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Empty pews due to COVID-19 have meant empty collection baskets for churches throughout the region. Our Lady of Mount Carmel might be the first casualty. Since the merger of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Immaculate Conception into one parish — St. Teresa of Calcutta — in 2016, the parish has worked to build one community but with two worship sites. O...

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In the shadow of the City of Buffalo’s Art Deco City Hall at the beginning of Court Street you will find an impressive symbol of the past and present heritage of the Italian/American community in Buffalo and WNY. Surrounded by modern buildings and parking lots is St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church ‘The Mother Church of the Italian American...

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It felt like a Prohibition-era moment. Investigators from multiple law enforcement agencies descended on the The Mount Carmel Society social club in the South End without warning in the late afternoon of Aug. 15, 2019. They were armed and in great numbers, according to witnesses, quizzing employees and board members about their alcohol inventory. “...

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland says that the St. Peter’s Italian Bazaar, scheduled for August, has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bazaar is scheduled to return in 2021.

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New England’s largest Italian festival, hosted in Boston’s North End, has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. After consulting with the city, representatives of St. Anthony’s Society made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 Saint Anthony and Saint Lucy Feast. “For over 100 years, Saint Anthony’s Feast has celebrated faith, family,...

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Italy's government and Roman Catholic bishops signed an agreement on Thursday to allow the faithful to attend Masses again from later this month, ending a standoff between the Church and state over the coronavirus lockdown. The government banned attendance at Masses in early March, part of its prohibition on gatherings as it sought to prevent the s...

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Back in the early 1800s, at the height of the age of yellow fever, New Orleanians didn’t know anything about social distancing. They didn’t know anything about N95 masks. They really didn’t even know anything about germs. They did know that people were dying, and that something was causing it. Maybe it was bad air, or “miasma,” as it was known. Or...

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While governments around the world enact strict measures to attempt to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, people without a fixed home or living in extreme poverty remain stranded in deserted cities. “Right now, the homeless continue to be homeless,” Pope Francis said an interview with his biographer Austen Ivereigh published Wednesday (A...

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Mosaics are amazing in Ravenna. Women and their influence are scenes in the Byzantine mosaics. “Women never betrayed their identity as guardians of life, because none of them has been an accomplice to the crucifixion of Jesus (not even Pilate’s wife),” explained Lorenzo Ghizzoni, Archbishop of Ravenna-Cervia. “They had the courage to remain at the...

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The strangest people find the strangest kind of fame in crisis. Take Saint Corona. She’s a curious saint who was all but forgotten by the Church. She’s what we refer to as an “obscure” saint. I don’t know where in heaven the saints live, but she’s on the outskirts and, while I’m sure her house would be a mansion to us, it’s probably a shack to the...

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