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Statue of Mother Cabrini Unveiled in Battery Park After Patron Saint of Immigrants Was Snubbed

By Emily Drooby and Paula Katinas

BATTERY PARK — In a major moment for Catholics and immigrants in New York City, a statue of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was officially unveiled on Columbus Day.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), popularly known as Mother Cabrini, is the patron saint of immigrants.

The dedication ceremony took place despite a steady rain that fell all morning and afternoon.

The statue overlooks New York Harbor in a portion of Battery Park that offers views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and as Cuomo put it Mother Cabrini’s, “own borough of Brooklyn.”

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn served as co-chairman of the Mother Cabrini Memorial Commission, a panel put together by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year to oversee the design and creation of a statue of the saint.

“This is a wonderful day,” the bishop told The Tablet as he arrived for the ceremony. “She helped build this city.”

Mother Cabrini spent a great deal of time working in Brooklyn after arriving in the U.S. from her native Italy in 1889. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and founded 67 schools, hospitals, and orphanages. She died in 1917 and was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946.

Given Mother Cabrini’s history of helping immigrants, the fact that the area where her statue stands includes views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island is significant. For many years, the Statue of Liberty greeted immigrants arriving in the U.S. by ship. Ellis Island is the place where many immigrants were processed by immigration officials before they were allowed to enter the country.

And the Diocese of Brooklyn is known as the diocese of immigrants.

The statue, created by the father and daughter team of Giancarlo Biagi and Jill Burkee Biagi, is made of bronze and sits on a stone foundation. The statue depicts a young Mother Cabrini guiding two children in a boat. “We wanted it to have the sensation of movement across the water as if Mother Cabrini is leading them on a journey here to America,” Giancarlo Biagi told The Tablet. The base of the statue depicts scenes from Mother Cabrini’s life.

The display will be lit up at night, according to Biagi, who said one light from a hereby pole is meant to give the impression that the moon is shining on Mother Cabrini and the children.

Bishop DiMarzio said he hoped that when people come to Battery Park and gaze upon the statue, they will come to recognize the unique role she played in serving the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden.

Angelo Vivolo, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, served as co-chair of the commission with the bishop. Vivolo called Mother Cabrini, “a remarkable Italian woman of faith.”

The Columbus Citizens Foundation sponsors the annual Columbus Day Parade in New York. The event was canceled this year due to COVID-19.

The fact that the statue was dedicated on Columbus Day was no coincidence. It was on Columbus Day last year that Cuomo stepped in to resolve a controversy that had erupted over Mother Cabrini.

The artists who created the Mother Cabrini statue that stands in Battery Park.

Leaders of She Built NYC, an initiative started by New York City first lady Chirlane McCray to get more statues honoring women erected around the city, did not include Mother Cabrini on its list of honorees – despite the fact that Mother Cabrini had received the most votes in a public poll that asked which women deserved statues.

“This was a woman of faith and love. And no monument,” Vivolo said at Monday’s ceremony. “Gov. Cuomo promised to change that.”

Cuomo announced on Columbus Day 2019 that he would form a commission to serve for a suitable location for a statue to serve as a fitting tribute to Mother Cabrini. The state provided $750,000 in funding for the project.

“There was no doubt she deserved it,” Cuomo said.

The governor called the ceremony, “a silver lining” to the controversy and marveled that the commission was able to work so quickly. “We did it in one year,” he said. “It’s good to remember we can still accomplish good things.”

Cuomo praised the two commission co-chairmen, calling Bishop DiMarzio “our good friend,” and calling Vivolo “a true champion for civil rights.”

Describing Mother Cabrini as a woman who “broke the mold and achieved great things,” the governor noted that “saints are often forged in the crucible of adversity.”

Mother Cabrini arrived in New York City in 1889, a time when the city was dealing with smallpox, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Today, New York and the rest of the country is dealing with COVID-19.

“These are challenging times,” Cuomo said. “COVID has stressed each of us, all of us.”

John Heyer, the lay coordinator for the Italian Apostolate for the Diocese of Brooklyn, was a member of the commission.

“This statue of Mother Cabrini recognizes both her contributions as an Italian immigrant woman, as well as those of all Italian American and immigrant women. She is a shining symbol of what it means to care for the other person, the sick, the uneducated, the economically challenged, and the stranger, always putting the needs of society’s most vulnerable above her own,” Heyer told The Tablet.

