Letter from the Pastor
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January 24, 2021
Today throughout the Archdiocese, we begin the Cardinal’s Annual Stewardship Appeal 2021. If not already, you soon will receive a letter from Cardinal Dolan asking for your spiritual and material support of the Appeal.
Our parish goal is $148,000 this year. Last year we reached 81% of our goal, with 314 parishioners donating to the Appeal. Thank you. As you can imagine this year it is very necessary to help, if you can. There are more financially stricken parishes struggling to help their own people this year than ever before. Catholic Charities is feeding, housing, and clothing the poor and those who lost their jobs and are just about on the streets, and the other important works of the Church in education, taking care of our retired priests, teaching the seminarians etc. This year there will be funds set aside to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.
The entire Archdiocese is looking to raise $21 million this year. So, if your circumstances allow, if you can make a sacrificial offering, one time or on a monthly payment plan, you can make your donations online at www.cardinalsappeal.org.
Whatever you can do to help our brothers and sisters in the Church of Christ will be blessed by a most generous God.
March for Life
The first March for Life was on January 22, 1974, one year after the Supreme Court decision in allowing abortion for all 9 months of pregnancy. The organizers thought it would be the one and only rally/march on the west steps of the Capitol. The purpose of the March was to "End abortion by uniting, educating and mobilizing pro-life people in the public square.” However, it became a yearly event, until this year. There will be a very small march by officials of the March for Life; everyone else is encouraged to march virtually. The first time there was a virtual march was in 2010. Due to Covid and security concerns in Washington D.C., the March this year will be virtual, as well.
I remember my first Rally and March in 1978. It was a sunny, very cold day. We stayed overnight in Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland and went to Washington by bus the next day. There was a rally at the Eclipse at noon and then we marched down Constitution Ave. to the steps of the Supreme Court. It was more a somber and prayerful experience back then. Over the years the mood of the March has changed as it has grown to well over 650,000 people attending, even though the numbers were always downplayed (and since 1995, the National Park Service stopped counting), and now the March doesn’t even make the news; but it is so very important to continue the fight to end the scourge of abortion in this country. I believe the killing of innocents is the source of our national discontent, anger, even hatred that we are sadly witnessing. If the life of an unborn child is not safe in their mothers’ womb, if mothers can kill their own children, then no life matters. When the right to life is not respected and held in high esteem in law and practice, then no life matters, or how people live. We become callous and immune to human suffering and death.
However, there are so many hopeful signs over the years. We must keep up the prayers and sacrifices for the sake of the unborn children.
Normally, there is a bus from Rockland County that travels each year to D.C. Since the March is virtual, our parish will conduct a Holy Hour of Prayer starting at Noon on Friday January 29th. We will join in solidarity, the Rally and March, through the power of prayer. All are invited to attend and pray.
Those who wish to watch the Rally and March for Life online are being asked to RSVP at March for Life 2021.