BOSTON -- "Do you know him?" Archbishop Richard Henning asked Bishop Cristiano Barbosa as they observed the room at the 140th anniversary gala for St. John's Seminary on Nov. 14. "I think he teaches at Providence College," the archbishop joked.
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DORCHESTER -- Robert Credle likes to say that before Roxbury was ghettoized, and before it was gentrified, he was there. The Credles were the third Black family to move into Roxbury. They settled at 39 Quincy Street, the heart of an Italian and Jewish enclave. Robert Credle was born in the welfare ward of Boston City Hospital and raised with his four siblings by a single mother. He grew up surrounded by gang activity but got in a fight and "decided the gang life was not for him," according to his biography. His high school girlfriend brought him to St. Hugh's Church in Dorchester and introduced him to Msgr. James Haddad, who served as Credle's mentor. Msgr. Haddad bought Credle a suit and drove him to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester to meet the college president, Father Raymond Swords. Credle received a full scholarship and was the only African American in his graduating class.
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BOSTON -- Archbishop Richard Henning celebrated his first Catholic Appeal Mass of Appreciation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Nov. 18. The annual Mass is celebrated for the Caritas Society, which is for those who make an annual gift of $1,000 or more to the Appeal. The donors were eager to meet the new archbishop, and the line to greet him after Mass stretched from one end of the cathedral to the other. Donors waited for up to 30 minutes to shake Archbishop Henning's hand and wish him well. One woman gave the archbishop a Ziploc bag containing Divine Mercy prayer cards. Another showed him her purse, which had the Virgin Mary on it. A third asked him whether she should refer to him as "Your Eminence" or "Your Excellency."
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BRAINTREE -- After two arson attacks targeted Catholic churches in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island four days apart, the Archdiocese of Boston and federal authorities are warning parishes to stay on alert and upgrade their security systems.
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READVILLE -- Matt O'Neil has often heard that God gives his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers. He wasn't sure he was strong enough for this. In 2021, Matt's father Arthur died of cancer at age 57. Arthur's death shook Matt's faith and made him wonder what he did to deserve such hardship. To cope, he turned to his parish, St. Anne in Readville, and his pastor, Father Joe Mazzone.
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WALTHAM -- "JESUS is like a computer," explains a series of posters in the computer lab of Our Lady's Academy in Waltham. "He ENTERs your life, SCANs your problems, EDITs your tension, SHIFTs your burden, INSERTs happiness, CTRLs your anxiety, ENDs your sorrow, ESCAPEs you from danger, DOWNLOADs solutions, SAVEs you always . . . And brings you HOME."
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BOSTON -- Continuing thousands of years of church tradition going back to the Apostles, Archbishop Richard G. Henning was installed as the 10th bishop and seventh archbishop of Boston in a grand Mass celebrated at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on Oct. 31.
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REVERE -- Her name was Teresita. At 5'1" and 100 pounds, the Salvadoran woman's small stature belied her powerful presence and tenacity. When El Salvador was gripped by civil war and economic turmoil in the 1980s, she came to the U.S. as a refugee, making her way to the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York. She worked as a maid to provide for her family who remained in El Salvador. In a new land, she remained a devout Catholic and was a ubiquitous presence in her parish. There, she met Archbishop Richard Henning, then a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. He found her to be a woman of "prayerful, joyful, and fervent faith."
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BOSTON -- When visiting and celebrating Mass at Regina Cleri for the first time as archbishop of Boston on Nov. 1, All Saints' Day, Archbishop Richard Henning opened his homily with a peculiar question: "What makes Superman Superman?"
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LAWRENCE -- "Oh my gosh!" A pre-K student at Lawrence Catholic Academy exclaimed when Archbishop Richard Henning walked into her classroom. "He's so big!" Indeed, Archbishop Henning towered over her and her classmates, but he quickly proved himself to be a gentle giant, curious to know what the students were working on.
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Following is The Pilot transcription of Archbishop Richard G. Henning's Installation Mass homily delivered at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End, Oct. 31, 2024. I believe.
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Below is The Pilot transcription of Archbishop Richard G. Henning's Installation Mass homily delivered at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End, Oct. 31, 2024. -- Editor's note.
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FRANKLIN -- There is only one thing a priest up at 2 a.m. should be doing, says Father Bob Poitras, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Franklin: Praying. At 2 a.m. on Oct. 24, wide awake after nine days of incalculable loss for himself and his parish, praying was the only thing Father Poitras could do -- and one of the most challenging things he had done in 18 months as pastor of St. Mary's and 20 years as a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston.
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BRAINTREE -- Shortly before the Archdiocese of Boston's 16th annual Social Justice Convocation, "Hope for Our Common Home: Catholics Care for Creation," Bishop Mark O'Connell saw a video on Instagram of a comedian talking about the importance of fighting climate change. The comedian joked that he is doing his part by collecting cans to recycle.
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BRIGHTON -- Alex Orrego felt his back up against the wall. For years, Orrego had lived in Massachusetts while his daughter Tatiyana lived in Maine with her mother and stepfather. Both struggled with addiction. One day, Tatiyana's mother left home and never came back, leaving her alone to fend for herself. Tatiyana was responsible for buying groceries with her mother's food stamp card and getting herself to and from school. Orrego took his daughter to live with him, but he didn't know how he could provide her with a quality education. Then, he discovered St. Columbkille Partnership School in Brighton, and the Catholic Schools Foundation, which gave Tatiyana financial aid to attend school there.
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ARLINGTON -- The universality of the Catholic Church was on full display on Oct. 20, as ethnic communities from throughout the Archdiocese of Boston gathered for a World Mission Sunday Mass at St. Agnes Parish in Arlington.
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DEDHAM -- The story of the Ursuline Sisters in the Archdiocese of Boston can be told by the story of a single silver ciborium. The ciborium was created in the 18th century and was initially used by the French Navy before it was given to a Boston priest, possibly Bishop Cheverus himself. The ciborium was used in the Ursuline Convent school in Charlestown (now Somerville) before the building was burned to the ground by a mob of anti-Catholic rioters in 1834.
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CAMBRIDGE -- One-hundred-fifty singers, eight soloists, over 100 musicians, 300 performers in total, 85 minutes of music, and 30 boys from St. Paul's Choir School in Cambridge, who joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in its performances of Gustav Mahler's titanic "Symphony No. 8" from Oct. 4 to 6.
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NATICK -- Jay Boren, headmaster of St. Benedict Classical Academy in Natick, believes that architecture is a child's first teacher. When the school's campus on Pleasant Street became too small for a swelling student population, its staff had a clear vision of what an alternative would look like.
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ACTON -- Bernice Higdon was shocked to discover that she was a Cheverus Award winner. Higdon was one of 151 people to receive the archdiocesan award in 2023. She received it for her decades of service to St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Acton, which has been her parish for 45 years.
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Of course, the work of the synod is continuing, but last week, we also held our Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. We heard reports from all over the world on safeguarding and also about the plans for our annual report that will be released in two weeks. The annual report will document the work of the commission, as well as report on the many meetings we have had with different bishops' conferences from throughout the world as they made their ad limina visits, particularly regarding our conversations with them about safeguarding and child protection.
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