From thePastor’s Desk
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners:
No doubt, most of us know someone who has succumbed to the coronavirus. A week or so ago, I was scanning articles on the Catholic News Agency website, when one article caught my eye: “Nine Catholic bishops with COVID-19 die in a single week”. As I read the article, I learned that between January 8th and 15th, nine bishops across three continents died after testing positive for COVID-19. The bishops ranged in age from 53 years old to 91. As I read through the names of those who died, I realized that I had known one of them. Indeed, I had even mentioned him in this column on September 6th when I wrote about a visit I made with some other young men to Romania in the early nineties when I was discerning a call to the priesthood and studying theology in Rome. In the summer of 1993, I think it was, we visited Romania guided by Father Florentin Crihălmeanu, a young priest from the Eastern Catholic Diocese of Cluj-Napoca. Ordained in 1990, Fr. Florentin had been completing his studies in Rome when he accompanied our group to his homeland for a week-long visit.
After that summer trip, Florentin returned to Rome for one more year. When he completed his studies in 1994, he returned to Romania to teach in the Eastern Catholic seminary in Cluj-Napoca. In 1996, Pope John Paul II ordained Fr. Florentin to serve as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Cluj-Gherla. At 38 years old, Florentin was the youngest bishop in the world at the time. In 2002, Bishop Crihălmeanu was made the bishop of the same diocese where he served as auxiliary, Cluj-Gherla, until his death earlier this month. Apparently, on January 4th, Bishop Crihălmeanu was diagnosed with the mild case of the coronavirus. He was treated by a physician and sent to be quarantined under the care of a community of religious sisters. Unfortunately, his condition worsened and he died on January 12th.
When I sent the news to a friend of mine with whom I studied in Rome and with whom we travelled together with Florentin to Romania in the summer of 1993, my friend was just as shocked as I was to learn about Florentin’s death. My friend emailed me a couple of articles in Romanian about Florentin that I was able to translate into English with the help of an on-line translation tool. One of the articles he sent, articulated 61 interesting facts about Bishop Florentin, one fact for each year of his life. I will share just a few. Florentin’s mother was Roman Catholic and his father Greek (or Eastern) Catholic. His sister is a nun. After college, Florentin served in the army like most Romanian men were required to do at the time. (Romania was liberated in 1989 from Communist rule.) Eventually, Florentin began his studies for the Eastern Catholic priesthood and was ordained a priest in 1990 in Unirii Square in Cluj. As I noted in my September 6th article, the places of worship of the Romanian Church united with Rome (Easter Catholic Church) had been confiscated by the communists in 1948 when Orthodox Christianity was made the official religion of the country. During his time as bishop, Florentin managed to oversee the construction of new Eastern Catholic churches. Through everything, Bishop Florentin maintained his child-like heart. RIP Florentin Crihălmeanu.
In Christ,
Father Berg
