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On this episode, Deacon Steve Greco welcomes poet/author/speaker/professor Annabelle Moseley. Based in New York, Annabelle shares about a new book she has written called “Our House of the Sacred Heart.”
This is a fascinating and faith-filled conversation. Listen in – it will be time well spent!
Originally broadcast on 6/6/21
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BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CNS) — Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn joined about 25,000 New Yorkers who took to the streets for a Jan. 5 “Solidarity March” in protest of anti-Semitism.
“When there’s an attack on you, there’s an attack on all of us,” Cardinal Dolan said in remarks at the rally in Brooklyn after participants had crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.
The march, which made its way from Lower Manhattan to Cadman Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn, brought together Jewish and non-Jewish residents alike from the New York area, along with a host of local leaders, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Mayor Bill DeBlasio, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — all marching under the banner of “No Hate, No Fear.”
The march was organized by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the interdenominational New York Board of Rabbis.
Bishop DiMarzio told the crowd it was a terrible thing that those who wear religious garb “are singled out for hatred or violence.”
“We cannot let that happen in this great United States of ours. We cannot stand by and not do something,” he said. The bishop also pledged to do all he could to “change minds and hearts within our communities so that we can truly stand together against any hatred, especially any anti-Semitism and its roots.”
In his remarks, Cardinal Dolan drew from the words of St. John Paul II, who often referred to the Jews as “our elder brothers and sisters in the faith,” meaning “we are one family.”
“We are united as we acknowledge that this dismal, scary hatred and violence that has afflicted the community we love can ultimately be solved only by a conversion of heart,” he said.
“From spitting at someone to blessing someone. From fists to embrace. From machetes to mercy. From looking at someone as a threat to looking at someone as a friend. That’s conversion of heart,” he added.
The march and rally came on the heels of a spree of anti-Semitic attacks in New York, most recently on New Year’s Day when a 22-year-old Hasidic man was beaten and subjected to hate speech in Brooklyn — the 13th known attack against Jews in the New York area in less than 10 days.
The violence on Jan. 1 followed the Hanukkah attack at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, where five people were stabbed in an incident that Cuomo labeled as “domestic terrorism.”
Family members of one of the victims of that attack, Josef Neumann, released a graphic photo on Jan. 1 of the father of seven children hooked up to respirators and stitched up from the multiple stab wounds he incurred. Doctors expect Neumann to be permanently paralyzed and are unsure if he will ever regain consciousness.
In response to the heinous attack, Bishop DiMarzio said: “Hate like this has no place in a civil society.
“Today we are reminded it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Let us be that light as we pray for peace and practice tolerance today and always,” Bishop DiMarzio continued in a statement.
Bishop DiMarzio and Cardinal Dolan joined more than 130 faith leaders from across the state, in condemning the attack.
“Anti-Semitism, bigotry and hate of any kind are repugnant to our values and will not be tolerated in our state,” they said. “An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. Together we will continue fighting hate and intolerance with love and inclusion.”
The attacks in New York come at a time when people of faith are facing increased violence at houses of worship across the nation.
According to the latest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, hate crimes in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques rose 34.8 percent between 2014 and 2018.
On Dec. 29, in Texas, a gunman fatally shot two churchgoers at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, before he was killed by a security guard on-site.
The past year proved particularly deadly for people of all faiths across the globe. Incidents included the Easter Day massacres in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people and attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last March that killed 51 individuals.
New York has ramped up security around houses of worship, and the governor has ordered increased patrolling in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods throughout the state.
At the Jan. 5 rally, Cuomo said that the gathering was a “remarkable show of love and solidarity.”
“That’s New York at its best,” he said of the crowd on hand, adding that the violent incidents have been “attacks on every New Yorker.”
“Discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism is repugnant to every value that New Yorkers hold here, and it’s repugnant to every value that this country represents,” Cuomo said. “Racism and anti-Semitism is anti-American and we have to remember that.”
It was the celebration that was particularly galling. On the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed into law a protocol that gives practically unrestricted access to abortion, permitting the killing of an unborn child up until the moment of delivery. In the wake of the ratification, the legislators and their supporters whooped, hollered, and cheered, a display depressingly similar to the jubilation that broke out in Ireland when a referendum legalizing abortion passed last year. Of course, all of the rhetoric about women’s rights and reproductive health and empowerment was trotted out, but who can fail to see what was at stake? If an infant, lying peacefully in a bassinet in his parents’ home, were brutally killed and dismembered, the entire country would rightfully be outraged and call for an investigation of the murder. But now the law of New York confirms that that same child, moments before his birth, resting peacefully in his mother’s womb, can be, with utter impunity, pulled apart with forceps. And the police won’t be summoned; rather, it appears, the killing should be a matter of celebration.
