A New York couple is on a mission to prevent stillbirths.
President Joe Biden is in Israel again showing support for the United States’ strongest ally in the Middle East.
There’s political chaos in Washington as Republicans bicker over who should be the next Speaker of the House.
A Queens Catholic School is celebrating its 100th birthday.
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By Katie Vasquez
Jonathan and Alissa Nierenberg are very proud of their son Noah.
Noah Nierenberg, a 22-year-old Long Island native, has been to the Holy Land many times — and has helped to teach the Jewish faith to others.
But after his latest trip to the Holy Land, Noah didn’t come home and stay home like he always had. Instead he decided to join the fight.
“I couldn’t be outside of the land of Israel when we’re going through something like this,” Noah said.
Noah has previously served in the Israeli army and is now part of the Lone Soldier Program.
“Individuals who are outside of the land of Israel enlist in order to help their country,” Jonathan said of the program.
So far, Noah hasn’t been called to perform military duties, and while he couldn’t fully disclose everything he’s doing to help the war effort, his family did reveal Noah is trying to support his fellow soldiers.
“Teaching them Talmud and Bible studies in order to keep their spirits up,” Jonathan said. “He’s coordinating with us back here in terms of getting equipment out to the front.”
His parents are worried about their son fighting in a war.
“Of course we’re proud, we’re nervous, we’re frightened,” Alissa said.
They hope Noah’s service will lead to a brighter future.
“It’s a sensitive time in the world,” Noah said. “We need to believe in the brotherhood of man that we’re all under one God and everyone needs to keep each other in our hearts and our prayers.”
As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, a Long Island man decided to join the fight.
The violence in the Middle East has sparked hatred in the U.S.
Catholics around the world are joining forces today taking part in a day of prayer and fasting for peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land.
The Synod on Synodality is in its second week and three of the main topics of discussion are communion, mission and participation.
by Jessica Easthope
Here’s a statistic that’s disturbing Church leaders: Half of young Latinos living in the United States don’t affiliate with any religion.
Gilbert Perez-Moronta said hearing those results from a Pew Research survey tells him a lot of his peers aren’t as lucky as he is.
“They haven’t experienced the same love that I’ve experienced,” Perez-Moronta said. “They are looking for something to fill up the emptiness they have in their heart, but maybe they’re not looking in the right place.”
Studies show American-born Latinos are leaving the Church, with about 1 out of 5, who were raised Catholic, no longer identify as such.
But Perez-Moronta is a sacristan and altar server at Blessed Sacrament Church in Cypress Hills and one of 40 new members of Jornadas de Vida Cristiana.
“I was able to open my heart to the Lord, open my heart to Jesus, and let him do what he does, fill it with love, fill it with mercy, fill it with compassion,” he said.
Jornada for short, is a Hispanic ministry in the Diocese of Brooklyn that brings teens and adults together for retreats and faith building reflections that go on to define their lives.
President Felix Perez said, in Jornada you don’t go to a retreat, you live it.
“We say we lived it, because that is a retreat that is now a part of us,” Perez said “I learned a whole bunch of tools about how to make my relationship with God better make my relationship with others better and truly serve and I learned that in the Jornada, it’s now a part of me, and I live like that, so I’ve lived that retreat.”
For members of the movement or Jornadistas, faith isn’t quiet, Sara Pena lives hers out loud.
“When you sing, you pray twice, and God gave me this gift to sing and I gotta give him all the credit, so in return I sing for him,” Pena said.
At her Jornada retreat and at the bi-weekly meetings she’s found a community and a strong sense of purpose.
“The movement is a family and it is a movement,” Pena said. “We keep going, it’s been going on until night since 1967 and I hope it goes on forever.”
Though the church continues to explore new ways to bring young people to Christ at Jornada the focus isn’t on the future, but the present.
“The diocese has seen that the youth is not the future of the church, they are the present they’re here now, and they need to be able to find God on their own terms, our kids can thrive.” Perez said.
Some teens and young adults are worried about being cool or getting a text back but not them.
“Jesus is the coolest person I have ever known and my life without Jesus would be lacking and not cool,” Perez-Moronta said. “Praying is talking to God and I believe that God is our faithful friend that we could always turn to. He’s always there to pick up the phone and answer our prayers.”
Jornada’s mission is ever expanding to meet youth where they are. Their message is delivered in a very personal way.
“To everyone watching, God loves you and he will never leave you alone,” Pena said.
They say Christ has always been there, your time is now.
by Katie Vasquez
It’s a pilgrimage Sue Thompson, a parishioner at Church of Saint Patrick, has been waiting on for a year.
