GLENMARY
HOME MISSIONERS
We are a Catholic society of priests and Brothers who, along with numerous coworkers, establish the Catholic Church in small-town and rural America. Founded in 1939 by Father William Howard Bishop, Glenmary is the only religious community devoted exclusively to serving the spiritually and materially poor in the rural US home missions. Today, supported entirely through freewill offerings, we staff missions and ministries throughout Appalachia and the South.
Glenmary missioners serve in areas where frequently less than one percent of the population is Catholic, a significant percentage have no church affiliation, and the poverty rate is often twice the national average. Glenmary is known for respecting the many cultures encountered in the home missions. Our missionary activity includes building Catholic communities, fostering ecumenical cooperation, evangelizing the unchurched, social outreach, and working for justice.
GLENMARY CHALLENGE
Our quarterly magazine has three goals: to educate Catholics about the US home missions, to motivate young men to consider Glenmary priesthood or brotherhood, and to invite all Catholics to respond to their baptismal call to be missionary by partnering with Glenmary as financial contributors, prayer partners, professional coworkers, and/or volunteers.
Body of Christ
This past July Glenmary had a chance to show its stuff to a big crowd. We had a booth at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, the biggest US event of its type since Philadelphia in 1976. Sixty thousand faithful from across the country gathered for five days of worship and faith-sharing.
Wonderfully, through donor-funded scholarships, groups from Glenmary parishes in Tennessee and North Carolina were able to attend. Imagine what an experience it would be to come from a tiny, out-of-the-way Glenmary parish into this huge Catholic celebration!
But that wasn’t all. Glenmary’s exhibit booth had its towering map of counties where there is no established Catholic church, that also shows the counties where Glenmary has started parishes. There Father Dan and our team handed out pushpins for folks to mark their own parishes on the map. By the end of the five days, our map had close to 3,000 pins!
P.O. Box 465618 · Cincinnati, OH 45246-5618
513-874-8900 · 800-935-0975 · challenge@glenmary.org
Glenmary Challenge is sent to all donors, to US diocesan clergy, and to anyone who requests it. (To begin receiving issues, use the contact information below.) © 2024, Glenm ary Home Missioners. Reprint permission granted upon request. GLENMARY HOME MISSIONERS
People were surprised to learn that there are counties in the United States without Catholic parishes. Some people even took copies of the Challenge to read in hotel rooms, and one stopped by the next day to make a financial contribution. They want to help.
That kind of engagement is what all of us in the Glenmary family dream about. We want people to join our mission effort, through awareness, prayers, support. It’s why we publish this magazine, feed social media, make huge displays, go to conferences. Sure, there was an exhausted staff, a hoarse Father Aaron, Father Dan looking for quiet space, but it was worth every minute of it! Editors Theresa Nguyen-Gillen and Omar Cabrera tell more of the story on p. 13.
John Feister
Solemn Promises to Serve
BY LANEY BLEVINS | PAGE 6
GLENMARY’S FOURTH OATH
By Father Steven Pawelk
Glenmarians commit to a life in small, non-Catholic areas. Their oath to pray helps them along the way.
REMEMBERING CIVIL RIGHTS
By John Feister
The movement for civil rights was forged in the last century but continues today. A Glenmary group got on a bus and found out how.
SMALL TOWNS TO UNIVERSAL CHURCH
By Theresa Nguyen-Gillen
“Where do you celebrate the Eucharist?” Glenmary asked. Three thousand people answered.
Publisher: Father Dan Dorsey
Editor: John Feister
Assistant Editors: Laney Blevins, Omar Cabrera, Theresa Nguyen-Gillen
Design: E + R Design Studio
Four men made their final, lifelong oaths to Glenmary. They look forward to a life of service and spirituality.
Planning-Review Board
Chris Phelps, Lucy Putnam, Father Vic Subb, Father Richard Toboso, Father Aaron Wessman
ON THE COVER
With St. Joseph and Father Bishop in the background, Brother Willy Kyagulanyi places his hand on a Bible and takes his final, lifelong oath to Glenmary.
