BRAINTREE -- Representatives of Christian communities throughout Greater Boston gathered with Archbishop Richard G. Henning at the Archdiocese of Boston Pastoral Center's Bethany Chapel in Braintree for an ecumenical prayer service on Jan. 21 in honor of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The service was presided over by Metropolitan Methodios of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston.
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DORCHESTER -- "Oh my goodness, she's going to die in front of me." Dr. Laura Stachel had that thought as she stood in a hospital and watched a pregnant woman suffering from eclampsia, a pregnancy complication that causes dangerously high blood pressure. The woman lay on a cold, hard metal table, with no monitors to keep track of her vital signs.
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BRAINTREE -- Archbishop Richard G. Henning has called for parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston to institute a special collection for relief efforts helping victims of the wildfires that have devastated Los Angeles in the past weeks.
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BRAINTREE -- "I think it's important for school leaders to be bold," says James Hickey, head of school at Austin Prep in Reading. Hickey became head of Austin Prep in 2013. Under his leadership, the Augustinian school is at full enrollment, has a larger staff, and has invested $22 million in upgrades to its campus. In 2022, Austin Prep left the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association and joined the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council, which serves college prep schools like Austin, a move which Hickey said has improved the experience for players and coaches.
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BRAINTREE -- Pilgrims from all over the Archdiocese of Boston, including Archbishop Richard G. Henning, will be heading down to Washington, D.C., next week for the 52nd annual March for Life, which will be held Jan. 24.
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BRAINTREE -- Denise Waterworth estimates that in the last 25 years, she has heard thousands of prayers. She has written them all down in a series of notebooks, meticulously kept over a quarter of a century. When she picks up the phone, she hears the voices of strangers who confide completely in her. Her phone rings constantly. In an average week, she can receive 20 to 30 phone calls from people asking for prayers for themselves and loved ones experiencing illness, surgery, car accidents, suicide, mental illness, substance abuse, death, and troubled marriages.
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DANVERS -- Xaverian Brother Timothy Paul, the ninth-grade biology teacher at St. John's Prep in Danvers, has the remarkable ability to say words like "cytoplasm" and "mitochondria" with a gentle, fatherly air. On the afternoon of Dec. 12, when The Pilot visited St. John's, Brother Tim was hunched over with hypnotic zeal during his lecture.
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BOSTON -- Knowing the layout of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross has served Kelly Thatcher well. At the height of the clergy abuse scandal, the cathedral's lesser-known entrances and exits allowed her to go to and from Mass without confronting the throngs of angry protesters who gathered at its main doors. Most of the faithful who came to the cathedral each Sunday were not as familiar with the building. Thatcher and other parishioners served as escorts, leading and protecting worshipers heading to Mass every Sunday. Thatcher remembered that the protesters could be "very, very angry and sometimes abusive."
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BRAINTREE -- Archbishop Richard Henning formally initiated the Jubilee Year of 2025 in the Archdiocese of Boston with an opening Mass celebrated in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Dec. 29, the Feast of the Holy Family.
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In addition to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (bostoncathedral.com), Archbishop Richard G. Henning has announced the following churches as Jubilee Churches for the Holy Year 2025: Central Region: Most Holy Redeemer, East Boston (mostholyredeemerboston.org) and St. Clement Eucharistic Shrine, Boston (www.omvusa.org/st-clement-shrine)
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During his first Christmas in Boston, Archbishop Richard G. Henning visited programs helping those in need and celebrated Mass with local parishioners displaced from their church. The archbishop began Christmas Eve with a morning stop at Catholic Charities Teen Center at St. Peter's in Boston's Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood, where Catholic Charities partnered with the family of the late Boston Mayor Thomas Menino for their annual holiday toy distribution. Throughout the course of the day, families representing over 600 children made their way through the gymnasium of the Teen Center to receive holiday gifts.
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STONEHAM -- "Middle school is pretty challenging," says Courtney Finocchiaro, the art teacher at St. Patrick School in Stoneham. She should know. As a member of St. Patrick's middle school mentorship program, new for the 2024-25 school year, she directly hears from students about the academic and social pressures they face.
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BRIDGEWATER -- "Stop it. They're only demons." Father Glenn Sudano, cofounder of the Franciscan Fathers of the Renewal and official exorcist of the Archdiocese of Newark, had that advice for students of a college seminary about demonic influence. Seminarians reported growling noises outside their rooms, drawers opening and closing by themselves, and unseen hands banging on doors. Father Sudano said that the next time they heard or saw any supernatural activity, they should simply say: "Stop it. This is my room. Get out of the room."
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