An ideology, taken in the negative sense, is a conceptual framework that blinds one to reality. The purpose of any ideational system, obviously, is to shed light, to bring us closer to the truth of things, but an ideology does the reverse, effectively obfuscating reality, distancing us from truth. All of the buzz terms I mentioned above are ideological markers, smokescreens. Or if I can borrow the terminology of Jordan Peterson, they are the chattering of demons, the distracting hubbub of the father of lies. I recall that during the presidential campaign of 2016, Hillary Clinton was asked several times whether the child in the womb, within minutes of birth, has constitutional rights, and this extremely intelligent, experienced, and canny politician said, over and over again, “That’s what our law dictates.” Therefore, by a sheer accident of location, the unborn baby can be butchered, and the same baby, moments later and in the arms of his mother, must be protected by full force of law. That many of our political leaders can’t or won’t see how utterly ludicrous this is can only be the result of ideological indoctrination.
As I watched film of Andrew Cuomo signing this repulsive bill into law, my mind drifted back to 1984 and an auditorium at the University of Notre Dame where Cuomo’s father, Mario—also Governor of New York at the time—delivered a famous address. In his lengthy and intellectually substantive speech, Gov. Cuomo presented himself, convincingly, as a faithful Catholic, thoroughly convinced in conscience that abortion is morally outrageous. But he also made a fateful distinction that has been exploited by liberal Catholic politicians for the past thirty-five years. He explained that though he was personally opposed to abortion, he was not willing to pursue legal action to abolish it or even to limit it, since he was the representative of all the people, and not just of those who shared his Catholic convictions. Now this distinction is an illegitimate one, which is evident the moment we draw an analogy to other public matters of great moral import: “I’m personally opposed to slavery, but I’ll take no action to outlaw it or limit its spread”; “I personally find Jim Crow laws repugnant, but I will pursue no legal strategy to undo them”; etc. But at the very least, Mario Cuomo could declare himself deeply conflicted, anguished, willing to support abortion law only as a regrettable political necessity in a pluralistic democracy.
But in a single generation, we have moved from reluctant toleration to unbridled celebration, from struggling Mario to exultant Andrew. And there is a simple reason for this. A privatized religion, one that never incarnates itself in gesture, behavior, and moral commitment, rapidly evanesces. Once-powerful convictions, never concretely expressed, devolve, practically overnight, into pious velleities—and finally disappear altogether. In Robert Bolt’s magnificent play regarding St. Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons, we find a telling exchange between Cardinal Wolsey, a hard-bitten, largely amoral politico, and the saintly More. Wolsey laments, “You’re a constant regret to me, Thomas. If you could just see facts flat on, without that horrible moral squint, with just a little common sense, you could have been a statesman.” To which More responds, “Well…I believe when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties…they lead their country by a short route to chaos.” Abandoning the convictions of one’s conscience in the exercise of one’s public duties is precisely equivalent to “I’m personally opposed but unwilling to take concrete action to instantiate my opposition.”
And this abandonment—evident in Mario Cuomo’s 1984 address—has indeed led by a short road to chaos, evident in Andrew Cuomo’s joyful celebration of a law permitting the murder of children.
Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.
New York City, N.Y., Oct 31, 2017 / 04:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News) – Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, has called New Yorkers to unity, prayer, and mutual respect after at least eight people were killed and 12 were injured in an act of terrorism on Tuesday afternoon.
“Today our city and our nation are stunned and horrified by another act of senseless violence. While details continue to emerge, one thing is clear: once again, no matter our religion, racial or ethnic background, or political beliefs, we must put our differences aside and come together in faith and love,” the cardinal said in a statement.
The attack took place on West Street in lower Manhattan, near the site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed by an act of terrorism on September 11, 2001. A rented Home Depot truck drove through a crowd on a pedestrian and bike path, before striking a school bus, New York City officials reported. The attacker was apprehended by police, and remains in custody.
“This was an act of terror, a particularly cowardly act of terror aimed at innocent civilians,” New York mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference shortly after the attack.
Dolan encouraged New Yorkers of all faiths “to support those who are injured, pray for those who have died as well as their families and loved ones, and work towards greater respect and understanding among all people so that heinous and evil acts like this become a thing of the past.”
RYE, N.Y. (CNS) — The secular world ignores Advent, begins celebrating Christmas the day after Halloween and packs up the holiday before the New Year, Paul J. Murray said.
