News - May 2024 RSS Feed

Bishop James Ruggieri celebrated Mass for members of the Hispanic community on Sunday, May 26, at Sacred Heart Church in Portland.

With hundreds filling the seats of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and many more watching via livestream, the Diocese of Portland celebrated the ordination of three men to the transitional diaconate on Saturday, May 25.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland announces the selection of Shelly Wheeler as the new leader of Maine Catholic Schools effective July 1, 2024. Wheeler has served as principal of St. John’s Catholic School in Brunswick with distinction since 2018. Marianne Pelletier is retiring at the end of the 2023-2024 school year following five years as superintendent and nine years with the diocese.

Bishop James Ruggieri has announced nine priest assignments, four retirements from active ministry and one departure in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland effective July 1, 2024.

Prayers were answered for the staff at the St. John the Baptist Food Bank as they celebrated a ribbon cutting and blessing of its new location in Winslow. A December storm caused severe flooding in many parts of Maine. It left more than six inches of water in the former food pantry location in the basement of St. John the Baptist Church in Winslow damaging food, a commercial refrigerator, and a freezer.

The Most Reverend James Ruggieri celebrated the Baccalaureate Mass at St. Joseph's College on Friday morning, May 10, one of his first events since being ordained and installed as the 13th bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland on May 7. Bishop Ruggieri also attended the nursing pinning ceremony in the afternoon and offered the Invocation and Benediction at Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 11. Bishop Ruggieri was hosted by St. Joe's new president, Joseph Cassidy, during the events held on the college's sprawling Standish campus.

“We’re called to be saints and that doesn’t happen simply by doing nothing.” That was Bishop James Ruggieri’s message as he celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, his first Mass since being ordained and installed as bishop of the Diocese of Portland.

With more than 1,000 people watching from pews and seats in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland and many more watching via livestream in parish halls and homes, Bishop James Thomas Ruggieri, a priest from the Diocese of Providence, was installed as the 13th Bishop of Portland on May 7 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

Carrying on an ancient custom in the Catholic Church, bishops, priests, deacons, religious, and family members and friends gathered with Bishop-elect James Ruggieri on the evening of his ordination to pray for him and with him.