News - October 2019 RSS Feed

I was looking forward to the presentation by our former parochial vicar, Fr. Robert Boxie, on racism. Unfortunately, Fr. Boxie was not able to deliver his talk yesterday owing to a conflict that had developed in his schedule. We are hoping to reschedule his talk soon. He had planned to offer some more reflections on a recently issued pastoral letter by our bishops on racism.

Last Sunday the Church celebrated World Mission Sunday. This celebration goes all the way back to 1926 when Pope Pius XI instituted this commemoration. The first worldwide Mission Sunday collection actually took place in October 1927. Often this collection has been taken up on the next to the last Sunday in October—but this year it was celebrated on the second Sunday of October. The day is celebrated in all local Catholic churches as the feast of catholicity and universal solidarity, so that Christians the world over will recognize their common responsibility with regard to the evangelization of the world.

This month, during Respect Life month, the Church remembers in a particular way victims of domestic violence. I thought that it would be useful to include in today’s column some pastoral guidelines in response to abusers.

October is a special time for us to pray for life. A few weeks ago now Archbishop Gregory wrote to the priests of the Archdiocese about Respect Life Sunday, which Catholic Churches in the United States are observing today. Let me quote two paragraphs from his letter for you now: