By Gina Christian | OSV News

As Pope Francis seeks to include more women in key church leadership positions, a Catholic social worker has been named to a pioneering post for women in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — and a number of women have inspired that historic journey, she told OSV News.

Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia announced Dec. 1 the appointment of Heather Huot as that archdiocese’s secretary for Catholic Human Services, overseeing three agencies — Catholic Social Services, Catholic Housing and Community Services and Nutritional Development Services — that combine to form the largest faith-based human services provider in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Huot, who takes over Jan. 1, 2024 for retiring longtime secretary James Amato, is the first woman in the archdiocese’s history to hold the position. She will supervise some 1,800 staff operating a broad range of programs across a five-county area that address poverty, homelessness, hunger, family and pregnancy support, and the needs of refugees, immigrants, seniors and those with intellectual disabilities.

The CHS team represents “an incredible number of people who are every day fulfilling the Gospel and putting those works of mercy out there in real life every day,” said Huot, who has worked for the secretariat for the past 18 years, most recently as director of its Housing and Community Services division, known for its nationally acclaimed model for converting unused church buildings into affordable senior housing.

Along with her experience and education — she holds both a licensure and a master’s degree in social work — the 45-year-old Huot brings to her new role a profound faith, one that has been nurtured in particular by the women in her life, her mother foremost among them.

“My father was not Catholic when my parents were married, and it was really my mother’s commitment to her faith that got us to where we are now,” said Huot, who grew up in St. Matthew Parish in Philadelphia. “(She) was adamant that we were going to church every Sunday as a family, and my dad was part of that, whether he was Catholic or not. Every Sunday, all five of us were sitting in the front pew at the 10 am Mass.”

Her mother’s dedication proved to be transformative: Huot’s father converted to Catholicism, and in 2001 he was ordained a permanent deacon.

“As a first grader, I saw my dad get baptized and become part of the church, which was … a very amazing moment,” said Huot. “It’s really my mother’s faith that I really see as the foundation of my whole family’s trajectory in our faith lives. … I don’t think any of us would be where we are today without that at the start.”

Inspired by her oldest sister, who has intellectual disabilities, Huot completed undergraduate studies in elementary and special education as well as theology, and planned to enter the teaching profession — until a gap year spent as a Franciscan volunteer “turned my plan on its head,” she said.

Working at St. Francis Inn — a ministry in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, which has long been plagued by addiction and homelessness — Huot experienced a profound sense of mission, one reinforced by the women who aided the Franciscan friars: “a core group of sisters” and two laywomen — one a lawyer, the other a business professional — “who had given up their whole careers to live and work at the inn,” said Huot.

“That is the year where the faith became my faith, not just the faith that was given to me by someone else,” she said. “And with that, I felt like I needed to be out there doing more with the homeless; I needed to figure out what was the next step for me.”

That step led her to becoming a case worker and later administrator at Women of Hope, an archdiocesan residence in downtown Philadelphia providing long-term housing and care for previously homeless women experiencing chronic mental illness.

“I was the only laywoman. All the rest of the staff at that time were Sisters of Mercy,” said Huot. “They were incredible women. I really feel like I learned their charism of hospitality. I learned how to really just be with and listen to people.”

Huot said she was struck by the tender, diligent ministry of the sisters, who would “plan these beautiful prayers for Christmas and Good Friday. And it was just part of our everyday work, their charism of mercy and love. I’ve tried to carry that through as I’ve progressed to other roles in social services. …They really taught me so much, both professionally and spiritually. And I really feel so indebted to them.”

Huot also was deeply impacted by a resident named Lydia, even giving her daughter that name.

“She was probably one of the most disliked residents at Women of Hope when I got there,” recalled Huot. “She was tiny; probably not more than 90 pounds. She had immigrated from northern Italy to the United States many years prior and spoke in broken English. … We don’t know exactly what had happened to her, but at some point she had a kind of mental break and ended up on the streets sleeping on people’s steps. When I arrived, she’d already been there a number of years, and she was a cranky lady.”

Despite Lydia’s roughness — “one time, she got mad at another resident and pulled the seat out from under her” — Huot said she was “able to find her softness.”

“I figured out she loved Dunkin’ Donuts, so we would go for rides and get doughnuts once a week,” said Huot. “She loved grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, so we would go to the little cafe down the street.”

Warmed by that kindness, Lydia “would come into my office and sing and dance and laugh,” said Huot. “Once you got past that exterior, she was really quite delightful.”

When her daughter was born after Lydia’s death, Huot sought to pay tribute to her unlikely mentor in ministry.

“We were her family,” said Huot. “I feel like I’ve honored her legacy and the legacy of all the women there by naming my daughter after her.”

Asked how the elder Lydia would react to the new appointment as CHS secretary, Huot said, “I think she would have laughed. She had this way of laughing and covering her mouth and doing a little jig. And then she would have asked me for 75 cents to buy a Pepsi at the soda machine.”
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Gina Christian is a national reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @GinaJesseReina.

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By OSV News

At Blessed Sacrament Parish in Tallahassee, Father Peter Zalewski is a busy and beloved pastor, tending to the activities of his church community and the local Catholic school, the largest primary school in the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese.

But the pastor also serves in the Air Force Chaplain Corps, and with his Dec. 14 promotion to a one-star, or brigadier, general, he now holds the highest rank in the military of any Catholic priest.

On his one day off a week, he’ll be tending to meetings at the Pentagon or elsewhere in Washington, because he now serves as the primary adviser to the chief of the National Guard Bureau on religious, ethical and morale issues.

As a general, Father Zalewski will provide guidance and programs directing National Guard chaplain personnel and supporting Army and Air Guardsmen.

The Dec. 14 promotion ceremony at the Florida National Guard Headquarters in St. Augustine was the culmination of Father Zalewski’s nearly 40-year life in the military, which began in 1984 as a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In the early 1990s, he deployed in major military operations, including serving as an intelligence officer in Operation Desert Storm in the first Gulf War. He was following in the footsteps of his father, who served two tours in Vietnam, but he also pursued a military career with encouragement of his mother, who helped him appreciate the meaning of serving the Armed Forces.

The Florida native eventually heard the call to pursue the priesthood instead of Air Force pilot training, so in 1992 he became a seminarian for the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee. He also became an Air Force chaplain candidate.

At his promotion ceremony, Father Zalewski thanked his parishioners at Blessed Sacrament, as well as St. Dominic in Panama City, Florida, where he was previously pastor, for always supporting his dual responsibilities.

“Thank you for your support,” he said. “We have to protect those who protect us. So, thank you for allowing me to do that. That means a lot to me.”

Father Zalewski’s remarks were reported by Catholic Extension in an article on its website, www.catholicextension.org.

The priest’s connection to the Chicago-based organization is twofold. He serves on its mission committee, which helps Catholic Extension increase its impact and awareness around the country. He also has involved his parish in raising financial support for various Extension initiatives over the years.

But the priest also was a beneficiary of Extension’s funding of seminary education when he was in formation to be ordained for the Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese.

Each year, Catholic Extension supports 400 seminarians on their path to the priesthood by providing scholarships that help struggling dioceses pay for seminarian tuition as well as room and board.

After his ordination in 1997, Father Zalewski began serving as a parish priest in his diocese and as a military reserve chaplain at bases in the Florida Panhandle. He would eventually be deployed again in 2008 as a “wing chaplain” to Al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, serving military personnel supporting U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“He knows that the many sacrifices of our service members have created a toll — physical, mental and spiritual,” Catholic Extension said. “Father Zalewski recalls his visits to military bases over these past years where he would encounter young soldiers wearing prosthetics, reminding him of what they gave on the battlefield.

“More troublesome, still, are the wounds that are not visible. Father Zalewski laments that despite many efforts within the services, suicides among military personnel are not decreasing and more needs to be done to stem this tide.”

Father Zalewski said, “It’s been an honor to serve my country in the military, and an honor to serve the Catholic Church in America through Catholic Extension’s mission committee. I see that many of our service members come from rural communities — so Extension is a direct contributor to their spiritual well-being and strength.”

Roughly a quarter of all active-duty military personnel are Catholic, Extension noted, but “as a general, he will serve people regardless of their religious affiliation. … His job will be to ensure that these young, self-sacrificing men and women, who have given so much to our country, have the spiritual care they need.”

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By David Agren | OSV News

Ernesto Cofiño, a Guatemalan pediatrician and Opus Dei supernumerary known for his tireless fundraising and attention to the poorest of patients, has been declared venerable by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. The Dec. 14 decision means Cofiño is a candidate for sainthood whose heroic virtue has been recognized by the pope.

“Ernesto responded to God’s grace and his vocation by living the Christian virtues in his family, in his profession as a doctor, and in generous service to those most in need: the sick, the poor, orphans,” said Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, prelate of Opus Dei.

“Ernesto knew how to be a loving husband and dedicated father. He aimed to be a good doctor, a great professional, knowing that work was his way of serving others and changing the piece of the world God had entrusted to him,” said Opus Dei Father Santiago Callejo, postulator of the cause, according to Opus Dei.

“(He) devoted himself to serving others with all his heart. He also cared about fostering his own life as a Christian, and he encouraged those around him to grow in their spiritual lives,” he said.

Cofiño was born in 1899 to an affluent Guatemalan family. He traveled to Paris to study medicine at the Sorbonne at age 20, specializing in pediatrics.