“It was just so amazing,” Thompson said. “Every day was something that you read about in scripture.”
She traveled for 9 days in the Holy Land, seeing the path of Jesus’ life from the very beginning.
“It was so beautiful, we went down to the spot where Mary lived, where the angel Gabriel spoke to her,” Thompson said.
Halfway through Sue’s trip, her journey to deepen her faith took a turn for the worse.
She along with more than 60 other parishioners from Church of Saint Patrick in Sarasota, Florida were preparing for Mass in Bethlehem, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel.
“I think everybody kind of realized something very different was happening,” Thompson said.
“It was obvious the sounds of bombing outside and the missiles,” Fabrizio Lomanto, a guide for Peter’s Way Tours, said.
It was at that point that Lomanto decided to cut the pilgrims’ trip short.
“We have no choice it’s choice A or choice A, leave the country and they left,” Lomanto said.
Peter’s Way Tours, which organized the pilgrimage, coordinated the safe evacuation of the pilgrims out of Israel.
“We knew that the Tel Aviv airport was closed, no flight coming in and out,” Peter Bahou, President of Peter’s Way Tours said. “So we knew we have to do something in order to get them through Jordan.”
As a precaution, Peter’s Way has cancelled all trips to the Holy Land, 14 in total, through the end of the year and could potentially cancel more.
“We need to give it another two or three weeks or even one month to make a decision,” Bahou said. “But yes, there is a concern right now to travel anywhere, anywhere right now.”
Peter’s Way says they have contacted all group leaders about their cancelled tours. Anyone with questions about their pilgrimage to the Holy Land should call their parish.
As the war between Israel and Hamas rages on, pilgrims in the Holy Land are finding themselves looking for ways to get out.
U.S. bishops are calling for a day of fasting and prayer for Tuesday, October 17 to bring about peace in the Holy Land.
In the Diocese of Brooklyn, the NYPD is teaming up with a Queens parish to help moms in need.
While Latino and Hispanic youth were once considered the life of the church their numbers are falling off nationally.
by Jessica Easthope
To the naked eye Rabbi Brad Hirschfield is a world away from the turmoil in the Middle East, but the reality is, that’s the furthest thing from the truth.
Rabbi Hirschfield is the President of the National Jewish Center For Learning and Leadership and he and his family are joining the fight from where they are.
“There is nothing special about what I and my family are going through,” Rabbi Hirschfield said. “In fact, we’re lucky we haven’t buried anyone close to us. I can’t say that for some of my friends. I have a daughter, one of her friends fell in battle a few days ago, I have nephews at war but it is also happening to hundreds of thousands and millions of people in Israel.”
The Rabbi is coordinating supply shipments to displaced civilians and troops on the front lines.
“Yes, march yes, donate yes, try and rally political support, all that is important, I would even say sacred,” Rabbi Hirschfield said. “But what we saw, and what we continue to see, is a confrontation with evil.”
Rabbi Hirschfield said everyone has a part to play in this conflict; your position will determine the course of history.
He said Hamas’ initial assault along the Israeli border was also an assault on a free Palestine.
“I do believe in Palestinian self-determination; how can I not?” Rabbi Hirschfield said. “I’m a proud Zionist but when people conflate support for Palestine with support for Hamas, a perverse combination of tactics and practices borrowed from Hitler’s SS and the Islamic State, that is not about self determination, that is about murder, that is about death. There is no “but” when it comes to shooting and burning babies.”
Last Saturday, into Sunday saw the most Jews murdered for being Jewish since the end of the Holocaust. Rabbi Hirschfield said having rage is understandable but it needs to come with a condition.
“Show me the person who with whatever they’re feeling on the negative side can still locate a place of hope and act in light of both of those. That is how everyone regardless of politics can actually make a positive difference.”
In the coming days Rabbi Hirschfield will bring a group of American Jewish leaders to Israel to show them what the state is up against.
Many pro-Palestinian groups held rallies around the world on Friday Oct. 13.
Many are concerned about violence because the former leader of Hamas called for jihad, asking the Muslim world to join the fight against Israel.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul have said there have been no credible threats of violence in the city, still, the NYPD is on high alert, with every officer on duty.
John Franchi, a former senior officer for the CIA, sat down with Currents News to share some inside information on how federal agencies are monitoring the situation here and abroad.
With Israeli troops on the move near the Gaza border, the war with Hamas continues into its seventh day.
Many are turning to prayer to deal with their different feelings of grief and anger stemming from the war.
New York City and other cities across the U.S. have stepped up security today in anticipation of protests.
We’ll speak with a security expert about the potential for attacks in the U.S.