Why Pope Francis Spoke About Communion, the COVID Vaccine and Same-Sex Marriage on the Papal Plane

By Currents News Staff and Inés San Martín

ŠAŠTIN, Slovakia (Crux) — Pope Francis’s first European tour in the COVID-19 era ended with a bang, as he celebrated Mass for 60,000 people in the field surrounding the national Basilica of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows.

During the homily of the closing Mass of his Sept. 12-15 visit to Slovakia, Pope Francis said that Christians are called to be “protectors and guardians of life where the culture of death reigns.”

According to local tradition, the image of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows was carved by Countess Angelika Bakičová in 1564 to fulfill a promise made to save her marriage. The Virgin allegedly appeared to her and told her that everything would be fine.

The pontiff said that the Mother of God is a model of a faith that is inspired “by simple and sincere devotion, a constant pilgrimage to seek the Lord.”

“In making this journey, you overcome the temptation to a passive faith, content with this or that ritual or ancient tradition,” Pope Francis said. “Instead, you leave yourselves behind and set out, carrying in your backpacks the joys and sorrows of this life, and thus make your life a pilgrimage of love towards God and your brothers and sisters.”

Departing from his prepared remarks, he said “when the Church stops, it becomes ill. When the bishops stop [journeying] they make the Church ill. And when the priests stop, they make the faithful ill.”

The pontiff also said that the faith cannot be “reduced to a sweetener to make life more palatable.”

“Jesus is a sign of contradiction. He came to bring light to the darkness, exposing the darkness for what it is and forcing it to submit to Him. For this reason, the darkness always fights against Him,” Pope Francis said.

In 1995, when Pope John Paul II said Mass in the same field during his apostolic visit to Slovakia, there were 200,000 people in attendance, the difference in numbers explained both by the growing secularization of the Slovak people and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Slovakia has one of the lowest vaccination rates of the European Union, with less than 50% of the adult population receiving at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The government had originally mandated that only those who had been fully vaccinated or could prove they had recovered from COVID-19 in the last six months would be allowed to attend the Mass. However, when a lower-than-anticipated number of people registered, they removed the restrictions.

Upon arrival, Pope Francis took his time doing the usual drive through on the popemobile, imparting blessings, kissing babies and smiling, looking nothing like the man who came out of the balcony in the Gemelli hospital in Rome on July 10, a week after having 13 inches of his colon removed.

During his homily, Pope Francis reminded the Slovak people, who for decades saw their faith oppressed by the communist regime, that Christians are “weavers of dialogue where hostility is growing; models of fraternal life where society is experiencing tension and hostility; bringers of the sweet fragrance of hospitality and solidarity where personal and collective selfishness too often prevails, protectors and guardians of life where the culture of death reigns.”

Among the participants at the liturgy was Katharina Vida, who provided the sign language interpretation for the service.

Asked by Crux what she felt about being the interpreter for a papal Mass, she couldn’t hide her emotion, and, tearing up, gave the Slovak word for “incredible.” Next to her was Norberth, her son, who became an improvised interpreter, since Katharina doesn’t speak English.

She described the visit as “historic” because it helped remind the world that there is a country in the map called Slovakia.

This was not the first time she provided sign language interpretation so the deaf people of Slovakia could follow a historic event.

“Back in 1989, when I was just a young girl, I was the interpreter of the revolution,” speaking about the civil uprising that led to the fall of communism in the then-Czechoslovakia.

“I have chills just thinking about it, even if at the time, I couldn’t grasp the meaning of what I was doing, or of what my hands were saying,” she said.

Currents News Update for Wednesday, 9/15/21

While there are stories of rebuilding and recovery here in the Diocese of Brooklyn, some Hurricane Ida flood victims haven’t reached that point yet — after losing everything.

To celebrate the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we have the story of a Brooklyn priest who traveled across the country to support migrants doing essential work thousands of miles from their own homes and families.

Pope Francis is back in Rome after a jam-packed visit to eastern Europe.

The Biden Administration is asking a federal judge to block Texas’s new pro-life law that forbids abortions past six weeks of gestation — the White House is calling it “unconstitutional.”

Five Families that go to St. Mary’s Winfield Church in Woodside now Homeless After NYC Flooding

By Emily Drooby

The flooding line still visible in Leticia’s Queens apartment, weeks after Tropical Storm Ida hit NYC. Mold now covers the walls.