Photo by John Feister
Photo by John Feister
Photo by
Theresa Nguyen-Gillen
Six Days of Encounter
—US BISHOPS’ 2018 PASTORAL LETTER ON RACISM
This past May Glenmarians, that is, Glenmarians (including students) and coworkers (30 of us), embarked on a six-day civil rights pilgrimage by bus across two states and five cities. Our goal was to be prayerful and to engage with an open spirit those we encountered along our journey.
We wanted to listen, learn about and honor the people, and visit a number of significant places of the civil rights movement. We wanted to be aware of the movement’s Christian grounding and then apply our learning to current social justice challenges in the United States, especially in our mission territory.
Th roughout the six-day sojourn we visited interpretative museums, historic sites, and listened to personal testimony. Along the way the Holy Spirit touched my heart and I realized that, even at age 73, I still have much to learn. I am a pilgrim.
I asked the question in prayer: Why is there so much hate in us? Four young girls, 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and 11-year-old Cynthia Wesley, killed in a bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. A civil rights leader, Medgar Evers,
murdered in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi. Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who advocated nonviolence, assassinated in Memphis.
Brutality and beatings. Violence. Lynchings by the thousands. Fear and death. Enslavement to incarceration: Why is there so much hate?
Th e six days were a powerful reminder and challenge to see the dignity and the presence of Christ in those we encounter.
Easy to do? No. Impossible? Also no. As people of faith we are challenged and inspired by Jesus Christ: “With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).
Yes, I am a pilgrim.
The founder of Glenmary, Father William Howard Bishop, instructed his missioners, “Our greatest success as toilers in God’s vineyards will come through our labors for the poor and forgotten.” We as missioners continue to toil for and with the poor and vulnerable, encouraging empowerment and self-sufficiency. We walk with and challenge those who are downtrodden
from the president
Father Dan Dorsey
Photo by John Feister
Sisters Ancella (l) and Imelda, missioners in Georgia, reflect on the lives of unknown murdered slaves.
to “Stand up!” as Jesus said to the paralytic (Jn 5:8).
As missioners we are witnesses to the hope of the Resurrection that we have experienced ourselves. We are pilgrims, trusting in the Holy Spirit to guide us, always listening to those we serve.
As missioners, disciples of Jesus Christ, we respect and value human dignity, without discrimination. We cultivate an environment of respect and understanding, rather
than one of judgment. The essence of our mission lies in the celebration of Pentecost, which cherishes unity in diversity.
As missioners our call is rooted in the Church, devoted and strengthened by the Eucharist, seeking unity in diversity, flowing from and directed to the poor in remote, often overlooked regions in the United States.
In our Glenmary prayer to Our Lady of the Fields we humbly ask: In the soil of sorrow, help us sow
GLENMARY NEWS & NOTES
ECUMENISM / Glenmary hosts retreat Christians meet to share and pray for unity
Drawn by Christ’s prayer that his Church would be one, representatives of six Christian traditions gathered at an ecumenical retreat organized by Glenmary and facilitated by the Focolare Movement.
The retreat brought together: Anglicans, Catholics, Evangelicals (including Southern Baptists), Lutherans, Methodists, and Pentecostals. They met on May 28–30 at a Catholic center in Saint Meinrad, in southwest Indiana.
“In bringing together these various traditions and ministries for the first ecumenical retreat, Glenmary sought to highlight the amazing works of unity that are taking place across the country,” says Nathan Smith, Glenmary’s director of ecumenism and main organizer of the retreat.
The 19 participants prayed Lectio Divina together, shared their own ministries of Christian unity with one another, and discerned new opportunities for partnership. Some joined in
fields of comfort. In the dry ground of discrimination, help us sow the fields of rich harmony. In the hard clay of doubt and despair, help us sow abundant fields of hope and care.
