NM bishop prays for student victims of school shooting

Mass at St. Michael’s Abbey in California. / Credit: “EWTN News In Depth”/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Sep 4, 2025 / 10:19 am (CNA).
A man arrested with a car full of weapons after threatening a California Catholic church told the parish he was an ang… […]

Harrisburg, Pa., Jun 22, 2018 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The release of a Grand Jury report detailing cases of clerical sex abuse in six of the eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania has been blocked by the state’s Supreme Court for unspecified reasons.

The court released the unsigned order June 20, but did not state which individuals or groups had applied for the stay or the reason behind the application. It also does not state for how long the stay applies or when the report could be published in the future.

“And now, this 20th day of June, 2018, the Applications for Stay are granted. The Honorable Norman A. Krumenacker, III, and the Office of the Attorney General are enjoined from releasing Report No. 1 of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury pending further order of this Court,” the order, issued by the state’s Supreme Court, reads. Krumenacker is a Cambria County judge who has overseen the Grand Jury proceedings.

The stay indefinitely delays the release of a report that has been more than two years in the making, during which time victims of past abuse have recounted incidents of sexual abuse to the jury. Legal experts have told local news sources that the depth and breadth of this investigation is almost unprecedented among clerical sex abuse investigations that have taken place in the United States.

The two non-participating dioceses in the report, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, have already undergone similar investigations.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who has headed the investigation, said in a May 21 statement that he believed dioceses and bishops were behind the push to block or delay the publication of the report.

However, the participating dioceses – Allentown, Erie, Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Harrisburg, and Scranton – and their bishops have all said that they did not apply for the stay, and that they support the publication of the report.

“We anxiously await the Supreme Court’s decision on this matter, and support the release of the report which will give victims a voice,” Bishop Lawrence Persico of Erie said in a statement. “Until the report is released, we will continue our efforts to identify abusers and provide counseling and assistance to victims.”

“The contents of the report will be painful, but it is necessary for the report to be released in order for us to learn from it and to continue in our efforts to be responsive to victims and to create safe environments for our children,” the Diocese of Scranton said in its statement. “With regards to the stay, it’s important that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court take all the steps it deems necessary.”

“The Diocese of Harrisburg has fully cooperated with the Office of the Attorney General. The Diocese and Bishop Gainer strongly support the release of the Grand Jury report and have not filed anything to cause the stay ordered (Wednesday),” spokesman Mike Barley said in a statement. “However, as we have stated before, it is critical that this report is accurate.”

Diocesan officials told CNA that they were unaware whether those who had applied for the stay had ties to the Church.

Ed Palattella, a reporter for the Erie Times, wrote that it is believed that those who filed for the stay petition were not diocesan officials, but others who were named in the report.

Because the majority of those named in the report would be priests, it is likely that a priest or group of priests named in the report filed for the stay.

According to an order from Krumenacker written earlier this month, anyone who is named in the Grand Jury report is given notice of their inclusion in the report and is allowed to file a rebuttal. However, once approved by a Grand Jury, written reports cannot be amended. All documents regarding the report remain sealed and so the identity of the party or parties who filed for the stay cannot be confirmed.

Victims said that the delay of the release of the report is causing further harm to those who have experienced clerical sex abuse.

State representative Mark Rozzi told The Inquirer that the stay order was a “travesty of justice and insult to all victims of childhood sex abuse.”

“It’s just like it’s been since Day One with me, kick us to the curb. Let the trash on the curb get old, maybe we’ll rot and die and go away. We’re not going away. I’m not going away, and I can promise that to all the victims across the commonwealth,” he said.

Last month, Krumenacker rejected an attempt by defense lawyers to stall the publication of the report. Defense lawyers said that the state’s interest in protecting their unidentified clients’ reputation and due process were enough to halt the publication of the report.

Krumenacker dismissed the request, arguing that “The commonwealth’s interest in protecting children from sexual predators and persons or institutions that enable them to continue their abuse is of the highest order.”

The request was appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, which ordered the stay June 20.

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An Easter Vigil procession at St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco. / Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Lorelei Low

CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Five years ago this week, public health orders issued amid the uncertainty of the novel coronavirus turned Mass schedules across the country and the world upside down. 

In those early days following the WHO’s March 11, 2020, declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, the bishops of every U.S. diocese issued some form of dispensation, suspending the obligation that Catholics must attend Sunday Mass in person. 

Thousands of parishes and ministries scrambled to develop plans to offer livestreamed Masses, deliver the sacraments in a “socially distanced” manner, and live out the Church’s life as best they could under extraordinary circumstances. Public Masses at most parishes were suspended entirely for a time, and those that were able to reopen were subject, in many areas, to distancing requirements and numerical or percentage-based attendance caps.

As Catholics nationwide adapted to the changes — not knowing how long this new reality might last — observers feared that many Catholics, barred from their parishes for so long and now accustomed to attending from the comfort of home, might not return after the parish doors reopened. 

A study from the Pew Research Center found that most Catholics continued participating in Mass throughout the pandemic — but many were only able to do so virtually. In November 2022, when the survey was done, only about 4 in 10 U.S. Catholics said they attended Mass in person as often as they did before the pandemic.

