Archives

Xavier High School Official Shocked Over Former Student’s Terror Arrest

By Jessica Easthope and Paula Katinas 

CHELSEA — A New Jersey teenager who is a former student of Xavier High School in New York was recently arrested for allegedly participating in a jihadist ring whose members exchanged encrypted messages online about committing acts of terror. 

The suspect, Tomas Kaan Jimenez-Guzel, 19, was nabbed by federal agents at Newark Liberty Airport on Nov. 4 as he was about to board a flight to Turkey, where he planned to travel before making his way to Syria to train as an ISIS fighter, according to the office of Alina Habba, acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. 

Jimenez-Guzel, who lived with his parents in the upscale New Jersey suburb of Montclair, had sworn his allegiance to ISIS and took a selfie posing next to an ISIS flag, holding a knife, according to the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney.  

Jimenez-Guzel was part of an online communication network with another man, Milo Sedarat, 19, also from Montclair. The network they used was also used by two other men who were arrested by the FBI on Oct. 31 and charged with plotting to commit a terrorist attack in Michigan on Halloween on behalf of ISIS, federal officials said. 

The arrests of the two New Jersey men grew out of the investigation of the Michigan terror plot, federal officials said. 

Jimenez-Guzel and Sedarat “pledged themselves to ISIS and were plotting acts of terrorism in our country,” Habba said in a statement.  

Sedarat, like Jimenez-Guzel, planned to travel to Syria to train as an ISIS jihadist, the criminal complaint said. 

Jimenez-Guzel, whose mother, Meral Guzel Jimenez-Guzel, is a United Nations diplomat in charge of a women’s entrepreneurial program, was charged with conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization.  

RELATED: Xavier High School Holds Prayer Service To Remember Victims of Kristallnacht

Sedarat, who was arrested at his home on Nov. 4, was charged with transmitting violent antisemitic threats on the internet. 

Jimenez-Guzel attended Xavier High School, a Jesuit school in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, for one year (the 2021-2022 academic year) as a freshman, Xavier President Jack Raslowsky said. 

He started his sophomore year at Xavier but spent only a few days before transferring to a public high school in Montclair, where his family had moved. “He left on his own volition,” Raslowsky said. “He didn’t fail out. He wasn’t put out on disciplinary reasons.” 

Raslowsky praised the work of the law enforcement officials who made the arrests but said he was confused as to why Jimenez-Guzel, who was baptized Catholic, would take such a dark turn. 

“I don’t know that you could ever expect people to take this turn,” he said. “But there was no reason to believe he was anything beyond a regular kid.”  

While at Xavier, Jimenez-Guzel played on the football team, said Raslowaky, who added that there was nothing about his brief stay at the school that was particularly memorable. 

Jimenez-Guzel, like all Xavier freshmen, took part in Masses and religious retreats sponsored by the school. 

Raslowsky, who said Jimenez-Guzel’s behavior is a “stark” contrast to what Xavier stands for, expressed sadness at the thought of Jimenez-Guzel’s embrace of jihadist ideology. 

“The alleged behavior for which he was arrested stands in the starkest opposition to what the church stands for, stands in the starkest opposition for what Xavier stands for,” he said. “It stands in starkest opposition to what the Gospel proclaims. There is no love of neighbor; there’s no recognition of the inherent human dignity.” 

Catholic News Headlines for Friday 11/7/2025

Xavier High School is speaking out after a former student is being accused of participating in an ISIS-inspired terror ring.

In honor of National Vocations Awareness Week, we look at a group of teens from New Jersey hoping to spark a new wave of priestly vocations by blending faith, service, and fraternity.

The federal shutdown is disrupting air travel as the FAA begins cutting flights at airports nationwide.

The 75-foot Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is on its way to New York City, soon to be lit with 50,000 LEDs and topped with a Swarovski star before going on display.

‘Sons of Thunder’ New Jersey Parish Group Hopes to Create a Boom in Priestly Vocations

By Jessica Easthope

It’s a frigid morning in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. The sun isn’t up yet, but at St. Bartholomew the Apostle Church the Sons of Thunder are starting their day with prayer.

“The kind of feeling that you can let your guard down, it’s really amazing because you can you can relax and you can, grow in faith with each other,” said Jack Deangelo.

Deangelo is new to the Sons of Thunder. Father Matthew Gonzalez, the parochial vicar at St. Bart’s founded the group last year, they live by three principles – faith, fraternity and service.

“If we want to see more vocations to the priesthood, you need relationship and encounter,” said Fr. Gonzalez.

“The idea of a group of all guys who share my faith is just like a really neat thing for me,” Deangelo said.

Sometimes that means winterizing their backyard garden and gathering the last of the harvest for the food pantry and other times it looks like a game of pickup basketball before school. On-and-off the court the teens are digging deep to see if discerning a call to the priesthood is for them.

Lately, it’s been on Steven Badilla Sanchez’s mind.

“It’s been something in my mind, and this group has definitely enhanced that idea of becoming a priest. That’s the main reason why we are all in this group, because it’s not just for ourselves, but for each other,” said Badilla Sanchez. “It’s for the community. We want to help in the service. We want to do.”

