Current Events and News
From the Diocese
Bishop Suspends Precious Blood During Flu Season
Bishop Mark L. Bartchak has directed that the Precious Blood not be distributed in any form at Mass beginning the weekend of January 11 and 12, 2020, and continuing until further notice. The directive is due to the severity of the flu season. It is the belief of the...
Answers to Your Questions about Our Response to the Victims of Sexual Abuse
The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has released a financial summary of the costs related to clergy sexual abuse from July 1, 1999, to December 1, 2018. The summary is included in the December 10, 2018, edition of the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Register. It is...
Independent Oversight Board Report
The Independent Oversight Board for Youth Protection of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has issued its first Annual Report on reforms developed and implemented by the Diocese for the protection of children and youth, concluding that “much has been done, but much is...
Victim Assistance
For almost two decades, the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has been committed to providing pastoral care and financial support to the victims and survivors of sexual abuse. The diocese began a Victim Assistance Program in 1999, and, since that time, assistance in the...
Independent Oversight Board
Bishop Mark Bartchak and Acting United States Attorney Soo Song have announced the names of the individuals appointed to the Independent Oversight Board for Youth Protection for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. Click below for the media advisory from the Department...
Review Board
Bishop Mark Bartchak has announced the appointment of an entirely new membership for the Diocesan Review Board, which assists in the assessment of allegations of sexual abuse of minors and a cleric’s suitability for ministry. The new members are: Rev. Leo ArnoneJoyce...
Reforms to Protect Children
On March 6, 2017, Bishop Mark L. Bartchak and Acting United States Attorney Soo C. Song announced reforms by the Diocese to protect children from sexual abuse, ensure that all allegations of sexual abuse are immediately reported to law enforcement, and provide victims...
Support for Survivors of Sexual Abuse
The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is partnering with state and local agencies to offer support to survivors of sexual abuse. Resources and educational information will be featured regularly in the Diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Register, and on the Diocesan...
Saint of the Day
St. Eugene de Mazenod: Saint of the Day for Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Eugene de Mazenod was born on August 1, 1782, at Aix-en-Provence in France. Early in life he experienced the upheaval of the French Revolution. None the less, he entered the seminary, and following ordination he returned to labor in Aix-en-Provence. That area had...
St. Bernardine of Siena: Saint of the Day for Tuesday, May 20, 2025
In the year 1400, a young man came to the door of the largest hospital in Siena. A plague was raging through the city so horrible that as many as twenty people died each day just in the hospital alone. And many of the people who died were those who were needed to tend...
St. Celestine: Saint of the Day for Monday, May 19, 2025
When the father of this Italian saint died, his good mother brought up her twelve children well, even though they were very poor. "Oh, if I could only have the joy of seeing one of you become a saint!" she use to say. Once when she asked as usual, "which one of you is...
St. Pope John I: Saint of the Day for Sunday, May 18, 2025
St. John I, Pope and Martyr (Feast day - May 18) A native of Tuscany in Italy, John was elected Pope while he was still an archdeacon upon the death of Pope Hormisdas in 523. At that time, the ruler of Italy was Theodoric the Goth who subscribed to the Arian brand of...
St. Paschal Baylon: Saint of the Day for Saturday, May 17, 2025
Franciscan lay brother and mystic. Born to a peasant family at Torre Hermosa, in Aragon, on Whitsunday, he was christened Pascua in honor of the feast. According to accounts of his early life, Paschal labored as a shepherd for his father, performed miracles, and was...
St. Simon Stock: Saint of the Day for Friday, May 16, 2025
Although little is known about Simon Stock's early life, legend has it that the name Stock, meaning "tree trunk," derives from the fact that, beginning at age twelve, he lived as a hermit in a hollow tree trunk of an oak tree. It is also believed that, as a young man,...
St. Dymphna: Saint of the Day for Thursday, May 15, 2025
Dymphna was born in Ireland sometime in the seventh century to a pagan father and devout Christian mother. When she was fourteen, she consecrated herself to Christ and took a vow of chastity. Soon afterward, her mother died and her father - who had loved his wife...
St. Matthias: Saint of the Day for Wednesday, May 14, 2025
How does one qualify to be an apostle? The first act of the apostles after the Ascension of Jesus was to find a replacement for Judas. With all the questions, doubts, and dangers facing them, they chose to focus their attention on finding a twelfth apostle. Why was...
St. John the Silent: Saint of the Day for Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Bishop of Colonia in Palestine and a hermit. Born in Nicopolis, Armenia, he established a monastery at the age of eighteen. Appointed a bishop at the age of twenty-eight, he spent nine years in his office before retiring to Jerusalem to embrace the eremitical life....
Sts. Nereus & Achilleus: Saint of the Day for Monday, May 12, 2025
So often we hear people or even ourselves excuse an action by saying "I was only following orders." But for Nereus and Achilleus this excuse could not stand in the face of the cross. Everything we know from authority about the two first- century martyrs comes from a...
Daily Reading
Daily Readings for Thursday, May 22, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 15:7-21 7 and after a long discussion, Peter stood up and addressed them. 'My brothers,' he said, 'you know perfectly well that in the early days God made his choice among you: the gentiles were to learn the good news from me and so become believers.8...
Daily Readings for Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 15:1-6 1 Then some men came down from Judaea and taught the brothers, 'Unless you have yourselves circumcised in the tradition of Moses you cannot be saved.'2 This led to disagreement, and after Paul and Barnabas had had a long argument with these men...
Daily Readings for Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 14:19-28 19 Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and turned the people against them. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the town, thinking he was dead.20 The disciples came crowding round him but, as they did so, he stood up and went...
Daily Readings for Monday, May 19, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 14:5-18 5 but eventually with the connivance of the authorities a move was made by gentiles as well as Jews to make attacks on them and to stone them.6 When they came to hear of this, they went off for safety to Lycaonia where, in the towns of Lystra...
Daily Readings for Sunday, May 18, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 14:21-27 21 Having preached the good news in that town and made a considerable number of disciples, they went back through Lystra, Iconium and Antioch.22 They put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith, saying, 'We...
Daily Readings for Saturday, May 17, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 13:44-52 44 The next Sabbath almost the whole town assembled to hear the word of God.45 When they saw the crowds, the Jews, filled with jealousy, used blasphemies to contradict everything Paul said.46 Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out fearlessly. 'We...
Daily Readings for Friday, May 16, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 13:26-33 26 'My brothers, sons of Abraham's race, and all you godfearers, this message of salvation is meant for you.27 What the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did, though they did not realise it, was in fact to fulfil the prophecies read on...
Daily Readings for Thursday, May 15, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 13:13-25 13 Paul and his companions went by sea from Paphos to Perga in Pamphylia where John left them to go back to Jerusalem.14 The others carried on from Perga till they reached Antioch in Pisidia. Here they went to synagogue on the Sabbath and took...
Daily Readings for Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 1:15-17, 20-26 15 One day Peter stood up to speak to the brothers -- there were about a hundred and twenty people in the congregation,16 'Brothers,' he said, 'the passage of scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through...
Daily Readings for Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Reading 1, Acts 11:19-26 19 Those who had scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, but they proclaimed the message only to Jews.20 Some of them, however, who came from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to...