Currents News for Monday, January 6, 2020

On the newscast: Threats of retaliation as tens of thousands mourn for an Iranian leader killed in a U.S. drone strike; People of all faiths marching across the Brooklyn Bridge in solidarity after a string of anti-Semitic attacks; Firefighters from Canarsie dedicate a special memorial today for a brother who died in the line of duty; And Governor Cuomo to the rescue – helping pull a man from a wreck on the B.Q.E..

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Earthquake Strikes Puerto Rico as Island Continues Recovery Efforts Post-Maria

By Emily Drooby

Homes knocked from their stilts, power lines pulled down almost to the road, and cars crushed under a collapsed home are all scenes of destruction in Puerto Rico caused by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that hit the island early Jan. 6.

While several earthquakes have hit the island in the past week, Monday’s is by far the strongest.

No casualties have been reported yet, but there’s significant damage to the town of Guánica. Roads by major cities like Ponce have been also been affected.

The incident is causing fear among those living in the Brooklyn Diocese with ties to puerto rico.

“They’re just getting over Maria and they’re rebuilding the infrastructure, and an earthquake will now take away all that hard work that was put into restoring services on the island,” explained Norma Herrera, who works for St. Michael’s parish in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and still has family in the commonwealth.

“You worry,” she said. “You worry about what’s happening, what’s going to happen, how it’s going to affect the people still on the island.”

Puerto Rico is still dealing with the trauma from the category 5 hurricane that hit just over two years ago.

Jorge Domínguez, Editor- in-Chief of The Tablet and Nuestra Voz, saw the hurricane devastation firsthand.

Having another major disaster — on Three Kings Day — is especially difficult for the children of puerto rico.

“It’s a day where kids are waiting for the sun to rise waiting to find out what the Three Kings brought to them,” he explained. “Today really at sunrise they got an earthquake, so it’s especially sad,” he said.

Instead, children woke up to cracks in their walls.

Guatemalan Catholics Celebrate Faith, Culture With ‘Señor de Escuipulas’

By Jessica Easthope

Each year the Guatemalan community in Far Rockaway, Queens celebrates something unique to its culture and faith: the Black Christ of Escuipulas, a wooden crucifix that’s more than 400-years-old.

In the weeks leading up to the Black Christ’s international feast day, a celebratory Mass is held at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church.

For the first time since being given his red hat by Pope Francis last October, Cardinal Alvaro Ramazzini from Guatemala visited Queens to celebrate the Sunday Mass.

“The Señor Escuipulas in Guatemala has a very great devotion because it is a statue of Jesus Christ, but it’s in black, and many people have testified he has done a lot of miracles,” Cardinal Ramazzini said of the sacred statue.

While St. Mary has a replica of the statue, the original sits in the Cathedral Basilica of Esquipulas in northwest Guatemala. The statue is celebrated widely, not only for the miracles it has granted, but for its significance to the entire Guatemalan community at home and abroad.

“I think the significance is hope, migrants from Guatemala they face many bad situations so they need hope and to have confidence in God that he does not abandon us,” Cardinal Ramazzini said.

That sentiment is held especially close to the hearts of Guatemalan immigrants in the Brooklyn Diocese. Cardinal Ramazzini added how New York City has become a shining example of embracing many cultures through faith.

“It’s a practice of living our faith, it means this open spirit to accept the multiculturality of many people in the United States not just Guatemalans so it is a very good sign for me,” he said.

Guatemalans across the globe will celebrate the Feast Day of the Black Christ of Esquipulas on Jan. 15.

Bright Christmas Fund Helps Parishioners Celebrate Feast of the Epiphany

By Jessica Easthope

The tradition of giving gifts on Christmas didn’t start with Santa Claus, but with the three wise men who traveled from the East, following a star to baby Jesus.

On Jan. 5 there was no gold, frankincense or myrrh from the Magi, but there were toys, games, books and clothing for hundreds of children from across the Brooklyn Diocese.

Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Corona, Queens hosted its annual Bright Christmas event, a day funded by The Tablet through the generosity of its readers.

Gathering on the day before the Feast of the Epiphany, children and their families received what may be their only gifts this holiday season. In addition to every child receiving a gift, all parents were given warm winter hats.

“They supported us with the Bright Christmas fund to set up the whole program,” said Father Raymond Roden, Pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows. “So I’m grateful to the Tablet and the readers, the people who so generously support the Bright Christmas fund which includes so many parishes including Our Lady of Sorrows.”

