Saturday, 26 May
Vigil of Pentecost
4:30 p.m. - LENA TRANQUILLO PICCIONI
by her nephew, Larry Piccioni, and family

Sunday, 27 May
Pentecost
7:45 a.m. - ANNA PILO MERLINO
by Jack and Flo McGovern
10:45 a.m. - VERONICA J. KEVY
(month's mind)
by her sisters, Phyllis and Myrna

Monday, 28 May
Weekday
12:05 p.m. - ANDREW JOHN LUCAS
by Michael and Catherine Whitney

Tuesday, 29 May
Weekday
12:05 p.m. - A. GLENDON ACKER (56th anniversary of wedding)
by his wife, Liz
7:00 p.m. - ISABEL OLECHNOWICZ CARUSELLA
by the Allen Rogowicz Chapter, PA State Hall of Fame

Wednesday, 30 May
Weekday
12:05 p.m. - MARION, CHARLES, EDWARD and NANCY COOK
by Carmella Evolo Palko and her daughter, Joanne

Thursday, 31 May
Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Elizabeth (Fst)
12:05 p.m. - HARRY C. PICCIONI
by his wife, Mary, and his son, Harry
7:00 p.m. - SPECIAL INTENTION
(through the intercession of St. Francis Xavier)
by the Weidner family

Friday, 01 June
St. Justin, martyr (OblMem)
12:05 p.m. - ARTHUR B. WHITNEY
by Michael and Catherine
6:15 p.m. - JOHN TORCELLO
by Joseph T. Cescon and family

Saturday, 02 June
SS. Marcellinus and Peter, martyrs (OptMem)
8:00 a.m. - INTENTIONS of THIRD ORDER CARMELITES
by the Carmelite community
Vigil of Holy Trinity
4:30 p.m. - DOMINICK VITTEMBERGHI
by his family

Sunday, 03 June
Holy Trinity
7:45 a.m. - STEPHEN CHALINSKY
by Frank and Rose Popeck
10:45 a.m. - CLARENCE, ROSE and DANIEL MOYER
by their sister, Carmella Evolo Palko
3:00 p.m. - MASS of THANKSGIVING / FIRST MASS celebrated by Father CHRISTOPHER S. BUTERA

Saint Joseph Parish
$1,433.00 from the envelopes and $111.00 from the plate. Thank you.
When one deducts from the sum of these two figures, $1544.00 the parish's weekly financial obligation to the Diocese, i.e. assessments, $358.85 plus the weekly premiums for property and liability insurance, $149.20, the sum of which is $508.05, plus its weekly obligation to All Saints School, $987.21, the sum total of which is $1,495.26, one sees that $48.74 of this collection is available for operating the parish.

Saint Francis deSales Parish
$80.00 from the envelopes and $58.45 from the plate. Thank you.
When one deducts from the sum of these two figures, $138.45 the parish's weekly financial obligation to the Diocese, i.e. assessments, $55.15 plus the weekly premiums for property and liability insurance, $56.72, the sum of which is $111.87, plus its weekly obligation to All Saints School, $197.44, the sum total of which is $309.31, one sees that ($170.86) of this collection is available for operating the parish. This is a deficit!

FIRST FRIDAY
This coming Friday (1 June) is the first Friday of the month!
Schedule
10:00 a.m. - Mass at StFdS
12:05 p.m. - Mass at StJos
6:15 p.m. - Mass at StJos
7:00 p.m. - Holy Hour at StJos

THERE IS ABUNDANT MERCY IN THE HEART OF JESUS CHRIST!

This news item appeared in the 27 October 1908 edition of the Pottsville Republican. I am grateful to the parishioner who gave me a photocopy of it. I enjoyed reading it and figured it would make excellent bulletin material.
For those who don't recognize the name: Fr. Peter Michetti was the founding pastor of our parish. I hope to meet him in heaven. When I do, I'll ask him why he chose to omit the sauer kraut on Friday. I'll also ask him why sauer kraut in the first place?? Surely he knows that Italians eat pasta! It's the Germans who eat the sauer kraut! If we don't observe the ethnic stereotypes, what will become of us?
As to whether Italian graphaphones are superior to French and German graphaphones, I really have no educated opinion. However, as the pastor of an Italian parish, I am pre-disposed to think that they are, although, to be fair, I think the jury is still out on the matter. By the way, what's a graphaphone?

