Danielle Nicosia of St. Ann Parish in Parsippany uses long vertical strokes to help paint the walls of an upstairs bedroom in a house that sits on a quiet dead-end street in Morristown. On a hot June 11 morning, sunlight streams through a large window into the room, empty except for her and her team of four other parishioners, who volunteered to paint the interior of the new residence — part of a five-unit townhouse complex that the non-profit Morris Habitat for Humanity has almost finished building.

The service to God’s people of the 23 priests who are marking milestone anniversaries this year totals 1,065 years — more than a millennium. Their years of service have been spent celebrating the Eucharist and giving the faithful Jesus through Holy Communion; baptizing babies; joining men and women together in the Sacrament of Matrimony; bringing the Sacrament of the Sick to those who where ill; forgiving sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and preaching the Good News in parishes across the Diocese.

Deborah Savage, Ph.D. of St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., will present the third annual Pope Benedict XVI Institute on the topic of “In the Image of God: The Genius of Human Sexuality” from Monday to Thursday, June 27-30 from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. each day at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard in Madison.

On learning of his death, most people remembered Muhammad Ali as a world champion boxer, but although his life was certainly not without controversy, it was what he did outside the boxing ring during his life that shaped his legacy worldwide.

Marie Mullaney, Ph.D., a professor of women’s history and the history of Catholicism in America at Caldwell University, will speak about the history and impact of religious sisters on the U.S., in her presentation, “Catholic Sisters and the Shaping of America,” on Wednesday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to Annunciation Parish in Wayne June 5 where he celebrated the 10 a.m. Mass marking the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

If the walls on the fourth floor of Straight and Narrow (S&N) in Paterson could talk, they would tell the stories of a group of women finding balance, hope and peace as they experience recovery from addiction at the Catholic Charities agency. Through a series of murals created by some of the woman residents at the drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, the bare white walls now have colorful works of art adorning them.

On a sunny June 6 morning, Bishop Serratelli broke ground for what he called a “sign of hope” and a “bold act of courage and faith” for Catholic education in Sussex County — a new $4.5 million, two-story St. Pope John XXIII Middle School in Sparta that will open its doors in November to students in grades, 5, 6 and 7. The building of the new middle school is part of the Diocese’s comprehensive strategic repositioning plan for the long-term viability and vitality of Catholic education in Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties.


First Communicants from around the diocese met with Bishop Serratelli to celebrate the importance of their receiving Jesus for the first time in the Eucharist. Considered one of the Bishop’s favorite diocesan events, the annual Celebration for First Communicants with Eucharistic Catechesis was held in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Parsippany June 5.

In 1998, the International Religious Freedom Act created the International Religious Freedom office in the U.S. State Department and also the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan commission that advises the State Department. Because of this Act, ways to promote religious freedom — especially in countries where religious minorities are consistently persecuted — were placed into U.S. foreign policy.

Bishop Serratelli ordained 10 men to the priesthood for the Paterson Diocese during the Rite of Ordination of Priests on May 28 in St. Philip the Apostle Church in Clifton. The Bishop told the newly ordained to live out the heart of their work, vocation and ministry as a priest each day: “To present Jesus before others, so that others seeing him, listen to the master and thrill in every note of his Gospel teaching.”

Bishop Serratelli will be the principal celebrant of the annual diocesan Jubilee Mass for diocesan and religious priests who are marking milestone anniversaries in the priesthood this year at 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 7, in Our Lady of the Magnificat Church in Kinnelon.

Donations of large shirts are not needed. That’s because the desperately poor people of the dual Catholic parishes of Dufailly-Dumond in the Hinche Diocese suffer from such a serious lack of food that they have small, bony frames — as well as a few distended stomachs. There in rural northern Haiti, they live in wooden huts without doors, windows or adequate roofs.

Bishop Serratelli marked Memorial Day by celebrating Mass at the Mausoleum Chapel at Calvary Cemetery in Paterson May 30. Con­cele­brants included Father Peter VB Wells, director of the diocesan cemetery office and pastor of Our Lady of the Valley and Holy Cross parishes in Wayne, and Msgr. John Demkovich, director of the diocesan Mission Office.

Bishop Serratelli installed Father Rubin Dario Cortes Castillo as pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Passaic at the 10:30 a.m. Mass on May 29, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi. Father Castillo was born in Colombia and ordained to the priesthood in his native country on Dec. 16, 1995. He was incarnated as a priest of the Paterson Diocese in 2010.

Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to St. Nicholas Church in Passaic May 28 and marked the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi. During the vigil Mass in Spanish, Bishop Serratelli also blessed the presider’s chair, which was previously used as the bishop’s chair in the Cathe­dral of St. John the Baptist Church in Paterson.

The Little Sisters of the Poor scored quite the victory May 16 when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously protected them from unjustly harsh government fines and recognized that the Obama administration does not need the Little Sisters to provide abortifacients in the health coverage they offer. The Court also noted the Obama administration finally has admitted what it should have admitted before going through a protracted court battle — that it could indeed meet its goals to distribute contraceptives without involving the Little Sisters in the process.