By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – Dioceses across the U.S. are asked to hold additional listening sessions in the next few months, following a request from the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops which is preparing for the second session of the global Synod on Synodality in October.
In a Jan. 2 letter (a copy of which OSV News has obtained), Bishop Daniel E. Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas – who chairs the U.S. bishops’ committee on doctrine and coordinates the U.S. bishops’ synod process – said his team is requesting “each diocese hold 2-3 listening sessions regarding the guiding questions” posed by the synod secretariat.

Those two guiding questions were phrased by Bishop Flores and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Synod Team as follows: “Where have I seen or experienced successes – and distresses – within the church’s structure(s)/organization/leadership/life that encourage or hinder the mission?” and “How can the structures and organization of the church help all the baptized to respond to the call to proclaim the Gospel and to live as a community of love and mercy in Christ?”
Bishop Flores asked that each diocese summarize responses to those questions in a 3-5 page document and send it to the USCCB by April 8. The diocesan summaries will inform the USCCB’s summary, which is due to the synod secretariat in May.
Bishop Flores noted that in addition to the listening sessions, “we are encouraged to continue ongoing engagement with the People of God in the dynamism of a synodal style.”
To that end, dioceses may also include with their submissions “a two-page testimony of best practices for synodality” they have developed, the bishop explained.
Bishop Flores also wrote that in addition to the diocesan consultations taking place, “the USCCB will be holding additional listening sessions at the national level with a focus on participation, social justice, and vocations.”
Diocesan-level synod leaders “will be invited to participate in a national working group with the permission of the bishop,” he said in his letter.
Bishop Flores said that “we all know time is short, but even modest efforts at the local level can bear much fruit.
“Let us do what we can, as well as we can and trust the Lord to accomplish beyond what we can foresee,” he wrote.
Launched by Pope Francis in October 2021, the first session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, organized on the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission,” took place Oct. 4-29, 2023, in Rome.
The first session of the synod, also known as the “Synod on Synodality,” was summarized in a 41-page report intended to allow the global church to digest, reflect on and give feedback on its contents ahead of the synod’s final session in Rome next October.
Part of that task is figuring out how decisions are made in the church in a way that is faithful to its nature – including discerning how episcopal collegiality is exercised in a synodal church – because the church’s members have “differentiated co-responsibility for the common mission of evangelization.”
The synod’s report also covers topics such as evangelization as a mandate of baptism, formation in “authentic discipleship” rooted in the Eucharist and Scripture, clerical and lay formation, ministries of pastoral accompaniment, the role of the Eastern Catholic churches in the life of the universal church, ecumenism, ordaining married men to the priesthood, the role of women in the church and the ongoing impact of clerical sex abuse scandals among others.
The synod’s next session in Rome will have the task of making decisions about what concrete proposals to present before the pope.

(Gina Christian is a national reporter for OSV News. Peter Jesserer Smith, national news and features editor of OSV News, contributed to this report.)

By Theresa Cisneros
LOS ANGELES (OSV News) – Five years ago, Rosy Oros lay comatose in a hospital bed in Mexico – some 1,500 miles away from home – after experiencing complications from a medical procedure that had taken a drastic toll on her body and mind.
She was suffering internal and external bleeding, her organs were damaged, and doctors gave her only a 2% chance of surviving.
As she lay there on the brink of death, she finally opened her eyes and – in a haze – saw a familiar set of brown eyes gazing back at her, lovingly, that were very much still alive.
Those eyes belonged to an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe hanging just a few feet away, at once filling her heart with love and hope that the Virgin Mary she’d held dear since childhood would intercede with Jesus to help her make it out of the clinic alive.
Oros’ healing journey came full circle this December as she and other musicians sang hymns of praise and thanksgiving to Our Lady of Guadalupe during the annual “Las Mañanitas” celebration at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in honor of her feast day.
“I am so humbled and blessed to be able to stand there and in my own simple way give thanks to the Virgin,” Oros told Angelus, the online news outlet of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “It may seem insignificant but I know that she is receiving it with a lot of love and that it makes her happy, because she knows my heart.”
At the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the festivities ran from the evening of Dec. 11 into the early hours of Guadalupe’s feast day, Dec. 12.

As in years past, the celebration featured Aztec and Ballet Folklorico dancers, veneration of the only relic of St. Juan Diego’s “tilma” in the U.S., the rosary, a musical tribute that included “Las Mañanitas,” and ended with midnight Mass, where Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles said the Guadalupe story is a reminder that “Jesus Christ loves us so much that he came to share our hopes and dreams and to offer his life for us.”
“Just as she did with Juan Diego, the most holy Mary entrusts each of us with a task. She has a message that she needs us to spread and she is sending us to tell the whole world about Jesus.” he said.
Oros aimed to do just that as she and six other guest singers delivered individual serenades to the Virgin backed by Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuellar.
Oros carefully made her way onto the altar, set down a bouquet of red roses near two giant images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego bedecked with hundreds of flowers, and sang two songs to the Virgin while looking deep into the compassionate eyes that she’s come to know so well.
It was a moment that she had trained for all her life.
Oros was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, into a family of nine that is both musically inclined and devoutly Catholic; one of her brothers spent six years in the seminary, while another is currently a Jesuit novice. She immigrated to Santa Maria in California as a preteen, and studied music theory and vocalization, singing to God and to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
At 12, she discovered a love for Mexican “ranchera” music when her father bought her a copy of Linda Ronstadt’s 1987 album “Canciones De Mi Padre” – in which the American singer recorded traditional mariachi songs that were of special significance to her family.
“I would lock myself in my room and listen to the cassette over and over and over again until I learned all the songs,” she said.
Since then, Oros has remained close to the singing world. She’s enjoyed a long career working in TV, radio, the recording industry and now in publishing as editor-in-chief of Iconos, her own magazine highlighting music and entertainment news.
While she’s remained mostly behind the scenes, she has recorded jingles, produced her own albums and sings when the occasion arises. While living in New York, she had the chance to sing on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” for fashion designer Oscar de la Renta and open for Mexican “ranchera” icon Vicente Fernández at Madison Square Garden.
Oros accepted the chance to sing during this year’s “Mañanitas” celebration at the cathedral, out of gratitude for the role she said Our Lady played in saving her life just five years ago.
In 2018, Oros went into septic shock, and then fell into a coma, after undergoing a medical procedure in Aguascalientes. After awakening, she suffered a cerebral thrombosis and other complications that worsened her prognosis.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, she spent the early days of her recovery in a clinic named, aptly, for Our Lady of Guadalupe, where she said she experienced the love of Jesus for her through Mary.
A pivotal point in her healing, she said, came when she and her husband received messages from Mary through a prayer group.
“She said, ‘I am with you, do not be afraid,’” Oros said. “’You will heal from this but we will do this together …’ In other words, she wanted me to get closer to her Son while holding her by the hand.”
Today, Oros’ body and faith have grown continually stronger.
“She interceded for me to live,” she said. “We always look for the opportunity to thank her and to be in communion with her.”
Surviving the near-fatal incident has shown Oros that Our Lady of Guadalupe is very much alive and is there to help all of her children, she said.
“We may not be perfect, we may be sinners, we may fall, but in the end this is proof of the love and mercy of Christ through his mother. She is the key to the door that opens to Christ and to our salvation.”

(Theresa Cisneros writes for Angelus, the online news outlet of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.)

By OSV News
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – 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.”