Currents News for Monday, September 9, 2019

On the newscast: Pope Francis’s trip to Africa is hitting new highs. We have exclusive coverage, including scenes from the mass with a million people; The cost of living in some Brooklyn neighborhoods is surging. We’ll tell you about how parishioners are coping; A mom is helping school children eat lunch. She’s inspired by a saint; An update on the boy who used his birthday money for hurricane victims. You’ll smile about it.

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.

Catholic Organizations in Florida Marshaling Aid for Dorian Victims

By Catholic News Service

MIAMI (CNS) — In the wake of Hurricane Dorian’s brutal blasting of the Bahamas, Catholic organizations in Florida continued to raise funds to aid victims there.

The best aid from individual Catholics is monetary donations. Money can be used to buy supplies in bulk and get them delivered promptly, and to reboot the local economy, enabling communities to start getting back on their feet. Money also ensures the items sent are actually the items needed — not just immediately after the disaster but months later, when recovery is ongoing.

“It’s the agencies that are on the ground providing the help, they really know what is needed. So it’s best to give them the resources so they can purchase locally what is needed. It helps to get businesses back up and running locally,” Peter Routsis-Arroyo, director of the Archdiocese of Miami’s Catholic Charities, told the Florida Catholic, Miami’s archdiocesan newspaper.

Arroyo noted the “tremendous amount of manpower” and agency funds required to organize, pack and ship donated items. “If we had just turned that money over to them, there’s none of those costs involved in that,” he said.

Not to mention that some items may only be needed the first few days.

“Maybe they need MREs (meals ready to eat) for the first two days, but that’s it,” he said. Other needs will arise as reconstruction begins, Arroyo added.

The Catholic Church has a distinct advantage, though, when disaster strikes anywhere: an interconnected network of churches and agencies with deep roots and deep knowledge of the affected communities.

The Miami Archdiocese has many links to the Archdiocese of Nassau. Priests from Miami’s Metropolitan Tribunal helped Nassau set up its tribunal a decade ago. For years, representatives from the Bahamas Women’s Auxiliary have joined members of the Miami Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women at their annual convention — sometimes bringing Nassau Archbishop Patrick C. Pinder with them.

“We’ve been in constant contact with Archbishop Pinder,” Routsis-Arroyo said, adding that what he’s dealing with “is overwhelming.”

“He sends us a list of what he needs and it’s easier for us to collect monies, purchase in bulk, not have to pay taxes or anything. And then we have friends of the agency who will ship it for free to him. And then he knows how to get it to whoever he knows on his end,” Routsis-Arroyo said.

Those “friends” include shipping companies and wealthy individuals who offer to cover the costs or deliver the goods free of charge.

Normally, relief work in a foreign country is done by the U.S. bishops’ overseas agency, Catholic Relief Services. But Routsis-Arroyo explained that CRS doesn’t have any offices in the Bahamas “so they work with the archbishop and the local Caritas,” which is part of the international network of agencies under the umbrella of Caritas Internationalis

When Dorian slammed into the Bahamas, Knights of Columbus of Florida went into action.

The first order of business: texting with a fellow Knight of Columbus by the name of Patrick Pinder.

“We are in touch with Archbishop Pinder of Nassau by text,” said Ronald Winn, a resident of Pensacola and state disaster response chairman for the Knights of Columbus.

The Knights’ Florida Council has had a long relationship with the Knights in the Bahamas, which is considered part of the Florida jurisdiction. When Dorian hit the Bahamas, the texts between the archbishop and the Knights in Florida were traded back and forth.

Winn was prepared to respond to the bishop and his people. Since, July 1, the Knights have stepped up service efforts with their new Disaster Response Program. Once Dorian made landfall in the Bahamas, the organization developed a fundraising campaign posting information about it on their state and supreme council websites.

“Things change day by day. … We are waiting until the airports are safe and in good working order to receive aircraft safely,” Winn told the Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of West Palm Beach. He added that some Knights have offered to navigate their own boats to the Bahamas to deliver items.

The Knights’ disaster response program arose following the destruction Hurricane Harvey wrought in Houston in 2017.

Florida State Deputy Scott O’Connor of Pembroke Pines in the Archdiocese of Miami said in a statement, “We have a much more defined program with people and contacts, and we are also working directly with Catholic Charities because they already have an infrastructure in place.”

The Boca Raton-based Cross Catholic Outreach, is providing immediate assistance to the Bahamas with shipments of food, medicines and other critical resources. Cross Catholic Outreach has already shipped over 540,000 meals to help affected families and children.