NOT SO DUMB!
I was driving from Pottsville to New Philadelphia on 209 last Monday (21 May) and, just as I was leaving Port Carbon, I saw an advertising sign I had not seen before. It really caught my eye because it had an extremely obvious misspelling plus a superfluous and misleading apostrophe. I didn't have time to examine the sign, but determined that I would do so on the way back.
On the way back, I deliberately passed the sign, so that I could do a U-TURN, so that I could pull over to the side of the road, so that I could look at it more carefully.
So, here I was on 209, pulled over to the side, examining this unusual sign. It looked professionally made. It read exactly as follows:

I thought to myself, "Well, gee whiz! If you're going to go to a professional sign maker to have him make up a sign to advertise your Baptist church, wouldn't you think that somebody involved in the process would know how to spell "Baptist" before the sign were finalized? The superfluous and misleading apostrophe was minor league compared to this. So, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to make a slight detour and drive over to 148 Pottsville Street (Port Carbon) in order to gaze upon this new church. I was curious to see if there were a similar (or identical) sign outside the church. Well, there is a sign outside the church. However, this sign, I am happy to say, is orthographically perfect. BAPTIST is spelled correctly and there is no apostrophe between the L and the S of SOULS. But, still, I thought to myself, there has to be some explanation for the sign on 209! Then, like a flash out of the blue, it came to me! Here is my theory: They did it on purpose! If the sign on 209 had been orthographically perfect, I would barely have noticed it. The message would not have been relevant to any of my perceived needs! However, the "wounded sign" took up at least twenty minutes of my time and prompted me to give SOULS HARVEST some free advertising in my bulletin!
That's why I say: Hey, good buddy! Them there Babtists - they ain't so dumb!

A PROFILE IN COURAGE

The principal of Reading Central Catholic High School is Thomas P. Mirabella, M.Ed.
He would be embarrassed to see himself referred to as "a profile in courage". He would say that he was simply doing his duty as "the guy in charge" at a Catholic high school - nothing more, nothing less.
However, in an age characterized by moral cowardice and surrender to the obscene culture, a simple act of doing one's duty can become a remarkable and noteworthy event. Because deviance has been normalized, we tend to be taken aback when a school official demonstrates moral courage. We fully expect high school principals to affirm all choices made by their charges; but, if it should happen that the children make a choice the principal cannot affirm, he should not make a scene, lest he give anyone the impression that there is an objective standard of human behavior.
PART ONE of my story is this: On Saturday, 12 May 07, RCCHS was holding its senior dinner / prom. Once dinner was over, the DJ started playing dance music, which consisted of something called "top 40 radio edits".
Mr. Mirabella was appalled at the subject matter of the lyrics of the songs, as well as at the kind of dancing going on. You see, the kids were "freaking".
If you don't know what that means, we offer you this concise definition from the Urban Dictionary: Freaking: dancing which simulates sex by the grinding of the genitalia, together with suggestive sounds / movements; often done to pop or hip hop or rap music. [You don't want to know any more than that and neither do I.]
After two songs, the principal pulled the plug and gave the students a few well-chosen words about appropriate behavior. Then, he instructed the DJ to play 1970's dance hits.
Some (I don't know whether it was a majority) of the students showed their disapproval of this intervention by sitting on the floor. Mr. Mirabella was not impressed!
I don't know exactly what happened to the prom after that, i.e. who stayed, who left, who sat and sulked. However, that's not particularly relevant to my interest.

PART TWO of my story is this: On Tuesday, 15 May, this event (Mr. Mirabella's intervention) was the hot topic of a radio talk show, the name of which is "Talk Tuesday hosted by Jo Painter on WEEU 830 AM".
Parents of RCCHS students called in with vicious rants against the principal. The host of the talk show, Jo Painter, identifies herself as a Catholic - not only a Catholic, but a graduate of RCCHS and the mother of one or more children who are either students at or graduates of RCCHS.
Ms. Painter suggested that RCCHS should refund the children the money paid for the prom because Mr. Mirabella had "ruined their night".
St. Joseph parishioner Drew R. Weidner was the second or third person to call in. He said that it was his opinion that, since this was a Catholic school and a Catholic prom, the principal had every right - in fact, a stern duty - to intervene as he did! Mr. Weidner applauded the principal for taking a stand against today's culture and standing up for Catholic morality. In order to make his point more cogently, Mr. Weidner offered to recite some of the lyrics to "top 40 radio edits". He was not surprised when he found himself getting bleeped! Res ipsa loquitur.
He was told that he should back off because "this is what kids are listening to these days" and "this night was all about the kids, and the principal ruined it for them". For the next approximately two hours, according to Mr. Weidner, caller after caller chimed in to side with the host of the program against Mr. Mirabella.
Some irate mother even called in to say that she was going to pull her kid out of Catholic school because of Mr. Mirabella's action. Well, lady, don't slam the door as you leave! Someone suggested that Mr. Mirabella should be encouraged to resign. That makes sense. If you're a mouse, you pray that the cat resigns.

