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Amid their anxiety and mourning for friends and family in their virus-stricken homeland, the diplomats at Italy’s embassy in Washington are working earnestly to secure help from afar. “We are all concerned by the situation in Italy. Our thoughts are constantly with relatives and friends, some of whom live in the hardest-hit areas of the country,” s...

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Modica is a Baroque town perched in the mountains of southern Sicily, an island just off the tip of the Italian mainland. With over one hundred churches, it is the site of one of Sicily’s most beloved Easter traditions. The Spanish, before there was a unified Spain and therefore starting with the Kingdom of Aragon, occupied Sicily for approximately...

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Father Leonard J. DiNola, who served for 43 years as parochial vicar of three parishes in the archdiocese, died March 30. He was 87. Father DiNola was at St. Christopher, Buchanan, 1982-2001; St. Ann, Ossining, 1963-1982; and St. Roch, Staten Island, 1958-1963. Cardinal Dolan presided at the burial April 6 in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne. “...

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AT ABOUT FOUR FEET TALL, this tiny saint looks genuinely relaxed through the glass of her gilt coffin. Her leathery skin has pulled back from her pearly teeth in the approximation of a smile. Santa Rosa (Saint Rose), the patron saint of Viterbo, Italy, died in the 13th century at the age of 18 after a short life of devotion, prayer, charity, politi...

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A second New York City priest has died because of the coronavirus, church officials said. Father Gioacchino Basile, pastor of Saint Gabriel’s in East Elmhurst, Queens, died Saturday. He was 60, church officials said. Basile’s death is the second for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, coming a week after Father Jorge Ortiz-Garay, 49, who served...

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Italian Catholics have launched a petition asking bishops to restore Masses and the other sacraments to the faithful during the coronavirus lockdown, joining a similar movement in the United States. “We appeal for the recognition of the personal need of every member of the Catholic faithful to participate in the Holy Mass so that each person can ac...

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Mother Cabrini opened an orphanage in the French Quarter in 1892 As a Yellow Fever Epedemic was leaving many orphans in New Orleans, Mother Cabrini arrived. In 1904, she received $75,000.00 from Captain Salvatore Pizzati to build a new orphange which is became Cabrini High School in 1959. Records show that 7,849 people died in New Orleans in 1853 d...

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The Feast of San Gennaro would have celebrated its third Boston iteration this year but has been canceled for this September, according to its North End organizers Frank DePasquale, Pasquale Trotta and Nick Varano who vow to bring it back in September 2021.  “It is with a heavy heart that we have to postpone our beloved Feast of San Gennaro this ye...

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On Monday March 16th Arthur Brocato and staff came in on their normally closed day to build their annual St. Joseph’s Altar. Just as they were finishing, the city announced restaurants and bars would be closed to inside dining. Arthur made a decision to move the altar from the back of the gelato parlor to the front window of the store. A customer p...

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A national monument since 1902, the Basilica in Collemaggio de L’Aquila, outside the city walls on the hill of the same name, is one of the best examples of Abruzzo’s architecture. The church was built in 1288 by Pietro da Morrone, who would become pope as Celestine V only six years later. It has protected its founder’s mortal remains since 1327. T...

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