A new Archbishop for Hartford Connecticut

 

Archdiocese of Hartford 

At 6 AM local time (noon in Rome) today, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Archbishop Leonard P. Blair upon reaching the retirement age of 75. At the same time, the Most Reverend Christopher J. Coyne immediately assumed office as the sixth Archbishop and 14th Bishop of Hartford. Archbishop Coyne will address the people of the Archdiocese in a press conference at 10 AM today, where he will outline his vision for the Archdiocese, identifying initial specific goals and projects, as he begins his tenure as Archbishop of Hartford. Please join us here on Facebook or YouTube to watch Archbishop Coyne's remarks live.

American Bishop says the Church needs to relocate from Rome

 

New Hartford prelate advises moving church’s HQ out of Rome

By John Lavenburg

Nov 21, 2023

NEW YORK – In a local television interview, the new archbishop-in-waiting of the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, said that if there was one thing he would suggest to Pope Francis to change it would be to move the Church’s headquarters out of Rome, as the Church is “too Roman.”

“I’d say get it out of Italy. Get it out of Rome. Put it wherever you need to. It’s too Roman,” Coyne told a reporter with WTNH News8.

“Because it’s Roman … it’s inbred in terms of the culture of that community there. [Pope Francis has] tried, and tried, and tried, to change the Roman ways, but you hit the Roman ways that have been a part of the tradition of the Church for years,” Coyne said.

“That would be the first thing I say [to Pope Francis]: ‘Is there any way we can move out of Rome and just kind of start over with a different bureaucracy?’” Coyne explained.

The interview aired Nov. 20. Coyne previously served as the bishop of Burlington, Vermont, and as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Indiana, before he was appointed to Hartford in June, 2023. He will replace Archbishop Leonard Blair of Hartford once Pope Francis accepts Blair’s resignation, presumably on his 75th birthday on April 12, 2024.

In the about eight-minute long interview, Coyne gave a sobering look on the archdiocese’s reality, saying that more churches will close in the future. He also addressed the topic of women’s role in the Church, saying that he envisions them having a larger role, and that someday he hopes he’ll have the opportunity to “ordain or name some deaconesses [women deacons].”

The Archdiocese of Hartford comprises 2,288 square miles in Connecticut. It has a total population of 1,926,810, of which 427,669 are Catholic. The archdiocese went through a reconfiguration process in 2017, which resulted in 26 churches closing outright, and 144 others merging into 59 new parishes, leaving the archdiocese with 186 parishes at the time.

However, the latest information on the archdiocese’s website says that the archdiocese has 117 parishes, suggesting more have closed since.

In the interview, Coyne was frank about the reality that more churches will close in the archdiocese, putting most of the onus on the faithful who have left their local churches in unsustainable situations.

“The problem is not that the church has abandoned, that the priest has abandoned, or that the archdiocese has abandoned. The people who used to be in the church have left the church,” Coyne said. Now, part of it is we were complacent. We weren’t kind of concerned about that until all of the sudden it became a problem. But I think in many instances when churches close it’s because there’s nobody there.

“So who walked away? Coyne continued. “I don’t want to make it look like I’m blaming the laity and the people who walked away, but if the numbers aren’t there you can’t sustain it.”

The archbishop, however, added that he has “no idea” how many will close.

“I know that there are a number of parishes that have combined, and they all have a huge number of buildings that there’s going to have to be decisions made about what buildings are maintained and which are not,” Coyne explained. “Schools, parish rectories, parish halls, and churches, and a lot of it depends on all sorts of factors so I have no idea.”

The reality of churches closing and a diminishing number of faithful connects directly to his stated goal when he takes over as archbishop, which is to evangelize. He noted that the American Church, particularly in the northeast, is “no longer the Church of the culture … a Church of the community in the sense that we have an automatic entrance into different walks of life.”

“We’re a missionary Church now. People don’t just come to our church,” Coyne said. “They don’t walk through the doors. In fact, most people are walking out of doors.”

To change that reality, Coyne said the Church has to evangelize one person and one family at a time. And to young people who have left the Church, he offered a message of welcome for their return.

“We have a place for you. That you’re always welcome. That when you come here it’s a non-judgmental zone,” Coyne said. “Yes, sometimes our message is hard to hear because it’s challenging, but we’re all on the way to salvation and we want to accompany each other on that way, growing in that life of holiness.”

Follow John Lavenburg on Twitter: @johnlavenburg

Hartford CT gets new co-adjutor Archbishop

 

Pope Francis Appoints Bishop Christopher Coyne as Coadjutor Archbishop of Hartford

WASHINGTON - Pope Francis has appointed Most Reverend Christopher J. Coyne, bishop of Burlington, as Coadjutor Archbishop of Hartford.

The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on June 26, 2023, by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States. Archbishop Leonard P. Blair is the current archbishop of Hartford, and the appointment as coadjutor archbishop confers on Bishop Coyne the right of succession for the Archdiocese of Hartford.

Bishop Coyne’s biography may be found here.

The Archdiocese of Hartford is comprised of 2,288 square miles in the State of Connecticut and has a total population of 1,926,810 of which 427,669, are Catholic.

One parish in Connecticut comprising 8 Catholic Churches to be named for the founder of the Knights of Columbus

 

8 New Haven Catholic churches to merge into Blessed Michael McGivney Parish next month

Meghan Friedmann
Staff writer

NEW HAVEN — While the city’s eight Roman Catholic churches will remain open for the foreseeable future, they will officially merge into one parish next month under a plan that the Archdiocese of Hartford set in motion in 2021.