Indeed, from the start of the COVID pandemic lockdowns in the U.S. to the declared end of the pandemic in May 2023, in-person Mass attendance averaged just 15% — a dismal figure, but not markedly lower than the 24% it was before. (The Catholic Church teaches that Catholics are obligated to attend Mass in person every Sunday, except for a serious reason such as illness or if they’ve been dispensed from their obligation by their pastor or bishop.)

Some bishops lifted the dispensations they had issued as early as late 2020, while a few held out until 2022. In lifting the dispensations they issued amid the lockdowns, many U.S. bishops implored Catholics to return to Mass in person. 

While Mass attendance today among Catholics in the U.S. remains much lower than among Catholics in other countries, recent data has suggested that U.S. in-person Mass attendance levels have quietly returned to where they were in 2019 after years of uncertainty over whether they would ever rebound. 

For some thriving parishes in the U.S., the lockdowns — while challenging — presented an opportunity to continue sharing the faith in a creative manner and come out even stronger than they were before. 

Father John Mosimann, pastor at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Fredericksburg, Virginia, told CNA that the parish has seen its numbers grow since the pandemic. 

On a typical weekend, Mosimann and his four parochial vicars celebrate 11 total Masses in English, plus another in Spanish at a different parish where they are kick-starting a Spanish Mass ministry. 

All told, roughly 3,800 people attended St. Mary’s weekend Masses on a typical week in 2019. According to headcounts, the parish had already exceeded its pre-pandemic levels by 2023, with around 4,300 attendees on average. The parish, which is about 55 miles south of Washington, D.C., has 6,700 registered families and nearly 100 active ministries. 

During the pandemic, St. Mary’s added extra Masses — since for a time, Masses were limited to a smaller-than-usual number of attendees — and continued hosting adoration. Like so many other parishes, the parish had to quickly adapt to a livestreaming paradigm in order to stay connected with the community.

“I was in the office and I was looking at Facebook and I said, ‘What if I hit this button and go live, what would happen?’” Mosimann remembers thinking as the lockdowns began.

“And so I started streaming on Facebook Live and everybody started jumping in … ’What’s going on, Father? What’s going to happen?’ And I didn’t have answers, because I wasn’t that great a prophet. But we did immediately start streaming.”

He said parishioners were grateful for the effort the priests made to stay in touch, despite the occasional technical challenge — a problem far from unique to St. Mary’s. 

“If you want perfect sound and you want a studio, go to EWTN. They’ve got professional equipment. If you want to see your priests, come talk to us,” Mosimann said he told his parishioners. 

“We’re not going to be anxious over having studio quality, because what’s important is for us to be connected to you. People responded to that. People were very grateful for that. It was very frequently cited by parishioners, how grateful they were for our staying in touch with them during that difficult moment.”

The last of Virginia’s capacity-restricting public health orders on venues was lifted in late May 2021, and Bishop Michael Burbidge of the local Diocese of Arlington in the following month lifted the dispensation he had issued, inviting Catholics to return to Mass throughout the diocese. So far, as in most U.S. dioceses, Mass attendance overall in Arlington has risen significantly but has not quite returned to pre-pandemic levels. 

Since the pandemic’s end, Mosimann said his focus has been on encouraging parishioners to use their time and talents generously to help rebuild and grow the parish community. 

For Mosimann, the pandemic experience was proof that by remaining faithful even through troubling and difficult times, God can and does bring good out of bad situations through his grace. 

“[We] did everything we could to provide the sacraments to God’s people and to make it available as much as possible with all the restrictions. That should be the goal of every parish, every day, whether there’s a pandemic or not,” Mosimann said. 

‘We are proud to be who we are’

Father Michael Hurley, OP, pastor of St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco, said his parish, which offers what he believes is the largest young adult presence in the entire archdiocese, regularly sees attendance numbers today that are similar to pre-pandemic levels. 

The parish was able to safely provide the sacraments to those in need during the pandemic and had, providentially, already set up livestreaming for Masses shortly before the start of the pandemic. To this day the parish maintains a healthy online base of Dominican laypeople who tune in for Masses and prayer. 

Hurley said he personally never worried during lockdown about people not returning to Mass, instead trusting that Catholics would return when they could. He said his main concern was keeping the church building open safely during the pandemic — in a state with some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country — to maintain sacramental support. 

California finally lifted all capacity restrictions on religious gatherings in April 2021 after previously implementing a near-total ban on indoor services that was contested all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Though the demographics of St. Dominic Parish has changed somewhat, in-person worshippers, many of whom work in the Bay Area’s high-tech sector, have returned in large numbers. 

“The Lord is always searching for the strays, right? … All you have to do is open the doors and do what you’re doing, and people will come,” Hurley told CNA. 

That said, Hurley said he believes St. Dominic’s beautiful church building, welcoming atmosphere, and a strong sense of identity — as a Dominican-led parish that aims to “radiate the joy of the Gospel in the heart of the city” — helps to make it an attractive place for Catholics, especially young adults. They also keep the church building open for personal prayer throughout the day, a rarity in a city that occasionally struggles with crime. 

“We are proud to be who we are as Catholics, and for us as clergy, as Dominicans. And that makes a huge difference,” Hurley said.

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