Parishioners also put on a colorful and theatrical reenactment of the historical feast day ahead of the gift distribution.

“A lot of families don’t have the money and the resources to provide a good holiday season for their children, especially showing their children no matter what they’re going through the struggles and difficulties, this brings a little bit of joy,” explained parishioner Fanny Familia.

Fanny and her son Jeremiah picked out just one of more than 1,000 gifts that had been donated this year.

For Ileana Martinez — who came with her fiver-year-old daughter Arianna Summerlin, a student at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Academy —the day itself meant more than the gifts.

The value of the celebration could be found in the sense of the community the event creates.

“I’m very thankful for it because It shows the love for people in the community and those involved in the community and it unites us,” Fanny said.

No Hate No Fear: Thousands Show Solidarity with Jewish Community

By Tim Harfmann and Christopher White

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — An estimated 25,000 New Yorkers took to the streets in a “Solidarity March” in protest of anti-Semitism on Jan. 5, among them Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who told the crowd “we are all brothers and sisters under the one God who made us.”

The march, which made its way from Lower Manhattan to Cadman Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn, brought together Jewish and non-Jewish residents alike from the New York area, along with a host of local leaders, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Senator Chuck Schumer, Mayor Bill DeBlasio, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — all marching under the banner of “No Hate, No Fear.”

The march was organized by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the interdenominational New York Board of Rabbis.

On stage at the rally in Brooklyn, Bishop DiMarzio recalled growing up in Newark, N.J., where a Jewish couple — Mr. and Mrs. Sam Rose — who had no children or grandchildren adopted him as their own grandchild.

The bishop said he was proud to be present at the rally to honor their memory. “I learned to love Jews because they loved me,” he said.

“Today I stand here in their memory to make sure we have mutual understanding of one another. We need to interact more,” he continued. “We cannot show any prejudice toward one another, but only love.

“To those people who wear religious garb and are singled out for hatred or violence, it’s a terrible thing. We cannot let that happen in this great United States of ours. We cannot stand by and not do something,” he concluded. “I pledge to stand and do all I can to change minds and hearts within our communities so that we can truly stand together against any hatred, especially any anti-Semitism and its roots.”

In his remarks to the crowd, Cardinal Dolan drew from the words of St. Pope John Paul II, who often referred to the Jews as “our elder brothers and sisters in the faith,” meaning “we are one family.”

“When there’s an attack on you, there’s an attack on all of us,” Cardinal Dolan said to applause.

“We are united as we acknowledge that this dismal, scary hatred and violence that has afflicted the community we love can ultimately be solved only be a conversion of heart.

“You think that’s naïve? You think that’s overly sugary? No. Ask the experts like Ghandi and Desmond Tuti and Rabbi Heschel and Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day and Isaiah the prophet. Jesus himself.

“The experts who got things done — their first priority was to urge a conversion of heart, from interior darkness and hate that breeds this violence and anti-Semitism to light and life and love,” Cardinal Dolan continued.

“From spitting at someone to blessing someone. From fists to embrace. From machetes to mercy. From looking at someone as a threat to looking at someone as a friend. That’s conversion of heart.”

The march and rally came on the heels of a spree of anti-Semitic attacks in New York, most recently on New Year’s Day when a 22-year-old Hassidic man was beaten and subjected to hate speech in Williamsburg — the thirteenth known attack against Jews in the New York area in less than 10 days.

The violence on Jan. 1 followed the Hanukah attack at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., where five people were stabbed in an incident that Cuomo labeled as “domestic terrorism.”

Family members of one of the victims of that attack, Josef Neumann, released a graphic photo on Jan. 1 of the father of seven children hooked up to respirators and stitched up from the multiple stab wounds he incurred. Doctors expect Neumann to be permanently paralyzed and are unsure if he will ever regain consciousness.

In response to the heinous attack, Bishop DiMarzio said, “Hate like this has no place in a civil society.

“Today we are reminded it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Let us be that light as we pray for peace and practice tolerance today and always,” Bishop DiMarzio continued in a statement.

Bishop DiMarzio also joined more than 130 faith leaders from across the state, including Cardinal Dolan, to condemn the attack.

“Anti-Semitism, bigotry and hate of any kind are repugnant to our values and will not be tolerated in our state,” they said. “An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. Together we will continue fighting hate and intolerance with love and inclusion.”

The attacks in New York come at a time when people of faith are facing increased violence at houses of worship across the nation.

