Synod Questions 2022

 In case you haven't noticed the banner atop the diocesan webpage, "Let your voice be heard. Fill out the DRVC Synod survey." Link HERE.

Catholic News Service will cut back

 I read this announcement with regret. The Catholic News Service will close its Washington bureau and its distribution of domestic news, while maintaining news from the Vatican. I fear this will leave the domestic Catholic news market open to the biased reporters on various media.

Assignment of pastors, effective 6.29.2022

 The page listing assignments of new or renewed pastors is linked HERE.

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There are few changes in Nassau County.  At St. Thomas the Apostle, West Hempstead, Msgr. Francis Maniscalco will retire, and Fr. Anthony Stanganelli will move from St. Brigid to St. Thomas. The new pastor of St. Brigid will be Fr. John Sureau from Center Moriches.

At St. Christopher, Baldwin, Fr. Johnny Mendonca, administrator, becomes pastor.

Fr. Malcolm Burns at Corpus Christi is appointed to a second term.

Msgr. Francis Caldwell at Curé d'Ars is appointed to a second term.

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A few days later, more Nassau changes were announced, also effective June 29, 2022.

Fr. Kevin Dillon from Sea Cliff to Carle Place as pastor.

Canon Regular Josef Norys from Glen Cove to St. Boniface the Martyr, Sea Cliff, as pastor.

R-1 visas and priests

The link below concerns the situation with foreign priests employed in the diocese of Little Rock. Although the link goes to the reliable website CruxNow, it originates from the likewise reliable official Catholic News Service.

Link Thirteen Priests in Arkansas face uncertainty over their immigration status.

The article is an excellent summary of the immigration status of many overseas priests who help in our parishes. I value the spiritual work of these priests, and I do not devalue them as mere externs or curates. However, because the topic is seldom explained by parish or Rockville Centre, I found this article illuminating. 

There are other angles, such as incardination and excardination. I suspect that, in practice, incardination (belonging to a diocese) hereabouts requires U. S. citizenship, so the "extern" remains subject to the bishop in his home diocese. 

Comparison of Catholics per priest in sending dioceses vs. the Rockville Centre ratio (1 priest for 3,387 Catholics) can be researched at catholic-hierarchy.org  The sending diocese may have a surplus of priests (as I found one in India, and one in Poland) or may need the priest more than RVC needs him.

The history page at drvc.org/history is about three years stale, but it states that the diocese had 392 priests in active ministry, 223 diocesan, 107 externs and 62 religious.

Pope Francis turns 85

Pope Francis, Jorge Bergolio, was born in a neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Flores. The article in La Nación linked below shows that home in its present condition.  Scroll through the article for ten photos.

https://www.lanacion.com.ar/propiedades/casas-y-departamentos/se-vende-la-casa-donde-nacio-el-papa-francisco-en-flores-nid02072021/

Pope Francis is one of eleven or twelve Popes who passed age 85. A discussion of this is linked below.
https://aleteia.org/2021/12/16/a-look-at-the-oldest-popes-of-history-including-francis/#

Two print publications cease

 Please see this announcement from Sean Dolan of the diocese of Rockville Centre.

https://www.drvc.org/wp-content/uploads/Final-media-release.pdf

In 1957, the diocese of Rockville Centre was split off from Rockville Centre, and Walter Kellenberg was installed as bishop under obvious sponsorship of Francis Cardinal Spellman. Shortly thereafter (when?) the diocese began the publication of  The Long Island Catholic in broadsheet format. About 2012 (?), this became a large drain on diocesan funds, and the weekly was replaced by a monthly insert in a magazine published in Michigan but with the Long Island Catholic masthead. Most articles were feature articles, not news.

Corpus Christi hymns

I miss the sequence Lauda Sion Salvatorem, but today's Mass from the Passionists in Jamaica came up with an oft-sung gem, I Am the Bread of Life, written by Sister Suzanne Toolan, R.S.M. in 1966.