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Campaign for Mother Cabrini: Bishop DiMarzio Continues to Lead the Way

Currents News Staff

When City Hall turned its back on Mother Cabrini and refused to honor her with a new statue, the Bishop of Brooklyn took charge.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio led a march of more than a thousand people through the streets of Carroll Gardens to push back against the snub of the saint.

On Columbus Day, Bishop DiMarzio rode up fifth avenue on a Diocese of Brooklyn float with Mother Cabrini as the centerpiece.

Shortly after, Governor Andrew Cuomo named the Bishop to a new commission that’s going to bring a Cabrini memorial to life.

There are 18 other top names on that including John Heyer, the Lay Coordinator of the Diocese of Brooklyn Italian Apostolate and Angelo Vivolo, the President of the Columbus Heritage Coalition. They both sat down with Currents News for an update on Mother Cabrini’s statue.

Two Catholic Academies Merging To Create Innovative New School

By Emily Drooby and Andrew Pugliese

BAY RIDGE — Before Mike Long voted, he closed his eyes for a moment.

He thought, “What would Bay Ridge look like without a Catholic school?”

He couldn’t imagine that, and so he made the difficult decision to vote, ‘yes.’ Yes to closing Holy Angels Catholic Academy, where six of his nine children attended, and yes to joining the new Bay Ridge Catholic Academy, which will open next September at St. Anselm’s Catholic Academy half-a-mile away, nine blocks up Fourth Avenue.

The decision to merge Holy Angels and St. Anselm’s was announced by the Diocese of Brooklyn on Oct. 31.

“Today’s parents are going through a very emotional roller-coaster ride,” Long said. “They feel that they’ve been uprooted. But we know that we’re doing the right thing for them and their children. We’re doing the right thing for the future kids of Bay Ridge, so that they have a good, strong Catholic institution to go to.”

Long and the rest of Holy Angels’ board were faced with a declining enrollment at the school, while St. Anselm’s is facing financial challenges, according to Auxiliary Bishop James Massa, diocesan vicar of education.

Holy Angels’ enrollment has fallen from 214 to 121 since the 2015-2016 academic year, and renovations to Holy Angels’ building were estimated to cost $3.2 million to accommodate a merged school, compared with $600,000 for St. Anselm’s, according to Long.

School officials project that Bay Ridge Catholic Academy will open with 400 students, which would make it one of the biggest elementary schools in the diocese. More students will mean a larger budget.

At St. Anselm’s school building, math and science labs will be updated, according to school officials, and the new school will emphasize subjects such as engineering to develop critical thinking and will have more music and arts classes.

It will also have events to help students and parents from Holy Angels and St. Anselm’s to get to know each other and feel like one community, John Quaglione, chairman of the St. Anselm’s board of directors, said.

“The two parishes will work together,” Msgr. John Maloney, the pastor of St Anselm, said. “The priests from the two parishes will respond to the pastoral care. We have Mass at least once a month with the children. We’ll be rotating. Priests from each parish will come over to say Mass and hear confessions.”

The merger won’t be easy. Parent meetings on Nov. 5 at both Holy Angels and St. Anselm’s were extremely hard as parents and school officials discussed the changes coming to the two schools, each of which has almost 100 years of history.

Msgr. Kevin Noone, pastor of Our Lady of Angels, is a 1958 graduate of what was then Our Lady of Angels School, now Holy Angels.

“It was just home,” he said. “It was a real family atmosphere.”

Anwar Najjar and his wife have found a home for their three boys at Holy Angels over the last eight years. The Lebanese-American couple is Muslim, but started sending their eldest to the Catholic school down the block for first grade in 2011. Now, their middle son is in the seventh grade and their youngest is in the fourth.

Despite practicing a different faith at home, they want their children to learn about the religion and cultures of others and want to keep their children in a diocesan school. They are concerned, however, about a transition for their seventh-grader during his last year of grammar school.

“We are also trying to see what is the best fit for my son because I’m more worried about him because next year is his last year and I need him to graduate with a good head and leaving a good school,” Najjar said.

Diocesan and school officials are encouraging parents, like the Najjars, to give their input. Ideas are forming, but nothing is set in stone. The diocese has formed several committees, including enrollment management, curriculum and facilities.

“All of the decisions are not made, and there is definitely an opportunity for their input. We want them to sign up and come to the meetings,” Quaglione said. “We want them to help build the school for their children.”

For the full statement from the Diocese of Brooklyn, go here.

Currents News for Wednesday, November 6, 2019

On the newscast: A parishioner is sucker-punched outside Saint Michael’s Church in Flushing, Queens. Police are hunting for the brute tonight; The next big step in the impeachment battle on Capitol Hill. House Democrats are setting the date for public hearings; New York City’s constitution is changing. There’s going to be a new way to vote; A progress report on the memorial to Mother Cabrini. Two leaders will give us an update.

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Mexico Launching Commission in Deadly Attack

Currents News Staff

A day after members of a Mormon family were gunned down in Mexico, authorities there say they have made an arrest.