According to the latest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, hate crimes in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques rose 34.8 percent between 2014 and 2018.

On Dec. 29, in Texas, a gunman fatally shot two churchgoers at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, before he was killed by a security guard on-site.

The past year proved particularly deadly for people of all faiths across the globe. Incidents included the Easter Day massacres in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people and attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last March that killed 51 individuals.

In recent days, New York has ramped up security around houses of worship, and the governor has ordered increased patrolling in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods throughout the state.

At the Jan. 5 rally, Cuomo said that the gathering was a “remarkable show of love and solidarity.”

“That’s New York at its best,” he said of the crowd on hand, adding that the violence have been “attacks on every New Yorker.”

“Discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism is repugnant to every value that New Yorkers hold here, and it’s repugnant to every value that this country represents,” Cuomo said. “Racism and anti-Semitism is anti-American and we have to remember that.”

Currents News for Friday, January 3, 2020

On the newscast: Iran is vowing a harsh retaliation for an airstrike that killed Tehran’s top general; A Texas family is fighting for the life of their 11-month-old girl after a judge sided with a hospital to take her off life support; Pope Francis is planning a busy 2020. Where he plans to visit… and one place will make history; And why abbreviating the year 2020 to just “20” on any documents could be a costly mistake.

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Pope Francis has a Busy Agenda set for 2020

By Michelle Powers

Come the new year, the Holy Father has his eyes set on visiting several different countries – including one that would make him the first Pope to ever touch down in the nation – Montenegro.

The Holy Father’s visit will come on the heels of the country passing a religious freedom law that has sparked protests across the Balkan Republic.

On that journey, Francis will also likely visit the Island of Cyprus which hasn’t hosted a Pope since 2010.

During several general audiences, Francis has expressed his desire to visit two other countries struggling with war: Iraq and South Sudan.

Last year, Pope Francis made headlines when he kissed the feet of two opposing South Sudanese leaders at the Vatican.

He promised he’d visit the country, so long as the new government is honoring the peace agreement.

The Holy Father was also invited to Hungary, where there’s a chance he will beatify a cardinal who was imprisoned in the 1950s for speaking against the communist regime.

There could also be trips to Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea on the horizon.

Either way 2020 is bound to be another busy year for Pope Francis.

Twain’s Holy Land Travelogue Reveals Both Appreciation, Cynicism

By Christopher White and Emily Drooby

NEW YORK — In 1867, American humorist Mark Twain traveled to the Holy Land on a memorable voyage that deepened his appreciation for the Bible, yet left him with cynical views on the sites he visited along the way.

A new exhibit at the New York Historical Society, “Mark Twain and the Holy Land,” chronicles that bit of history. It’s timed to coincide with the 150-year anniversary of Twain’s writings from the trip, “The Innocents Abroad” – which sold more copies than any of his other works during his lifetime.

Twain’s nearly half-year journey would take him – by boat, rail, horse, mule, and camel – through western Europe, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, where he traveled with members of high society and sent letters back to a San Francisco newspaper, “Alta California,” that published his musings as travel dispatches before they were collected together for the book.

Exhibition curator Michael Ryan told The Tablet that what Twain did in that work, published two years after he returned to the United States, “was original and had not been done before.”

Ryan noted that Twain did not write as a literary historian, but used his “acerbic wit, sarcasm and, occasionally, awe,” to write not only about the sites, but also about the travelers and “how they saw things, how they interacted.”

According to Ryan, he also helped to “demythologize” the Holy Land from the “grandiose” and present it as it was then, which was “a place falling apart.”

In writing about Jerusalem, Twain describes it as “mournful, and dreary, and lifeless,” adding that “I would not desire to live here.”

In describing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where tradition holds Christ was buried, and which then as now was shared – begrudgingly – by Christians of six denominations, he wrote, “It has been proven conclusively that they cannot worship together around the grave of the Saviour of the World in peace.”

While visiting the Sea of Galilee, Twain was quick to point out that it is “no sea,” adding “the dim waters of this pool can not suggest the limpid brilliancy of Tahoe.”

“He takes away the veil and the mystique,” Ryan summarized to The Tablet.

The New York Historical Society’s exhibition showcases some of Twain’s original handwritten notes from his trip diaries, photographs, artwork, and other collectibles, including the olive wood covered Bible he purchased in Jerusalem for his mother – the woman responsible for his reverence for the scriptures, despite his lack of religiosity.