Tropical storm Ida flooded into her basement apartment. It was swift and hit without any warning. It left her desperate for a way out.

Leticia explained, “I didn’t expect that, it was like, for a couple minutes, I was like, what am I going to do. As soon as the water broke in, it broke the door and I just said, I have to get out.

Water was up to her knees within five minutes. If she didn’t have a second exit, she said she wouldn’t have made it out alive.

She’s one of the lucky ones. At least 11 New Yorkers died in basement dwellings during the storm. They’re not always legal, so there’s no way to know how many exist.

The city is working on a warning system for basement dwellers during floods but it’s not set to come out until 2023.

Leticia thanks God that she’s alive, but her home of twelve years is unlivable, and all her possessions are gone.

Leticia told Currents News, “I work so many years for this, to stand up on my feet, and it’s really sad. But I think God is going to help me, and I am going to make it.”

She’s facing a harsh reality. A two-bedroom near her church, St. Mary’s Winfield averages more than $2,100 a month.

She’s not alone says her pastor, Father Christopher O’Connor.

He explained, “I have about five families who I know of who are homeless right now.”

Father O’Connor says the whole parish is pitching in… And FEMA can help, too, but that money could take a while.

In the meantime, Leticia is staying with family and relying on her faith.

“My faith is what has me standing on my feet, because I have faith,” she said while standing outside of her church.

If you’d like to support those impacted by Ida, you can donate to the U.S. Bishops’ Emergency Disaster Fund. Just head over to USCCB.ORG and click “Help Now.”

The money collected in this special appeal will be used to support the pastoral and reconstruction needs of the church as well as the efforts of Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services.

Currents News Update for Tuesday, 9/14/21

Pope Francis – in the middle of his eastern European trip – highlighting the importance of the cross during a Mass in Slovakia.

Tuesday morning saw the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the remnants of hurricane Ida washed over New York City.

Pope in Slovakia: Day 3 Round Up

Currents News Staff

Music played as Pope Francis arrived in the largest neighborhood for the Roma ethnic community in Europe.

Some 350-thousand Roma people, commonly referred to as gypsies, live in Slovakia – many in poverty and often isolated from others.

The Holy Father called for integration and condemned the discrimination they face.

Earlier Pope Francis celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – one of the most significant feast days in the Byzantine Rite.

During his homily he urged the faithful not to reduce the cross to an object of devotion or a political symbol, but to embrace its real meaning.

“Crucifixes are found all around us: on necks, in homes, in cars, in pockets. What good is this, unless we stop to look at the crucified Jesus and open our hearts to him, unless we let ourselves be struck by the wounds he bears for our sake,” said the Pope.

Pope Calls For Integration of Roma People; Condemns Prejudice, Exclusion

By Inés San Martín

KOŠICE, Slovakia (Crux) — Speaking at the largest Roma impoverished community in Europe, Pope Francis said they are not in the margins of the Catholic Church, but at its center, and that they should be at the center of society too, integrated and not hidden from view.

“All too often you have been the object of prejudice and harsh judgments, discriminatory stereotypes, defamatory words, and gestures,” Pope Francis said. “As a result, we are all poorer, poorer in humanity. Restoring dignity means passing from prejudice to dialogue, from introspection to integration.”

Often dubbed the pope of the peripheries, Pope Francis has made a point of visiting those who are on the margins of society during his trips outside of Italy, and on Tuesday he visited the Luník IX district, a neighborhood built in the 1970s to house some 2,500 people, most of them military and police. Today, twice as many people live here, virtually all of them from the Roma community, commonly known as gypsies. Many two-bedroom apartments are shared by intergenerational families with little or no access to natural light and basic services such as running water, gas, and electricity.

Luník IX is only 15 minutes away from the center of Košice, the country’s second largest city, but it seems like an ocean away from the majestic St Elizabeth Cathedral, or the city center’s historic buildings and romantic streets.

Though technically addressing the Roma community, Pope Francis was also talking to the entire country, as the community of some 500,000 Roma living in Slovakia often face discrimination due to long-rooted stereotypes of them being scam artists, lazy and uneducated.

According to the pontiff, where there is a concern for the human person, patience and concrete efforts to foster integration, these efforts will bear fruit, even if not immediately.

