Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.
Down to the wire – with just days to go until voters cast their final ballots for President Donald J Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden, the election battle has challenged a nation – putting people of faith squarely at the center of the race for the White House.
This is a Currents News Special Edition: Election 2020.
By Jessica Easthope and Paula Katinas
Auxiliary Bishop Octavio Cisneros, a native Cuban who came to the U.S. as a teenage refugee in the early 1960s without his parents, became a priest and served the Diocese of Brooklyn for 49 years, officially retired from his post on Oct. 30, after Pope Francis accepted his resignation, the Diocese of Brooklyn announced.
Canon law requires all bishops to submit a letter of resignation when they turn 75. It is up to the Holy See to determine when to accept the resignation.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who praised Bishop Cisneros for his “willingness to serve,” announced that he will remain as pastor of the Church of Holy Child Jesus & St. Benedict Joseph Labre, Richmond Hill. He will also continue to serve as vicar for Hispanic Concerns in the diocese.
He was named a Prelate of Honor by Pope John Paul II in 1988 and consecrated as an auxiliary bishop by Bishop DiMarzio in 2006.
“I am grateful to Bishop Cisneros for his willingness to serve and was honored to ordain him and consecrate him as an auxiliary bishop on June 6, 2006. We thank Bishop Cisneros for his years of diocesan leadership and are grateful he will continue to serve the Diocese in Brooklyn and Queens,” Bishop DiMarzio said in a statement.
Upon his retirement, Bishop Cisneros expressed his gratitude to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who elevated him to bishop, Bishop DiMarzio and Pope Francis.
“I am most grateful to Pope Benedict and Bishop DiMarzio for giving me the fullness of the priesthood in 2006 so that I can help minister as auxiliary bishop, which has been rewarding and fulfilling for me. I am thankful to Pope Francis for his continued support of our bishops. He is an inspiration for all of us,” Bishop Cisneros said.
“I have lived a very happy priesthood in the Diocese of Brooklyn for 49 years and look forward to continuing my priestly ministry,” he added.
Bishop Cisneros was born in Las Villas, a province of Cuba, in 1945. When he was in high school in October 1961, he came to the U.S. as a political refugee as part of Operation Peter Pan, a Catholic humanitarian effort that brought 14,000 unaccompanied minors here from Cuba.
He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn on May 29, 1971. He has served as pastor at the Church of the Holy Child Jesus & St. Benedict Joseph Labre since 2007. Over the years, he has also served at St. Michael’s Church and as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Corona.
In a personal tribute to the Cuban-American community, Bishop Cisneros will present a statue of Our Lady of Charity to Father Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez, pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows, and the church’s parishioners at a special Mass on the evening of Oct. 30.
As he looks back at his 49 years serving the Diocese of Brooklyn, Bishop Cisneros said he has experienced “multiple moments” of joy. “The faith of the people has solidified my faith,” he told Currents News. “My life became enhanced by the people I met.”
God’s love is something he keeps in mind at all times. When he celebrates Confirmations, he tells himself, “It is the Holy Spirit that is working.”
In the Diocese of Immigrants, Bishop Cisneros he has worked hard to build a sense of family with the immigrant communities in the various parishes where he has served over the years. When people ask him where he is from, he has a ready answer. “I’m from everywhere,” he said.
Throughout his priesthood, Bishop Cisneros has been appointed to numerous posts, including episcopal vicar in the Brooklyn East Vicariate and rector of Cathedral Seminary Residence in Douglaston.
Bishop Cisneros is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop’s Subcommittee for the Church in Latin America.
Bishop Cisneros was the coordinator of the V Encuentro in the Diocese of Brooklyn and the episcopal representative for the V Encuentro in the New York Region.
Bishop Cisneros has been involved for many years with the Northeast Catholic Center for Hispanics, the “Instituto Nacional Hispano de Liturgia.”
Besides, he has served on the Bishop’s Committee on the Liturgy and the Pastors’ Advisory Committee. He has served on the Board of Governors of Immaculate Conception Seminary and as past president of the Conference of Diocesan Directors for the Spanish Apostolate.
Father Christopher Heanue, parochial vicar of Holy Child Jesus, works closely with Bishop Cisneros and has known him for 15 years.
In an interview with Currents News, he recalled his days as a student studying for the priesthood and living at Cathedral Seminary Residence in Douglaston. One day in 2006, then-Monsignor Cisneros asked Heanue to drive him somewhere because he was too nervous to get behind the wheel. They were driving to the official announcement of Monsignor’s elevation to bishop.
As they traveled on the Jackie Robinson Parkway, Heanue asked Bishop-elect Cisneros about leaving his native Cuba and if he ever saw his parents again. “It was years before he was able to come back,” Father Heanue said. By that time, many of Bishop Cisneros’ relatives were deceased. “I started crying on the Jackie Robinson Parkway!” Father Heanue told Currents News. Bishop-elect Cisneros told him, “Chris, if I wanted to crash, I would have driven myself!”
Father Heanue said he was deeply moved by Bishop-elect Cisneros’ “trust in God.”