To get resources in quickly and distributed effectively, Cross Catholic Outreach is working with Catholic Charities of Miami and Archbishop Pinder of Nassau. The first shipments will include scientifically formulated meals designed to do more than satisfy hunger.

“It’s important to address hunger with nutrient-rich meals,” said a statement by Cavnar, president of Cross Catholic Outreach. “The food we are shipping is created for situations like this, and it will go a long way in keeping people healthy as they face the stresses and hardships ahead.”

Currents News for Friday, September 6, 2019

On the newscast: It’s the second leg — the Pope of the peripheries is now in Madagascar; A Currents exclusive — a rape victim chooses life for her baby. The Christian calls her pregnancy a blessing in disguise; 22 more lives lost. The FDNY is adding names to its 9/11 memorial wall right before the harrowing anniversary; And a Catholic camp for kids with one thing in common — the loss of a parent.

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.

In the Aftermath of Assault, Woman Chooses Life for Her Daughter

By Emily Drooby

Kristi Kollar and her daughter Adeline live a life filled with love, happiness and laughter, but it wasn’t always that way. Her life changed forever when a friend she trusted raped her.

“We were close. We weren’t dating but we were close friends, and he would give me rides places sometimes and things like that,” Kristi said. “And so one day he was giving me a ride home, and then eventually he didn’t let me out of the back of his car.”

After the sexual assault, Kristi faced a huge challenge she was determined to overcome.

“I found out I was pregnant a couple weeks after this happened,” she said.

She knew having a baby wouldn’t be easy. Making it even harder was the fact that she was in high school without a home. A fire had destroyed the place where she lived.

Still the, Christian teenager rejected aborting the life within her. She wanted her baby.

“Even if it was easier for me, it wasn’t right. Like, the easier path didn’t make it right. Just because all of this stuff was happening to me and just because her dad was a rapist, none of that was her fault. I knew she didn’t deserve to be killed because of all that had happened,” Kristi said.

After Adeline was born, Kristi moved to New York City. She wanted to go to college and study performing arts. Her dad, Robert, moved with her to help out and to cope with his own difficulties.

“I believe God used her to rescue me, and used me to rescue her,” Robert said, referencing the way he learned he was a father.

Robert didn’t know Kristi was his daughter until she was three and trapped trapped in an abusive household. He took her out of that environment, and is so proud of Kristi and her inner strength.

“There’s so much blessing hidden under all this. If you look at any story in the Bible, they all start out bad,” he said. “God uses these things to help other people. He’s helped us, he has made us stronger.”

“I’m still going to school and I’m still doing everything. Instead of my life ending, it got so much better and it has so much more purpose now. She’s the best thing in my life,” Kristi said.

Still, the family is struggling. With the costs of caring for a child and going to college, money is tight.

But the Queens crisis pregnancy center The Bridge To Life is giving them support, “helping to young women parent, helping them finish school so they can be contributors to society with a paycheck,” said Catherine Donohoe, president of the organization’s Board of Directors.

The family is also helping to support themselves. They’re holding a fundraiser where they screen Robert’s movie ‘Take Two’. The movie is about his personal path to fatherhood. It’s being shown at 7:30pm on October 23^rd at Bellmore Movie and Showplace at 222 Petite Avenue in Bellmore. You can call (516)783-3199 for more information.

You can also ask The Bridge to Life how you can help. Their number is (718) 463-1810.

Fontbonne Hall Academy Welcomes Sixty New Students

Currents News Staff

When some neighboring Catholic high schools closed at the end of last year, Fontbonne Hall Academy in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, took in 60 transfer students, many of them seniors.

In an effort to welcome the new students, the girls decided they would add the closed schools’ emblems onto Fontbonne’s sweaters.

Now they stand side by side, or pocket to pocket. This year the school’s theme is “together, we are one.”

Kids Find Space to Grieve, Grow at Catholic Bereavement Camp

By Emily Drooby

Camp Compass looks just like a normal summer camp with barbecues, arts, crafts and sports. But for campers like Kyaire, it’s more than just fun and games.

Basketball has always been a part of his life because of his mother.

“She’s the one who taught me how to shoot a basketball. I was maybe around four or five years old, and she said, ‘I’m not going to have you sitting around the house no more looking bored. I’m going to teach you how to shoot a basketball, and I’m going to put you on a team and make sure you go to high school, college and the NBA,’” she told him.