“Judgement and prejudice only increase distances,” Pope Francis said. “Hostility and sharp words are not helpful. Marginalizing others accomplishes nothing. Segregating ourselves and other people eventually leads to anger. The path to peaceful coexistence is integration: An organic, gradual and vital process that starts with coming to know one another, then patiently grows, keeping its gaze fixed on the future.”

The future, he said, is the children, because the future belongs to them, and they should be the ones guiding the decisions made by the adult population: “Their great dreams must not collide with barriers that we have erected. Our children want to grow together with others, without encountering obstacles and exclusion. They deserve a well-integrated and free life. They are the ones who should motivate us to make far-sighted decisions based not on hasty consensus, but on concern for our common future.”

This integration is still far down in the future for the Roma in Slovakia: Statistics show that over 90% of the adult population living in this district are unemployed, and most of the children don’t go to the one school available to them in the neighborhood.

Pope Francis also thanked the many volunteers who are engaged in the process of integration, because it requires great effort but often encounters misunderstandings and ingratitude, “even within the Church.”

The state, NGOs, and security forces have all abandoned Luník IX, with the Catholic Church — with the help of the Salesian missionaries — being the only institution that has been willing to stay long enough to break the barrier of mistrust that the Roma often have when it comes to outsiders.

The impoverished community is plagued by loan sharks, fights between clans, racism, and degrading living conditions in dilapidated buildings that lack heating in a city that easily reaches freezing temperatures all winter.

“Holy Father, we believe that your presence in this place contributes to all of us achieving a greater unity despite the diversity and we walk on the road to a more peaceful coexistence, through mutual esteem, reconciliation, and forgiveness,” said Salesian Father Peter Bešenyei, director of the center the order has in the neighborhood.

Pope Francis thanked the priest for the order’s work, and urged them to persevere in the path they’ve undertaken, even if it might not “yield immediate results, but is nonetheless prophetic, for it embraces the least of our brothers and sisters.”

“Do not be afraid to go out to encounter the marginalized,” he said. “You will find that you are going out to meet Jesus. He awaits you wherever there is need, not comfort; wherever service rules, not power; wherever incarnation, not self-indulgence, is required. Those are the places where he will be found. I ask all of you to overcome your fears and to leave behind past injuries, confidently, step by step: in honest work, in the dignity born of earning our daily bread, in fostering mutual trust, and in praying for one another.”

Slovak Salesian Father Marian Deahos told journalists that he’s uncertain about just how much the Roma will actually embrace the pope’s call for integration but agreed that both they and the rest of the country need to hear it.

“Many in this country have extreme-right views, many are racist, and it’s important that he calls us to be open,” he said minutes before the pope’s arrival.

“They have their images of Mary and Jesus in their homes, but it’s difficult for us to help them understand the importance of the Eucharist,” Father Deahos acknowledged.

St. Mary of Winfield Sifting Through the Rubble After Lower Church Destroyed During NYC Flooding

By Emily Drooby and Paula Katinas

WOODSIDE — When Father Christopher O’Connor hears that the weather forecast calls for rain, he says to himself, “Oh, no!”

One can’t blame him for that reaction, especially after what he and his parishioners at St. Mary’s Winfield Church went through on Sept. 1 when the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused a rainstorm so severe, it flooded the lower church, destroyed the parish Adoration Chapel and a faith formation classroom and drowned church pews in 10 feet of water.

The painstaking work of repairing and rebuilding the lower church is expected to cost more than $1 million.

Insurance will cover the costs but that doesn’t mean the headaches are over for Father O’Connor, the church’s pastor. His days are filled with meetings with insurance adjusters, contractors, and representatives from Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens. “As pastor, I’m the one responsible for everything overall,” he said.

The cleanup is still going on — more than a week after the storm. “Ninety-nine percent of the water is out. There still is a little bit of water because it’s seeping out from the walls,” Father O’Connor said.

The chapel walls had to be torn down. The demolition work started on Sept. 8.

“That was hard. I think that was the first time I got a little emotional,” Father O’Connor admitted. “I try to be on an even keel. But when I went to the chapel and they were tearing down the walls, it was hard because we just opened it in February. A lot of time and effort went into it. And prayer.”

The Adoration Chapel had opened Feb. 1 — exactly seven months to the day before the storm.

The parish is determined to rebuild the lower church and the chapel, as well as the faith formation classroom, which was used by Confirmation students.