In a country where, according to the Official Catholic Directory, Catholic seminary enrollments have slid in the past year leaving just below 3,000 men training to become diocesan priests nationwide, the 12 Sons of Thunder are gearing up for a possible boom in vocations.

“Meeting young men where they’re at, helping them discover their gifts, and then empowering them to use them for the good of others,” Fr. Matt said. “Because it’s within that environment that I think vocations really flourish. At least that’s what happens in my life.”

So what’s with the name?

“When people hear ‘Sons of Thunder,’ they think, where are the motorcycles,” Fr. Gonzalez joked.  “James and John were so full of passion and energy and vigor, they wanted to call fire down on people.”

“And Jesus was like, ‘Okay, let’s calm it down there’,” Badilla Sanchez said, finishing Fr. Gonzalez’s sentence. “But yeah, they were given that name because of their passion.”

“And so he gave them that name, Sons of Thunder. And isn’t that what young people are full of fire, full of zeal, full of energy,” said Fr. Matt.

While ordinations have steadily declined in the past decade, the Sons of Thunder are a pocket of hope in the Archdiocese of Newark.

“There’s as many vocation stories as there are people on this planet,” said Fr. Gonzalez. “All of these young men might not be called to the priesthood, but it’s an environment where they get to listen to the voice of God.”

Their motto is “feel the spark.” Fr. Gonzalez hopes that long after they leave the group, if it’s still there, they’ll follow it.

Xavier High School Holds Prayer Service To Remember Victims of Kristallnacht

By Paula Katinas and Currents News

CHELSEA — Sunday, Nov. 9, marked the 87th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the terrifying “Night of Broken Glass” that historians mark as the pogrom that started the Holocaust. On Friday, Nov. 7, two days before the anniversary of that dark night, students at Xavier High School gathered for a prayer service to remember the victims. 

The school, which offers a Holocaust Studies course as part of its curriculum, has held a Kristallnacht remembrance each year for the past several years, Xavier President Jack Raslowsky said. 

“We, as an institution, [are] trying to send very clear messages,” he explained. “To be very good witnesses to holding sacred memory, the memory of those lost in the Holocaust, the memory of those suffering through Kristallnacht, but other sacred memories that are beyond this.”  

RELATED: A Journey Through the ‘Secret Annex’ in New York and a Woman’s Fight To Share Anne’s Diary

Xavier students recited prayers that included calls for brotherhood. “We pray that with the breaking of this glass, our hearts may be broken in love and reconciliation,” read one prayer. 

Kristallnacht (German for “Night of Broken Glass”) took place in cities and towns all over Germany and Austria, involving mobs of rioters who — at the behest of Nazi officials — attacked synagogues and Jewish-owned stores, breaking windows, vandalizing them, and setting them on fire. The mobs also rounded up Jews, beating up, killing others, and arresting many more. 

RELATED: Meet the Sister of Charity Making Sure Catholics ‘Never Forget’ the Holocaust

When the night was over, an estimated 1,000 synagogues had been burned, 7,500 businesses and homes had been destroyed, 91 people were killed, and 30,000 Jewish people had been arrested. 

Kristallnacht marked a turning point in Nazi Germany. Before Nov. 9, 1938, antisemitic persecution of Jews mainly had been conducted on economic and political grounds, not with acts of full-scale violence. 

The Kristallnacht prayer service is important, said Raslowsky, who added that while Xavier is a Catholic high school, its student body is diverse. 

“I think this is a place where we have Catholics and Christian non-Catholics and Jewish students and Jewish families and Muslim families and Hindu families and the different faith traditions form the whole of Xavier, which remains fundamentally and explicitly Catholic,” Raslowsky explained. 

“But the best of our Catholicism becomes in our love for one another, regardless of faith tradition,” he added. 

St. Joseph’s Seminary to Build Holistic Health Center for Future Priests in Yonkers

By Currents News

St. Joseph’s Seminary and College in Dunwoodie is enhancing its formation of future priests with the establishment of the “Redemptor Hominis Center for Holistic Health.”

Located on its main campus in Yonkers, this new center will offer seminarians services to address their mental, physical, and emotional well-being.

The project, supported by a nearly $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Incorporated—a private foundation backing community development, education, and religion—reflects the school’s commitment to comprehensive priestly training.

Monsignor Luke Sweeney, Dean of Seminarians, emphasized the center’s alignment with the institution’s mission.

“This is a way to ensure that our seminarians are healthy in mind, body, and spirit, enabling them to carry the love of God to others,” he said.

Construction of the center is slated to begin in 2026, coinciding with the expansion of the school’s gymnasium.

TONIGHT AT 7: Teen Group in New Jersey Inspires Vocations

By Jessica Easthope

During National Vocations Awareness Week, meet the Sons of Thunder — a group of teens in Scotch Plains, New Jersey who blend faith, service, and fraternity. Currents News’ Jessica Easthope shows how they hope to spark a new wave of priestly vocations.

FAA Cuts Flights as Unpaid TSA Officers Face Growing Hardships Amid Shutdown

By Jenna MacDermant and Currents News

As the Federal Aviation Administration reduces air traffic at airports nationwide, TSA officers are being pushed to the brink during the prolonged government shutdown. Currents News reports on the workers struggling without pay — and the volunteers stepping in to help.