From Our Pastor

Each year, the Gospel for Ash Wednesday sets out three practices – prayer, fasting and almsgiving – which we are called to perform with greater intensity and intentionality during Lent.  Like a three-legged stool, all three of these practices are necessary for a stable Christian life and so, we are called to focus on them, once again, during this Lenten Season as we renew our commitment to following our Lord through his death to his Resurrection.  As we approach the halfway mark for Lent, allow me to offer some reflections [...]

The predominant Christian Church in central and Eastern Europe is the Orthodox Church.  You may recall that the Orthodox Church resulted from the schism between the East and West in 1054.  The Catholic Church continues to serve the faithful in these countries too, however, often with great difficulty.  The annual collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, which we will take up next weekend, provides much-needed funding for the Catholics living in 28 countries from Albania to Uzbekistan.  In Ukraine, one of these countries that has been so [...]

From northernmost Mexico to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Argentina, as well as throughout the islands of the Caribbean, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s annual Collection for the Church in Latin America supports fellow Catholics as they grow in their faith and share God’s love.  Last year, this collection supported 252 projects funded by the $6.2 million that Catholics in the United States gave to the annual fund.  For more than 50 years, this annual collection has been a powerful way for us to unite [...]

You will recall that our Holy Father, Pope Francis, inaugurated the Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025 last Christmas Eve with the call for all of us to be pilgrims of hope.  Jubilee Years are special years that focus on remission of sins and the call for universal renewal.  Each year, the Church, in her wisdom, offers us the liturgical Season of Lent, a season for reconciliation and renewal in preparation for the hope that Easter offers us all as we celebrate the new life Jesus offers through his death and Resurrection. [...]

 What does it take to make 7.5 million meals?  That’s how many meals were served to hungry people in the Greater Philadelphia area by the various agencies funded through the Catholic Charities Appeal last year.  You may not notice them, but these hungry people are in every county, town, parish and neighborhood.  The Catholic Charities Appeal is the largest fundraising initiative in the archdiocese and, as you can well imagine, this assistance is particularly important at this time as we all face the effects of ongoing inflation.  The needy are [...]

 In March 2023, Archbishop Peréz sent to all the priests of the archdiocese a book entitled From Christendom to Apostolic Mission and asked us to read and reflect on it in preparation for a series of meetings to discuss the future of our archdiocese.  Since then, the archbishop has met with us priests as well as the permanent deacons and the leadership of a variety of Catholic institutions in the archdiocese.  On 5 January, he sent a letter to all of the faithful of the archdiocese.  His letter begins very [...]