Since we were planning to all be together for the Mass, we decided to use the occasion to hold one of our regular auxiliary bishops' meetings and afterwards we celebrated Mass together. We had a beautiful celebration and afterwards I visited some of the men in the infirmary before joining the community for dinner.
Visitors at the cathedral
Wednesday (2/24), I was happy to welcome a few visitors to the cathedral.
First, I met with Luciano Lamonarca president of the St. Pio Foundation. Though Luciano is from the area of Italy that Padre Pio is from, this is a foundation in the United States, which works particularly with the hospital that Padre Pio founded in San Giovanni Rotondo, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (The Home for Relief of the Suffering). He came to talk with me a little bit about the foundation's work and some of their ongoing projects.
Then I was visited by Lucy McGovern and William Wise. Lucy is the executive director at ICMC, the International Catholic Migration Commission, which aids refugees and assists them in resettlement. She had been in Juarez, Mexico for the Holy Father's visit and wanted to speak to me about their work on behalf of refugees.
Archdiocesan Pastoral Council Meeting
Also this week, we had one of our regular meetings of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council. As always, we dealt with a number of topics but one of them of particular interest this week was the work of one of our parishes in helping to settle Syrian refugees. We also had a presentation on the work of the Labor Guild, which is now housed at the Pastoral Center. Labor Guild director Allison Every gave a very stirring account of the history and importance of the Guild, which has trained over 50,000 people involved in union activity on the part of labor, management and arbitration in the 70 years since it was founded by Cardinal Cushing.