2024 Year in Review

By The Catholic Free Press

Our shepherds: Life, legacy and leadership
The year 2024 brought both celebration and loss. In February, Bishop McManus celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination as a bishop which started as an auxillary in Providence, Rhode Island and in May, he commemorated his 20th anniversary as bishop of the Diocese of Worcester.
      Just a month later, his predecessor, Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly, fourth bishop of the Diocese of Worcester, passed away on June 18 at the age of 96. Both bishops were celebrated for their gifts as leaders shared in the diocese. The Catholic Free Press also took a look into how the diocese has changed and evolved throughout the last two decades. In the year ahead, we anticipate the opening of Jubilee 2025 which Pope Francis has declared a year of hope.


JANUARY
                 
To launch the annual Partners in Charity appeal, the diocese’s Office of Stewardship and Development took a new approach. They held launch gatherings from January to February at different sites around the diocese. There was a meal and an opportunity for donors to meet representatives from the 25 different agencies and ministries that Partners’ supports.

St. Andrew Bobola Parish in Dudley began discerning the establishment of a shrine in honor of its patron, in an effort to survive, grow and promote Christian unity and perseverance. Efforts at the parish throughout the year included retreats in both Polish and English, guest presentations, Mass and adoration and a traveling statue of the patron, among other things.

Supporters marched for life in Washington D.C. and around the diocese for the 50th annual March for Life held on Jan. 19. Home-schooled students stood with adults on the sidewalk in Webster that day, holding respect life signs. Their prayer and public witness were ways of being in solidarity with people who were participating in the March for Life in Washington, D.C., that day. The previous night, other students and adults attended Mass at St. Paul Cathedral in Worcester, before boarding buses for the march.

The diocesan African Ministry focus for the year was on the Eucharist and unity in preparation for celebrations of the ministry’s 25th anniversary, which culminate in June 2025. The theme for 2024 is: “We, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf” (1 Cor 10:17).
 
As National Catholic Schools Week approached, David Perda, superintendent for the Worcester Diocese, reported that “the state of the schools is very good.” The theme of the week (Jan. 28 - Feb. 3 this year) was “Catholic Schools: United in Faith and Community.”

Massachusetts Citizens for Life announced the launch of APRScience.org, the first and only website dedicated to the analysis and dissemination of Abortion Pill Rescue (APR) medical evidence.

FEBRUARY

A seventh grader from All Saints Academy in Webster, Matthew Monticelli, was recognized at the 30th annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Jan. 13 held at Worcester State University. Students in grades 7-12 were invited to write a poem based on Dr. King’s dream of equality for all.
 
World Marriage Day and National Marriage Week USA “provide[d] an opportunity for the Catholic Church to focus on and celebrate the vocation to marriage and family life,” the USCCB website said. The theme for the week was “Love Beyond Words.” Among local events, though not connected with these celebrations was a Valentine’s Dance sponsored by the Marriage Mentors group of St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish in Clinton.

George DiLorenzo was hired as the director of the Diocesan Cemeteries Office, and started Feb. 5 after the position had been vacant since November 2023. He was facilities manager for St. John’s in Clinton, and superintendent of its cemetery, for more than nine years.
 
Father Walter J. Riley, 63, pastor of St. Anne Parish in Shrewsbury at the time, passed away suddenly on Feb. 9. Whether it was a confirmation class game or an unexpected sick call, Father Walter J. Riley was there for people, those who knew him recalled. Many expressed great sadness but also gratitude for his character, humor, deep faith and love of the priesthood.

At the Rite of Election Feb. 18 at St. Paul Cathedral, people from 41 parishes, the College of the Holy Cross and Worcester Polytechnic Institute who were to receive sacraments at the Easter Vigil in their respective parishes were present. There were 145 catechumens (unbaptized people), 114 candidates who were baptized Catholic and are completing their initiation, and 20 candidates who were baptized in other Christian traditions and are becoming Catholics.

Bishop McManus was ordained as Titular Bishop of Allegheny and Auxiliary Bishop of Providence on February 22, 1999. To commemorate his 25 years as a bishop, he sat down with The Catholic Free Press and told the story of what happened when he learned of his appointment by Pope John Paul II as if it was yesterday.

An estimated 300 Hispanics gathered from several parishes were shown connections between their activities and the annual Partners in Charity appeal at a gathering at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Worcester on Feb. 25.

MARCH

St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School hockey team showed resilience by winning the Central Mass. crown after they had lost their regular-season finale to Blackstone Valley Tech, 3-1 on Feb. 14, in a game that determined the Russell Conference championship.