Parishioners of Holy Child Jesus praised Bishop Cisneros for his kindness.
Lorrie Schaefer, who has been a parishioner for 47 years, recalled that Bishop Cisneros visited her at her home after she had fallen on the ice in front of her house on Christmas Eve and suffered injuries to the head. Her injuries required a trip to the emergency room.
“I’ll never forget how kind and caring he was,” she told Currents News.
Currents News Staff
In New York, you can no longer request an absentee ballot. That deadline has passed, which means you either have to vote early or get out there on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Joining Currents News is Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio and Ed Wilkinson, Editor Emeritus of The Tablet Newspaper, for the latest edition of Into the Deep. The bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn has some words of advice when it comes to casting your ballot.
Bishop DiMarzio mentioned that the Diocese of Brooklyn will be joining Catholics around the country as they pray for this election. The novena, spearheaded by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is meant to help Catholics form their consciences. The closing prayer will take place the day after Election Day.
That’s when the U.S. bishops plan to pray that whoever wins be guided by the Holy Spirit.
By Emily Drooby and Paula Katinas
WINDSOR TERRACE — Three people were killed by a knife-wielding attacker in a basilica in Nice, France on the morning of Oct. 29 in what the mayor of that city called a terrorist attack.
Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, said in a video posted on Twitter: “I confirm that everything suggests a terrorist attack in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice.”
Je suis sur place avec la @PoliceNat06 et la @pmdenice qui a interpellé l’auteur de l’attaque. Je confirme que tout laisse supposer à un attentat terroriste au sein de la basilique Notre-Dame de #Nice06. pic.twitter.com/VmpDqRwzB1
— Christian Estrosi (@cestrosi) October 29, 2020
The attack took place at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice at around 9 a.m. local time.
One of the victims, an elderly woman, was nearly beheaded by the attacker.
The suspect was identified later that same day by French authorities as Brahim Aoussaoul, a 21-year-old Tunisian man who came to France in early October. He allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” before and after he stabbed the victims.
The suspect was shot by police and was then taken into custody.
In addition to the elderly woman, two other victims died in the attack. The body of a man identified as the sacristan was found inside of the basilica and a woman who was stabbed by the attacker ran into a local cafe, where she was pronounced dead.
Father Paul Anel, administrator of the Parish of St. Paul & St. Agnes, Cobble Hill, is French, and as soon as he heard about the attack, he called relatives and friends in his home country to check in with them.
“The spirits are very low,” he told The Tablet. The attack was “quite a blow for the country.”
The basilica is “a public place, a place of worship,” Father Anel said while adding that it is horrific that a knife-wielding attacker struck there.
The best response to the violence, he said, is to “carry our country in our prayers” and that “there is no better way to do this than to celebrate the Eucharist.”
Father Anel, who celebrates a Mass in French every Sunday at 11 a.m. at St. Paul’s Church, said he will ask his parishioners to remember the victims in their prayers.
While France has grown more and more secular in recent decades, religion is still important there, according to Father Anel, who recalled the public outpouring of sorrow in the wake of the fire that ripped through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019.
“The whole country was struck in the heart,” he said.
I am close to the Catholic community of #Nice, mourning the attack that sowed death in a place of prayer and consolation. I pray for the victims, for their families and for the beloved French people, that they may respond to evil with good.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) October 29, 2020
The attack at Basilica de Notre Dame of Nice took place just days after Samuel Paty, a middle-school teacher in Paris, was beheaded by a terrorist incident on Oct. 16. Paty had shown his class controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that had been published by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. On Jan. 7, 2015, two gunmen stormed the newspaper’s office in Paris and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 11 others.
“It looks like for at least one of the victims, inside the church, it was the same method as for the poor professor of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine a few days ago, that is absolute horror,” Estrosi said in the video.
Charlie Hebdo recently sparked a new controversy when it published a cartoon that many Muslims charged was offensive. It depicted Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and a woman wearing a hijab.
Bishop André Marceau of Nice said that all churches in that city would remain closed and under police protection for the time being.
“[Pope Francis] is praying for the victims and their loved ones, for the violence to cease, for people to look at each other again as brothers and sisters and not as enemies, so that the beloved French people, united, can respond to evil with good,” Matteo Brunihe, a spokesman for the Holy See, said in a statement.
“It is a time of pain, in a time of confusion. Terrorism and violence can never be accepted. Today’s attack sowed death in a place of love and consolation, as the house of the Lord,” the statement continued.
Bishops across France requested churches in that country toll their bells at 3 p.m. local time in memory of the victims.
“The murders perpetrated this morning in Nice in the Basilica of Notre-Dame plunge the French bishops’ conference into immense sadness,” a joint statement from the bishops read. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, the injured, their families, and loved ones. It is because they were in the basilica that these people were attacked, murdered. They were a symbol to be slaughtered.”
Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.
Some of the top stories on this newscast:
A knife attack in France leaves three Catholics dead, murdered while they were praying.
Protests in Philadelphia – unrest continues around the city and explosives are found in an abandoned van.