“The contractor who built the classroom and the chapel is coming back. He already knows he’s doing it again,” Father O’Connor said.

The first step is to complete the massive post-storm cleanup. Among other tasks, workers will have to make sure all of the moisture is out so that mold doesn’t get a chance to set in. The boiler is probably salvageable, he said. Electrical switches and outlets will be replaced.

“I’m a fixer by nature, so I just plan. Some instruction has been given to every contractor on what we need to go forward. A lot of the work was new, so it’s really just replacing what we just did,” Father O’Connor said.

The storm has left scars in the form of terrifying memories. The water was so powerful, it literally knocked down a brick wall underneath a staircase leading to the lower church. The street outside the church, 48th Avenue, became a river, lifting cars up and carrying them with the current. At one point, the NYPD sent in a diver to check the cars to make sure no one was inside.

Parishioners have offered help in the form of manpower and monetary donations. Father O’Connor, in turn, is concerned about them.

“Some of our parishioners are homeless right now. Their basement apartments were flooded. I know of at least three families that are looking for a place and there may be a fourth,” he said.

Catholic Charities is working with the displaced families. And Father O’Connor has been calling real estate agents.

Father O’Connor is confident the church will be able to rebuild. “Jesus will help us,” he said.

A massive cleanup is also taking place at other churches and schools in the diocese.

St. Bartholomew Church, Elmhurst, sustained flooding to its chapel as well as to the rectory.

The gymnasium at St. Bartholomew Catholic Academy was flooded, according to Principal Denise Gonzalez.

“The gym floor is still wet,” she said on Sept. 13, nearly two weeks after the storm. “We have to air it out to prevent mols”

Gonzalez said repairs can begin once all the moisture is out of the gym.

Father Rick Beuther, pastor of St. Bartholomew, was on the phone with officials from the diocese on the night of the storm, Gonzalez said. “Father Rick was great. He called the diocese and the insurance company came right away to take pictures,” she said.

Congresswoman Grace Meng, who represents Elmhurst, visited the church and the academy Monday morning to get a first-hand look at the cleanup.

Meng also visited with an eighth-grade class.

“She explained FEMA to them and how it works,” Gonzalez said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

They’re fundraising for anything not covered by insurance. Donations can be made on their give central account here: GiveCentral which can also be found on their main website: www.stmarysofwinfield.com

How an Afghan Writer and Pope Francis Helped a Christian Family Escape the Taliban in Kabul

By Currents News Staff

Afghan writer Ali Ehsani reached out to Pope Francis in August, asking for his help in getting a Christian family hiding in Kabul on a flight our of the country. The Holy Father was moved by their story, and sent Ehsani a message, while mobilizing Vatican diplomats to help the family in need.

“I told them that the Pope was praying for them,” Ali said, “that he was thinking of them during that time, and that they should remain calm. They said: “Let’s hope they will be able to save us.” In the end, they managed to make it to Italy.”

By mid-August, the Vatican acted with other institutions to get them out of Kabul. The Italian military took them to Rome, where they are now being cared for by the “Meet Human” foundation.

EU politician, Silvia Costa, was a vocal advocate for their evacuation. On Twitter, she announced their safe arrival in Italy. One of the family members that appears in her photo wanted to give Pope Francis the shirt he wore when he escaped from the Taliban and began his new life.

“This is a typical clothing item in Afghanistan that a young Afghan boy was wearing when he fled the country and arrived here in Italy,” Ali said. “In those four to five days in which they were fleeing, he always wore this shirt. He even had it on at the Kabul airport, where the picture was taken.”

The Holy Father deeply appreciated the gift from a family targeted for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.

Currents News Update for Monday, 9/13/21

Pope Francis is in Slovakia. Yesterday, the Holy Father was in Budapest. He referenced a growing anti-immigrant sentiment happening in countries like these.

Members of the NYPD gathered at Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to remember the lives lost on September 11.

It’s back to school for one million public school students here in New York City and the day got off to a shaky start.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, one priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn opened up a food pantry to help the needy and now, Father Dwayne Davis is being recognized as a COVID-19 hero.

‘Upbeat, Healthy’ Pope Francis Calls For Freedom in Both Civil Society and Church

By Currents News Staff and Inés San Martín

BRATISLAVA (Crux) — Speaking to civil authorities in Slovakia, a country that for decades was under one-party Communist rule, Pope Francis warned against the “single-thought” system of consumerism and ideological colonization.