That life dream was compromised when tragedy struck his family

“I lost my mom on September 15, 2017,” he explained.

Forced to deal with loss at only 12-years-old, Kyaire said he started acting out and losing focus on his future.

Then he turned to Calvary Hospital’s children’s bereavement programs.

“Speaking about his mother, and speaking about just the relationship he had with her, and speaking about how he can incorporate all the things he has learned from her to move forward with his journey,” has helped Kyaire let go of his anger and focus on his goals, said Rashida Sanchez, his bereavement counselor at Calvary Hospital.

Now Kaire plays basketball at Camp Compass.

“I take my anger and my emotions out on the court,” he said, identifying it as a way to cope with his grief and honor his mom.

Every camper at the week-long camp has one thing in common: they’ve lost someone they love

“Although children are not adults, they still need spaces like this to be able to speak to their emotions to speak to what is going on with them in their grief process. So I love that we are able here at calvary to create that space for them,” Rashida.

The camp, run by Catholics, allows children to have a supportive environment where they can remember and honor their loved ones. There are bereavement activities, projects, and events that include emotional support animals.

The camp is 100 percent free, 100 percent helpful, and most importantly “really fun,” said Clio, another camper. “Everybody, like over 50 people are here, and you can talk to literally anyone.”

That’s something that these children may not have had in a very long time.

Pope Applauds Mozambique HIV-AIDS Hospital, Pleads Reconciliation Before Madagascar

By Melissa Butz

Friday morning began the Pope’s final moments in Mozambique.

The Holy Father started by visiting a hospital that cares for patients of HIV-AIDS, a virus that affects 23 percent of the population in Maputo.

This center is run by the Catholic organization Sant’Egidio Community and the project to cure those living with AIDS is called, DREAM.

They offer antiretroviral treatment to the poor. The Catholic institution has assisted in the birth of 130,000 healthy children in Africa.

At the end of the visit, Pope Francis was given a wooden cross made from remnants of cyclone Idai. He brought it with him to Zimpeto Stadium, where he celebrated his final Mass in the country.

More than 60,000 pilgrims joyfully danced and sang, welcoming the pope to the arena. He appealed for forgiveness and reconciliation, despite difficulties and years of conflict within Mozambique.

“No family, no group of neighbors, no ethnic group, much less a nation, has a future if the force that unites them, brings them together and resolves their differences is vengeance and hatred,” said Francis.

He reminded them to follow Jesus’ example and the golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Just before lunchtime, Pope Francis was accompanied to the airport in Maputo, where the country’s president thanked him for his visit.

He then boarded the plane to head to Madagascar, where he was received by the country’s president and first lady.

He met privately with the president before greeting the thousands lining the streets on the island just off the coast of Africa.

Pope Francis will remain there until Sept. 10, with a day trip planned to Mauritius for Monday.

In Africa, Pope Urges Hearing Cries of the Poor and the Earth Itself

By Inés San Martín

MAPUTO, Mozambique – Victims of suffering don’t need intermediaries, Pope Francis told medical personnel who work with some of the most ailing people in Africa on Friday, so much as simple “loving attentiveness” to their cries.

“All of you who, in various ways, are part of this healthcare community thus become a sign of the heart of Jesus, so that no one will think that his or her cry has gone unheard,” Francis said during a visit to a medical center on the outskirts of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.

Doctors, nurses and other staff at the Zimpeto Center are “a sign of sharing with those in need, and you enable them to sense the active presence of a brother or a sister,” the pope said.

The pontiff also praised the center’s efforts to reduce its ecological footprint, including the use of sustainable methods of energy and gathering and storing water supplies. This concern with environmental impact, Francis said, is a “virtuous mode” and an example to be followed in light of the “urgent situation created by the deterioration of our planet.”

Listening to the cry of the most vulnerable, Francis says, “puts us in contact with another part of our vulnerable world,” meaning the earth herself, “burdened and laid waste.” The planet too, he argued, has been abandoned and maltreated, and she “groans in travail.”

Zimpeto Center, specializing in the treatment of women and children with HIV/Aids, was inaugurated in 2018 in the presence of President Filipe Nyusi and the then-papal representative in Mozambique, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, today effectively the pope’s Chief of Staff as the substitute in the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

During his visit, Francis unveiled a plaque marking the occasion, saw a dance prepared by young children, and greeted some 20 patients before heading privately to visit two of the center’s rooms.

