Week of February 3, 2019
WORLD YOUTH DAY 2019
The 15th international World Youth Day ended Sunday with a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis attended by hundreds of thousands of young people from around the world. At the end of the January 27th Mass, it was announced that the next World Youth Day will be held in Lisbon, Portugal in 2022. Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was in attendance, as well as several other political leaders from throughout Central America.
The Official count for the attendance at the final Mass has not yet been released, but the park had an official capacity of 700,000. Despite the large crowds, the Mass had far fewer people attending than previous World Youth Days. In 2016’s Krakow gathering, the final Mass attendance was estimated at 2.5 million. Even more Catholics showed up for the final Mass on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro – about 3 million.
PILGRIMAGE TO ROME
Fr. Piotr with parents and teenagers will be going to Rome from February 21-28th. Fr. Tomasz Sielicki SCH will be substituting for Fr. Piotr while he is gone.
The best attended World Youth Day was held in Manila in 1995; 5 million are estimated to have attended the closing Mass with St. John Paul II. At the last World Youth Day celebrated by Benedict XVI in Madrid in 2011, between 1.4 and 2 million were in attendance.
PLANS FOR REPLACEMENT OF STATIONS OF THE CROSS IN THE CHURCH
The current Stations of the Cross are pictures attached to cardboard. We would like to replace these with real paintings. The first step will be for an artist to paint one Station for people to see and install it using the same frame. Then we will evaluate this and make a decision of going forward with the entire project. Price of one painting will be $2,000. If someone would like to be a sponsor of one of the Stations of the Cross, please contact Fr. Piotr. We already have three potential sponsors.
ARCHBISHOP’S CATHOLIC APPEAL 2019
The weekend for this year’s Archbishop’s Catholic Appeal has been pushed back one week to the weekend of February 23rd & 24th. Everyone who has participated in the past in this appeal should receive materials from the Archdiocese in the mail. There will also be envelopes available in the back of the church.