Karen Hannon, a mother of eight and grandmother of 14, had never made a habit of praying the rosary until last summer. That’s when Hannon joined what has become a growing movement in her parish of St. Luke in Long Valley to encourage the faithful to ask Mary for extra help by praying the rosary regularly — both privately and together in public.

The multi-day World Youth Day (WYD) pilgrimage to Lisbon, Por­tugal, continued last week, coming to a close on Sunday with a Mass celebrated by Pope Francis. Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney was there traveling with a group of young people and chaperones, seminarians, and priests, representing the Diocese of Paterson. He provided daily posts from Portugal that were published on his Instagram and the Diocese of Paterson’s Facebook page. A selection of those messages follows along with photos taken by him and two seminarians traveling with the group — Deacon Joseph DeMarzo and Deacon Sebastián Muñoz Chavarría.

On Friday, July 28, a special send-off Mass was held at the Diocesan Shrine of St. John Paul II/Holy Rosary Church in Passaic for those from the diocese attending World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal.

Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney is traveling with a group of young people and chaperones, seminarians, and priests, representing the Diocese of Paterson at World Youth Day (WYD) in Lisbon, Portugal. Following the send-off Mass in Passaic on July 28 (see page 1), the group was bussed to an airport for their flight to Portugal.

Father Steven Shadwell, pastor of Kinnelon’s Our Lady of the Magnificat Parish since 2019, perhaps describes it best. Father Shadwell said, “To bring some of the immense amounts of information that are behind the chats down to the understandable, the coherent, and the not so heavy so that the listener who doesn’t have perhaps a degree in philosophy or theology can enjoy them and be informed by them.”

Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney joined with the Sussex County Hispanic Mission and the La Hermandad de Emaús fellowship — the diocese’s reconstituted ministry to Hispanics — for a “historic day” on July 23, when he officially welcomed them at an outdoor Mass he celebrated in Spanish at Our Lady Queen of Peace (OLQP) Parish in Branchville.