mountains of snow they passed on their way into school.
“I like when he came to my classroom and we were talking about the snow,” third-grader Carlos Paisano said.
“We’re talking about the snow, how bad it was and how they were trying to move it, but they did it pretty bad,” said third-grader Mario Luna.
Luckily for them, Bishop Brennan was there to talk it out.
Bishop Brennan will be making his rounds at other Catholic schools this week, but at St. Leo they’re already hoping he returns.
“I want us to set up another activity so we can do it with him. That would be fun,” Vera said.
But the snow? Not so much.
“It’s going to be really slippery because it could freeze,” said Luna. “It could become a disaster!”
Catholic Schools Week is officially underway with a visit from Bishop Robert Brennan to St. Leo Catholic Academy in Queens, joining students for classroom conversations.
The Catholic faith is thriving at the University of Notre Dame, where the school is reporting a record number of students preparing to enter the Church through its RCIA program.
Holocaust survivor Rosalie Simon shares her powerful story of surviving Auschwitz and dedicating her life to educating young people in the fight against antisemitism.
By Currents News
St. Charbel Makhlouf, the Lebanese Maronite monk renowned for the extraordinary number of miracles associated with his intercession, has been credited with two more healings in the first few weeks of 2026.
The first miracle concerns Georgianne Walker, an attorney in South Bend, Indiana. In January 2026, she was officially recorded as healed after applying blessed oil from St. Charbel to a severe post-surgical infection she suffered a couple of years earlier.
The second occurred in Lebanon, where Rachel Charbel (no known relation to the saint) touched a photograph of St. Charbel following a diagnosis of a spinal tumor. A follow-up scan the next day showed the tumor had completely vanished.
Brooklyn’s Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour described the accounts as consistent with many miracles he has witnessed over the years.
“Science tells us that nerve, once it’s damaged, is never repaired,” he said, recalling a previous case in which both an optic nerve and broken family relationships were restored.
“I’m really not surprised… Each time I say, thank you, Lord, and thank you, Charbel.”
Bishop Mansour called St. Charbel “the best ambassador for the Maronite Church,” far surpassing any bishop in drawing people to God’s mercy, love, and healing.
“He goes before us in many places and tells people about God’s mercy and God’s love and God’s healing,” he added.
The reports come shortly after a historic moment: in December 2025, Pope Leo XIV became the first pontiff to visit St. Charbel’s tomb in Lebanon.
Bishop Mansour noted that the saint served as a powerful sign of hope for the Lebanese people throughout the civil war from 1975 to 1990.
These latest miracles continue to affirm St. Charbel’s enduring legacy as one of the Church’s most prolific intercessors for healing and grace.
By Jessica Easthope
Catholic Schools Week got off to a cheerful start at St. Leo Catholic Academy in Queens as Bishop Robert Brennan paid a special visit to students and teachers, bringing smiles on an otherwise freezing day.
From faith-filled classroom discussions to moments of joy with students, the visit sets the tone for a week of celebration across the Diocese of Brooklyn.
By Jessica Easthope
A simple cup of morning coffee jogs a distant memory. It doesn’t take much to bring Rosalie Simon back in time.
“I forget what happened yesterday, but this I can’t forget. I wish I would,” she said.
There are some things a life of happiness, family, friends, and hobbies can’t erase.
“I heard an announcement on the loudspeaker. ‘Those of you that are going to the left will receive more bread.’ As I was walking to the gas chamber with my mother, I made a quick decision to turn around and get my sisters and we’d all be together, and that’s what I did without saying anything to my mother. I never saw her again. I was devastated for leaving her, but that’s how I got saved on the day upon arrival from being killed.”
In 1944, Rosalie was 12 years old when her parents and her five siblings were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the center of the Nazi Party’s “Final Solution.”
“After being there a few days, I asked someone, ‘What are those flames coming out of the chimney?’ And she said, ‘You don’t know? This is where they burned your mother, your father, your sisters and brothers. This is where you’re going to wind up soon.’”
Despite having been hand-selected for the gas chamber by the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, Rosalie managed to escape more than once, thanks to her four older sisters who were selected to be transported to a labor camp, and the kindness of a complete stranger.