As our six-day pilgrimage came to an end one thing above all was most clear to me: I am a pilgrim. As rural Mississippi civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer said, “No one is free, until everyone is free.”
Think about it. Our sojourn continues.
by
prayer with the monks at Saint Meinrad Archabbey.
All of them expressed a gratitude toward their brothers and sisters in Christ for their presence and their unity during the retreat. They also thanked Glenmary for offering the space for this dialogue on Christian unity to take place.
“For many, this ecumenical retreat was an opportunity to learn about the faith and work of another Christian group to which they would have little chance of engaging elsewhere, and will serve as a catalyst for a broadening of communion between various traditions in the US,” Smith says.
Retreat participants gathered at Saint Meinrad Archabbey, Seminary and School of Theology, in Indiana.
Photo
Omar Cabrera
Glenmary media awarded
In June Glenmary Challenge and El Reto Glenmary were recognized for excellence by the 900-member Catholic Media Association.
El Reto Glenmary was the standout: It was awarded first place for “Una Iglesia abierta para todos” (“A Church Open to All”) about sacramental preparation in Rutledge, Tennessee, written by Omar Cabrera, editor. El Reto also won three second-place and two thirds, and two honorable mentions.
In writing, design, and photography, Glenmary Challenge won a second place, three thirds, and four honorable mentions, including one by Father Dan, another by Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation coordinator Polly Duncan Collum, and several by designer Emilie Winner.
Also, Father Aaron won first place for his New City Press book, The Church’s Mission in a Polarized World. Editors Laney Blevins, Theresa Nguyen-Gillen, and Father Dan share first place for their Facebook Live of the Country Raffle drawing. OUTREACH /
FORMATION / Novices
Five men enter the novitiate
This year Glenmary Home Missioners has five men discerning as novices at our Cincinnati, Ohio, headquarters. The novices, Raphael Kavita, Evarist Mukama, Moses Ndung’u, Alex Omari, and Aloysius Ssennyondo, are among 11 men in formation with Glenmary.
Their novitiate year, which began July 1, is a time for each man to deeply discern their call to Glenmary through prayer, study of Glenmary history, and spending time in our mission counties. The men began their novitiate with a spiritual retreat led by Glenmary Father Kenn Wandera.
At the conclusion of the year, the men should have a better understanding of their call as missioners and what it means to live the Glenmary way of life. Normally, the end of novitiate year leads to the men taking their First Oath.
Father Steven Pawelk, Glenmary’s novice director, will guide these men as they discern priesthood through the year—an exciting ministry as he helps shape the future of Glenmary!
Glenmary’s Communications Team took home 19 awards from the 2024 Catholic Media Conference.
Bishop Parkes came 280 miles across his diocese to our Early County mission. Sisters Ancilla (r) and Imelda welcomed him to bless their house.
Our five novices prepare for a history lesson from Father Steven in the novitiate house in Cincinnati.
Photo by Bridget Richardson
Photo by John Feister
Photo by Father Aaron Wessman
Three-year-old Gemma García was baptized at the Mass with temporary migrant workers in Mattamuskeet.
JUSTICE / Migrant farmworkers
USCCB visits
Glenmary missions
Delegates of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other organizations visited two sites near the North Carolina coast where Glenmary ministers to migrant temporary workers. The group visited a remote seafood plant near Lake Mattamuskeet and a farm near the tiny town of Colerain.
Father Tom Florek, executive director of the Catholic Migrant Farmworker Network, held a Baptism in a carport at the seafood plant. The workers in this site are mostly women who come from
AROUND THE MIS SIONS
MISSION HOSTS REENACTMENT
In early May, St. Peter the Apostle in Smith County, Tennessee, participated in a city-wide reenactment of an important moment in World War II history. The mission church was a staging site for various jeeps, tents, and dressed soldiers to recreate the training exercises of soldiers that occurred in Middle Tennessee from 1941 to 1944.