A Lenten retreat for Brazilian youth was held at St. Joseph and St. Stephen Parish in Worcester. About 340 participants came from several states on March 2 and on March 3, about 280 attended. In addition, there were 80 helpers.
 
Theology on Tap hosted by the diocese’s Youth and Young Adult Ministry returned on March 12, at Joey’s Bar & Grill  in Worcester. Father Donato Infante, director of the Office for Vocations, spoke about “Living Lent.”      

St. Bernard Elementary School in Fitchburg was granted continued accreditation until 2033, by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges after an extensive review process.

More than 800 participants from at least five dioceses and 85 vendors at 50 tables were drawn to the 23rd annual Worcester Diocesan Catholic Men’s Conference, held March 16 at the DCU Center.
The St. John’s middle school boys basketball team in Shrewsbury and two other teams from St. Leo School in Leominster and Our Lady of the Valley Regional Elementary School in Uxbridge represented the Diocese of Worcester in the Catholic Youth Organization New England Regional tournament. St. John’s captured the championship win.    
 
Priests of the diocese celebrating significant anniversaries of their ordination were recognized at the Chrism Mass on March 26 at St. Paul Cathedral.

After more than 4,000 inmates escaped from prison after being freed by gangs attacking state institutions in Haiti in early March, local parishes and organizations continued their support.
 
After 25 years of service, Margaret M. Russell retired as executive editor of The Catholic Free Press on March 31 – Easter Sunday. She said it was a fitting time to retire, as Easter symbolizes new life.    
APRIL

A solar eclipse on April 8 got Catholic school students looking up and they ‘lived’ what they learned in the classroom about the event.

The diocese’s annual Mass for Life was celebrated by Bishop McManus on April 8 at St. Paul Cathedral in Worcester. Groups from Catholic schools around the diocese attended and the bishop presented awards to locals active in pro-life work.

On April 10, superintendent of Catholic schools, David Perda, announced that Bishop McManus appointed Father José F. Carvajal as the new head of school at St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School effective July 1. This came after an earlier announcement that Michael Clark was to step down at the end of June.
 
Father Jonathan J. Slavinskas received the Madonna Della Strada Award from the New England Regional Council of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps in Boston on April 21.
   
The Diocese of Worcester Catholic Committee on Scouting announced the 2024 adult recipients of their annual Catholic scouting awards that were received at a Mass celebrated by Bishop McManus on April 27.

 The Diocese of Worcester released its annual report for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2023. In his management letter, Bishop McManus acknowledged that continuing deficits have reduced available funds to “critically low levels,” he wrote. “As a result, following recommendations of the diocesan Finance Committee, we are taking significant and often difficult steps towards running on a balanced budget.”

Visitation House’s annual dinner on April 27 at the College of the Holy Cross drew 350 people, 100 more than last year, and raised $95,000 to support mothers and babies.

MAY

The Catholic Free Press published a special supplement to commemorate Bishop McManus’ 20 years as the fifth bishop of Worcester. He was installed on May 14, 2004. Since that time, the diocese has changed demographically and structurally for numerous reasons, but one thing has remained a constant for the people of the Catholic Church in the diocese – that is, faith in Jesus Christ.

Adopt-A-Student’s annual recognition reception, held May 8 at St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School, raised money for scholarships for students in the diocesan schools: St. Paul’s and St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School.
 
McGee Toyota donated $40,000 to Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Webster for a needed new floor.

 On May 18, Bishop McManus ordained John Anthony McManamon and James Clement Guillette, permanent deacons, and Jonathan Elliot Amidon and Zachary Tyler Sullivan, who are preparing for the priesthood, as transitional deacons at St. Paul Cathedral.

Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Worcester celebrated its 75th anniversary with the universal Church’s birthday, Bishop McManus compared attendance of the past and present, spoke of praying for a new Pentecost and challenged listeners to invite others to Mass.

Joonho Kim, a 2024 graduate of St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School, recorded the highest score in the nation in the Catholic Math League’s advanced math competition this year.
 
St. Joan of Arc Parish in Worcester inaugurated its 75th anniversary May 26 with a standing-room-only Mass celebrated by Bishop McManus, who also broke ground for a Marian shrine.
In response to the three-year National Eucharistic Revival movement, St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish in Clinton hosted Eucharistic activities including a a procession, an exhibit featuring first-class relics of the patrons of the revival Blessed Carlo Acutis and St. Manuel Gonzalez Garcia. Other parishes also planned events around the feast of Corpus Christi.

JUNE

Fathers Luke A. Johnson and Stephen J. Mullaney were ordained priests of the diocese at St. Paul Cathedral on June 1.
 
