Catholics in the United States Invited to Assist the Needs of Church in Ukraine and Eastern Europe
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&view=post&articleid=273192&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
WASHINGTON - This year, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine's Day (February 14), and Catholics in dioceses across the United States can express love for their sisters and brothers in war-torn Ukraine and in 27 other post-Communist countries by giving to the U.S. bishops' annual Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.The generosity of Catholics in the U.S. through this collection, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has yielded over $2 million in urgent humanitarian and pastoral relief to victims of the war. But this generous response did not stop at the Ukrainian border -- the 329 grants awarded in 2023 totaled $8.7 million and helped rebuild churches, support seminary education, and minister to the unique spiritual needs of families and young people. "When Catholics give to this collection, they are actively participating in the rebuilding of the Church in places where decades of Communism have left behind devastated churches and wounded spirits," said B...
WASHINGTON - This year, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine's Day (February 14), and Catholics in dioceses across the United States can express love for their sisters and brothers in war-torn Ukraine and in 27 other post-Communist countries by giving to the U.S. bishops' annual Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.
The generosity of Catholics in the U.S. through this collection, especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has yielded over $2 million in urgent humanitarian and pastoral relief to victims of the war. But this generous response did not stop at the Ukrainian border -- the 329 grants awarded in 2023 totaled $8.7 million and helped rebuild churches, support seminary education, and minister to the unique spiritual needs of families and young people.
"When Catholics give to this collection, they are actively participating in the rebuilding of the Church in places where decades of Communism have left behind devastated churches and wounded spirits," said Bishop Jeffrey M. Monforton, auxiliary bishop of Detroit, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Subcommittee on the Church in Central and Eastern Europe. During a recent visit to Ukraine, he expressed the solidarity of the Church in the United States with suffering Ukrainians, praying with families of the dead, and visiting cities shattered by violence and bloodshed.
"I entered crypts that are now well-stocked bomb shelters, with light and heat from generators supplied through the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe," he said. "The rubble and fresh graves remind us that the most insidious error of communism was not its economic policy, but its doctrine that human beings are mere cogs in the machine of state, rather than precious children of God. That cruel assumption persists under other guises in the post-communist era."
The U.S. bishops established its Church in Central and Eastern Europe program three decades ago at the urging of Pope John Paul II. Since the 2022 Russian invasion, the annual collection to support the program has provided war relief through Catholic ministries in Ukraine and neighboring nations – while still supporting evangelization, pastoral care, and social outreach in 28 other eastern European countries.
Some of these grants provided:
- The training and deployment of teams of psychotherapists, social workers, and pastoral counselors in Ukraine's Diocese of Kemyanets-Podilsky, to assist soldiers and civilians who suffer from war-related traumatic stress disorder.
- A cathedral for the small but vibrant Catholic community in predominantly Muslim Kyrgyzstan, a community founded by prisoners who had been deported to the region's gulags for their faith decades ago by Soviet authorities.
- A pro-life counseling center in Slovakia that helps hundreds of women experiencing challenging pregnancies obtain the social, spiritual, and financial assistance they need to choose life for themselves and their babies.
- Training and spiritual support for the volunteer mentors of engaged and married couples in Lithuania.
- A three-year program of study and spiritual enrichment for lay catechists and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist in Albania, equipping them to evangelize through their ministries.
- State-of-the-art renovations to a landmark 18th century building in Romania that has been returned to the church and will be used as a seminary to raise up a new generation of priests.
Most dioceses will take this collection in parishes on Ash Wednesday, February 14, though some choose other dates. #iGiveCatholicTogether also accepts funds for the collection.
For more information visit: www.usccb.org/ccee
###
Full Article
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=275596&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
A patient at the new Misky María Palliative Care Hospital located on the outskirts of Lima, Perú. / Credit: Asociación de las Bienaventuranzas (Association of the Beatitudes)ACI Prensa Staff, May 4, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).In the context of the recent news of the death of Ana Estrada, the first person to request and receive euthanasia in Peru, there is a contrasting story to tell on care for the dying in that country: that of a new Catholic hospital on the outskirts of Lima that provides palliative care, which extends the love of Christ to those in extreme poverty who are in the final stages of their lives.The beginning of the 'Misky María' HospitalIn 2021, Father Omar Sánchez Portillo, a priest known for his extensive charitable work in the district of Lurín (south of Lima) and founder of the Association of the Beatitudes, had the dream of building a center to serve, with the "sweetness of Mary," people in situations of abandonment and extreme poverty who have terminal illnesses...
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=275586&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesuit Father Greg Boyle on May 3, 2024. / Screenshot/public domainCNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.Wh...
http://www.myspiritfm.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&url=10&view=post&articleid=275585&link=1&fldKeywords=&fldAuthor=&fldTopic=0
Father Roger Landry, Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, discusses the protests at Columbia University in New York City on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" on May 2, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News The World Over / ScreenshotWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).Father Roger Landry, a Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, said on Thursday that the protests making national headlines at the New York City school are being organized in part by "explicitly communist" outside forces. "There is an instrumentalization of what's going on in Gaza to advance an agenda," he said. "And that is to deconstruct our present world order at which the United States is considered the top of that order."Speaking on EWTN's "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo," Landry said that he had been walking through the encampment nearly daily, conversing with student protesters and other "outside agitators." While he said he believes that many of the protesters we...