The director of music at a midtown Manhattan parish thought the Advent message was getting drowned out by the noise of commercialism, so he decided to make a CD recording of his choir singing sacred Advent and Christmas music.
“The church keeps Advent as a very special season to prepare and wait for the coming of Christ at Christmas and his second coming at the end of time. Music is a subtle reminder that we are preparing for something greater,” Murray told Catholic News Service Nov. 20.
Murray is the director of music for the parish of Our Saviour, St. Stephen and Our Lady of the Scapular, and Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He directs the Choir of the Church of Our Saviour, which released “Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding,” a 19-track disk recorded in the church during the last week of October.
“The recording is a means of evangelization to share the music of Advent and Christmas with the community-at-large,” Murray said.
Murray chose music by American and European Catholic composers, as well as his own arrangements of familiar carols. “I may be a bit biased here, but I think this recording will ‘make waves’ in Catholic music circles,” he said.
Several of the tracks have a personal resonance for Murray. One is an arrangement of a Basque carol, “The Angels Sing,” by Leo Abbott. Abbot was Murray’s piano teacher in high school and the CD is the first recording of his arrangement of the song, Murray said.
The “Silent Night, Holy Night” selection on the CD was arranged by Theodore Marier, a mentor of Murray’s and the founder of the St. Paul’s Choir School at St. Paul Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Choir of the Church of Our Saviour is comprised of professional musicians. Six men and six women sang for the recording.
Murray said the church has a classically based traditional liturgical music program, which is reflected on the CD. “It’s not limited to certain composers, but is distinguished by the style in which it’s composed,” he said.
The selections range from 16th-century pieces to music written in the last decade. “It’s not concert music. It’s sacred music appropriate for liturgical worship and that’s the unifying element,” Murray explained.
On most of the tracks, the singers perform a cappella, and on several they are accompanied by an organist. This presented a challenge because the recording was made over three nights in the church on Park Avenue, a major thoroughfare.
Murray said the street noise was diminished by 6 p.m., “but I never realized how present the subway is that runs beneath the church. We are four blocks south of Grand Central Terminal and we had a couple of wonderful takes ruined by the rumble of the subway,” he said.
Parishioners encouraged Murray and the choir to make a CD and pastor Father Robert J. Robbins was a supportive partner, Murray said. The music director set up an online Kickstarter campaign to raise the initial funding and will distribute the CD through the parish, a website and iTunes. Murray said that “iTunes appeals to a different audience, a younger generation that listens to music almost exclusively on a computer or smart phone.”
“Music is a powerful faith-builder because it allows people from different backgrounds to come together and feel unified,” said Clare Maloney, one of the soloists.
“The CD is more of an expression of global faith. It’s beautiful music, and not necessarily what I would have heard in my parish growing up,” she said.
“There’s a lot of excitement in the Advent music, anticipating the mystery and majesty of Christ’s birth. It has a different magic to it,” Maloney said.
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“Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding” is available for $20 plus shipping at http://oursaviournyc.org/recording.
By any yardstick, the first two legs of Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States emerged as an extraordinary series of indelible moments as the pontiff engaged in a whirlwind of activities, challenging and chiding the mighty and influential, comforting and embracing common citizens and young people and consistently underscoring the common responsibility of care for the marginalized, the forgotten and the environment.
From his arrival in Washington, D.C. Sept. 22 to his departure from New York four days later, Francis relentlessly practiced what he has consistently preached: engagement, encounter and inclusion.
Reminding members of the U.S. Congress—as the first pope ever to address a joint meeting of that body—that he, and they, were sons and daughters of immigrants, the pope called on the legislators to pursue “the common good” and told them that they were “called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens,” particularly the poorest and most vulnerable. He underscored that message by going directly from the Capitol to a luncheon hosted by Catholic Charities, where he met and blessed the homeless in attendance.
The day before, he celebrated a Mass of canonization for Blessed Junipero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception before a huge and enthusiastic crowd of worshipers gathered on the campus of Catholic University of America.
In his Friday address to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, Francis was pointed in his remarks about the sanctity of the environment, and emphasized the need for economic and social justice, and the alleviation of global poverty and injustice. At Ground Zero, he met with family members of those who had died in the 9/11 attacks and joined with a group of clerics from many faith traditions to pray for peace at the site.
And, after a buoyant visit with children at Our Lady Queen of Angels School in East Harlem, he rode through Central Park to a wildly enthusiastic reception to Madison Square Garden, where he celebrated Mass before a crowd of 20,000.