MY COMMENT
May God bless Tom Mirabella! May his courage be contagious! May his tribe increase - and his paycheck too! The children who sat down on the floor in order to protest should all be sent to bed without their supper. The parents who gave the principal so much grief in this matter should be sent to summer school for classes in Morality 101 and Remedial Parenting. Jo Painter should be given a fellowship at the Don Imus Foundation for Standards in Broadcasting.
If no other priest is available and willing, I would be happy to bring bell, book and candle to RCCHS and sprinkle some holy water around the facilities. You never know what foul spirits might be lurking there. Our struggle is not against mere flesh and blood …….

Sponsors: StJtBPar; StJosPar; StPatPar; MQPPar; StFdSPar
Date: Sunday, 10 June
Plan: Eucharistic adoration at StJtB after the 10:30 a.m. Mass. At 4:00 p.m. procession will form inside StJtB Church and will proceed east on Mahantongo Street to StPat Convent, whence to StPat Church for Evening Prayer and Benediction. All altar servers of the five parishes are asked to participate in their altar server attire. If there are any questions, call StPatRect (622-1802).

In case you are wondering why the Catholics of Pottsville are having a procession in honor of a city in Texas, all I can say is that there is a lacuna in your Catholic religious education. You can remedy this by calling one of the secretaries at St. Patrick's, who will be only too happy to explain to you about Corpus Christi.

BUTERABUS
#1 - If you have not yet signed up for the bus trip to the Cathedral in Allentown on Saturday, 2 June, please do so immediately - if not sooner! We are referring to the bus that will take us to witness Deacon Christopher S. Butera being ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Cullen.
#2 - If you have signed up already for the aforementioned bus trip, please bring in (send in) your money ($12.00) ASAP.

CLOSE, BUT NOT THE SAME: Someone asked me if I were the chaplain of Penn State/Schuylkill. I said, "No, I'm not, at least not as far as I know!" Later, I learned the source of the confusion. On the Allentown Diocese website, there is a man whose name and position are given as follows: "Edward Connelly, Direct Service Coordinator / Campus Ministry Coordinator- PSU Schuylkill".
I'm not acquainted with Mr. Connelly, but I trust that he is a fine gentleman! I am also as sure as I can be that he and I are not the same person! And, just for the record: No, I am not moonlighting!

RUMOR HATH IT that our esteemed neighbor, Father Joseph F. Reilly, is being transferred from St. Patrick Parish. However, it is not true that he is being sent to the showers. He is being sent to the bath.
To be more precise, he is being sent to Sacred Heart Parish, Bath (PA), there to serve as assistant pastor - or "associate pastor" or "parochial vicar" or whatever the current fashion might be for designating "the young priest whose job is to make the old priest look good".
Father Reilly is a fine man. He has done much good during his stint in Schuylkill County. We hate to see him go, but it is time now to share him with Northampton County. We wish him God's blessings and everything good in his new assignment.

PLEASE PRAY FOR a woman who died on 18 April 07 in Bergenfield NJ. She is Magdalen (Pitel) O'Boyle, formerly of W. Railroad Street, Pottsville. She is the godmother of StJos parishioner Joseph P. Cescon. She was maid-of-honor at the wedding of Joseph T. Cescon and Barbara Swantner in Immaculate Conception Church (St. Clair).
"Aunt Mac", as she was known, was Barbara's aunt - a sister of Barbara's mother, Mary. Magdalen is survived by her husband, William, and daughters, Anne O'Boyle Vlahos and Mary O'Boyle. She died as the result of severe injuries incurred in a kitchen fire.
Eternal rest grant unto Magdalen, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.