Currents News Staff
Earlier this month, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) elected a new Chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education who hopes to help Catholic schools focus on their mission to strengthen the faith foundation, especially during this pandemic.
Bishop Thomas Daly from the Diocese of Spokane joined Currents News to discuss his new role and the Church’s mission for Catholic schools.
Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.
Some of the top stories on this newscast:
Help could soon be on the way for people in public housing living without heat or a way to cook for their families.
This weekend, Cardinal-designate Wilton Gregory of Washington D.C. will be the first African American to ever be given the red hat.
Kicking off The Tablet’s annual Bright Christmas Campaign to help kids in the Brooklyn Diocese.
By Emily Drooby
The sound of the stove turning on is music to Silvia’s ears. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) resident, whose last name is not being disclosed for safety, went months without being able to cook for her family because of a building-wide gas outage.
“I thought it was only for a week or two weeks but then when I saw it was a month, and next month, and two months and almost four months with that problem,” she told Currents News.
To compensate for the lost stove, she was given a hot plate. Her priest and long-time housing advocate, Father Edward Mason, said that’s not enough.
“Which you really use to heat something up, make a cup of coffee, boil some water for soup, it’s not something you’re going to cook a meal on for a family of people, so it’s just terrible,” explained Father Mason, who’s also the administrator at Mary, Mother of the Church in Brooklyn.
The outage meant Silvia had to spend additional money she wouldn’t have normally had to spend, with expenses including a $150 cooker and premade meals.
“I was worried because it’s not easy to buy food, every time, every day, almost three times a day, because I have kids,” she explained.
Silvia is not alone. NYCHA is constantly making headlines for long utility outages. It’s a problem Father Mason sees often.
“My first thought a couple of years ago, the first time I saw this happen with a family, was they were actually asking to borrow money from me to pay for their food, buy their food and I said, ‘They should be paying less in rent,'” said Fr. Mason.
New York State Senator and Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris had the exact same idea.
“This would not be tolerated in a private residence,” he told Currents News. “The residents of NYCHA should be treated the same as everyone else in this situation.”
Inspired by recent gas outages in Astoria, Queens, he introduced legislation that would cut rent for NYCHA residents experiencing utility outages, dropping it by 10 percent during the outage in hopes of easing the financial pressure on families like Silvia’s.
“Why should they be asked to be paying their full obligations in rent when they’re not getting the services they’re paying for,” asked Senator Gianaris.
NYCHA is arguing this bill would hurt their ability to help.
In a statement sent to Currents News, they wrote:
“Restoring gas for private or public housing is a lengthy, multi-pronged process that involves numerous steps, including shutting off the gas, visiting the units for a scope of the work needed, making necessary repairs, investigating for asbestos, getting permit and inspection approval from our city partners and then coordinating with the utility company to safely turn the gas back on. Reducing or stopping rent payments would not speed up the process and would adversely affect NYCHA’s ability to make repairs, as it would decrease NYCHA’s day-to-day operating budget.”
Still, Senator Gianaris says he expects the bill to start making its way through the Senate and Assembly in January.
By Jessica Easthope
At St. John’s Bread & Life, feeding those in need is a numbers game.
70,000 — that’s the number of pounds of food that has been given out ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. 3,000 — the number of meals served every single day — has been quadrupled during the pandemic.
“A lot of people who never expected to be on our lines are on our lines asking for help and you see the fear in people’s faces, like ‘What do I do? I have to pay my rent, I have to feed my kids.’ So if we can be that support for them, we feel like we’ve accomplished a lot,” said Sister Caroline Tweedy, the Executive Director of St. John’s Bread & Life.
For Sister Caroline says staying ahead of the numbers and the need is what makes the soup kitchen successful. When it comes to the “bread,” they have it covered. But in recent months, the “life” part of their mission has been challenging.
“The one thing that really is missing for us is that sense of community. Bread & Life has always been that place, that refuge for people. Come in, have a meal, see a movie, go to crocheting class, we can’t do any of that,” Sister Caroline explained.
The day before Thanksgiving, staff and volunteers — a team that’s been severely cut down for social distancing — is working double time.
“I have social workers who are on this line handing out food, case managers who are stuffing bags, directors who are running out in the street, everybody is doing their part,” Sister Caroline said.
They all have the same goal: to help people like Rebecca Crowley.
“It’s a blessing to make sure my children don’t go to bed hungry,” said Rebecca, a client at the soup kitchen.
Rebecca and her veteran husband both lost their jobs during the pandemic. With three young kids at home, Rebecca relies on St. John’s Bread & Life to make Thanksgiving special.
“It’s the best feeling in the world to be able to make a meal knowing you came here and put it down in front of my family just the look in their eyes,” she said.
This Thanksgiving, the pandemic isn’t stopping St. John’s Bread & Life from showing people they still care. 6,000 is the number of people they’ll feed, and the number of reasons to have hope.
