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Currents News for Tuesday, April 9, 2019

On the newscast: The “Heart of a Priest” in the Diocese of Brooklyn. Catholics are venerating the relic of Saint John Vianney, the patron of parish priests; A public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn. The move is made to clamp down on a major measles outbreak; Counseling for women seeking healing and forgiveness after going through the deadly experience of abortion; “Sister Strike” now has her own baseball card.

Today’s top news from the Catholic perspective anchored by Liz Faublas. Currents News airs Monday through Friday at 7:00 p.m. ET on NET-TV (netny.tv)

‘Heart of a Priest’ Tours Brooklyn Diocese

By Tim Harfmann

The incorrupt heart of a priest, Saint John Vianney, was on display for all to see. Vianney is the patron saint of parish priests. “It’s a grace that encourages us to continue, to listen to God’s word in our heart and do His will,” said Brooklyn Auxiliary Bishop Paul Sanchez, who celebrated Mass at Cathedral Prep School and Seminary in Elmhurst, Queens on April 9th. The school is where teenagers consider the possibility of becoming priests. “They’re pondering the question, ‘what is God asking me to do with my life?’ John Vianney asked that question and look at the great things He was able to do with him. God was able to take him and make him an icon of His love. That’s what we do here at Cathedral,” said Father Joseph Fonti, rector-president.

For students, being in a presence of the relic is a wonderful experience. “Seeing the relic here probably inspires a lot of us to consider the priesthood and learn more about our faith,” said Peter Cardenas, a Cathedral Prep freshman.

The 19th-century priest was born in France. Vianney was known for reading hearts and being a great confessor, often spending up to 18 hours a day in the confessional. The sacred relic is on a U.S. pilgrimage sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. “What better relic to bring around, especially at this time in the history of the Church, than to allow the priests to be able to speak heart to heart, and for the lay people to come and pray for their priests,” said Brian Chufield. He is one of the men who travels with Vianney’s heart.

The veneration was open to the public. Students from Incarnation Catholic Academy traveled from Queens Village. Other Catholics were also there to touch and pray before the icon. “I have had a great devotion to Saint Jean Vianney for many years. I’m overwhelmed to be here with his heart,” said Charles Scally. The 78-year-old and his wife, Barbara, traveled from Philadelphia.

It was an overwhelming response that St. Vianney will provide an increase in vocations and a renewal of the Church.

Worshippers have the chance to venerate the Vianney relic on April 10th. The ‘Heart of a Priest’ will be at Xaverian High School, Bay Ridge from 2:30pm-3:30pm and Saint Thomas Aquinas Church, Flatlands from 7pm-9:30pm.

Is A College Degree Worth The Stress That Comes With Getting It?

Currents News Staff

More and more students are getting stressed out, causing a mental health crisis among young people.

According to a new study by the CDC, in 2007 more than half a million young people between the ages of 5 and 18 went to the emergency room for suicidal thoughts or attempts.

Eight years later, in 2015, that number had doubled to more than million.

Joining us to talk more about how we stop kids from succumbing to the pressure is Bill McGarvey, a columnist for the Jesuit America Magazine.

Program Provides Spiritual Healing And Support For Women Who’ve Had An Abortion

By Emily Drooby

Back in the 1980’s, Pamela had an abortion. For over 20 years she held on to the pain she felt, hiding it from the rest of the world.

Pamela explained, “I suffered for many years, silently, in a culture that basically, really dissuades people from ever really speaking out about their abortion experience.”

But In 2011, she found a message in her local parish bulletin, asking, “Are you hurting from a past abortion?”

Pamela said, “It was that little blurb for Rachel’s Helpers in my parish bulletin that really changed my life.”

With the help of the support group, Pamela started healing.

She made clear that, “It was the first time I was really able to reveal all the pain I had been feeling for so long and exactly what had happened.”

Now, years later, Pamela helps run the group, along with several other women.

Pamela explained, “I feel that I am able by this to take something horrible that I did and turn it for good for other women.”

Rachel’s Helpers’ Forgiven and Set Free program uses scripture readings, writing exercises, and guided discussions to help women who have had an abortion, heal spiritually.

Julia, with the Queens pregnancy help center, The Bridge to Life, helps lead the discussions, working from the Bible and a Bible study book called Forgiven and Set Free.

Julia said, “That is our call to help them feel that they have been forgiven and set free.”

The group meets within the Diocese of Brooklyn once a week for eight weeks, the number that matches the chapters in the Bible study book. They have two sessions each year, in the fall and spring.

