As a year unlike any other in our personal, societal, or liturgical lives comes to a close, the friars of Holy Cross—Saint John the Baptist parish extend our gratitude to...

Remembering and celebrating the lives of those in our community who died homeless. Jerrod Sanders sings Amazing Grace in their honor.

And the Word became flesh. And pitched a tent among us. Here. In the midst of the perishing embers of the year 2020 – accosted by a venomous virus hunting and haunting an overwhelmed planet.

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction— This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.


Preparation for Christmas is an important theme for Advent, but more is involved. Advent affords a vision for our lives and reveals profound possibilities in our lives. The vision of life that Advent bequeaths us is twofold – a glance back to the ?irst coming of Christ in Bethlehem, and a gaze forward to the future coming of Christ. Stretched between these two, we live into life’s adventure, lured by the grace of G-D.

A rather common question we ask of one another – sometimes spoken, others not. When you think about it, we spend a good deal of our time waiting – a fact reinforced during this season of crowded lines at checkout counters that seem to elicit all the least delightful behaviors of which we humans are capable. Those who spend their lives analyzing such things (who are these people anyway?) suggest that, over the course of a lifetime, our waiting includes...

The enduring call to love, a pastoral letter against racism.

The season of Advent opens for us yet another new liturgical year. An opportunity to join the community of believers gathered to search the scripturesand recline at table with the One whose light no darkness can overpower. This Advent, our Sunday assemblies welcome the towering figure of Isaiah of Jerusalem, visionary and prophet. He bears a word of hope and transformation for a people profoundly preoccupied in a tense time crowded with competing kingdoms...

"To come out of this pandemic better than we went in, we must let ourselves be touched by others’ pain."

We turn to you again to help us give Christmas gifts to the less fortunate children in our community. Please take a tag from the Gift Tree, it will specify the age and gender of a child in need.

Thanksgiving is the time of the year when we, as individuals, families, a nation, and faith communities come together to give thanks to the Lord for the many blessings He has given us. It is also the time when we look to give something back to those in need. For over a century, Catholic Charities has been serving all New Yorkers in need by providing a range of services that provide help and create hope for the most vulnerable among us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Irish-born Archbishop John Hughes created Manhattan’s Holy Cross Parish in 1852 to serve the thousands of Irish Catholics moving north of lower Manhattan into what became known as Longacre Square (later Times Square) and the developing neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. Holy Cross maintained a strong Irish American identity into the mid twentieth century and its path charted the transformation of the disciplined folk piety created by the “devotional Revolution” in Ireland in the nineteenth century into an American Catholicism dominated by Irish-American clergy that sought to defend communalistic Catholic distinctiveness amid the rapid urban growth and burgeoning individualistic capitalism of an historically Protestant nation.

Last September, I asked Judge Barbara Jones, a much-respected former Federal Judge and prosecutor, to review, evaluate, and recommend improvements to the Archdiocese of New York’s response to the sexual abuse crisis that has been confronting our Church. Now, after an intense year in which Judge Jones and her team have conducted an exhaustive examination of our policies, procedures, and protocols, a complete review of every priest file, and held countless hours of interviews with archdiocesan staff, including me, Judge Jones has provided me with a summary of her findings and recommendations.

One of the oldest churches in Manhattan, Saint John the Baptist is the second Catholic Church built by German immigrants.  The first, St. Nicholas Church, had been erected in 1836 to serve the Lower East Side. Those living farther north on the West Side were eager to have their own church, where Mass would be said in their native language. In 1840, a small wooden church was constructed on 30th street near Seventh Avenue and was known as the German Roman Catholic Church of St. John.

The pandemic and resulting economic impact have dramatically reduced the number of parents who can afford to make tuition payments for the upcoming school year. Two weeks ago, I shared the sad news that 20 of our schools, already facing soaring deficits, would not be able to re-open this Fall due to steep declines in enrollment. Without assistance to our parents and children from the Federal government, many more of our Catholic schools may have to close permanently. These closures will harm thousands of students from our archdiocese, and across the nation.

As part of it's pastoral mission to promote ethical and responsible citizenship, the Church is a voice advocating for free, fair, and transparent elections throughout Africa. |  Como parte de su misión pastoral para promover una ciudadanía ética y responsable, la Iglesia es una voz que aboga por elecciones libres, justas y transparentes en toda África.

On this July, the fourth weekend, we do well to consider how yoked we have become – individually and as a nation – to arrangements, assumptions, actions and antagonisms that hinder and destabilize our historic challenge to “build a more perfect union.” In celebrating Independence Day, we do well to reflect upon the Declaration of Independence written in 1776:

Even amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the United States in recent days has experienced profound reminders of the legacies of its interconnected histories of lynching and brutal, racially disparate policing, histories that span American regions. In February, several white men in Glynn County, Georgia, shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African American jogger whom they claimed may have committed burglary. Local authorities initially failed to charge Travis and Gregory McMichael in Arbery’s death. After media coverage and national scrutiny, Georgia authorities brought charges in May against the McMichaels and a third man, William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., who had filmed Arbery’s killing.

Ten years ago, things weren’t looking so great for this organ. Holy Cross was ramping up to start a massive redecorating project. At the last minute, contractors decided that the organ had to be removed. When we removed its hundreds of components from what was to have been short-term storage, we found that more than the original water damage was now visible.

On June 24th, 2020, our parish of Holy Cross—St. John the Baptist celebrates one of our two patronal feasts. This represents 180 years of life and mission in the Roman Catholic tradition, as the first eucharist at St. John the Baptist church was celebrated on the 28th of June in the year 1840. A multi-generational witness in the heart of Manhattan to the light coming into the world.