But rather than pursuing a career in Europe, he returned to Guatemala City, where pediatrics was a nascent specialty.

Cofiño taught at the University of San Carlos, where he held the chair in pediatric medicine. He also worked with the needy, starting in a childcare center for women working in public markets.

He always maintained a private practice, which tended to children of the middle and upper classes, according to Thomas McDonough, author of the biography, “No Small Goals: The Life of Dr. Ernesto Cofiño.”

“(But) he brought the same attention to (poor) children he would give in a hospital,” McDonough told OSV News. “He had a concern for treating everyone,” and, “brought his students to get their hands dirty working with poor people.”

His attention for the needy came at a time when “no one from the upper class did anything for the lower classes,” McDonough said.

Cofiño’s concern was especially apparent in a tuberculosis retreat for poor children he tended to in the countryside near Guatemala City, including many from indigenous communities. He would spend weekends treating children there, along with his wife, Clemencia.

“He was deeply concerned about poverty … while being the pediatrician of the wealthy,” John Coverdale, a historian of Opus Dei, told OSV News.

Both McDonough and Coverdale described Cofiño as dedicated to charity, faith and family. He was the father of five children and dedicated himself to them after Clemencia’s death in 1963.

Cofiño led Caritas Guatemala for a few years, where he oversaw the distribution of food to poor neighborhoods.

Coverdale said Cofiño was not especially pious early in life, but this faith deepened after returning to Guatemala. He attended Mass daily, prayed the rosary and confessed frequently. Cofiño joined Opus Dei in 1956, becoming just the second person to do so in Guatemala, according to the experts.

As a supernumerary member of the movement, “he was very much a go-to person for the apostolic activities of Opus Dei,” Coverdale said.

Supernumeraries of the Opus Dei prelature are, generally, married men and women who have secular careers, focus on “the sanctification of their family duties,” and participate fully in Opus Dei apostolic activities given their availability, according to the Opus Dei webpages.

Cofiño worked on fundraising and oversaw the building of a student residence.

He also mentored many of the students and “worked hard to help poor kids,” Coverdale said. “He was a man of deep social concern.”

His concern extended to the lives of colleagues. Cofiño developed a reputation as solicitous and sincerely interested in others.

“One of the qualities that stands out was his ability to make friends,” McDonough said. “Once you were his friend, you could go to him for anything,” he continued. “His residents thought he was their best friend.”

Despite his stature in Guatemala, he largely steered clear of politics, focusing more on medicine and charitable works.

“He was only interested in the children,” McDonough said of the pediatrician. “He never wanted to get political because he wouldn’t be able to serve everyone as a doctor. … He didn’t want to be labeled as anything.”

Cofiño’s stature did prove influential on life matters, however. “He had such a great reputation already as a doctor … that when he started talking about life and life in the womb, people listened to him,” McDonough said.

Cofiño survived cancer in 1981, but later succumbed to it in 1991 at age 92. His legacy left a lasting mark on both Opus Dei and Guatemala.

“He just had a heart that didn’t stop. People recognized that,” McDonough said. “Whether it was a friend in need or a child requiring care, he was always ready to sacrifice himself for others, even into his 80s.”

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David Agren writes for OSV News from Buenos Aires.

Photos: OSV News photo/courtesy Opus Dei

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The church’s liturgical season of Christmas is one of its shortest, but also one of its most unique. Within it is the eight-day celebration of the Lord’s Nativity — known as the Christmas octave — as well as other feasts pertaining to the manifestation that Jesus is Lord of the nations. And there are feasts of several saints, many of whose stories contain special significance to the season.

The configuration of the calendar relative to the season of Christmas is a bit complex. It always begins on the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord — Dec. 25 — and ends on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, a movable feast roughly three weeks after Christmas. In the U.S., Dec. 25 is always a holy day of obligation.

• Christmas Day

The liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Nativity has many variables and components. There are four particular timeframes during which Mass might be celebrated in observance of this great feast: a vigil, a Mass at night, a Mass at dawn and a Mass during the day. Each of these Masses have their own unique prayers and readings. The newness of life made possible because of the Incarnation pervades the prayers and feasts of the Christmas season.

The four different Gospel readings assigned for use at the different Masses of Christmas all speak of the variety of the people affected by the Savior’s coming. The beginning of St. Matthew’s Gospel (see Mt 1:1-25), which lists Jesus’ family lineage, is proclaimed at the Vigil Mass. This includes major figures of Judaism like Abraham and David, whose covenants with God foreshadow the new and everlasting covenant that will be sealed in the blood of Christ.

But Christ’s lineage also emphasizes that he came to save the poor and lowly, shown by connecting him to ancestors of low degree, socially or morally — like the four women mentioned, including David’s mistress Bathsheba. Jesus came to save them all.