“We are calling on our governments and our sovereign countries to help us and provide answers. these kinds of injustices and atrocities should never be,” said Lafe Langford, a family member of the attack victims.

The attorney-general for the neighboring state of Chihuahua didn’t disclose what the suspect’s involvement might have been, but says a newly-formed drug cartel could be behind the massacre.

“October of this year was the most violent month in modern Mexican history also, which means the level is rising not descending this is what the government is facing, said Jorge Castañeda Gutman.

The murder of three mothers and six children is just the latest horror in a region known for cartel violence.

The group was traveling in a caravan near their families’ ranch, just south of the U.S. border when their vehicles are riddled with gunfire, one catching fire.

Several children managed to escape, hiding in the bushes for hours.

“What they went through, what they experienced, we don’t have the capacity just to imagine what these children went through,” said Langford.

Those children are being treated at Arizona hospitals as the family grapples with what’s next.

Rubio Promotes ‘Common Good Capitalism’ at CUA Event

By Christopher White, The Tablet’s National Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Marco Rubio turned to his Catholic roots to make his case for a restoration of “common good capitalism,” in an address at the Catholic University of America on Tuesday, saying that the market economy can at times interfere with building strong communities.

The Republican senator began his remarks by quoting from Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 landmark document on workers’ rights, Rerum novarum, and also briefly drew from the three most recent popes, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis, whose teachings he said offers the foundation for understanding the dignity of work.

Rubio said that the 19th century papal writings of Leo XIII, which dealt with questions over balancing the rights of workers and businesses in the shadow of the industrial revolution and growing appeals to socialism, offer parallels to our current era.

Then, as in now, he claimed, workers and businesses were seen as competitors and not as partners, which he said runs contrary to the “kind of economy that most Americans would want us to have.”

He went on to lament that the United States has turned into “a nation that appears incapable of identifying our common good.”

Rubio’s remarks, titled “Human Dignity and the Purpose of Capitalism,” were predominantly descriptive, spending the majority of his nearly 40 minutes of prepared remarks focusing on the “catastrophic economic crisis that left us with this disordered economy,” and only occasionally turning to the Church’s social teaching to offer a prescriptive way forward.

The senator critiqued both major political parties, saying that that conservatives have neglected the rights of workers, while progressives focus too much on the “obligations” of businesses to share their profits with workers and the government.

Recalling his own experience of entering politics at a young age, he says that he remains an “unabashed supporter” of both American exceptionalism and the American dream, but that the country’s strength could not be viewed in strictly economic terms, but must consider the health of its communities.

He went on to say that it is “impossible to be a strong country with millions of people feeling left behind,” adding that the lack of dignified work corrodes communities and that men are especially wounded by this reality as it “rips away” at “the core” of “being a man, which is providing for your family.”

The senator enumerated a number of economic failings of today’s economy, lamenting the current divide between coastal elites and the rest of the country, the challenges of home ownership, and the fact that many Americans are delaying having children until much later in life – all of which he summed up as a system “rigged against them by the very people who created these problems.”

In pointing a way forward, he said the country must come to a “national consensus” that the challenges of today are not one of cyclical economic downturns but “an economic order that is bad for our society and for our people,” which he said would not be solved by the market.

In making his case for “common good capitalism,” he said it is “a system of free enterprise in which workers fulfill their obligation to work and they enjoy the benefits of their work and where business enjoy their right to make a profit.”

He said that current government policies get this wrong and incentivize business practices that promote economic growth that solely benefits shareholders without improving jobs or better pay.

He went on endorse tax preferences that reward businesses for reinvesting their profits in a way that creates new jobs, as well as to promote his own plan for paid family leave, saying that while the market fails to account for the good of such a policy, common good capitalism requires such support.

The “ancient and enduring truth that it is impossible for a country to be strong if the whole nation does not benefit from its strength,” said the senator.

Although he did not call out any specific individuals during his speech, the senator weighed in on some of the themes being discussed in the run-up to the 2020 Democratic primaries, arguing that a government that guarantees a basic income, controls where you work and how much you make. He went on to allege that a government that promises free healthcare controls your doctor, and a government that promises free education controls where you go and what you’re taught.

An estimated 500 students and faculty from the Catholic University of America were on hand for the senator’s speech. Previously, in July 2014, Rubio spoke at CUA on the theme of “Strong Values for a Strong America.” More recently, in August of this year, he penned a 1,100-word essay titled “What Economics is For” in the conservative journal First Things, where explored some of the same themes he raised on Tuesday.

Rubio was introduced by Andrew Abela, dean of CUA’s Busch School of Business, which sponsored the lecture, who said that “at a time when religion is often under attack” in the public square, the senator “defends it courageously.”

In recent years, the Busch School of Business has come under scrutiny for accepting funding from the libertarian leaning Koch Foundation, often seen at odds with Catholic Social Teaching.

In 2016, CUA’s President John Garvey told Crux that there was no ideological motivation for accepting Koch funding and that the University was “happy to take money from anyone who is interested in the same projects that we’re interested in.”