Pamela believes what she found in her parish bulletin was thanks to divine intervention.

Pamela said, “I haven’t seen it very often again so I do believe I know that was there for me and I know the Lord was showing me a way.”

Her hope is that with Rachel’s Helpers, other women in need will be able to follow the same path to healing that she did.

If you or someone you know would like more information about Rachel’s Helpers, call (347) 702-2352.

Measles Outbreak: Failure To Vaccinate Could Cost Big Bucks

Currents News Staff

New York’s measles outbreak is now a public health emergency in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Mayor Bill de Blasio made that declaration this morning, ordering unvaccinated people living in certain Williamsburg zip codes to get vaccinated immediately.

The zip codes covered by the emergency order are 11205, 11206, 11221 and 11237.

“This outbreak has been spreading. There are almost 300 cases already; overwhelmingly in Brooklyn. The only way to stop this outbreak is to ensure that those who have not been vaccinated, get the vaccine,” said de Blasio.

Those who don’t comply face fines of up to one-thousand dollars.

O’Malley: Abortion Bills Will Have ‘Radical Consequences For Society’

(CNS) WASHINGTON, D.C. – As polarization on the issue of abortion continues to increase throughout the country, Massachusetts legislators in early April trotted out bills to expand abortion access throughout the state, in a similar manner to the Reproductive Health Act passed in New York.

In a statement released April 6, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley condemned the bills, calling them “threatening to human life and dignity” and urging “(opposition) even by those who support the Roe v. Wade decision.”

The Massachusetts Senate version, S.B. 1209 – whose twin in the House is H.B. 3320 – was filed by Democratic Sen. Harriette L. Chandler and allows abortion with no restrictions up to the 24th week of a pregnancy.

Additionally, it provides for abortions past this point given “the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or physical or mental health, or in cases of lethal fetal anomalies, or where the fetus is incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus.”

In that regard, it also stipulates that “(m)edical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the person’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient” before a practitioner performs an abortion.

Legal professionals have pointed out that exceptions for “health” can be used to justify an abortion for almost any reason.

Americans United for Life’s chief legal officer, Steve Aden, told Catholic News Service recently in an interview about Georgia’s heartbeat bill that the word “health” invokes “the precedent in Doe v. Bolton,” the companion case to Roe v. Wade.

In that case, Aden noted, “health” is construed so broadly that it effectively “gives you abortion on demand.”

Notably, the Massachusetts bills require consent forms only from the woman who is seeking to have a procedure performed, which ostensibly precludes the possibility of parental consent before a minor’s abortion.

O’Malley remarked that he was not addressing “the proposed legislation from a religious perspective but as an issue of human rights, in this case the right to life” and that he “(does) not seek to impose the Catholic Church’s teachings on a diverse society.”

He then described the bills as ignoring vital moral dimensions of the abortion issue, and in that way blinding women and doctors to the true consequences of their actions.

“While the procedure has significant clinical dimensions, there is also a human reality that deserves more adequate recognition at any stage of development,” O’Malley said. “By depersonalizing the reality, the legislation dehumanizes the decision faced by women, their families and physicians.”

The Massachusetts House and Senate are both currently under Democratic control. The Senate version of the bill is being reviewed in the Joint Committee on Public Health.

Catholic Church To Develop Affordable NY Housing

Currents News Staff

The Catholic Church is dealing with New York City’s affordable housing crisis.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan and other Catholic leaders are working on new ways to transform church properties into living spaces for low income families.

“For us in the Church, this is a no-brainer. It’s a duty,” said Dolan.

At least six church properties are being converted into low-income and affordable housing within the Bronx and Manhattan.

The initiative will create nearly two-thousand units over the next decade. That doubles the two-thousand units developed over the last forty years.

Monsignor Kevin Sullivan heads Catholic Charities in the New York Archdiocese and he said “in this day in age, when housing is such a challenge, when affordability is such a challenge, that the church is doing this as an affirmation of our continued reaching out.”

At Saint Augustine Terrace, a third of the new units will be set aside for adults with mental illnesses, where they’ll receive services from Catholic Charities.

The city’s First Lady, Chirlane McCray, stressed the importance of treating mental illness saying, “for New Yorkers living with serious mental illness it means stability and the freedom that comes with living independently, surrounded by the support they need to stay healthy.”

Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens is also hard at work setting up affordable housing.

Since 1975, more than four-thousand units, with supportive services, have been developed through the “progress of peoples” corporation.