Mexico for eight months each year under temporary visas. Glenmary Father Vic Subb, along with parishioners, drives there once a month to celebrate the Eucharist for these people. Father Vic, who concelebrated the baptismal Mass, serves as pastor of St. Joan of Arc mission, located about an hour’s drive from the plant.
After Mattamuskeet, the group visited agricultural workers at a tobacco, cotton, and sweet potato farm near Colerain. Some of the 22 men who work under temporary visas were awed to see the unusual visit of 32 people. During their stay in the United States, these farmworkers receive a monthly visit from Father Vijaya Katta, pastor of Glenmary’s Holy Trinity mission in Williamston.
“Working with our migrant brothers is a way of fulfilling first the mandate of Jesus and second, that of Pope Francis, who invites us to practice charity with the most vulnerable,” says Marco Tavares, Glenmary lay comissioner. “Many times, these men experience the loneliness of being here for several months while their families are far away. That’s why it is so important to accompany them.”
These visits were part of a four-day journey, August 1–4, organized by USCCB’s subcommittee on Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees and Travelers, and the Catholic Migrant Farmworker Network (CMFN). The group of visitors included people from other Catholic and non-Catholic organizations related to migrant farmworkers across the United States.
MISSIONERS FOR THE POOR
Brother Thomas Nguyen, Brother Craig Digmann, and Linda Crisostomo, lay evangelizer, were among the thousands who attended the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, DC, on June 29. The national gathering called for legislation to benefit those in poverty and rallied supporters to vote.
VISIT FROM THE BISHOPS
Bishop Stephen D. Parkes, Diocese of Savannah, celebrated Confirmation for three students at Holy Family mission in Blakely, in Southwest Georgia. In July, Bishop Luis Rafael Zarama, Diocese of Raleigh, celebrated Confirmations at St. Joan of Arc, the Glenmary mission in Eastern North Carolina.
by Omar Cabrera
Photo
SOLEMN PROMISES to Serve
Four men made their final, lifelong oaths to Glenmary. They look forward to a life of service and spirituality.
BY LANEY BLEVINS
This year four men solemnly promised and swore before God to dedicate themselves to the missionary apostolate in the rural areas and small towns of the United States, and to the Glenmary way of life.
On June 1, Erick Orandi, Joseph Maundu, Willy Kyagulanyi, and Cavine Okello made their final, lifelong oaths to their Glenmary Brothers. The following weekend, Cavine and Joseph were ordained as transitional deacons to prepare for priesthood.
These men fi rst heard the call to religious life when they were young.
“I fi rst felt I had a vocation to priesthood when I was as young as 10 years old, serving as an altar server,” Deacon Cavine says. “I was in love with priesthood. I loved what I saw priests do in terms of celebrating Mass and how they were friendly to us.” Deacon Joseph echoes the sentiment. “I got an early vocation when I was under 10 years old,” he says, having come from a very devoted Catholic family.
Members stand before President Father Dan Dorsey to undertake an oath of the Glenmary way of life.
Photos by John Feister
Brother Willy also grew up in a committed Catholic family that always encouraged being part of the Church and praying together. Growing up around religious Brothers and Sisters inspired him to pursue religious life. Brother Erick realized his calling through experiences of deep spiritual connection and fulfi llment in serving others, particularly when serving as an altar server in his home parish.
A journey to serve
Not only did the four men answer God’s call to religious life, they made the life-altering decisions to leave their home countries of Kenya and Uganda to minister in the United States to serve with Glen-
“I felt called to serve God as a missioner.”
mary. “Several things attracted me to join Glenmary,” Brother Erick begins, “but most importantly, a strong desire for a life of prayer, simplicity, and service to others—especially those on the margins—and a sense of belonging to a community with shared values.”
Glenmarians serve where they are needed: in the Deep South and Appalachia, in counties where less than one percent of the population is Catholic. Th is was attractive to Deacon Cavine, who longed to serve where there was a need and admired Glenmary’s preference for the poor and the neglected.
“Being with the people is key,” says Brother Willy. Glenmary’s service to small towns with little to no Catholic presence helps aid in reaching out on a personal level compared to bigger parishes.
