Catholic Video Presentations at Kellenberg High School

This is a very good group and I highly recommend this evening.   I was able to go to these events a long time ago and they were always interesting.  If you are in the area consider attending, it is free.  It is Thursday night, June 20th @ 7:30 PM at Kellenberg High School in Uniondale.

AMERICANS UNITED FOR THE POPE, INC 
Where the Pope is, there is the Church
 TWO EXCELLENT CATHOLIC VIDEO PRESENTATIONS

Mexican Priest Martyrs

Blessed Justino Orona

Blessed Atilano Cruz

                        

      In the 1920’s the Catholic Church was brutally persecuted in Mexico.  Churches were closed and priests were hunted down and killed.  With the help of the laity, priests went into hiding and risked their lives offering Mass and hearing confessions for the love of God and their people. 

      Among the many priest Martyrs are Father Justino Orona and Father Atilano Cruz.  In spite of the ever present danger of certain death they continued to do their priestly work.  They joined the countless others who stood up to the oppressive government under the banner of “Long live Christ the King and our Lady of Guadalupe!”  Hear the true story of how these priests died from two men who helped the priests in the last days of their earthly life.  Very inspiring!

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Judy Hehr

SHE MADE MILLIONS BUT COULD NOT FIND HAPPINESS WITHOUT GOD

            In her high school years Judy fell in with the wrong crowd and embraced self destructive behavior.  She was into drugs, heavy drinking and sex.  She came close to committing suicide.

            After high school Judy became a sales representative for a printing firm and was tremendously successful.  But even though she became a millionaire and had four beautiful children and a loving husband her life was still empty.  Then God stepped in and she tells her amazing conversion story.  Today she is in love with her faith and has become active in the church as an inspiring speaker.  Come and hear this extraordinary journey back to God.

COME AND BRING A FRIEND

Thursday  June 20th   7:30pm Kellenberg HS – 3rd floor meeting room Directions to the 3rd floor Emmanuel Marianist Retreat House meeting room.  Drive past the auditorium (main doors with three levels of steps on the right: the outdoor crucifix on your left.) Keep going around the building until you will see an outside elevator for the Emmanuel Marianist Retreat House.  Take the elevator to the third floor and follow the signs music room. – Thank you.)

Long Island's Only Dairy Queen

This may be hard for most Americans to believe, but up until June 10th Long Island had no Dairy Queens.  The first one opened in my hometown of Massapequa and I am sure more will follow. 

Dairy Queen Holds Grand Opening In Massapequa

Superman and Jesus

From CNN - 

"Baltimore, Maryland (CNN) - As the new Superman movie takes flight this weekend, filmmakers are hoping the Man of Steel lands not only in theaters, but also in pulpits.


Warner Bros. Studios is aggressively marketing "Man of Steel" to Christian pastors, inviting them to early screenings, creating Father’s Day discussion guides and producing special film trailers that focus on the faith-friendly angles of the movie.

The movie studio even asked a theologian to provide sermon notes for pastors who want to preach about Superman on Sunday. Titled “Jesus: The Original Superhero,” the notes run nine pages.

“How might the story of Superman awaken our passion for the greatest hero who ever lived and died and rose again?” the sermon notes ask."

Jesuit says Britain and US are ‘crazy’ for backing Islamists in Egypt

Some common sense from The Catholic Herald in the UK:

"Fr Boulad said the Muslim Brotherhood had a systematic plan to harass Christians so that they would leave Egypt and that among their tactics was the kidnapping and rape of Christian girls.


The organisation also invokes human rights to silence critics in France, Canada and elsewhere, using the courts against people who speak up, he said. The government cries “Islamophobia” and it “is politically incorrect to be an Islamophobe”, he said.

“The United States, France and Great Britain are supporting this. It’s crazy,” he added.“Intellectual and factual terrorism is being implemented not only in Egypt but all over the world. You cannot speak up. They go to court; they accuse you. “As long as Islam is not reformed, we are going to catastrophe,” Fr Boulad said.

Fortunately, he added, some people had the courage to speak up.

He said he hoped that liberal democracies would support the growing coalition opposing the Egyptian ruling party."

No 'Definitive Plans' for Sacred Heart Parish, Says Diocese

From NorthFork Patch.com

"The Sacred Heart parish continues to evaluate its future -- with no absolute plans in place, a representative for the Diocese of Rockville Centre said Wednesday.

