The Long Island Catholic and Telecare both accompanied the 130 pilgrims of the Diocese of Rockville Centre who came to Rome to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of our diocese. In this issue of The Long Island Catholic, as well as on its Web site, you will find many articles and pictures that have to do with that pilgrimage. I urge everyone to read these articles and to take a good look at the pictures that accompany them. They are a vivid testimony to the extraordinary moments of grace and the great benefits of the week of prayer that we pilgrims in Rockville Centre shared together in Rome. Similarly, Telecare worked indefatigably to develop programs that will be televised in the weeks and months to come that reflect the important moments of this very beautiful pilgrimage.

There were so many moments that touched the hearts of us all and others that touched some of us in ways that we cannot even describe adequately during this week that was spent celebrating the gifts that God has given to us in these past 50 years as a diocese on Long Island. Certainly Mass on Wednesday morning at the altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, at which Bishop Dunne reflected so beautifully on the unity of the Church, was a particularly important time. To have the whole basilica to ourselves in the quiet of the early morning was a moving experience. To be able from there to go out into the square for the weekly audience with the Holy Father brought things into a very deep and profoundly serene moment. It is always exciting to be in the presence of men and women of faith who have come to Rome to see the pope. Our pilgrims were on the sagrata, which means the threshold of the Basilica on the same level as the Holy Father himself. They could look directly at him as he came to us and spoke about St. Jerome, one of the great Doctors of the Church. The pilgrimage was announced by Msgr. William Mellea of the Diocese of Bridgeport. The Holy Father, as a special gesture of his love for the diocese, himself spoke of and welcomed our pilgrimage celebrating our golden jubilee. After the audience, it is customary for the Holy Father to greet the bishops individually. Because we Americans tend to do everything very promptly and in good order, Bishops Dunne, Walsh, Libasci and myself were in the first four chairs of the bishops gathered around the pope. It gave me great privilege and honor to present to Pope Benedict XVI the three auxiliary bishops of our diocese. The Holy Father reached out to each one with paternal words of affection and fraternal encouragement which touched our lives and reaffirmed us as bishops who have been sent by him to serve you, the People of God here on Long Island.

Msgr. James McNamara, who did an extraordinary job in organizing this pilgrimage, had suggested some time ago that we have Mass at the four basilicas and that at each basilica we would reflect on one of the four marks of the Church. As I already mentioned, Bishop Dunne spoke about the unity of the Church at St. Peter’s. The day before, Bishop Paul Walsh led us in reflection on the holiness of the Church as we gathered in the Chapel of St. Mary Major, dedicated to Mary salus populi romani, the salvation of the Roman people. Before that icon, which tradition attributes to St. Luke, we offered Mass and were moved by the invitation Bishop Walsh gave us to deepen our own desire for holiness even as we rejoiced in the gift of holiness that is Christ’s gift to His Church. A few days later at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, it was my turn to reflect upon the apostolicity of the Church.

What I wanted to emphasize was the great truth that the Father sent the Son, and thus the word apostle comes originally from that act of the Father of sending His Son into the world that He might redeem us all. In turn, it is Jesus who sends the first apostles and their successors, the bishops, to the places where they come to serve the People of God. The Holy Father is the instrument of that sending of bishops to every Church. For us in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, it gives us a very clear connection between the Church of Rome and the Church of Long Island. It was the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, who sent me to be the bishop of this wonderful diocese, just as Pius XII sent Bishop Kellenberg, Paul VI sent Bishop McGann and John Paul II sent Bishop McHugh. This sense of sending is what we too share because we all are called by baptism, each in his or her own way, to be apostles to be sent by the God who called us to witness God’s love to the world.

At St. John Lateran, Bishop Libasci looked at the fourth mark of the Church, which is its catholicity. There, in the Cathedral Church of the pope himself, Bishop Libasci began with those wonderful words of St. John, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” That Word is intended, Bishop Libasci reminded us, to become incarnate for all humankind. The Church is Catholic in its very essence because the Church is a continuation of the commitment of the Son of God to all of humankind making us the one family of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.

Our final full day brought us to Sunday Mass at St. Agnes in the Piazza Navona. To be there at the very spot where our patroness was martyred in the year 304 was a very moving moment for us all. The pastor, who is a long-time friend of mine, has done a magnificent job of restoring, refreshing and cleaning this church, which goes back to the 1600s. It is a beautiful piece of baroque architecture in which St. Agnes is properly honored as the daughter of Rome and as the mother of our Church in Rockville Centre. As pilgrims, we rejoice to reaffirm our love for her and to ask for her intercession that, as in the past 50 years, so in the next 50 and beyond that, she will continue to watch over us, guide us and protect us.

One would have to have been with us to catch the spirit of this pilgrimage. The hearts and minds of all those who participated were opened always to the promptings of God. There was a great spirit of fellowship and fraternity among us all. Before we had gone on pilgrimage, I talked of a mantra that I have used in many other pilgrimages which is to remind people that “this is a pilgrimage not a vacation, and when we are on pilgrimage we never complain about anything because it is a pilgrimage, not a vacation.” This mantra works well particularly with young men and women for whom it becomes a kind of mutual teasing to make sure that nobody gets grumpy and downcast. At the end of our pilgrimage, I was able to say to all the pilgrims, “You did not need to know that mantra because you were all so filled with God’s Spirit and so good to one another that you gave a witness of God’s love in your word and action.” That was 100 percent true. All of us who were privileged to be together shared these days with one another with enthusiasm and supported one another in prayer.

Among the pilgrims, we were blessed to have three deacons, John Coughlin, Patrick LaBella and Gregory Senholzi. We also had as priest pilgrims Msgr. Robert Brennan, the vicar general, and Msgr. Robert Morrissey, my secretary, as well as Msgr. T. Peter Ryan, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Centerport; Father Anthony Trapani, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Lindenhurst, and of course our tour director and guide, Msgr. James McNamara, pastor of Holy Cross in Nesconset. In Rome, we met up with a number of other priests of our diocese who were there for various reasons. Father Richard Henning of the seminary faculty defended his doctoral dissertation and received his doctorate in sacred theology from the Angelicum University while we were there. Msgr. John Nosser, retired pastor of St. Patrick’s in Bay Shore was present, as was Msgr. Kenneth Boccafola, who is the vice dean at the Roman Rota (the Church’s appellate court) and a very distinguished jurist living and working in Rome, a good priest of our diocese. Two priests doing graduate study, Msgr. Robert Batule and Father Peter Dugandzic, joined us for several of the Masses and were working faithfully at their studies. Three of our seminarians were with us, Gregory Rannazzisi from SS. Philip and James in St. James, who is in third theology at the North American College, and two new men, our first year theologians, Ryan Creamer from St. Patrick’s in Bay Shore and Richard Mastrogiacomo from Christ the King in Commack.

I will let others speak to you about the other moments of this wonderful experience. Certainly our guides did a spectacular task of showing us the important places in Rome, which can never be exhausted. No one complained about the food, and in fact, anyone who was not enamored of Italian food now is so. The hotel was comfortable, and the people there were very attentive to our every need.

As we were preparing to go to the airport, I was offering my rosary in thanksgiving to Mary for the many ways which she watched over us during this time of pilgrimage. The Joyful Mysteries reflected so much the joy that is in the hearts of all of us who had the distinct privilege of celebrating our golden jubilee by coming to the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul and by receiving the blessing of the successor of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI. Truly, the second-century author writing about St. Peter said it very succinctly and very truly, “Where Peter is, there is the Church and where there is the Church, there is never death but only life eternal.”