Sunday night (3/4) I was very pleased to have dinner with Msgr. William Helmick to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination. I had been in Papua New Guinea on the date of his actual anniversary, and I did call him from there, but I wanted to have the opportunity to celebrate with him in person.



Visit with president of St. Thomas More College

On Monday (3/5) I was visited by the president of St. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, Dr. William Fahey. St. Thomas Moore is a small Catholic college in Merrimack, New Hampshire, where the traditions of the Church and spiritual formation are upper-most in their curriculum. They are planning to expand into the archdiocese and Dr. Fahey came to share some of their plans with me. We are very happy with the prospect of their coming to the archdiocese. This is just one of the ways that the college is expanding. St. Thomas More College has acquired Sophia Press, which provides a great service to the Catholic community by publishing many of our spiritual classics, as well as Crisis Magazine. I was very pleased that the college has taken on these ministries.

Meeting about Haitian nursing school

Monday (3/5) I was visited by Dr. Peter Kelly and Deb O'Hara-Rusckowski, who came to speak to me about the desire of the Archbishop of Cap Haitien to begin a Catholic nursing school. We had a very good meeting and Dr. Kelly also wanted to give me an update on what is happening with Sacre Coeur, the hospital that is run by the Order of Malta. The hospital had to expand following the Haitian earthquake in January 2010 to accommodate the victims and a number of staff members of St. Elizabeth's and other hospitals continue to travel there to assist them in their work.



Women Religious Meeting

Tuesday (3/6) I met with the Major Superiors of Women Religious in the archdiocese. We periodically hold these meetings with the leaders of both men's and women's religious communities to have an opportunity to be together with them and update them on some of the happenings in the archdiocese. We are very grateful to Sister Marian Batho who organized the gathering and does such work as our Delegate for Religious. During the day together, we were very pleased to have a report from Marjean Perhot, the director of Refugee and Immigration Services at Catholic Charities. She spoke about issues affecting newcomers to our country and ways we can enhance our ministry to them.