“I hope that people will see this heroic statue, ask questions, learn about her outstanding life and work to imitate it as we all build New York’s future together,” he added.

Currents News full broadcast for Mon, 10/12/20

Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.

Some of the top stories on this newscast:

There are now two women in New York Harbor – Mother Cabrini joining Lady Liberty. The new statue is in Battery Park with a direct view of Ellis Island.

Bishop DiMarzio vows the diocese will prevail after a judge’s decision upholds COVID-19 restrictions on churches.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett talks faith, family and the power of prayer in her opening statement on day one of her Supreme Court nomination hearings.

An Italian teenager who used the internet to spread his faith is on the path to becoming the first millennial saint.

Amy Coney Barrett Faces Senate Judiciary Committee During Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing

Currents News Staff

Conservative Catholic Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, delivered her opening statement on Oct. 12. 

“I am honored and humbled to appear before you today,” said Judge Amy Coney Barrett, making her case for the Supreme Court. “I believe Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent supreme court that interprets our constitution and laws as they are written.”

The judge spoke about her judicial philosophy, her experience and her large family, saying that if confirmed, she might bring a few new perspectives to the bench.

“I would be the first mother of school-age children to serve on the court,” she said. “I would be the only sitting justice who didn’t attend law school at Harvard or Yale. I am confident that Notre Dame will hold its own, and maybe I could even teach them a thing or two about football.”

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, voiced their opposition to her nomination, saying it puts in jeopardy voting rights, workers’ rights, abortion rights and healthcare.

“I do believe this hearing is a clear attempt to jam through a Supreme Court nominee who will take healthcare away from millions of people during a deadly pandemic that has already killed more than 214,000 Americans,” said Harris. 

Republicans brought up faith. Senator Joshua Hawley of Missouri demanded that attacks on Barrett’s Catholic faith stop, calling it “this pattern and practice of religious bigotry because that’s what it is.

“When you tell somebody that they’re too catholic to be on the bench, when you tell them they’re going to be a Catholic judge not an American judge, that’s bigotry,” he said. “The pattern and practice of bigotry from members of this committee must stop.”

Barrett ended her statement by thanking Americans who have reached out to her with messages of support and prayer.

“I believe in the power of prayer, and it has been uplifting to hear that so many people are praying for me,’ she said.

Honoring Mother Cabrini in Battery Park: Remembering the Catholic Saint’s Compassion for All People

Currents News Staff

The dedication of a new statue honoring St. Frances Xavier Cabrini comes as a happy ending after some controversy last year, when New York City First Lady Chirlane McCray omitted Mother Cabrini from a list of honorees to have a statue, despite the revered saint having garnered the most votes in a city-wide poll.

Angelo Vivolo co-chaired the panel tasked with finding the exact location and design of the new Mother Cabrini statue erected in Battery Park, Manhattan. 

Currents News spoke with Angelo ahead of Monday’’s celebrations to discuss how the committee moved past the controversy, the new statue’s design and its significance to Italian Americans in Brooklyn and beyond.

Italian Teen Carlo Acutis Was ‘Influencer for God,’ Mother Says of Son’s Beatification

By Claudia Torres and Junno Arocho Esteves

ASSISI, Italy (CNS) — In early October along the pristine medieval streets of Assisi, a city ubiquitous with references to St. Francis, posters bore the image of a different modern saint-in-the-making: Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old Italian tech whiz.

Before his death from leukemia in 2006, Acutis was an average teen with an above-average knack for computers. He put that knowledge to use by creating an online database of eucharistic miracles around the world.

For Acutis’ mother, Antonia Salzano, the heartbreak that all parents experience over the loss of a child has been mingled with serenity and joy as she prepared to see her son beatified Oct. 10 at the Basilica of St. Francis.

“It’s unusual for parents to (be present at) the beatification of their son or daughter,” Salzano told Catholic News Service Oct. 9. “It’s very unusual because normally it takes a long time. But instead, for Carlo it took 14 years to have the beatification.”

Acutis’ beatification, she said, is “an important step for us because we have so many devotees of Carlo all around the world. I think it’s a big sign for them, a great consolation.”

“It’s very, very important that we have this recognition from the church,” Salzano added.