The Gospel read at the Mass at night (see Lk 2:1-14) also underscores the importance of Christ’s coming for the marginalized and outcast, embodied by the news of his birth being shared firstly with the shepherds and not the rulers endowed with earthly power, who might be perceived as entitled to receiving such news on behalf of their subjects.

It is important to note that on Christmas, the faithful all are to genuflect or kneel during the Creed at the words relative to this central mystery of Christian faith, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.” This helps us keep our hearts and minds focused on what the feast is all about. As the popular Christmas carol “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” phrases it, Jesus was “born that man no more may die; born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.”

• Dec. 26: Feast of St. Stephen

Within the octave are various feast days that have rich histories and traditions. It is interesting to note that the first feast day after Christmas — the very next day, Dec. 26 — is the feast of a martyr. Recalling the purpose for which Christ came and the assignment of his divine mission, Christians are reminded, at this early stage of the celebrations of the Christmas season, of the Lord’s exhortation that anyone who wishes to follow after him must take up his cross. St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, is held up as a living witness of what it means to proclaim that Christ is savior without counting the cost.

• Dec. 27: Feast of St. John

Dec. 27 is the feast of the apostle and evangelist St. John. Regarded as the disciple closest to Jesus, St. John — believed to be the author of a Gospel, the Book of Revelation and three New Testament letters — is the one who teaches us that “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). Because St. John’s Gospel alone includes the miracle at the Cana wedding feast, when Jesus miraculously changes water into wine, this feast has long been associated with the blessing of wine.

• Dec. 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents

The Holy Innocents celebrated on Dec. 28 were martyrs killed as the result of Herod’s murderous rage, resulting in his desire to eliminate any threats to his power by killing anyone who fit the profile of the newborn king he learned about from the Magi (see Mt 2:13-18). Taking no chances for the babe’s survival, he ordered the murder of all boys in or around Bethlehem under the age of 2. Christ, of course, survives thanks to the heavenly intervention manifested by the angelic admonition to St. Joseph to flee with Mary and Jesus in the middle of the night to Egypt. The Gospel proclaimed on this day, referenced above, evokes two major issues about which the church is concerned today: immigration and abortion.

• Feast of the Holy Family

Many of the few details we know of Jesus’ early life relates to his familial relationships. As a young man, we know he grew in the ways of faith as the obedient son of Mary and Joseph. The church holds up annually the Holy Family of Nazareth as a model for all families, as a model for all human relationships. As St. Pope Paul VI said during a visit to the Holy Family’s town in 1964, “Nazareth is the school in which we begin to understand the life of Jesus. It is the school of the Gospel.” The feast of the Holy Family is celebrated on the Sunday after Christmas, except for the years when Christmas falls on a Sunday. Then it is celebrated Dec. 30.

• Jan. 1: Solemnity of Mary

The octave of Christmas ends with the celebration of the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God on Jan. 1. It is a holy day of obligation, except the obligation for Catholics in the United States is lifted when the feast falls on a Saturday or Monday. Jan. 1 also marks the church’s commemoration of the World Day of Peace, first observed 50 years ago in 1968. It seems appropriate and fitting to be celebrated on a Marian feast day, for peace is only possible through total self-sacrifice and surrender — through total love and obedience to the will of God, of which Mary is an icon for the church.

It bears noting that Jan. 1 previously had been known as the feast of the circumcision of the Lord, because Jewish ritual prescribes that Jewish males would have been circumcised on the eighth day after birth, in accordance with the covenant God made with Abraham. As a member of a pious, practicing Jewish family, Jesus would have received this ritual induction into the Abrahamic covenant (see Lk 2:21).

• Solemnity of the Epiphany

Traditionally celebrated on Jan. 6, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, is the solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. The feast is transferred to the Sunday between Jan. 2-8 in the United States, however. In commemoration of Christ’s manifestation to the Magi — who represent how Christ came to save all mankind, not just the Jews — this feast celebrates how Christ’s identity is revealed, as is summed up in the gifts the Three Kings presented him. The gold and frankincense they gave Christ represent his status as king of the universe, the deity worthy of our true worship. And the myrrh tells of the bitter reality that the babe in the manger was born to die.

• The Baptism of the Lord

The Christmas season ends with the feast of the Lord’s baptism, which falls on the Sunday after the Epiphany. (That is, unless the Epiphany falls on Jan. 7 or 8, when it then is celebrated on the following day, a Monday.) This feast commemorates the day on which Christ formally accepts his mission as the redeemer when he receives St. John the Baptist’s baptism of conversion and repentance. He sets out from the waters of the Jordan, identified as God’s own son by the Father’s voice that resounded from the opened sky, and inaugurates his saving work as the long-awaited Messiah who will free us of our sins.

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Michael R. Heinlein is editor of Simply Catholic. Follow him on X @HeinleinMichael.

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