Following Rubio’s remarks, John Gehring, the Catholic Program Director at Faith in Public Life, told Crux, “it was good to hear Rubio challenge the gospel of free market fundamentalism, but his consistent failure to support raising the minimum wage and endorsement of tax policies that benefit the wealthiest few made his words ring hollow.”

“When you’re speaking at the same university where Fr. John Ryan once helped bring church teaching about living wages to the center of political discourse, the senator’s disappointing record on this issue was a big elephant in the room,” he said.

Before leaving campus on Tuesday, Rubio posed with a student for a selfie during he question and answer session, where he agreed to sign the student’s “Make America Great Again” hat- although he refused to don it for the photograph.

In concluding his remarks on Tuesday, Rubio dismissed the idea that his speech was meant to offer a vision for a post-Trump conservatism, insisting that his intention is merely “to do whatever it take to keep our country from coming apart” – in hopes that “the 21st century will also be known as the new American century.”

“We have an opportunity to create a country, America, that’s even greater than it’s ever been before,” he said.

Currents News for Tuesday, November 5, 2019

On the newscast: A bullet-riddled SUV is all that remains after American women and children are slaughtered in Mexico. The drug cartels are being blamed; Unrest in Lebanon is prompting prayers in Brooklyn for Christians caught in the crossfire; A synagogue is safe after the FBI breaks up a white supremacist bomb plot; And Pope Francis goes underground at Saint Peter’s Basilica to visit the Crypts.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

Nine Americans Slaughtered in Mexico

By Emily Drooby

A burnt-out car riddled with bullet holes as just one result of a deadly attack on Americans near the U.S./Mexico border.

The attack claimed the lives of nine family members: three mothers and six children, including two infants.

“Every one of them were young. All of them,” said Taylor Langford, a relative of the family.

The ambush was likely carried out by one of Mexico’s vicious drug cartels.

The dead were dual citizens of the U.S. and Mexico.

They were cut down while on a trip to a family gathering. Family members who stayed home could see what had happened.

“They saw the smoke and went up to see what was going on,” said Langford.

Langford explained the car belonged to his cousin Rhonita. And he’s saying she and four of her children are among the dead.

Langford’s is also identifying his aunt Dawna, and cousin Christina as victims.

Mexican authorities are reporting eight people survived the slaughter – some have serious injuries.

Leah Staddon, who says her family members killed in Mexico, said “I think a lot of us are just speechless. Its horrific.”

Staddon says the family was thinking about getting out of Mexico because of violence. “Things that have happened with family members being pulled over by the mafia, guns pointed at their vehicle.”

Staddon added she has no idea why anyone would want to harm the family. “We just can’t believe this is actually happening to our family, it just seems like a bad dream.”

The terrifying attack on the women and children is spreading fear through the area.

“It’s not just got caught in gunfire, in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was a whole new level of cartel violence. Most of them are hunkered down. They don’t know what else to do,” said Langford.

Brooklyn Christians Stand in Solidarity with Lebanon

By Tim Harfmann

Christians in Brooklyn are taking a stand and praying for their endangered brothers and sisters in Lebanon.

Paul Moshy is one of many attending a prayer service at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights. He’s worried about his loved ones who are still in Lebanon.

“I heard Lebanon needs its support of the people. I came right in. I just hope to God my family and everybody else over there is safe,” said Moshy.

The prayers come amid turmoil in the country. Protests began nearly three weeks ago against widespread corruption.

The unrest prompted Maronite Brooklyn Bishop Gregory Mansour to hold the service.

“We are coming to pray for Lebanon. Simple. We are not doing any politics,” Mansour told Currents News.

Bishop Mansour was joined by members of other Christian denominations, including Armenian Orthodox Archbishop Danielian.

“As Christians, it is our primary duty to pray, to pray together for all those who are in different parts of the world,” said Danielian.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis has encouraged the protestors while pushing both sides to respect the dignity and freedom of everyone in Lebanon, saying “I urge everyone to seek solutions in the way of dialogue.”

Until it’s resolved, these Christians will continue to pray for peace in Lebanon.

“We can resolve every political difficulty without violence,” said Mansour.

Pope Francis Visits Papal Grotto in St. Peter’s Basilica

By Melissa Butz

Accompanied by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis visited the crypt underneath the basilica.

It houses the tombs of several past popes. Pope Francis prayed for and remembered them.

He prayed before the tombs of Paul VI and Benedict XV before he made his way to various chapels. One in particular was the Clementine Chapel, which is closest to the bones of St. Peter buried within the necropolis.

He then prayed before Pius XII and Pius XI. The papal grottoes are one of the most visited places in Vatican City by tourists. It is marked by tombs, sarcophagus, tunnels, art and even models of the Vatican before it was what it is today.

 

Election Day 2019: Keeping the Faith at the Ballot Box

Currents News Staff

Currents News is joined by Monsignor Guy Massie, Pastor of Sacred Hearts and Saint Stephen Church in Brooklyn, and Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, President of The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, to discuss how voting is influenced by faith.