And that was only the beginning. Francis left New York Saturday morning for a short flight to Philadelphia and the centerpiece event of his visit, the World Meeting of Families.
“Here, amid pain and grief, we also have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of, those hidden reserves of strength from which we can draw.”
—Pope Francis, speaking in New York at Ground Zero
“It must never be forgotten that political and economic activity is only effective when it is understood as a prudential activity, guided by a perennial concept of justice and constantly conscious of the fact that, above and beyond our plans and programs, we are dealing with real men and women who live, struggle and suffer, and are often forced to live in great poverty, deprived of all rights.”
—Pope Francis’ address to the United Nations General Assembly
“Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to other, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal solidarity, in a constant effort to do our best. I am confident that we can do this.”
—Pope Francis, in his address to Congress
NEW YORK (CNS) — During an evening prayer service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Pope Francis thanked the nation’s priests, brothers and women religious for their service and gave particular thanks to women religious saying,
“Where would the church be without you?”
The pope began with unscripted remarks, extending his sympathy to the Muslim community for the stampede in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that killed more than 700 people that morning. He offered his “sentiments of closeness in face of tragedy” and his assurance of his prayers. “I unite myself with you,” he added.
The pope arrived by popemobile at St. Patrick’s Sept. 24 after traveling from Washington. He encouraged those with religious vocations and also acknowledged the pain of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the church saying, “You suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the church in the most vulnerable of her members.”
He said he wished to accompany them “at this time of pain and difficulty.”
Although the pope was speaking in Spanish, a translation of his remarks was posted on large screen TV. The congregation applauded his remarks about women religious in the United States, whom he described as women of strength and fighters and said their “spirit of courage” puts them “in the front lines in the proclamation of the Gospel.”
“To you, religious women, sisters and mothers of this people, I wish to say thank you, a big thank you, and to tell you that I love you very much.”
Speaking to all in the cathedral, he told them: “I know that many of you are in the front lines in meeting the challenges of adapting to an evolving pastoral landscape. Whatever difficulties and trials you face, I ask you, like St. Peter, to be at peace and to respond to them as Christ did: He thanked the Father, took up his cross and looked forward.”
The pope urged those in religious life to be thankful for their many blessings and graces and encouraged them to continue their “spirit of hard work” without getting caught up in “spiritual worldliness” or simply being efficient, which he said can weaken one’s commitment to serve and also “diminishes the wonder of our first encounter with Christ.”
The pope gently reminded the priests and religious men and women that they have “been entrusted with a great responsibility, and God’s people rightly expect accountability from us.”
He also said they need to view their apostolate “by the value it has in God’s eyes” which calls for “constant conversion” and great humility remembering that their job is to plant the seeds and God will see to “the fruits of our labors.”
Pope Francis even warned the priests and religious against surrounding themselves with “worldly comforts,” which they might say would help them serve better. The danger with that, he said, is it slowly but surely “diminishes our spirit of sacrifice, renunciation and hard work. It also alienates people who suffer material poverty and are forced to make greater sacrifices than ourselves.”
“Rest is needed, as are moments of leisure and self-enrichment, but we need to learn how to rest in a way that deepens our desire to serve with generosity. Closeness to the poor, the refugee, the immigrant, the sick, the exploited, the elderly living alone, prisoners and all God’s other poor, will teach us a different way of resting, one which is more Christian and generous,” the pope said.
At the close of the prayer service, New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan welcomed the pope to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and said that once he came through the doors he “became an official New Yorker,” even though “you already have a home in our hearts and souls.”
He told the pope that in the past three years the cathedral, built in 1879, has been going through major renovation, which he likened to the spiritual renewal the pope has asked. “Your presence renews all of us,” he added, urging him to stop by again.
Those in attendance, who included religious and laity from the New York Archdiocese, had waited for several hours in the cathedral for the vespers, or evening prayer.
William Lacerenza of New Rochelle, New York, and his wife, Daniella Raciti-Lacerenza, said the pope has a lot that resonates with New Yorkers.
“He’s a little controversial and I like that. You have to rock the boat sometimes,” said Daniella Raciti-Lacerenza.
William Lacerenza said that as someone who comes from a family of immigrants, even a few generations removed, “it’s a humble reminder” when the pope points out about the immigrants who helped build this country.
“It resonated with me,” he said, and it’s something that a lot of New Yorkers and Americans can identify with, he said.
Even a city that has lot of riches appreciates what the pope is asking of the world, he said.
“He tells us that we have to look out for the poor.” Even people who are wealthy are receptive to the pope’s message, he added: “It’s not lost on them.”
Contributing to this report was Rhina Guidos.
