St. Mary's Church, Roslyn: Pastor's Page

My dear people of St. Mary’s:

In 2007, during the Golden Jubilee of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Bishop William Murphy instituted the St. Agnes Medal, an award given to members of the Catholic laity for service to the Church. Each year, pastors from each of the 133 parishes in the diocese are asked to nominate lay people who unselfishly donate their time and talents to their parishes. The medal itself, designed and struck in Rome, features on one side the image of St. Agnes, patroness of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, and a depiction of our diocesan cathedral on the reverse.

On Sunday, October 27, 2018, Bishop John O. Barres presented the awards to this year’s recipients at a prayer service at St. Agnes Cathedral. “Honorees are lay people whose love of the Church has been shown through the devotion to the Holy Father, to our diocese and to their parish,” said Bishop Barres. “Recipients are the unsung heroes in our midst who build up our parish communities by extraordinary service in parish ministry, parish administration or some significant volunteer role.”

This year, the St. Agnes Medal was awarded to a married couple from our parish: Paul and Dina Ditrano. Paul is a science teacher at Kellenberg Memorial High School, and Dina is a science teacher at the Hicksville Middle School. Both are longtime parishioners and were even married here at St. Mary’s.

Paul Ditrano attended St. Mary’s parochial school, and received his Sacraments of First Holy Communion, Confirmation and Marriage at St. Mary’s. He served as an altar boy from 1977 to 1986; as a festival worker throughout the 1980’s; as an assistant youth minister from 1988 to 1990; as a youth minister from 1990 to 1996; as a lector from 1986 to the present; as a sacristan from 1986 to the present; and has served for many years as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion.

Dina and her family moved to the parish in 1985. She served as a youth minister from 1990 to 1996. She serves on our parish Fun-Raising Committee planning, coordinating and running special events like our annual Oktoberfest and parish picnic. She maintains the parish Facebook page; assists with the parish website; and serves as our coordinator for our parish Constant Contact e-mail outreach. For many years she has served as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. As a family, Paul and Dina, along with their teenage children Nicholas and Katie, weekly volunteer as hosts at our Saturday evening Mass at Msgr. Ryan Hall. This means that as a family they arrive early, open up the church, set up for Mass, coordinate all aspects of the liturgy, serve as lectors, Extraordinary Ministers, and altar servers, and then take care of everything again at the end.

If anything needs to be done in the parish, Paul and Dina and their children are always the first to respond. From their childhood and teenage years to the present they have been involved in absolutely every aspect of parish life. And what they do, they do generously and with joy. They are a couple who love their Catholic Faith and live it in an unassuming way that is obvious for all to see.

And so, please join me in congratulating Paul and Dina Ditrano for receiving this great, and well-deserved, honor. But most of all, on behalf of all of us here at St. Mary’s, I want to thank them for their service to our Lord, our parish, and our people.

—Fr. McCartney

My dear people of St. Mary’s,

On June 7, 2018, Pope Francis today appointed Rev. Msgr. Richard Henning, S.T.D., 53, to serve as an auxiliary bishop of our Diocese of Rockville Centre.-elect Henning served as Rector of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, and also as the Interim Episcopal Vicar for the Central Vicariate of our diocese. He will be ordained by Bishop Barres on July 24, 2018, at a Mass of Episcopal Ordination to be celebrated at the Cathedral of Saint Agnes, in Rockville Centre.

Bishop-Elect Henning is a native of Holy Name of Mary Parish in Valley Stream. He is the eldest of five children of Richard and Maureen Henning.product of Catholic education, Henning attended Holy Name of Mary School and is a 1982 graduate of Chaminade High School in Mineola.then attended St. John’s University, Queens, graduating in 1986, anda master’s degree in history from the same institution in 1988.studiedthe priesthood at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception, Huntington, and was ordained on May 30, 1992, at St. Agnes Cathedral by Bishop John McGann, Bishop of Rockville Centre.

Following his ordination,went on to earn his Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC.2007, he earned his Doctorate in Sacred Theology (STD) from The University of St. Thomas Aquinas, The Angelicum, Rome.-elect Henning is fluent in English, Spanish and Italian and is also able to read French, Greek and Hebrew.

Since 2002, Bishop-elect Henning has served on the faculty of the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception. In 2012, he was named Rector of the Seminary and Director of the Sacred Heart Institute for the ongoing formation of clergy for the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Diocese of Rockville Centre. He has assisted on weekends at Saint Patrick’s Church in Bay Shore and administers the summer mission church, Our Lady of the Magnificat at Ocean Beach in Fire Island. For many years he was one of the priests to celebrate our Saturday evening Spanish Mass here at St. Mary’s in Roslyn.is another connection as well: Bishop-elect Henning and I are classmates from Chaminade High School, Class of 1982!

Upon hearing of the appointment, Bishop Barres said: “The Diocese of Rockville Centre rejoices in Pope Francis’ appointment of Msgr. Henning as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese. Bishop-elect Henning’s pastoral charity and intelligence, his commitment to a demanding life of daily prayer, his love for the Hispanic community and evangelization, his biblical scholarship and experience in seminary formation, his national contributions to the ongoing formation of priests and assistance to international priests who serve in this country give him a wide range of pastoral experience and skills to help advance the New Evangelization and dramatic missionary growth on Long Island.”

Bishop-Elect Henning said in a statement of his own: “I am grateful to His Holiness, Pope Francis, for the call to serve as an auxiliary bishop in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. I am also grateful to Bishops Barres and Murphy for their encouragement and mentoring.is a moment of deep reflection and the humble acknowledgement of my dependence upon the grace of God and my joy in His service.”

You will be able to watch the Episcopal Ordination live on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, on our diocesan television station Telecare, which can be viewed on Cablevision channel 29/137, Verizon FiOS TV channel 296, Time Warner Cable channel 471.addition, there will be more information about Bishop-elect Henning and his ordination in the month to come which you may find on the diocesan website:www.drvc.org;on the diocesan Facebook social media platform: www.facebook.com/RVCdiocese; and atLong Island Catholic site: www.LICatholic.org. I will also send you a reminder in July through our Constant Contact e-mail service.

Although we are classmates and friends, I can honestly say I am thrilled with this appointment; I know of no priest in our diocese more worthy of this honor, and more capable of undertaking this responsibility. Let us pray for Bishop-elect Henning as he prepares to answer God’s call to serve the people of our diocese as an auxiliary bishop.

—Fr. McCartney

[Note: This is the last Pastor’s Page before the summer hiatus. The Pastor’s Page will resume in September.]