Ryan said Twain’s reverence for the Bible “goes deep” and was “a part of him,” in large part due to his devotion to his mother.

When Twain returned to New York following the trip, he originally wanted the book to be titled “The New Pilgrims’ Progress,” to capitalize off the success of John Bunyan’s bestseller. In the end, he kept it as a subtitle, turning the focus toward the innocence or naiveté of Americans making sense of a foreign land.

Beyond that, it catapulted Twain to international fame, selling 82,000 copies in the first 18 months and doubling that over the next decade, and set off a wave of high-profile visitors to the Holy Land, including President Ulysses Grant, Gen. William T. Sherman, and Theodore Roosevelt. Letters from their own voyages are also on hand for exhibition.

While much about the Holy Land has changed in the 150 years since its publication, perhaps one sign of the book’s enduring legacy is that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington to meet with then newly-elected President Barack Obama in May 2009, he gifted him with a first edition copy of the book.

Visitors won’t find that copy on hand, but there are plenty of other small treasures tucked inside the exhibition – all on view until February 2, 2020.

Wives of Swiss Guards: Work Schedules, Kids and School Buses Create Adventure in the Vatican

By Melissa Butz

Swiss Guards have very rigorous working hours, being constantly on-call to protect Pope Francis. Yet, they also have a personal life and around 20 guards have wives and families.

Brenda, Janik and Veronika are three of the wives that live within the Vatican walls. They each have three children, making up nearly half of the 20 children of Swiss Guards living at the Vatican.

“Living here with the family is, is a great opportunity, not only for us as parents, but for the children as well. I think one of the big challenges is the schedules, which our husbands have. That’s one of the things, because obviously, the guard works 24/7, weekends included,” said Brenda.

For years, only guards who had attained the rank of corporal could get married. This is because there are a limited number of larger apartments, which are given to families or married guards. However, all that is now changing with Pope Francis.

“He accepted the proposal to allow guards marry after five years of service. Before it was only after being a corporal. Now everyone can get married,” said Janik.

Brenda added, “Pope Francis himself didn’t like the situation much. So it really initiated with him that he wanted to change the rules. Those rules have now been changed. So, you no longer have to be a corporal, which means that your professional success is no more linked to your private life as it was before. I think that’s a really good change.”

While Janik’s and Brenda’s husbands had both served as guards for Pope John Paul II earlier in their career, Veronika is completely new to Vatican, only being here three months for her husband’s first-time service.

“My everyday life is very similar to back in Switzerland. I wake up; the bigger children must go to school; then the housework is done. It’s all very similar to back in Switzerland. Shopping and cooking, we have a dog that we go for walks with in the gardens,” said Veronika.

The wives say their daily lives are normal, just lived out within Vatican walls. The children play there all together, but leave the smallest country in the world to go to school.

“They all go to the Swiss school. So to get there and to get back that forces the parents to do things together. We’ve been fortunate enough to receive two little mini buses from a foundation which supports the guards and Switzerland. Those mini buses are driven by the parents in turn,” said Brenda.
Janik added, “They told me, if you have a license, you drive. Ok, that’s fine. Because finding a driver costs a lot and it’s easier for us parents to all take turns driving.”

The parents have formed a tight-knit community with one another, especially the ones who have children. While the Swiss Guards protect the pope daily, the families see him once a year, for the Swiss Guards’ swearing-in ceremony on May 6. On this day each year, new guards are able to join the army of men carefully selected to protect the Holy Father.

The Pope’s “Great Swat” of New Year’s 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

ROME – Never let it be said that Pope Francis lacks imagination when it comes to making his peak moments on the public stage interesting. This New Year’s holiday, he managed to generate an entirely unforeseen storyline with what we might, tongue-in-cheek, call his “Great Swat.”

By now, everyone knows what happened: When Francis exited St. Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s Eve for his traditional visit to the Nativity scene in the square and then his round of greeting people along a set of barriers, an overly aggressive woman grabbed his hand and just wouldn’t let go, causing a visibly angry pontiff to turn back, swat her hand a couple of times and scold her.

I couldn’t actually make out what Francis said in that heated moment, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, “Happy New Year.”

For those who follow Francis closely, the revelation that an 83-year-old Argentinian male has a temper wasn’t exactly a thunderclap, since we’ve seen it often enough before. Nonetheless, video of the incident went viral and became an internet sensation.

