To the public, Dobbs v. Jackson was about abortion rights, but in the court case, the subject was hermeneutics. It is hard to believe but true that most college graduates complete their studies without hearing the word or engaging the concept of hermeneutics. Like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, they receive a diploma but not an education. Hermeneutics is most simply defined as the methodology of interpreting texts.

Marking 25 years as a priest, Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney celebrated his silver jubilee with priests from around the Diocese of Paterson and beyond during a Mass, at which he was the principal celebrant, marking the Solem­nity of Ss. Peter and Paul in the Cathe­dral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson June 29.

Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney made a pastoral visit to St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in Morristown June 25 to celebrate the vigil Mass for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. During the Mass, the Bishop administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to teen-agers in the parish,

Diocesan Catholic Charities celebrated a trifecta of major events in June which will benefit thousands of its service recipients through many of its social services and programs. The events held were the 12th annual Tank Pull, co­sponsored by Knights of Columbus councils in the Diocese on June 12; the ninth annual Corpus Christi Food Drive, which culminated on June 19; and the 48th annual Wiegand Farm Golf Classic, co­sponsored by Lakeland Bank on June 20.

Father Thaddeus Lee had only a dozen Spanish-speaking Catholics attend the first Mass of the Our Lady of Fatima (OLF) community in Passaic, held in 1954 in a back room of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, also in the city. Despite the low numbers, the young Chinese priest, who had recently arrived in the United States, was not discouraged, because he knew it was the start of something special.

St. Nicholas Parish in Passaic served as the mother church of much of the earlier Catholic expansion in and around Passaic — 10 national parishes and the former St. Mary’s Hos­pital, all in the city, and Sacred Heart and St. Paul parishes, both in Clifton. Earlier, it ministered to European immigrants and now serves a Hispanic population.

Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney called it a “new moment,” when he canonically merged Our Lady of Fatima (OLF) and St. Nicholas parishes in Passaic into the combined Our Lady of Fatima/St. Nicholas Parish Friday evening, July 1, while presiding over a standing-room-only Mass in St. Nicholas Church.

In 1957, Bishop James A. McNulty established Our Lady of Fatima Mission, Passaic, as one of the first three parish families in the Diocese of Paterson to serve the growing Hispanic community. Led by Father, later Monsignor, Thaddeus Lee, Our Lady of Fatima Mission was raised to the dignity of a parish in its own right in 1972 by Bishop Lawrence B. Casey.

“The best laid plans…” After the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christ, on Sunday, June 20, I had been planning to write about my experience on that day, particularly as it was the “Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ” during our Diocesan Year of the Eucharist. That “plan” was still in place on the evening of Thursday, June 23. That plan changed early the next morning, June 24, our diocesan “patronal Feast,” the Birth of John the Baptist, when I heard that the Supreme Court had announced its verdict in the Dobbs v. Jackson case and had overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that had legalized abortion throughout our country.