“In these lands, until just a few decades ago, a single-thought system stifled freedom,” Pope Francis said on Sept. 13. “Today another single thought-system is emptying freedom of meaning, reducing progress to profit and rights only to individual needs.

Today, as then, the salt of the faith acts not by reacting in worldly terms, by engaging in culture wars, but by quietly and humbly sowing the seeds of God’s kingdom, especially by the witness of charity.”

The pontiff also said that it’s his hope that Slovaks won’t allow the rich “flavors of your finest traditions” to be ruined by the “superficiality of consumerism and material gain. Or by forms of ideological colonization.”

Though he didn’t go into specifics, Pope Francis has often used the term “ideological colonization” to refer to issues pertaining to the family and life, including abortion and euthanasia.

The pontiff’s words came Monday after a private meeting with President Zuzana Čaputová, a 48-year-old mother of two who became the youngest president in the history of Slovakia in 2019.

During his remarks to civil authorities and the diplomatic corps, Pope Francis made a point of supporting the European Union as nationalistic sentiments fueled by populist leaders grow, particularly in the countries of the Visegrád group — Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland.

Čaputová is an exception, and in her remarks she warned against populism, national selfishness, fundamentalism and fanaticism, and the exploitation of religion for political objectives.

The leader of a nation that is at the heart of Europe, surrounded by countries such as Poland and Hungary that often resort to pro-Christian messages to ban Muslim refugees from the Middle East, she underlined that any form of anti-Semitism and religious intolerance is irreconcilable with Christianity.

In his remarks, Pope Francis said fraternity is necessary for the “increasingly pressing process of integration.”

“All the more so, in these days when, after long and trying months of pandemic, fully conscious of the difficulties to be faced, we look forward with hope to an economic upturn favored by the recovery plans of the European Union,” he said.

However, the pontiff added, this cannot mean succumbing to impatience and the lure of profit.

Economic recovery, he argued, is not in itself sufficient in a world that is currently itself “a crossroads, in which all are interconnected.”

The pontiff said Slovakia is called to be “a message of peace in the heart of Europe,” particularly as “battles for supremacy are waged on various fronts.”

“May this country reaffirm its message of integration and peace,” he said. “And may Europe be distinguished by a solidarity that, by transcending borders, can bring it back to the center of history.”

To the Catholic hierarchy: The center of the Church is not the Church

After his meeting with the country’s civil authorities, he addressed Slovakia’s Catholic leaders.

“Living within the world means being willing to share and to understand people’s problems, hopes and expectations,” he said during a meeting with the bishops, priests, and religious men and women in Bratislava’s Cathedral of St. Martin. “This will help us to escape from our self-absorption, for the center of the Church is not the Church!”

He urged those present to leave behind the “undue concern for ourselves, for our structures, for what society thinks about us,” and instead become immersed in the lives of peoples and try to address their spiritual needs and expectations.

Answering his own question as to what people expected, he said freedom, creativity, and dialogue.

Freedom, Pope Francis said, is the key to humanity, as human beings were created free, and as Slovakia learned during the years of Communist rule, whenever freedom is attacked, violated, or suppressed, humanity is disfigured and violence, coercion and the elimination of rights follows.

The Church too can fall into this temptation, believing it’s “better to have everything readily defined, laws to be obeyed, security and uniformity, rather than to be responsible Christians and adults who think, consult their conscience and allow themselves to be challenged.”

“A Church that has no room for the adventure of freedom, even in the spiritual life, risks becoming rigid and self-enclosed,” he said. “Some people may be used to this. But many others — especially the younger generations — are not attracted by a faith that leaves them no interior freedom, by a Church in which all are supposed to think alike and blindly obey.”

Speaking about creativity, Pope Francis argued that faced with the loss of the sense of God and of the joy of faith, it is useless to complain and “hide behind a defensive Catholicism, to judge and blame the world. We need the creativity of the Gospel.”

Lastly, speaking about dialogue, he said that a Church that forms the faithful in interior freedom and responsibility is able to be creative by tapping into their history and culture, capable of engaging in dialogue with the world: “Those who confess Christ without being ‘ours,’ with those who are struggling with religion, and even with those who are not believers.”

Later in the day, Pope Francis was scheduled to meet with representatives of Slovakia’s Jewish community and pay a visit to the Bethlehem center, run by the Missionaries of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.