“I felt called to serve God as a missioner," says Deacon Joseph. “I met someone who served in Glenmary and he gave me the story and I took that as God [calling]. I prayed to God and told him, ‘Since you have put this desire in me, please, use me as your instrument.’ God has been faithful to this always. He has journeyed with me and has guided my steps always.”
Looking ahead
The future is bright for these four men, who have only just begun their journey with Glenmary after making their fi nal oaths. Brothers Erick and Willy
look forward to a life as Brothers and utilizing their unique skills in their service.
“Being in school for nursing and having seen the need for healthcare in small towns, I look forward to working with local healthcare facilities in helping people access and get healthcare, especially those who cannot afford it,” says Brother Willy. Meanwhile, Brother Erick is involved with parish ministry. “I eagerly anticipate a life of prayer, spiritual growth, and dedicating my life to serving others through ministries aligned with our charism,” he says.
In February of 2025, Deacons Joseph and Cavine will be ordained as priests. In the meantime, they will continue to serve the Glenmary missions.
“I am looking forward to doing what God wills me to do. I am open to listen and hear the voice of God that comes to me through his people and through prayer. I am going into this as an instrument to be used by God in the mission of redeeming the world with Christ. I understand that God will keep forming me every day to be a better person so that he can use me in his ministry in the appropriate way,” Deacon Joseph expresses when asked about what he is most looking forward to.
“I am looking forward to making a difference in the missions after I am fully professed and ordained, when I’ll be able to minister sacraments and bring Christ to God’s people with my everything,” says Deacon Cavine.
We’re looking forward too. Glenmary is growing.
Laney Blevins is an assistant editor of this publication. Freelance author John Stegeman contributed to this story.
Brother Willy, Brother Erick, Deacon Cavine, and Deacon Joseph (l to r) proudly wear crosses acting as a symbol of their lifelong commitments as Glenmary Home Missioners.
Glenmary’s Fourth Oath
Glenmarians commit to a life in small, non-Catholic areas. Their oath to pray helps them along the way.
BY FATHER STEVEN PAWELK
When a Glenmarian places his hand on the Bible and takes his oath, it includes a special call to prayer. That’s not typical; most religious profess vows or oaths to three evangelical counsels: Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. Yet, are not all Christians called to prayer? Are not all religious men and women called to prayer? Why would this oath be added?
Imagine Glenmary, beginning in 1939, trying to establish the Catholic Church in rural Appalachia before President Johnson’s War on Poverty, when the mountains were still very isolated from the rest of the United States. The priests and Brothers were from very Catholic cultures in other parts of the country. Mass back then was in Latin, and most people of these parts had never met a Catholic. They weren’t certain that Catholics are Christian. Suspicion and prejudices were plentiful. A Catholic missioner in that environment had better be a person of prayer!
Anti-Catholic bigotry
The prejudice against Catholics is no joke. Here are some true stories and experiences I encountered in my missionary life (which began in 1983). During my fi rst pastorate in Mississippi, the Baptist minister shared with me that when he was a child, his class clapped at the announcement of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy because he was a Catholic.
A Franciscan Sister who was a home health nurse shared this story with the newly appointed bishop of Lexington, Kentucky, in 2002. One of her elderly clients was crying one day on the porch. She asked why he was upset. His response was, “Sister, you are the kindest person I know. You are so good to me. Yet, you are going to hell and I will miss you when I am in heaven.”
In 2013 I was visiting a convert to Catholicism and her homebound husband. She was born and raised in the mountain hollows of Tennessee, with a Church of God grandfather as pastor. When she told them she was going to New Jersey to marry a Catholic man, she was instructed to bring a knife. Why? Because her grandfather believed that the priest claimed a right to sleep with the bride. The knife was to protect herself. After the wedding she reported to her grandfather that she did not need the knife, “because he did not even try.”
Photo by John Feister
Novices, with Father Steven, pray daily in the Novitiate House chapel at Glenmary.