The next day, during his noontime Angelus address, Francis was musing on God’s patience, and then said we all lose our patience sometimes, himself included, apologizing for his “poor example” the previous evening.

What made the situation especially ironic was that Francis dedicated his homily at the New Year’s Day Mass to the issue of violence against women, saying at one point that “by how we treat a woman’s body, we can understand our level of humanity.”

Herewith, three quick take-aways from the “Great Swat” of New Year’s 2020.

PR Panache?

Imagine this scenario: A deep-pocketed Madison Avenue PR firm is posed a challenge. A major public figure is planning to deliver a strong message about violence against women, but in a holiday moment in which attention is likely to be directed elsewhere and to happier subjects. Given the familiarity of the issue and the inopportune timing, on its own that message isn’t likely to generate much media buzz.

What might the PR firm recommend to gin up some interest?

In all honesty, it would be hard to conjure anything more effective than what Francis actually delivered, even if it’s probably not quite the way a Madison Avenue agency would have counseled him to go about it.

I was doing some hits for CNN on New Year’s Day, and at one stage a few of us were in the newsroom here in Rome going over the pope’s homily. A colleague at one point said, “You know, this is a really strong homily, and he says some important stuff.” There was a pause, and then I asked: “Okay, but would we be on air today talking about it without the slap?”

Without a second’s hesitation, every head in the room nodded in the negative.

Obviously, the pope probably won’t want to go to this particular well very often, but in this one instance, it has to be said he found a way to grab an audience that otherwise might well not have materialized.

Apologies

Public figures often find themselves apologizing for one thing or another, and often their mea culpas don’t have much effect. They come off as formulaic and insincere, more an exercise in damage control than genuine contrition.

Francis, however, got a fair bit of credit for his insta-apology on New Year’s, seeming gracious and pastoral. The reaction illustrates one of the fixed laws of the universe when it comes to such matters.

To wit: “The effectiveness of an apology varies in direct proportion to whether most people believe you actually have anything to apologize for.”

Honestly, people watching the scene play out probably came away thinking that if anybody needed to apologize, it was the grasping woman rather than the pope. After all, this was an octogenarian who suffers from sciatica we’re talking about, whose hand was being yanked by someone who clearly didn’t understand when it was time to let go.

Had Francis done something more egregious in response, an apology might not have sufficed. By simply responding in a way most people could imagine themselves doing under similar circumstances, he converted losing his cool into a boost for his reputation for graciousness and human decency.

(In describing public reaction, by the way, I’m talking about ordinary people who generally don’t pay a lot of attention to papal happenings. Among Catholic insiders, naturally, response tended to break along ideological lines, with traditionalists in particular shouting “a-ha!” at a supposed unmasking of Francis’s inner nastiness.

(You know who actually were especially quick to defend the pope in this case? Some of my Roman friends who drive cabs, run restaurants or otherwise have to deal with grabby, aggressive tourists all the time, a few of whom were cheering for Francis to go even more ballistic.)

A Thin Penumbra

In the various TV and radio bits I did about the New Year’s incident, probably the best question I got all night came from a CNN anchor who asked, “Where was Vatican security while all this was happening?”

It’s a great question, since it’s hard to imagine something similar happening to, say, a U.S. president. Secret service agents are trained to study faces in rope lines, to watch for anyone who seems overly clingy or aggressive, and to defuse such situations before they happen.

Granted, Francis is without the pope’s longtime chief of security, Italian layman Domenico Giani, who was sent packing earlier this year over a scandal that involved leaked copies of internal investigations.

One imagines that right now, Gauzzi Broccoletti, Giani’s successor, is making his staff watch video tape of the New Year’s incident to try to ensure that something similar never happens again. (Broccoletti heretofore has been an expert in cybersecurity, so this sort of flesh-and-blood challenge may be a bit new.)

In general, however, over the course of roughly 25 years of covering popes, I have to say that the security membrane around them on such public occasions is much thinner than those which surround other major world leaders.

In part, that’s because popes think of themselves first and foremost as pastors, and don’t want to separate themselves from ordinary people any more than necessary. In part, too, it’s because popes believe that ultimately their security is in the hands of a much higher power. In part it’s also a cultural difference, because Italians are just generally more relaxed about such things.

In any event, perhaps the price of being the world’s parish priest is running the risk of such minor annoyances as we saw New Year’s Eve. Honestly, the remarkable thing probably isn’t that it happened, but that it doesn’t happen more often.