“The Diocese is not aware of any definitive plans for any buildings on the Sacred Heart parish campus. The parish, along with the Diocese, continues to evaluate the best use of all of its resources for its parishioners,” said Sean P. Dolan, spokesman for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, after a number of requests from Patch about the future of the church, rectory, and convent."

"The Sacred Heart Church, closed since December, as well as the rectory and carriage house, is one of seven properties listed as 'endangered' by the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, was built in the late 1870s.

Despite a sit-in by some parishoners to keep church services going at the Roman Catholic worship house, was ultimately considered too much of a danger to keep open."

Chinese parents left childless do battle against once-child policy

From MSNBC, a story about the dangers of a culture of death, run by a government out to keep the birth rate low.  The problems of overpopulation in China can be worked on with moral methods.  The problems caused by this immoral one child policy are much deeper and will hurt China more and more in decades to come.  

"In her grief, Zhang, 59, was forced to come to terms with the marginal life of a childless middle-aged woman of few resources in a society where children and the extension of the family line are essential to a person’s survival. She began to blame her husband, feeling he did not support her enough to have a second child. Zhang retreated from society, even living in a monastery for several years to escape the pain.

Each year 76,000 families in China lose their only child, according to an annual report by Chinese Ministry of Health in 2010. In June 2012, for the first time, over 80 parents from all over the country who had lost their only child marched to Beijing to protest the policy and the meager compensation they are given in front of the National Family Planning office.

Zhang heard about the protest and began to think about her own experience. Having one child had not been her choice. Indeed she had been pregnant twice after she gave birth to her son, thinking that, as a farmer, she would be exempt from the one-child policy.

But she says her county’s family planning department coerced her into having abortions under the threat of losing her husband’s teaching job and their house. The abortions were administered late, she said once when she was five months pregnant and once at eight months, when a gruesome procedure is required.

NBC could not confirm Zhang’s allegation, but reports of forced abortions have caused international outcry in recent years. In June 2012 city officials in China apologized to a woman who was forced to have an abortion and disciplined three people responsible for it. The apology came after gruesome photos of the mother and the fetus sparked outrage among Chinese netizens."

 

The Chinese Ministry of Health released data in March that 336 million abortions 222 million sterilizations have been performed since 1971. (The one-child policy was implemented in 1979, but other family planning policies were enforced before it)."

2 Long Islanders ordained Jesuits Priests

 Yesterday, at Fordham University in the Bronx, 2 Long Islanders became Jesuits:

Rev. Mr. James Donovan, SJ (NYK), 48, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Long Island. Mr. Donovan’s Catholic education dates back to grammar school at Our Lady of Lourdes School in his hometown of Malverne, New York, followed by Maria Regina Diocesan High School in Uniondale.

Rev. Mr. Peter Folan, SJ (MAR), 34, is a native of Massapequa Park on Long Island, New York. A 1996 graduate of Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, Mr. Folan attended the University of Notre Dame and earned a bachelor’s degree in the Program of Liberal Studies and German in 2000.

The Charismatic Renewal and the Catholic Church

The Catholic World Report takes a look at the history of the Charismatic Renewal movement within the Church.    This is a short background history focused mostly on the origins in Italy, sparked by Sister Elena Guerra, and does not look at the movement today in the US, which I think would make a good followup article.

"The Charismatic Renewal was eventually sparked in the Catholic Church in 1967, not by any intervention of the pope or clergy, but at the level of the laity at a students’ retreat at Duquesne University, in February of that year. Interestingly, tradition puts in an appearance here as well, as Duquesne was founded in 1878 by the Holy Ghost Fathers, members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. From there the flame went almost simultaneously to Notre Dame where, in the words of Dorothy Ranaghan, writer and witness of the beginnings, after the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit


Summer school brought in priests, nuns, and lay people from all over the world. And so we held prayer meetings and crowds attended and hundreds were baptized in the Holy Spirit and they took the baptism in the Holy Spirit back to their home countries. It was a wild and wonderful summer. There were no Life in the Spirit Seminars [they hadn’t been written yet], we just laid hands on everyone and prayed right away and amazing things happened. Given our youth and inexperience it is all the more evident that it was God’s work, not ours."

1 Year Anniversary of Priesthood

Fr. Michael Duffy, from St. Kilians parish in Farmingdale, and the blogger at Father, Where Art Thou? has reflects on his first anniversary of his ordination here.