An email scam is going around Queens – that’s not your pastor asking for donations.
Currents News Staff
After riots in Philadelphia in response to a police involved shooting, the city has imposed a curfew. The city council also approved a ban on the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray on protesters.
Meanwhile, Catholics in the community are turning to prayer. A parish in Philadelphia is taking to YouTube to recite the rosary and pray for peace and an end to systemic racism.
But overnight, a van loaded up with explosives was discovered in Philadelphia. The bomb squad is investigating after officers found propane tanks, torches and what looks like dynamite sticks inside the van.
This discovery occurred just days after the police-involved shooting death of Walter Wallace Jr. on Monday afternoon, Oct. 26. Wallace, who was holding a knife during the incident, had a history of mental illness.
What started as peaceful protests on the city streets turned into violence and looting. Philly’s Mayor Jim Kenney says it won’t be tolerated.
“It is clear many of these folks are in no way honoring the memory of Walter Wallace Jr.,” Jim says, “rather they are taking advantage of those who want to peacefully protest Walter’s tragic death.”
By Jessica Easthope
Frank Kotnik can still remember getting his first ever Lionel train set.
“I was led downstairs into the basement and I was only table height and I saw these trains with the lights and smoking with the light going around and around,” said Frank, a fourth degree Knight of Columbus at the Monsignor Sherman Council in Glendale, Queens.
Decades later, trains are still a big part of his life. For the last few years Frank has worked with Lionel to design trains for the Knights of Columbus’ “Keep Christ in Christmas” campaign. This year, he’s at the controls again. The 2020 Christmas train is done and Frank is working on a new train designed to carry the organization’s founder Father Michael McGivney all the way to sainthood.
“Now that Father McGivney will be beatified, our team is putting together a Fr McGivney Lionel boxcar,” Frank said.
Father McGivney’s beatification Mass will take place at the end of October in Connecticut. By then, the Knights are hoping to have hundreds of Father McGivney trains to sell, with the proceeds going to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.
“We’ve generated more than $9,000 for charity, so once we finalize the Father McGivney train we’ll work closely with the Supreme Knight and see what we can do to get it sold nationwide,” said Ken Engesser, the treasurer of Monsignor Sherman Council.
Like most Knights, Frank has a special connection to Father McGivney and his legacy: he’s the inspiration behind Frank’s desire to give back.
“It’s more of the giving aspect, here we are to serve, our motto is ‘In Service to One in Service to All,’ it gives you a great sense and a good feeling to help others in need,” said Frank.
The Knights say Father McGivney’s beatification is an honor for all of them. They’re hoping he’s going full steam ahead toward sainthood, and another miracle will be just around the bend.
Currents News Staff
It’s a big day for the Statue of Liberty.
On Oct. 28, in 1886, Lady Liberty was dedicated as a gift to the U.S. from France and has since become a global icon and one of the most visited places in the world.
But because of the pandemic, the national monument is only partly open right now.
President and CEO of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s Steven Briganti joined Currents News to explain how we can celebrate Lady Liberty’s day even from home.If you would like to learn more about the Statue of Liberty and have access to educational resources and virtual tours, head on over to statueofliberty.org
Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.
Some of the top stories on this newscast:
Countdown to Election Day – with millions of ballots already cast, do you know what your options are? What if you change your mind? We’re breaking down the twists and turns in this year’s election.
The controversial allegations surrounding Joe Biden’s son Hunter and what his former business partner is saying about his business dealings overseas.
Philadelphia erupts in violence over a fatal, police shooting – the violence spreading to the streets of Brooklyn.
Celebrating Lady Liberty on the anniversary of her dedication. We’ll tell you how you can be part of the festivities, virtually.
Currents News Staff
Early voters are seeing long lines. From Indianapolis, Indiana to Madison, Wisconsin and Brooklyn, New York, voters in masks are trying to keep their distance from each other and wait to cast their ballots. While every state is different, early voting in New York continues through November 1.
“People are excited to vote for a variety of reasons, motivated by the candidates and motivated by just the need to do it,” said voter Cassie Cloyd.
Voter Angie Goss wants to “make sure it’s done. With everything questionable and people gathering, we want to make sure we voted.”
It’s easy to social distance in Eau Claire, Wisconsin when you vote in a drive-through.
“It’d be great if we could do this at all the elections,” said voter Ronald Stron. “I think we would prefer to do it this way rather than to have to stand in line.”
In Philadelphia machines are counting mail in ballots ahead of the election. The post office says right now it’s too late to mail in your ballot, because it may not arrive by Election Day, but most states also allow you to drop it off at a polling place or election office.
If for some reason, you change your mind and want to change your vote, you might be able to before Election Day in some states, according to New York State’s Board of Elections website–
Even if you request or cast and return an absentee ballot, you may still go to the polls and vote in person. The Election Law recognizes that plans change. The Board of Elections is required to check the poll book before canvassing any absentee ballot. If the voter comes to the poll site, on Election Day or during early voting and votes in person, the absentee ballot is set aside and not counted.