Currents News Staff
Pandemic travel restrictions have been tough on everyone who’s away from their family during the holidays, but it’s been especially tough on a teen in Rockland County, New York, who hasn’t seen his older sister Sam in over a year.
She’s in the U.S. Army stationed in Italy, and they don’t know when she’ll be able to come home next.
Trey Rolnick joins Currents News now to share how he’s trying to make sure Sam and her fellow soldiers still have a Merry Christmas.
If you’d like to donate to the soldiers stationed in Italy, head on over to gofundme.com and search for “Operation Santa, Sam’s Soldiers.” The deadline to donate is Sunday, November 29.
By Emily Drooby
As she steps through the doors of St. Francis College, Gabrielle Lora also steps towards her future. The freshman is studying for a career in education.
“This is a great school, and I love it so much,” she said.
Gabrielle is part of the largest freshman class in the history of the school. For the 2020 school year, St. Francis had 747 incoming freshmen, a 22 percent jump from 2019.
This means the school bucks a national trend. This fall, freshman enrollment dropped 13 percent in the U.S.
Community colleges had the steepest drop off, at almost 19 percent.
While the pandemic financial woes and learning from home is likely to blame for some of the drop, it has actually been an ongoing trend. Enrollment numbers have dropped 11 percent over the past eights years. Experts say it’s due to more immediate job opportunities and the high cost of college.
So how did St. Francis College grow? Alumnus and Director of Recruitment Rob Oliva says it’s because they got creative and personal with recruiting.
“We increased our communication with students by hosting numerous virtual visit sessions, personal visits with high schools and we were able to connect with our students in very personal ways,”he explained. “We know our students’ names, they know us.”
That recruitment style is what drew in Gabrielle.
“St. Francis came to my high school. The president, Miguel, was able to basically talk about the core values: dream, serve, achieve, and something was telling me this was the school,” she told Currents News.
Her decision was solidified by the people.
“I saw how everyone was like, ‘Hi, hi, welcome, welcome,’ and I wanted to be a part of that,” she said.
Money was also at play, as many families have struggled financially because of the pandemic.
An average four-year private college in New York City costs 32,500 dollars. Tuition at St. Francis College is 26,688 dollars but an average student pays 13,500 dollars after institutional aid, and under 10,000 dollars after the government aid kicks in too.
Ninety-nine percent of their students get institutional aid.
This year, the school even offered extra help through an emergency relief fund for students struggling from pandemic financial woes.
“But thanks to the generosity of our alumni, friends and benefactors, we were able to offer a very generous scholarship program to our students,” said Rob.
Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.
Some of the top stories on this newscast:
For the first time, Pope Francis is saying millions of Muslims in western China are victims of persecution.
Projected winner Joe Biden gets the green light from the federal government to move ahead with his presidential transition.
A tour of the catacombs beneath Old Saint Patrick’s reveals the amazing history of the Catholic Church in New York City.
Why Saint Francis College in Brooklyn Heights is attracting so many new students.
Currents News Staff
This holiday season will be different for all of us. It will be really difficult for some who have lost loved ones, their health or their jobs during this pandemic.
But thanks to the papal society Catholic Extension, it’s putting $1,000 in the hands of a thousand nuns, so that they can help those who are most in need.
The Vice President of Mission at Catholic Extension, Joe Boland, joins Currents News to share the goods news about the “Sisters on the Frontlines” initiative.
If you’d like to donate to the Sisters On The Frontlines, head to catholicextension.org, where information on how to give is available on their homepage.
By Currents News Staff and Inés San Martín
ROSARIO, Argentina – At a time when supporting your local retailers is a way of helping them weather the COVID-19 storm, one ice cream shop hiding in the shade of St. Peter’s Basilica that has one special faithful customer: Pope Francis.
The ice-cream shop Padron is so well known in the Vatican that when Silvia – the wife of the owner, Sebastian Padron – showed up to the gates of the world’s smallest state with a dozen empanadas – a meat-filled dough that is a classic dish in Pope Francis’s native Argentina – no one asked any questions and delivered them directly to the pontiff.
The empanadas are a recent addition to the ice cream shop’s menu, in an attempt to keep the business running during the winter months. The Padrons left a note with the gift: They wanted the Holy Father to know they’re praying for him, and that they wouldn’t mind if he prayed for them.
The treats were delivered on a Saturday, and on Tuesday, Pope Francis made a phone call to personally thank him for the gesture, and to invite him over for a chat.
“I could hardly believe how personal he was being, how approachable, human,” Padron told Crux over the phone, after the 40-minute conversation his family had with Pope Francis in the Casa Santa Marta, the residence within the Vatican grounds where the Francis has lived since his election.
“The Holy Father wanted to know when we could come, based on the store hours, and the routine of the family, when obviously, whenever he could welcome us, we could go!” Padron said.
Despite the family’s shock, it’s not entirely surprising that the pontiff called them: He’s a big fan of ice cream and he often takes the time to thank people personally for their gifts and gestures of good will.