As part of the sainthood process, Acutis’ body was exhumed and transferred to a place suitable for public veneration, the Shrine of the Renunciation at the Church of St. Mary Major in Assisi.

Placed in a glass case, his body was dressed in jeans and a track suit jacket — the attire he was accustomed to wearing and what is seen in many of the photos taken of him during his life.

The lifelike silicone mask placed on his face also sparked a debate as to whether the teen’s remains were incorrupt, prompting the Diocese of Assisi to issue a statement Oct. 1 that his face and hands were reconstructed in order to exhibit his remains “with dignity for the veneration of the faithful.”

Acutis’ body, Salzano told CNS, “was found intact. We cannot say incorrupt because the bishop doesn’t like it, because he says the only (ones who are) incorrupt are Jesus and the Virgin Mary.”

“Intact means that the body was like it was when he died. The only thing is that the skin became a little bit darker. For example, if you go to visit the body of St. Rita in Cascia or St. Catherine in Bologna,” a 15th-century Poor Clare whose body is believed to be miraculously incorrupt, “you see that the body is intact but the skin is darker,” Salzano explained.

She also said that his organs also were found intact and his heart was removed and placed in a reliquary that will be displayed at the beatification Mass.

While looking at his body makes it seem almost like he is still alive, Salzano told CNS she didn’t have “a particular reaction” to seeing his body again because she feels she has ” a real, spiritual relationship with my son.”

“He makes himself very much close to me. He gives a lot of signs. Sometimes I dream of Carlo, sometimes I hear inspiration. And, also, he gives a lot of signs to a lot of people around the world. I mean, I don’t really feel the lack of Carlo because he’s a silent presence, but he makes himself heard through many people,” she said.

In his exhortation on young people, “Christus Vivit” (“Christ Lives”), Pope Francis said Acutis was a role model for young people today who are often tempted by the traps of “self-absorption, isolation and empty pleasure.”

While Carlo created digital content when YouTube and Facebook were in their infancy, his life and example remain relevant in today’s fast paced age of social networking, Salzano said.

One of Acutis’ most famous quotes, cited by the pontiff in his exhortation, was, “We are all born original, but many die as photocopies.”

“I think that Carlo was a bit of a prophet of his time,” she said. “Because, of course, a saint is somebody who goes a little bit against the mainstream, the mentality of most people.”

Carlo also worried that often-obsessive reverence for movie and music stars were becoming “a sort of idolatry,” she said. “Carlo used to say, ‘You see queues in front of a football match or an actor or rock singer, but you don’t see a queue for the tabernacle where there is the real presence of God, God that lives among us.’”

As someone dedicated to the “good side” of the internet, Acutis’ beatification during the coronavirus pandemic, in which many must follow the beatification online instead of traveling to Assisi, “is a little bit of sign,” she said.

“I must say that the internet is incredible. It’s a gift. Of course, the internet has a dark side” when misused for pornography, bullying and selling drugs, Salzano told CNS. “But Carlo showed the good side of internet. And we know that the light is stronger than the darkness.”

Carlo, she said, “is an influencer for God.”

Childhood Cancer Survivor Finds Strength Through Faith on Path to Becoming a Personal Trainer

By Jessica Easthope

When Rocco Pisani’s working out in his home gym, he’s in his comfort zone. Fitness is his passion.

“I really want to be a personal trainer, I really love working out,” he told Currents News. “We built a gym in the backyard and I’m working out in there a lot.”

But it’s the strength you can’t see that makes him special. Instead of having a big party with all his friends, this year, Rocco’s spending his eleventh birthday in the hospital getting chemotherapy.

“It’s a type of cancer in your blood,” he explained of his leukemia . “It’s when your cells don’t produce normally. They produce like bad cells, so your blood gets low and you have to get transfusions,”

When he was diagnosed in May, his parents Rob and Jamie were blindsided.

“He started having a headache and I would just give him Tylenol but he would wake up and have them again, and the doctor over televisit would say he’s just watching too much TV being home,” Jamie said. “But like, you know your kid. I was like, ‘Something’s not right.'”

During his first days in the hospital Rocco came up with a workout plan, doing whatever he could to stay fit, even on the days he felt too weak to move.

“He was so weak that he was doing bicep curls with water bottles,” Jamie said. “He went from being able to do 100 pushups to he couldn’t even do one, and he was like, ‘That’s it I’m getting back up to 100 pushups.'”