Bishop McManus announced the transfers of some priests in the diocese, that became effective July 1. Msgr. Francis J. Scollen and Father Terence T. Kilcoyne were retirees.

North American Martys Parish in Auburn held a dinner and dance June 14 in the parish hall as a fundraiser to help pay for the restoration and installation of a painting of the parish’s patrons.        
Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly, 96, the fourth bishop of Worcester, passed away peacefully at 8:10 p.m. on June 18. Bishop Reilly was a priest for 71 years and a bishop for 49 years. He served as the fourth bishop of Worcester from Dec. 1994 to March 2004 and served as bishop emeritus until his passing. He was remembered fondly for his service to the Church and the people of the diocese.
 
The Massachusetts Catholic bishops urged state residents to tell their legislators they oppose physician-assisted suicide through a bulletin insert.
 
St. Anne and St. Patrick Parish in Fiskdale held an unveiling and blessing of the Memorial for the Unborn at St. Anne Shrine on the parish grounds. The unveiling and blessing of the memorial followed a Mass on June 26.

 A festival was held at St. Paul Cathedral for the parish community on June 30, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. In addition to activities there was food from Africa, seven Latin American countries and the United States, as well as Ecuadorian, El Salvadoran and Dominican dancing.

JULY

Material has been digitized as part of The Deaf Catholic Archives at the College of the Holy Cross and can be found at crossworks.holycross.edu/dca. The whole archives, of which Jesuit Father Joseph Bruce is founder and curator, is available to the public at Dinand Library on the Worcester college campus.

Anna Maria College announced the upcoming retirement of President Mary Lou Retelle in a press release on July 16. Her retirement will be effective at the close of the 2024-2025 academic year.
 
Local Catholics attended the July 17-21 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana.

It was announced that St. Ann Parish in the North Oxford section of Oxford will be merged into St. Roch Parish in Oxford Sept. 1. St. Roch’s campus will be used, and efforts will be made to sell St. Ann’s.

FOCUS missionaries, “Team Worcester,” came to the diocese to minister to students from Worcester State University and Quinsigamond Community College. Father Derek A. Mobilio, chaplain, said, “They’re going to enter into students’ lives and invite them into a relationship with Christ.”

Timothy Messenger, director of the Worcester diocese’s Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, for the first time brought a group of 41 youth and adult leaders to a Steubenville youth conference in Ohio.

AUGUST

Bishop McManus announced that St. Brigid and Our Lady of the Assumption parishes of Millbury were to form a new parish called St. Brigid and Our Lady of the Assumption on Sept. 1. The assets and liabilities of both parishes are to be merged into this new parish, which will have guardianship of their sacramental records.    
 
The Bishop George Rueger Memorial Adopt-A-Student Golf Tournament was held at Wachusett Country Club in West Boylston on Aug. 26. It raised scholarship money to help students attend St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School and St. Peter Central Catholic Elementary School.

Surrounded by family and friends at Notre Dame Long Term Care and Rehabilitation Center in Worcester on Monday, Father Theodore R. Laperle, a retired priest of the diocese, celebrated his 100th birthday Aug. 12.
 
St. Augustine Church in Millville was sold on Aug. 23 to Muhammad Quandil and Sadaf Ali of North Attleboro and was purchased for $675,000. The sale included the church with an attached parish center, a separate rectory building and a parking lot. St. Augustine’s and St. Theresa Church in Blackstone closed on June 30, 2022, when the parishes merged with St. Paul Parish of Blackstone to form Divine Mercy Parish at St. Paul Church.

The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur opened their 175th anniversary celebrations Aug. 24 at Notre Dame du Lac assisted living on Plantation Street in Worcester.  

Holy Name of Jesus House of Studies at 51 Illinois St., in Worcester where many seminarians have lived since 2007, officially closed Aug. 31. The building is to be sold.

The Marie Anne Center at Our Lady of Providence Parish in Worcester closed on Aug. 31. Major services of the 23-year-old center were the after-school and summer programs for young people, and English as a second language classes for adults.

The annual Partners in Charity appeal that closed Aug. 31,  raised $4,881,164 this year, 98 percent of its $5 million goal, the highest amount since the 2018 total of $5,076,252.

SEPTEMBER

Robert F. Foley, St. John’s High School’s basketball coach announced his retirement after 44 years on Sept. 3.

Paul L. C. DeBeasi, of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Milford, learned Sept. 6 that he won the Catholic Medical Association’s 2024 Linacre Quarterly Award for a research paper on the abortion reversal pill.

