Catholic Social Justice – The Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy

Just like any family, the Mercedarians have those elders who paved the way for our redemptive work in the United States. One of these friars is Fr. Marino who came to the United States from Italy to serve the Italian immigrants in Cleveland, OH.

marino02-241x300 — Rev. Marino Frascati, O. de M. 1925-2009

There in Cleveland as Pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel he faced many challenges including the changing neighborhood around the parish. With all the challenges he faced the soft-spoken optimist persisted, and often asked, “Why not?”

Frascati’s undertaker and longtime parishioner, Jim Craciun, called him a renaissance priest who inspired a renaissance in Cleveland.

Plain Dealer columnist James Neff once called the white-robed priest “the most popular and powerful man in the neighborhood.”

Ray Pianka, Cleveland Housing Court judge, said, “He would never give up at City Hall or in the halls of Congress.”

The priest prophesied a neighborhood of condos and restaurants instead of noisy trains and idle factories. One of many skeptics called it “the Coal Coast.” But the prophesy came true.

Frascati was a founder, president and eventually president emeritus of the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization. Pianka, the group’s long-time director, later the neighborhood’s councilman, said the priest helped the 1973 group become a national model, with breakthroughs such as the first federal urban development grant outside of a downtown.

Overall, the group has raised about $100 million and spurred more than $1 billion in private investments.

Frascati formed other organizations at Mount Carmel, which added a few million dollars’ worth of more projects to the near West Side neighborhood. He led the construction of a seniors’ high rise called Villa Mercede for his order, Our Lady of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. He created condos and houses through a group called Nolasco Housing Organization for the order’s founder, St. Peter Nolasco.

Frascati was born in Castel Viscardo and entered the order at 14. In 1948, he began to study theology at a Franciscan seminary in Teutopolis, Ill. He was ordained as a priest in 1951.

He briefly worked at Our Lady of Mercy Monastery in Middleburg Heights, St. Rocco Church in Cleveland and other local sites. Then came 13 years as Mount Carmel’s associate pastor and 25 as pastor.

Frascati said a weekly Mass in Italian. He helped dry up controversial bars. He blessed new homes and an ice cream shop called Blessings. He served as dean of Holy Name Societies for the West Side.

He started many activities for youngsters. He founded and led a Boy Scout troop. He took children to the Alleghenies, Great Smoky and more. He gave Bibles to Craciun and other young adults to smuggle into Communist countries. Frascati left Cleveland in 1995 to become his order’s vicar provincial in LeRoy, N.Y. Nine years later, he chose to return as Mount Carmel’s pastor emeritus.

His many awards included a Star of Italy from his homeland’s consulate and a Medal of Honor from Pope John Paul II.

The Mercedarian friar died November 1, 2009 from heart disease at Regina Health Center, Richfield, his home the past few years. He was 84. His funeral Mass was led by Bishop Emeritus Anthony Pilla several day later.

We remember Fr. Marino in our prayers and thank God for all he was able to accomplish through him.

Blessed Juan Nepomuceno, a diocesan priest, in his great zeal for the poor founded the Mercedarian Sisters of Charity. He was destined to share the “cup of suffering” during his life, but recently has been recognized as Blessed.

Blessed John Nepomucene Zegri y Moreno, Founder (1831-1905) Juan Nepomuceno was named, like the pioneering bishop of Philadelphia, John Nepomucene Neumann (1811-60; 5 Jan.), after St John Nepomuk, the fourteenth –century confessor to Queen Sophie of Bohemia, who was drowned on the orders of her dissolute husband, King Wenceslaus IV. Juan was born in Granada in Southern Spain to Antonio Zegri Martin and Josefa Moreno Escuedero, who brought him up to be devout and sensitive to the needs of the poor. He wanted to become a priest in order to serve the poor, and accordingly entered the seminary of San Dionisio in Granada, and was ordained in the cathedral in June 1855. He served in two parishes in Granada, carrying out his duties, as he said in a homily, “like a good shepherd, going after lost sheep; like a doctor, healing sick hearts wounded by faults and binding them with hope; like a father, who visibly provides for all those who, suffering from abandonment, must drink from the bitter chalice and receive nourishment from the bread of tears.”

Juan’s career progressed rapidly in ecclesiastical terms: he was appointed synodal judge in Granada, then canon of Malaga Cathedral, visitor of the religious Orders in the diocese, and spiritual director of the seminarians. He was then summoned to Madrid to become preacher and royal chaplain to Queen Isabel II (1830-1904; queen 1843-68). After she was deposed he returned to Malaga, and in March 1878 he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, whose purpose was to work for the spiritual and material advancement of the poor. The foundation spread rapidly throughout Spain. Following the general understanding in the Church and the time (determined to distinguish herself from a nascent socialism dedicated to changing the structures of society); Fr Zegri declared that “charity is the only answer to all social problems.” He told his Sisters to “heal wounds, repair evils, comfort sorrows, dry tears; do not, if possible, leave even one person in the world abandoned, afflicted, unprotected, without religious education and assistance.”

This noble goal did not prevent some of the Sisters from accusing him of improper behavior. The case was referred to Rome and no less a weapon than a Pontifical Decree was launched at him, barring him from contact with the Congregation he had founded. This unjust situation lasted six years, until a further Pontifical Decree reinstated him, though in practice he still kept away from his “daughters,” who were not disposed to accept Rome’s second verdict. This state of affairs lasted until he died on 17 March 1905, “like Jesus, alone and abandoned.” Some of the Sisters had kept a true memory of events, but it was not until twenty years after his death that he was again officially recognized as the founder of the Congregation.

He was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II in 2001 and beatified by him on 9 November 2003, with four others, in a ceremony that brought the number of Blessed declared by this Pope to 1,320. In his homily, the Pope called him “an upright priest of deep Eucharistic piety,” made no mention of the rift with his Congregation, and simply said, “Today this Institute, following in the footsteps of its founder, continues its dedication to witness and promote redemptive charity.” Taken from page 85-86 (March 17): Butler’s lives of the saints: Supplement of new saints and blessed By Paul Burns, Alban Butler