Rocco instantly got back to work. He can’t lift heavy weights yet, but in the meantime he’s lifting his family’s spirits. He’s the first one to tell you he’s going to be fine.

“When you’re in heaven, before you’re born you pick a life and you pick what you want to go through, and I picked this one and God’s plan for me is to get through this and not give up,” Rocco said.

When the pandemic shuttered churches in the Brooklyn Diocese, the Pisanis were attending Mass at their parish, St. Rose of Lima in a different way.

“It’s like church but you’re in your car and you’re listening from your car,” Rocco said.

Jamie believes it prepared them for what was ahead.

“We really believe that Rocco has been prepared for this, and going to those Masses before his diagnosis and strengthening our faith was definitely something that prepared us for this,” she said.

Rocco wears his faith on his sleeve. After seeing how hard it was to keep track of his medications, he donated 100 pill boxes to help newly diagnosed kids.

Rocco’s in remission, but there’s a long road ahead. He’ll be getting treatment for the next three years. Until then he’s living out God’s plan and slowly, but surely getting back to 100 pushups.

Currents News full broadcast for Fri, 10/9/20 (Catholic news)

Currents News reports secular and religious news from the Catholic perspective.

Some of the top stories on this special edition of Currents News:

Still waiting to learn the court ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Diocese of Brooklyn to stop restrictions on church services from taking effect.

The hallways and classrooms of one Brooklyn Catholic academy might be empty but their students are still hard at work.

Details on the Mother Cabrini statue to be dedicated on Columbus Day.

Cáceres’ Our Lady of Guadalupe Spanish Day Pilgrimage Goes Virtual During Pandemic

Currents News Staff

A 14th-century monastery holds one of the most venerated images of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is the home to the original shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In her honor, a traditional pilgrimage to the Monastery of Guadalupe in Cáceres, Spain, is held each year.

However, due to the pandemic, organizers were forced to find alternate solutions to avoid breaking this tradition.

“The initial plan was to organize a grand pilgrimage, but of course, because of the pandemic, it was impossible,” explained Fr. Joaquin Garrigós of the Guadalupe Jubilee. “Large gatherings are currently not possible. Therefore, the idea switched to providing an online experience where we can make a virtual pilgrimage.”

The Diocese of Toledo, Spain, will organize a series of online events, including a virtual pilgrimage. Organizers made a spiritual itinerary available, where registered pilgrims will receive content via email every day, from Oct. 9 to Oct 12. The content will include videos, meditations, catechesis, online Masses, and even games for younger pilgrims.

“We want it to be as real as possible. We always say, that although it’s virtual, it doesn’t mean it’s not real. Sometimes these concepts are misunderstood,” said Fr. Joaquin. “The aim is to allow people to make this inner journey of encountering Jesus through the Holy Mother, without leaving home.”

Fr. Joaquin is hopeful that this online pilgrimage will be more accessible to everyone, even to faithful in other Latin American countries. So far, the website has registered people from 33 different countries across the world.

This online journey will conclude on Oct.12 precisely on Hispanic Day. For this reason, the Archbishop of Toledo will celebrate a Holy Mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, declared by the Holy See to be the Queen of Hispanic Heritage.

Pope Francis Calls for Prayer, Encouraging Stronger Presence of Women in the Church

Currents News Staff

In his video message for the month of October, Pope Francis asked Christians to pray for the laity, especially women in leadership roles in the Church.

He observed that every Catholic is born a lay person, and that “lay people are protagonists of the Church.” The pontiff also said that “today, it is especially necessary to create broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church,” and to avoid “falling into forms of clericalism that diminish the lay charism.”

“No one has been baptized a priest or a bishop. We have all been baptized as lay people. Lay people are protagonists of the Church,” Pope Francis said. Today, it is especially necessary to create broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the Church. And we must emphasize the feminine lay presence because women tend to be left aside.

“We must promote the integration of women, especially where important decisions are made. We pray that by the virtue of baptism, the laity, especially women, may participate more in areas of responsibility in the Church, without falling into forms of clericalism that diminish the lay charism.”

Nino Coniglio

Msgr. Jamie is joined by Nino Coniglio, pizzaiolo and co-owner of Williamsburg Pizza, to taste some his favorite award-winning pizza pies!