Pray through it
Proclaiming the faith where you may not be wanted requires a Glenmarian to have a special practice of prayer.
The Glenmary Constitution and the Glenmary Directory outline with explicit detail what our call to prayer entails. There are 18 paragraphs on prayer between the two documents that lay out all aspects of Glenmary’s way of life. We are serious about prayer, because, as our Constitution states so well, “Without prayer faith soon dries up and dies. Without prayer charity grows cold and becomes routine and hope becomes a utopian dream” (Constitution, #40).
Our prayer is to be communal, personal, and ecumenical. So even though prayer strengthens us, who typically live among few Catholics, and even still encounter occasional anti-Catholic bias, we still embrace prayer with non-Catholic Christians. We often seek out and create new forms of ecumenical prayer opportunities. To do so, one must be strong in faith.
Glenmarians are contemplatives in action: praying on the road or in chapels before the Blessed Sacrament, praying with others in many settings—churches, front yards, nursing homes, tomato fields—and privately in the homes of the people we serve. As our Constitution instructs, Glenmarians “should renew and strengthen our individual personal prayer life so that with fervent charity, renewed hope, and strong faith, we may reach out from our community to all those in need in the rural areas and small towns of the United States” (#44).
From the very beginning of Glenmary’s mission,
the goal of establishing new Catholic communities in counties where they do not exist has been at the heart of our ministry. That requires priests and Brothers whose own lives are rooted in the Eucharist. They are sharing that sacramental expression of the Real Presence with others.
But that sacramental expression is not confined by church walls. Our service to the reign of God means dealing with the sins of our times, with poverty, prejudice, abuse of power, and more. That social sin affects the daily lives of everyone in our county, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
To stand as a witness for justice, for wholeness of the Gospel into communities where we are a minority is no small task. We have the strength to walk with others only because we are men of the Eucharist. Everything we do flows from our relationship with Jesus. That relationship is nurtured by prayer and the Eucharist.
Our founder wrote, “If our interior life is not kept on a high plane, our work can have only an apparent success and not very long. The fundamental requirement for true success is that we all strive daily to be saints” (Mid-Winter letters).
Therefore the wisdom of our founder and our current Constitution and Directory call us to a special practice of prayer. We pray that we may be witnesses to all of God’s love, mercy, and justice. Please pray for us as we pray for you!
Father Steven Pawelk is Glenmary’s Second Vice President and Novitiate Director.
Novitiate Director Father Steven starts his prayer two-and-a-half
earlier!
(l to r) Brothers Thomas Nguyen, Erick Orandi, and Jude Smith visit the historic 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Remembering Civil Rights
The movement for civil rights was forged in the last century, but continues today. A Glenmary group
got on a bus and found out how.
This past May, a group of 30 Glenmarians and coworkers met in Birmingham, Alabama, and climbed aboard a pilgrimage bus. But this would not be a typical Catholic pilgrimage. Th is would be a prayerful encounter with sites of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. In Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, these pilgrims would spend time in the places where Christians stood up for their faith, and sometimes were abused, tortured, even martyred for it.
“The point was to have an encounter, an opportunity for the pilgrims to gain a better understanding of the Southern culture,” says Father Dan Dorsey, president of Glenmary, speaking of history that affects ministry in some Glenmary areas. “But the most important thing for me was that the participants had a profoundly spiritual experience, where people see Christ in the experience of others, whether that’s in a museum or in the people who continue to struggle for justice.”
For Glenmary student (now novice) Evarist Mukama, the experience was an eye-opener. “I was struck by the scene where the four girls were killed,” he says,
referring to 1963’s bombing victims, young girls, at the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. “They were really innocent. Humanity can be destructive.” He had studied the US civil rights movement as a young student in Kenya. “I thought it happened a long time ago, but it is actually a recent thing, the 1960s. And this struggle for freedom is actually still going on.” Human trafficking is real, today, he observes.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY JOHN FEISTER
Glenmary students read a commemorative marker at the spot where Emmett Till was falsely accused.
