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Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., has shared the following prayer request with the faithful of the Diocese of Trenton: Please pray for all those who have died or have been injured in the recent winter storms, especially in Texas. We pray especially for those whose homes have been destroyed or who are without power and heat and for first responders who are offering assistance to those with urgent needs. In our Lenten almsgiving, let us find concrete ways to help our brothers and sisters. Let us entrust them in prayer to Our Blessed Mother Mary and St. Joseph.

Catholic schools in the Diocese of Trenton will take part in the national observance of Catholic Schools Week, slated for Jan. 31 through Feb. 6. Now in its 47th year, Catholic Schools Week is an opportunity to highlight the value of a Catholic school education and focus on some of the exemplary programs underway in our schools.  The 2021 theme “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service,” reflects all that is essential for forming intelligent and faithful citizens for the future.

Members of the Catholic community and people of good will across the nation will observe a Day of Prayer and Fasting for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children Jan. 22, the 48th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the United States.

The Diocesan Chancery/Pastoral Center Building is closed through Feb. 1

Pope Francis has urged people to register and take a COVID vaccine as soon as possible, revealing in a new interview that he expects to get his own first dose this week. "I believe that, morally, everyone must take the vaccine … because it is about your life but also the lives of others." 

In the last 15 years, Trenton Catholic Academy’s Upper and Lower Schools in Hamilton Township have built a strong legacy in the areas of academics, athletics, faith formation and service to the community. With limited funding and resources, the pre-K3 through 12th grade school has successfully served tens of thousands of students from diverse ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, aided significantly through diocesan subsidy and a specially-established fund, as well as a strong network of benefactors, community partners and supporters of its mission.

Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., invites the faithful from the Diocese of Trenton and beyond to pray with him a Novena to St. Joseph to End Abortion.

Catholic parishes across the Diocese of Trenton are preparing to welcome hundreds of thousands of the faithful to in-person and virtual Christmas Masses in commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ this year.

Many individuals who belong to a Catholic parish or have attended a Catholic school readily recall a religious sister or brother who had a profoundly positive impact on their spiritual journey. Very often, these sisters and brothers are fixtures in their communities, fulfilling an array of different roles and responsibilities. 

Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving Nov. 14 at 10:30 a.m. in St. Robert Bellarmine Co-Cathedral, Freehold, in commemoration of the Beatification of Father Michael J. McGivney.  Now named Blessed Michael McGivney, the priest was beatified in Hartford, Connecticut Oct. 31. The Mass in the Diocese of Trenton is by invitation only due to COVID restrictions but will be accessible to the public through a livestream video. 

As Bishop of the Diocese of Trenton, I invite and encourage all the clergy, consecrated religious and lay faithful to join together with me in praying this “Novena for the United States of America” from Monday, October 26 through Election Day, November 3, 2020.

The COVID pandemic will not take away Christmas 2020!  It will, however, change the way we celebrate it, especially in our churches and parishes, if current circumstances continue as they are or worsen.  Because COVID is a highly contagious airborne virus, the prospect of large (or larger than usual) crowds gathering  indoors this winter for long periods of time without ample ventilation and proper social distancing, as well as the necessity to sanitize churches between Masses, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Mass schedules will be affected, especially in parishes where there is only a single pastor or priest assigned.  The COVID pandemic’s maximum one-third occupancy restrictions in churches coupled with the need for social distancing will limit the space available for parishioners to attend Christmas Mass as usual.  Church schedules will also have to accommodate required cleaning.

When the dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation issued by bishops for their dioceses during the COVID pandemic is finally lifted – and it will be – Catholics will be required again to “return to church.”  Canon law defines “dispensation” as a “relaxation of a merely ecclesiastical law in a particular case” that “can be granted by those who possess executive power (canon 85).”  The Mass obligation referred to above is an “ecclesiastical law” presented in the 1983 Code of Canon Law: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in Mass (canon 1247).”  Its history is much older than that.

The Catholic Church believes and teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. For that reason, we, the Bishops of each of the dioceses in New Jersey, join in voicing the strongest possible opposition to the “Reproductive Freedom Act.”

We have been informed of an equipment breakdown at Evergreen Printing, which has resulted in a printing and mailing delay of The Monitor Magazine’s September issue.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the domestic anti-poverty program of the United States Catholic Bishops, works to break the cycle of poverty in America by helping low-income people participate in decisions that affect their lives, families and communities, on local and national levels.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, issued the annual Labor Day statement on rebuilding after the devastation of the global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus.

Church leaders have called upon the faithful to remember in prayer several crises that continue to bring suffering to individuals and nations. The Diocese of Trenton echoes this call and encourages its community to pray the Rosary in support of the need for solidarity and racial justice and in response to Bishop David M. O’Connell’s Aug. 17 invitation to his flock to pray the Rosary with him daily for the needs of the nation.

Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., issued this appeal to his flock Sept. 1:  Hurricane Laura has wreaked havoc in Louisiana and Texas, and devastating families, damaging and destroying homes and churches.  Here in New Jersey we are quite familiar with such experiences.  I invite you to consider contributing a gift to help rebuild and restore the lives of our affected sisters and brothers and their families through these dioceses or their Catholic Charities agencies.

The weekend of Sept. 5-6 has been designated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for the annual national second collection taken for The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. The faithful of the Diocese of Trenton are asked to generously support the collection as they are able when it is taken in all parishes this weekend.