On Sept. 14, at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., about 7,000 people from more than 50 Brazilian communities, including in the diocese, celebrated the enthronement of the statue of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil’s patroness.

On Saturday, Sept. 21, medical students at UMass Chan Medical School volunteered their time at a free training program on lifesaving techniques using hands-only CPR and AEDs at St. Anne Parish in Southborough.
 
“The Last Things” series began in The Catholic Free Press. The 10-week series explained Catholic teaching on death and burial to serve as a practical means for planning responses to illness and death.

Msgr. Francis D. Kelly, a retired priest of the Worcester Diocese, received one of the second annual Pacem in Terris Awards from Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston Sept. 25.

A “huge” lesson in caring for creation was brought to St. Bernard Elementary School Sept. 27. The lesson came through – and inside – a 65-foot inflatable model of Ladder, a fin whale.

OCTOBER

The centrality of God, significance of saints and sanctity of life were highlighted at the Worcester Catholic Women’s Conference at St. Joseph Basilica and school in Webster Oct. 5. The day of prayer, talks and exhibits of ministries and items for sale, drew about 320 attendees and about 70 exhibitors from around New England.

Bishop McManus sent a letter to priests of the Diocese of Worcester, Oct. 10, encouraging them to share a fact sheet with their parishioners about ballot Question 4 concerning the legalization of some psychedelics in Massachusetts.

The St. Thomas More Society of Worcester County honored people in service to the legal field at its 66th annual Red Mass on Oct. 27.
 
The 11th annual Celebrate Priesthood! – Taste of the Diocese Gala was held on Oct. 26 at St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School. The event raised over $310,000, the most ever and this year, the number of gifts doubled.

Francis R. Carroll, a business and civic leader whose philanthropy stretched from war-ravaged Korea and Vietnam to Worcester’s neediest neighborhoods, died on Oct. 29.

Anna Maria College, Assumption University and the College of the Holy Cross announced new financial aid policies to make themselves more accessible.

NOVEMBER

Mercy Centre, an entity of Catholic Charities Worcester County, currently located at 25 West Chester St. in Worcester, announced that they are slated to relocate to 216 West Boylston St. in West Boylston in early 2025.

About 200 people from at least 20 parishes attended a Youth Rally at Anna Maria College Nov. 3 hosted by the diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

Locals joined in prayer for the country and for peace on election day, Nov. 5.

Pianist Olga Rogach and baritone Ron Williams held a free concert at Christ the King Parish in Worcester Nov. 8. They called it an “informance” rather than a performance because they planned to inform the audience while they performed African American spirituals.

The legacy of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated at a 150th anniversary Mass and reception Nov. 17, and hope was expressed for their ongoing influence, despite changes in religious life. Over the years the sisters staffed schools and served in other capacities.

 Twenty-one grants totaling $31,200 were awarded to local agencies fighting poverty by Bishop McManus in the Chancery on Nov. 18.
 
Composer Francesca LaRosa led an annual mini-retreat sponsored by the Commission for Women of the Diocese of Worcester Nov. 16 at St. Anne Parish in Shrewsbury. A major theme was the challenge of surrendering to God.
 
The final, regularly scheduled Mass at St. Philip Church of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Grafton was held Nov. 23 as preparations are made to sell the church.

DECEMBER

 The Worcester 6 were remembered Dec. 3, the 25th anniversary of the Worcester Cold Storage Fire. “The fact that they’re not forgotten,” Father Johnathan J. Slavinskas, Fire Department chaplain said, “speaks volumes to the way in which the city of Worcester bonds together to show that they truly do support those who are putting their lives on the line every day.”

Bishop McManus invited all churches with bells in the Diocese of Worcester to join Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris by ringing them on Dec. 7 at 2 p.m., when the two-day reopening ceremonies began, 5-and-a-half years after a fire damaged the iconic cathedral.
 
Sally Jablonski, a member of St. John Parish and owner of Herbert E. Berg Florist Inc. both in Worcester talked about her experience decorating the White House for Christmas.
 
Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in West Boylston declined to press charges against a man who stole donations from a prayer box in the church.

Celtics legend Bob Cousy, 96, spoke with The Catholic Free Press about his Catholic faith and connections in the diocese of Worcester.

As Our Lady of the Valley Regional Elementary School in Uxbridge celebrated its 60th anniversary this year, Bishop McManus visited the school and celebrated Mass in the church on Dec. 9.

Bishop McManus blessed new shrines and paintings at Divine Mercy Parish in Blackstone Dec. 15, which was formed in 2022 from the merger of St. Paul and St. Theresa parishes in Blackstone  and St. Augustine Parish in Millville. The new artwork brings together elements of each church.