Columns 2024

The end of one year and the beginning of another is a very appropriate time to “look back” and “look forward.” Here in our diocese, as we come to the close of 2024 and look forward, with the whole Church, to the New (Jubilee) Year of 2025, there is a special reason for us to “look back” with gratitude and “look forward” with great hope.

I wrote my first weekly column in the Beacon in September 2020. Msgr. James Mahoney was Vicar General and an excellent proofreader, editor, and coach, helping me with the column (and so many other “new experiences”) in my first months as Bishop. Msgr. Mahoney retired as Vicar General at the end of September 2020, and Msgr. Mark Condon has been serving in that role ever since. Msgr. Condon has also been a great help to me with my weekly column — and in many other areas.

With these words, “SPES NON CONFUNDIT…,” Pope Francis invites the whole Church to enter into a HOLY YEAR, a great Jubilee. This invitation was offered to us all when Pope Francis published the Bull of Indiction on May 9, 2024. Now (seven months later), the beginning of the Jubilee, which will take place in Rome on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2024, with the opening of the Holy Door, is only two weeks away.

Ido not remember the first time I heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It may have been during my years in college or in the seminary. When I first heard something about him and his story, I was intrigued and impressed. I remember learning that Bonhoeffer was a theologian and Lutheran pastor in Germany at the time when Adolf Hitler rose to power and that he came to believe and preach that true Christians should oppose Hitler and the Nazi Regime.

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress, as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The words of prayer quoted above should be familiar to most (all) readers. Some may be thinking and asking, “I know that prayer. Where have I heard it?”