“Healing for the Human Race” by Bishop DiMarzio

August 27, 2014 – Excerpted from “Put Out Into the Deep,” Bishop DiMarzio’s column in The Tablet:

The events of the last several weeks in Staten Island and Missouri give evidence to the deep racial divide that still exists in our country. In too many circumstances, it is the police, who are on the front lines of our society, who encounter difficulties and become surrogates for our own unrequited racism.

I, myself, cannot help but remember the days of the race riots in my native city of Newark, N.J., during the 1960s. The explosion of violence following the death of Martin Luther King Jr., who was the greatest proponent of nonviolent revolution, remains deep in my memory. As we look back to the 1960s, have we learned any lessons from that time when the racial divide seemed to be so great?

Like you, I had hoped our Nation had moved beyond race. Clearly, our Nation has matured. In many areas, race seems to have ceased being a deterrent to advancement. We have elected our first African-American President. Also, here in our own city, we have elected a mayor who has a biracial family. We have eliminated much of the discrimination based on race that still plagues our society. More opportunities have been given to racial minorities to achieve scholastically and economically. Most would agree, however, that our society is not yet color-blind. What is the path that will allow us to recognize all people as God’s children and treat each with equality?

Read the full text of the Bishop’s column on The Tablet website.

Announcing the Fall Semester School of Evangelization Courses

Diocese of Brooklyn Evan coursesRegistration for the Fall Semester School of Evangelization courses is now available at www.bqonlineformation.org. All registration and payment is now done online. A certificate will also be provided online, once you successfully complete the course.

A schedule of classes can be found here.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Christine Georgi, Registrar, at cgeorgi@diobrook.org or 718.281.9544.

“Openness to Life and Responsibility” by Bishop DiMarzio

August 20, 2014 – Excerpted from “Put Out Into the Deep,” Bishop DiMarzio’s column in The Tablet:

In the final article of my three-part series on the preparatory document on the Synod of the Family, Part III is entitled: “An Openness to Life and Parental Responsibility in Upbringing.” It can be seen that the difficulty and thorny issues facing the family, and in fact individuals today, for the Synod are directly brought into the process of evaluation and consideration.

The pastoral challenges concerning the openness to life are truly at the heart of the issues for families today. The publication of Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical “Humanae Vitae” in many ways was prophetic. Even in its promulgation, the Holy Father knew that it would cause intense negative outcry because, as he said, “But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a sign of contradiction.” The difficulties in the document “Humanae Vitae” reveals “the agonizing situations of people today when faced with the subjects of love, the generation of life, the reciprocity between man and woman, and fatherhood and motherhood.”

One of the questions asked in the initial interrogatory was, “Do couples know and accept the Magisterium of the Church regarding the openness of life?” In two senses, the positive aspects are unknown, while the negative aspects seem to be known and characterized as an “intrusion in the intimate life of the couple and an encroachment on the autonomy of conscience.”

Read the full text of the Bishop’s column on The Tablet website.

DeSales Media’s Annual Golf Outing Raises $100K for Cristo Rey Brooklyn High School

 

From left, Art Dignam, CEO of DeSales Media Group; Jen Krasowki, Asst. Director of Advancement, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Caitlin DeLaurentis, Advancement Associate, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Danielle DiCerbo, Director of Advancement, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Bob Catell, Chairman of the Board, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn; Msgr. Kieran Harrington, President and Chairman, DeSales Media Group.
From left, Art Dignam, CEO of DeSales Media Group; Jen Krasowki, Asst. Director of Advancement, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Caitlin DeLaurentis, Advancement Associate, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Danielle DiCerbo, Director of Advancement, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Bob Catell, Chairman of the Board, Cristo Rey Brooklyn H.S.; Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn; Msgr. Kieran Harrington, President and Chairman, DeSales Media Group.

On August 14th, DeSales Media Group, the communications arm of the Diocese of Brooklyn, held the 19th Annual Bishop DiMarzio Golf Classic at North Hills Country Club in Manhasset.

All proceeds from this year’s event benefited Cristo Rey Brooklyn High School. For over six years, the Brooklyn school has been educating young people of limited economic means to become men and women of faith, purpose and service. The school is part of the Cristo Rey National Network, which utilizes the innovative Corporate Work Study Program to help finance their education and make it affordable to students who might not otherwise have access to a quality education.

The event, which raised $100,000 for Cristo Rey Brooklyn, also honored Reverend Monsignor Peter Kain of St. Ephrem as Pastor of the Year, and Robert Catell, board member for Cristo Rey.

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“The Challenges to Marriage” by Bishop DiMarzio

August 13, 2014 – Excerpted from “Put Out Into the Deep,” Bishop DiMarzio’s column in The Tablet:

As I begin the second of my three-part series of articles on the upcoming Synod on of the Family, we move to the issues for consideration in Part II of the document entitled: “The Pastoral Program for the Family in Light of New Challenges.”