The Padrons’ have two children: Maite, 6, and Luca Marino, 3. They opened the shop in 2018, and the original plan for this year was to open another store, since business was booming- thanks to the quality of the product, the special customer from Santa Marta and an Argentine player at A.S. Roma, the Italian capital’s most popular soccer team.
Yet the pandemic changed those plans.
Cardinals, bishops and friends of the Holy Father are regular customers of Padron [including this chronicler], and all of them know that Dulce de Leche Granizado is the one flavor that cannot be missing for any order headed for Pope Francis.
For those unfamiliar with it, dulce de leche is a brown caramel-like spread, made from milk, sugar and vanilla extract. It has small variations and is consumed in several Latin American countries, but Argentines like to claim they invented it. The ice cream flavor Pope Francis favors includes tiny shreds of bitter chocolate.
The Padron family arrived in the Casa Santa Marta on Oct. 29 with a basket full of their best products, including a bottle of Argentine Malbec wine, that is also available for customers. Much to the joy of the children, the pontiff too had a bag full of gifts in exchange, including rosaries for each member of the family, and a Franciscan crucifix.
Maite had a drawing for him, which at the end of the encounter, Francis carefully took with him, calling it the “most important thing” among the gifts the family had offered.
“To me, it felt like he was ‘unplugging’ for a few minutes from what it means to be the pope,” Padron said. “We were surprised by how welcome he made all of us feel, much as if we were having a chat with an old friend. I think he needed that too, to be among friends.”
Though there has been much speculation as to why Pope Francis decided to live in the Casa Santa Marta instead of the Apostolic Palace when he was elected in 2013, but he has explained it several times: He likes that first-hand contact with people, of all backgrounds, and the freedom to determine some of his appointments, as the one with Padron, which he wrote down in his agenda himself.
“At one point, the pope acknowledged that being with us was good for him, almost as if it helped him keep grounded, feel like he was among friends, in his neighborhood, in his country,” Padron said. The pontiff has yet to go back to Argentina since his election, but he’s never short of Argentines in Rome, even inviting a missionary from Buenos Aires who lives in Mozambique to visit him for a week.
Pope Francis welcomed the family in a “very large room” on the ground floor of the papal residence and was very punctual, arriving with a smile but no face mask. “He told us that it didn’t ‘seem right’ to use the mask in such a large room, in what was supposed to be a personal setting, when he already has to use it ‘all day’.”
By Jessica Easthope
Time stands still on Mulberry and Prince Streets.
There’s a hidden secret inside the church. Many don’t know there’s an Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which means they definitely don’t know about what lies beneath.
“The tradition started during the Roman Empire when Catholics couldn’t afford burials so Catholic property owners decided to burrow tunnels under their very own properties, and then this tradition carried out all throughout Europe,” explained Tommy Wilkinson, the Tour Director of Tommy’s New York.
Catacombs, the crypts under the now Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, were first built in 1815. Historical figures lie in coffins hermetically sealed within the walls. The details of their lives and deaths are now sealed in Tommy’s mind.
“In this country they’re very reverend places of burial, you’ll usually find trustees and benefactors, so the early families that literally supported the Church,” Wilkinson said.
The catacombs are where Wilkinson spends his days — walking back and forth, giving tours above and below seven days a week.
“This is really an untapped gem that I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to share with the world,” said Tommy.
His tours help sustain the church financially.
“Every parish has to stand on its own legs and find ways to support itself, and what’s unique about the basilica here is it has six properties to maintain, all of them double landmarked, and I don’t think we’re truly at risk because of all the special things that make this church historic,” he said, ‘and definitely the tours have become a very important part of sustaining the church.”
Tommy’s keys unlock a lot of doors, each one opens a new opportunity to connect with the lost history of New York City and the Catholic Church.
“There’s also an evangelizing process,” he noted. “People reconnecting with their faith, people wanting to delve more into their Catholicism, people wanting to become parishioners. I don’t know how many weddings and funerals being scheduled here resulted from the tour, but for me it’s a high honor to have been blessed with the opportunity.”
He experienced that same reconnection: he once strayed from the Church, but deep within the catacombs, he found faith again.
“I became a parishioner the very day I signed the contract,” he recalled. “Being a Catholic myself and just recognizing the importance of what I’ve been given here. It was more than just luck. I felt a tremendous burden of responsibility as well and this has re-anchored me in my faith. This means everything to me that I’ve been given the opportunity to build a business around having the keys to the kingdom here.”
Bishops, priests, politicians and even the man who introduced Italian opera to the United States are all buried down in the catacombs, and the best part is you could be buried with them.
“It’s the only active Catholic cemetery here in Manhattan, so imagine you can choose a niche right down here in the catacombs where you’re going to become a part of history and to me that’s fascinating,” said Tommy.
Surrounded by the walls of the final resting place, each person feels something different during the 90 minute experience. But when all the lights go out, history comes alive.