Anyone interested must apply in writing to:

CCPOP Management

191 Joralemon Street, 8th floor

Brooklyn, NY 11201

Currents News for Monday, April 8, 2019

On the newscast: The Catholic Church is tackling New York City’s affordable housing crisis. The latest on what’s being done; The crime was caught on camera. Now, police are hunting for two thieves who stole donations from a Queens church; The Church in Ireland today, in the wake of the Pope’s visit there not long ago; “Be Bold!” The direction given to hundreds, including a Vatican bishop, attending a major event in the Brooklyn Diocese.

Today’s top news from the Catholic perspective anchored by Liz Faublas. Currents News airs Monday through Friday at 7:00 p.m. ET on NET-TV (netny.tv)

Cops Searching for Queens Church Burglars

By Emily Drooby

Valerie Casillo, a devoted parishioner at St. Helen Church in Howard Beach was devastated when she heard her church had been burglarized, unsure how to explain the incident to her young kids.

Casillo said, “My children, when they serve a funeral as altar servers, they give my children a little tip and my children always put it in the poor box. So, I knew it would hit home, and it really did.”

Casillo’s family is heartbroken, especially her young daughter who had recently put her money into the donations box.

Casillo explained, “She said she was really upset because they broke the Ten Commandments.”

Police are now on the hunt for a man and a woman who burglarized the church around 3am Thursday.

The first suspect entered through the unlocked outer door. The suspect then walked up to the second set of doors which were locked and forcefully pried them open. The Pastor, Father Francis Colamaria, said that next the female walked in and made the sign of the cross. Surveillance video shows her walk over to the Church’s four shrines, lifting up the collection boxes at each one and removing the cash, making away with an estimated $400.

Father Colamaria says it’s not just about the money, it’s about those who made an offering.

He said, “They have a personal relationship with these Saints whom they pray too…and then for someone to come along and violate that by stealing what they have offered to the Angels and Saints, not good, we are touching people on an emotional level.”

The church has increased it’s security.

Police are searching for the pair who took off in a red four-door Sedan.

As for Father Colamaria, he suggests the suspects learn a lesson from another pair of thieves. He explained, “The thieves who entered this church should take advice from the thieves that hung on the cross with Jesus on Good Friday, as one thief turned to the other, he said, ‘have you no fear of God?'”

Museum Of The Bible To Launch New Exhibit Examining Faith And Science

WASHINGTON (CNS) — From the 17th-century ban by the Vatican of Copernicus’ mathematical calculation that the sun was at the center of the solar system to modern-day arguments about evolution’s compatibility with a belief in God, science and faith have regularly butted heads in the public square.

Seeking to illuminate these debates for the public is the Museum of the Bible in Washington, which announced April 1 that it would be using sizable grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton Religion Trust toward fostering a “greater understanding of the shared curiosity about our world that stimulates both scientific inquiry and biblical interpretation.”

The museum will be working with a panel of scholars and scientists from around the world to develop the exhibits as well as accompanying educational materials for classroom use.

Artifacts from the museum’s collection and those borrowed from other institutions also will play a role in breaking open these mysteries for museum visitors.

“In keeping with the museum’s intent to cater to all learning styles, this exhibition will not only be informative but engaging … we hope guests will leave with a deeper appreciation for humanity’s shared curiosity in the big questions that ultimately inspire both scientific inquiry and biblical exploration,” Ken McKenzie, Museum of the Bible president and CEO, said in a statement.

The exhibits will be divided among six sections, each of which will be devoted to pressing existential questions about the beginning of the universe, what keeps it running, how humans and animals differ, what humans “are made of” and if humanity is alone in the universe.

McKenzie told Catholic News Service that the answers to such questions would bolster conversations on two oft-ignored aspects of science, specifically “what … science mean(s) for the existence and activity of God” and what science means for the “sacredness of humanity.”

He also noted that the decision to have such an exhibit emerged because people are beginning to view science and religion as a false dichotomy of thought.

“As we look at what some of the topics guests ask us about … science keeps coming up,” McKenzie explained, saying that “(especially) within the North American community, the conversations happen apart from each other.”

However, McKenzie and his colleagues studied the issues more closely and found that the public is not always fairly informed. “We started to find a lot of work that has been done in the scientific community brings them (science and the Bible) together,” he said.

When asked if he hopes that other museums will follow in the interdisciplinary footsteps of the Museum of the Bible, McKenzie seemed optimistic.

“Personally my answer is yes. … We hope that it engenders a debate and a discussion … about the myths that have surrounded these two topics,” McKenzie said.