Truly, much is happening in the Church around the world to assist families. All of this will be considered by the Synod attendees, allowing them to understand the current situation and make suggestions for the future. There are various pastoral programs already underway – namely marriage preparation, which has a long history in our own country.

Unfortunately, there are fewer people coming today to sacramentalize their marriages. For those who do come, however, they express satisfaction with the Pre-Cana programs run by the Diocese, given evidence in the evaluations which they make following their participation.

Read the full text of the Bishop’s column on The Tablet website.

NET TV to Provide Live Coverage of Pope Francis’ Visit to South Korea

netnyOn Thursday August 14th, New Evangelization Television (NET) will provide live coverage of the apostolic journey of the Holy Father to South Korea, where he will celebrate the Sixth Asian Youth Day, beatify 124 Korean martyrs, and deliver a message of peace and reconciliation in the war-divided peninsula.

The live coverage begins with a special pre-event presentation at 8:30 p.m, hosted by the editor of The Tablet, Ed Wilkinson. This will be followed by a Papal Mass to celebrate the Solemnity of the Feast of the Assumption at 9:00 p.m. from the World Cup Stadium in Daejeon.

On Friday August 15th, the encounter with the Asian Youth will air live at 4:15 a.m from the Solmoe Shrine. That evening, at 8:30 p.m., tune in for the Mass and Beatification of Paul Yun Ji-chung and his 123 martyr companions, who were killed for their faith in the 19th Century. The Papal Mass and Beatification will air live from the Gwanghwamun Gate in Seoul.

On Sunday August 17th, Pope Francis will commemorate the Sixth Asian Youth Day starting with a Mass at 3:15 a.m. A celebration of Holy Mass for Peace and Reconciliation will take place at the Cathedral Church of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, also known as the Myeong-Dong Cathedral, in Seoul. The Mass will air live at 8:15 p.m.

All the events are listed in Eastern Standard Time; early morning live events will re-air later that day.

Pope Francis’ visit is the first pontifical trip to East Asia in nearly two decades. He will meet with one of the fastest-growing Churches in the world: the number of Catholics in South Korea has doubled since 1990 to 5.4 million, just over 10% of the total population, with about 100,000 baptisms this year.

NET TV is a cable network featuring news and information with a Catholic point of view, and is available in the New York area on Cablevision, channel 30, and on Time Warner Cable, channel 97, and nationally on Verizon Fios on Demand. Viewers can also tune in to watch the papal trip live on NET TV’s website www.netny.tv. For complete programming, including dates and times, please visit www.netny.tv.

Diocese Offers Notre Dame’s STEP Program

The Diocese of Brooklyn’s School of Evangelization announces a new online faith formation offering from Notre Dame’s Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP)ND STEP program.

The program makes use of the Internet, interactive videoconferences, and numerous distance learning technologies to offer courses in theology and spiritual life to interested Catholic lay people, pastoral ministers and other believers nationwide and beyond. STEP is among the most successful programs of the University’s Institute for Church Life (ICL), whose expressed mission is to deploy Notre Dame’s ample academic resources as “a witness-bearing leadership role in the life of the Church at large.” STEP offers 50 specifically designed online courses, most of them taught by Notre Dame’s faculty members.

Tuition is reduced for members of the Diocese of Brooklyn.

For more information click here, or contact Christine Georgi, Registrar for the School of Evangelization at cgeorgi@diobrook.org.

The Catholic Foundation for Brooklyn & Queens

The purpose of Catholic Foundation for Brooklyn and Queens is to support financially the spiritual, educational and social needs of our Catholic Community through the procurement and building of endowment funds, while practicing responsible Christian stewardship for the preservation and promotion of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn. We invite you to visit our website, catholicfoundationbq.org, to learn more about our work, make a donation, and mark our upcoming events on your calendar!

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Amid Criticism, a Changing Brooklyn Gets a Second Cathedral

The New York Times has published a piece about the renovation and dedication of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph:

Brooklyn has one more thing that Manhattan does not: two Roman Catholic cathedrals…

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The enormous, 102-year-old Church of St. Joseph on Pacific Street in Prospect Heights has been elevated to the status of co-cathedral for the Diocese of Brooklyn. Its rededication followed an $18.5 million renovation and redecoration. St. Joseph now supplements, but does not supplant, the much smaller Cathedral Basilica of St. James on Jay Street downtown.

The liturgical artwork at St. Joseph graphically describes a changing borough. Images of a dark-skinned Mary — Our Lady Queen of Nigeria and Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Haiti) — gaze tranquilly down from new ceiling murals above old stained-glass windows memorializing the Irish who built and originally sustained the church.

Read the complete article here.