Ultimately, leaders hope the change will create one united Catholic community in New Haven and help more successfully spread the Catholic faith, said the Rev. Ryan Lerner, who was named moderator of the citywide parish in December 2021.

On June 7, Archbishop Leonard Blair issued a decree formalizing the merger: as of July 1, the churches of Saint Michael, Saint Anthony, Saint Martin de Porres, Saint Stanislaus, Saints Aiden and Brendan, Saint Francis, Saint Mary and Saint Joseph will become part of the Blessed Michael McGivney Parish.

In the short term, churchgoers are unlikely to see major changes in their religious life, Lerner said. None of the churches is closing, he said, and there will not immediately be any major personnel changes.

Officials hope “to keep (the churches) open for as long as we can, but all of that always depends on the resources, and obviously that’s financial, property and facilities,” Lerner said.

Though July 1 marks the official date of the merger, Lerner said the transition will take longer. Once it is complete, the eight churches will share finances and operate under a single administration based at St. Mary’s Church on Hillhouse Avenue, according to Lerner.

Sacramental registers, records and historic documents also will be housed there, per Blair’s decree.

“It’s quite a process to bring everything together,” said Lerner. “That’s going to take time, you know, to sort out the civil aspects.”

The Church’s broader goal is to unite the faithful in New Haven.

“The biggest thing, the most important thing, the most challenging thing is to create a culture of unity,” Lerner said.

Catholicism is practiced in many different ways, he noted, and the communities within the city’s Roman Catholic Church are diverse.

New Haven, for example, is home to the St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church, one of the few historically Black Catholic churches in the region. Meanwhile, the fastest-growing group of worshippers in city churches is Latino, according to Lerner.

Next to Spanish and English, Polish is the most spoken language in New Haven’s Catholic community, he said.

With those factors in mind, three pastors are overseeing the merger, with Lerner guiding the conversation as moderator.

The other pastors are the Revs. Hector Rangel of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and Sebastian Kos of St. Stanislaus Parish, according to Lerner, who said Rangel speaks Spanish while Kos speaks Polish.

A decrease in Mass attendance, insufficient priestly personnel and the proximity of New Haven’s churches to one another were a few of the factors behind Blair’s decision to create a citywide parish, his decree says.

By pooling resources, Church leaders hope to set the archdiocese up for “a more vibrant future” and to increase “the number of people who are actually practicing the faith,” Lerner said.

“Bringing these (resources) together, we believe that we can … position ourselves to do the real work, you know, which is to spread the gospel, rather than managing the decline,” he said.

Eucharistic miracle in Connecticut investigation to get Vatican guidance

 

Hartford Archdiocese asks Vatican to investigate possible eucharistic miracle

By Joe Bukuras

Boston, Mass., May 4, 2023 / 16:00 pm

The Archdiocese of Hartford is appealing to the Vatican for guidance on how to proceed with its investigation of a possible eucharistic miracle at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Thomaston, Connecticut.

The referral is the first public update by the archdiocese since it was first reported in late March that Jesus, truly present in the holy Eucharist, appeared to multiply himself in the ciborium, typically a gold chalice that holds the eucharistic body of Christ. 

“Reports such as the alleged miracle in Thomaston require referral to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. The archdiocese has proceeded accordingly and will await a response in due time,” David Elliott, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told CNA Thursday.

It’s unclear how long the dicastery could take to respond to the archdiocese’s request, Elliott told CNA.

Since news of the possible eucharistic miracle spread, a number of pilgrims have flocked to the church where Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, was once the pastor.

On March 5 at the the conclusion of Mass, Father Joseph Crowley announced that a eucharistic minister witnessed something unexplainable as he was distributing Communion.

“One of our eucharistic ministers was running out of hosts and suddenly there were more hosts in the ciborium. God just duplicated himself in the ciborium,” an emotional Crowley told the faithful.

“It’s really, really cool when God does these things, and it’s really, really cool when we realize what he’s done, and it just happened today,” the priest said.

“Very powerful, very awesome, very real, very shocking. But also, it happens, and today it happened,” he said.

“They were running out of hosts and all of a sudden more hosts were there. So today not only did we have the miracle of the Eucharist, we also had a bigger miracle. It’s pretty cool,” the priest said.

On March 28, the Archdiocese of Hartford put out a statement saying: “As people of faith we know that miracles can and do happen, as they did during Christ’s earthly ministry. Miracles are divine signs calling us to faith or to deepen our faith.”

“Roman Catholics experience a daily miracle because every time Mass is celebrated what was bread becomes the Body of Christ and what was wine becomes his Blood,” the statement said.

“Through the centuries this daily miracle has sometimes been confirmed by extraordinary signs from Heaven, but the Church is always careful to investigate reports of such signs with caution, lest credence is given to something that proves to be unfounded,” the statement continued.

“What has been reported to have occurred at our parish church in Thomaston, of which Blessed Michael McGivney was once pastor, if verified, would constitute a sign or wonder that can only be attributed to divine power to strengthen our faith in the daily miracle of the Most Holy Eucharist. It would also be a source of blessing from Heaven for the effort that the U.S. bishops are making to renew and deepen the faith and practice of our Catholic people with regard to this great Sacrament,” the statement said.