Francis said the situation at the center resembles the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, and the patients “with despair and anguish, are like the man lying on the side of the road,” while those working in the center have refused to continue on their way like the Levite or the priest in the parable.

Praising the employees, he said they have “heeded the silent, almost inaudible, cry of countless women, so many of them living in shame, marginalized and judged by all.”

In the Hospital Zimpeto, Francis said, God lives among those suffering from cancer or tuberculosis, as well as hundreds of malnourished people, especially children and youth.

The hospital also features a DREAM center for people with HIV/Aids. The “Disease Relief through Excellent and Advanced Means” project was created by the lay Community of Sant’Egidio in 2002 to help people with the virus as well as malnutrition in Africa.

“This centre shows us that there are always people ready to stop and show compassion, who do not yield to the temptation to say, ‘There is nothing to be done’ or ‘It’s impossible to fight this scourge’,” Francis said.

An estimated 100,000 people have been helped through the DREAM project, and as Francis said, are today able to smile because they were cured with dignity in their dignity.

“Having emerged from the nightmare of suffering, and without concealing their condition, they are now a sign of hope for many persons,” he said. “Their willingness to dream can serve as an inspiration to many people lying on the wayside who need a welcoming hand.”

As for those who help those in need, Francis said, they will be repaid by the Lord when he returns. Knowing this, he said, should fill the workers and volunteers with joy.

As the pope noted, thanks to “telemedicine” the hospital and the DREAM project are connected to over five thousand doctors, nurses and technicians who help in the formation of local operators.

The DREAM Center gave Pope Francis a crosier made from trees uprooted during Cyclone Idai in Beira, that killed hundreds in March of this year. It is adorned with small metal crosses, that were made from what was left of the roof of an elderly woman’s home.

After the visit to the hospital, Francis was scheduled to celebrate Mass in the National Zimpeto Stadium, with a capacity for some 42,000 people. Afterwards, he heads to the airport to begin the second leg of his Sept. 4-10 African tour in Madagascar.

Dorian Brings Rain, Wind, and Tornadoes to Carolinas

Currents News Staff

Hurricane Dorian is still swirling off the coast of North Carolina and Southern Virginia, but the storm has weakened to a Category 1.

Residents of the Carolinas bearing Dorian’s wrath over the past 24 hours faced fierce winds, torrential rain and destructive tornadoes.

“I was outside when I heard the roar and saw things start churning,” said one resident.

Many in the storm’s path woke this morning to devastated homes and businesses after tornadoes sprung up Thursday with little warning.

“I looked outside and the tornado was literally just going through the back, bouncing away across there – debris flying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life,” said Byron Cox from Emerald Isle, NC.

Tens of thousands are without electricity as power lines are down throughout the region.

The good news is that Hurricane Dorian is weakening and moving further out to sea, away from the coast of North Carolina and Virginia.

“Fortunately, we’ll be back open this weekend. The sun will be out, poor people in the Bahamas have years to regroup. But we’ll be all good in a couple days,” said Brett Yearout, a Charleston business owner.

As Dorian continues to track northeast, residents in New York will face beach closures due to rip tides, while parts of Massachusetts are under a tropical storm warning where high winds are expected through much of the weekend.

Gift From African Youth Reminds Pope Francis of His Own Childhood

By Melissa Butz and Angeles Conde

The Pope set aside time for his busy schedule in Mozambique to meet with about twenty young people participating in the programs of the foundation he promoted, Scholas Ocurrentes.

The meeting was in the Holy See’s nunciature in Maputo, and the young people told the Pope how Scholas has helped them foster communities of encounter where they live.

Pope Francis listened to their testimonies and also received gifts, like a capulana, which is a traditional African wrap skirt.

“Do I have to wear it?,” joked the Holy Father.

They also presented the Pope with music.

The Pope was very comfortable among these boys and girls whom he affectionately thanked for his visit.

“I thank you for this visit, which has touched my heart,” said Francis.

One gift especially caught the Pope’s attention for a very personal reason.

“There is one thing that touched my heart a lot – it is the rag ball. When I was a kid I played with a rag ball because at that time they were leather balls, sewn with leather, and they were very expensive.”

Pope Francis explained that neither he nor his friends had money then to buy the other type of ball.

He also suggested an artistic competition related to “rag balls.” He announced that, if it takes place, he himself would deliver the prize to the winner.

Before leaving, he left his signature and drank some mate brought to him by Argentine missionaries.