“I said, ‘Let me out. I don’t want to die.’ I thought maybe somebody is going to hear me. I jumped up and down, jumped up and down, ‘Please let me out.’ Well, there was a mother and a daughter. The daughter was sent to the gas chamber. The mother couldn’t take the pain of seeing her child going to the gas chamber by herself. She volunteered to go with her daughter and die together. There was somebody who was helping Dr. Mengele with the selections. She happened to be a Jewish woman with red hair. She opened the door, and she gave me a striped dress, and she told me, ‘Run.’”
All five sisters made it out and transformed their lives.
“What I have to say will be hard to read,” she said.
Today, at 94 years old, Rosalie has given hundreds of talks. Her memoir, Girl in a Striped Dress, has been adapted into a one-woman play and performed by students to keep her story alive.
“I was told that Hitler was a great man and just wanted the best for his country.”
With rising antisemitism around the world, Rosalie warns that hate starts small but can grow rapidly without education and compassion to stop it.
“I just want this hate to stop. All I can do is teach the young people against hatred.”
Her past remains a part of her. And as for the girl in the striped dress:
“I know her well, but I’m not her anymore.”
A major snowstorm blanketed the Diocese of Brooklyn, prompting traditional snow days at Catholic academies and sparking joyful reactions from students.
Catholic Schools Week kicks off with a spotlight on Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Academy in Queens, where students are excelling academically thanks to a culture of high expectations and strong community support.
A federal judge is ordering the Department of Homeland Security to preserve evidence in a deadly ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis.
New York State bishops are calling on Catholics to welcome migrants with dignity, urging humane immigration enforcement rooted in faith rather than politics.
By Katie Vasquez and Currents News
Crowds gathered on the National Mall to be a voice for the voiceless — the unborn. Pro-lifers traveled to Washington, D.C., from all over the country, including the Diocese of Brooklyn.
“It’s really important because I go every year and I go with my group, and, you know, this really means a lot to me as a Catholic and as a pro-lifer,” said Connor Whelen, a parishioner of Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Tens of thousands of people were energized ahead of the march during a rally that included a message from the Holy Father — the first American pope, Pope Leo XIV — who encouraged participants, noting that he once walked in their footsteps while he was in college. The crowd also heard remarks from the president and vice president of the United States.
“We have made unprecedented strides to protect innocent life and support the institution of the family like never before. There’s never been anything like it,” said President Donald Trump.
Vice President J.D. Vance added, “We have to be clear. We cannot be neutral. Our country cannot be indifferent about whether its next generations live or die.”
Marissa D’Alessio understands the gift of life firsthand. The Brooklyn parishioner was born prematurely and, according to doctors, faced the possibility of having no brain function or dying.
“My mother and all the nurses lit candles for me and were praying for me. And I had a miraculous recovery that God miraculously healed me. And I came out perfectly normal,” said D’Alessio, a parishioner of St. Anselm Church.
Nurse and midwife Amelia Knowles said she wanted to advocate for life after witnessing the birth of countless babies over decades of work.
“If you look at the cardinal classic movements of a baby, [the baby] genuflects to the Lord as they are being delivered out of their mother’s womb. And that is a gift I get every single time,” said Knowles, a parishioner of St. Mark’s Church, who is a registered nurse and certified nurse midwife.
While Roe v. Wade has been overturned, many said the fight continues as assisted suicide and other legislation are pushed forward.
“There’s still a battle going on, and we can’t simply forget it because the Supreme Court overturned it,” said Deacon John. “It has to be fought now on a state level and even a city level many times, because lives are still being taken by abortion. And it’s part of this larger issue of how valuable is life.”
Bishop Robert Brennan echoed that message, urging perseverance.
“I don’t think we can get discouraged. I think the devil’s tool is discouragement,” Brennan said. “And so while it appears that, you know, for every battle you win, you lose a couple of others, there’s something else that’s happening. And maybe in some ways, our case becomes stronger, because we stand firm no matter what happens.”
Currents News is in Washington D.C. as hundreds of thousands of people take to the nation’s capital united in sending one message: lawmakers must protect the unborn and mothers.
Parishioners from the Diocese of Brooklyn are bringing their faith, their voices, and their strength in numbers to the steps of the Supreme Court during the 53rd annual March for Life.
This special newscast includes:
Currents News is in Washington D.C. as hundreds of thousands of people take to the nation’s capital united in sending one message: lawmakers must protect the unborn and mothers.