Then and now
There were two parts of the pilgrims’ six-day journey. First was witnessing firsthand the places and commemorations where the sometimes grim, sometimes hopeful events of 60+ years ago took place. That was augmented by time spent with people in today’s struggle for justice.
What better guides for such a pilgrimage than Polly and Danny Duncan Collum? Polly is Glenmary’s director of Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. Danny, her husband, is a Greenville Mississippian who grew up during the momentous civil rights events. Many years later, the couple was recruited to start the Glenmary parish in Ripley, Mississippi.
“It was a time of reflection,” says Polly. “But also, it was a connection between the past and the present.” She offers the example of a meeting with Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz and representatives of Working Together Mississippi, a multiracial coalition in Jackson, Mississippi, of which the Diocese of Jackson is a member.
Over dinner in Jackson one evening, the pilgrims heard stories of veteran civil rights organizers and from people who are tackling issues today. “You know, legal segregation is sort of gone,” one of the speakers told the group, for example. “But civic segregation is as deep as it ever has been. I can’t believe that we can’t get expansion Medicaid,” she said, speaking of Mississippi’s rejection of federal funds for improved medical services for the poor.
Other stories, real and immediate, abounded at various evenings during the pilgrimage: an evening at Resurrection Catholic Missions of the South in Montgomery, Alabama, another with leaders of the Greenwood Community Center in Mississippi. Each of those evenings was the conclusion of days going to interpretive centers and memorial sites along the way.
One center told the story of slavery and ended with treatment of today’s mass incarceration of African Americans. Another told the heroic story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Nearby was Rosa’s bus stop. There was the Kelly Ingram Park, in Birmingham, where the nation watched in horror as fire hoses and police dogs were turned on peaceful protestors. Today the park is a site of sculptures interpreting that event.
There was a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
(Top to bottom) Students share notes before a poster of 1963’s March on Washington; Pilgrims at a Birmingham bombing sculpture; Crossing the historic bridge at Selma.
Glenmary’s pilgrimage bus made a stop in Canton, Mississippi, to visit the childhood home of Servant of God Thea Bowman, FSPA. The Franciscan Sister lived from 1937 until 1990. One book described this African American woman as a “shooting star.”
Sister Thea had responded to the witness of Franciscan Sisters who taught at a parish school in Canton, among Black Mississippians oppressed by racism and terror. She left home to become the only African American in her community.
She was called to mission back home in 1978, and rose to become a national leader in the movement of Black Catholics, until she suffered and died of cancer. The pilgrims above visited the room where she died. Her cause for canonization was introduced in 2018.
‘The most jarring thing for me was all of the hatred, and I would argue that it’s still there today.’
at Selma, Alabama, site of the Bloody Sunday attacks on peaceful protesters by club-wielding mounted police. The pilgrims’ bus stopped at the home of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, slain in his driveway while wife and children waited for him to come through the door; the site where false accusations were made against teenage visitor Emmett Till, who was tortured and murdered for them; the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated. It was a very deep immersion experience.
Stories of hope and challenge
Moses Ndung’u, a Glenmary seminarian from Nakuru, Kenya, says what struck him most was listening to the story of Rosa Parks and to the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “especially the way he advocated for a peaceful resolution.”
When seminarian candidate Philip Langford saw a museum display of Ku Klux Klan robes, this Texan from a multiethnic family was brought back to a childhood experience. “I actually have a memory of encountering the KKK,” he says, recalling a 2004 cross-country family car trip from Texas to Florida, with a gas stop in Mississippi. “Coming down the road a group of Klansmen were carrying a cross. I remember my mother immediately told me to lie on the floorboard. I was just reminded of all of that today. I can imagine how somebody who went through the civil rights era, with all of the lynchings, would have responded to that cross. The most jarring thing for me was all of the hatred, and I would argue that it’s still there today. And I don’t know if I would say it’s quieter, because it’s getting louder and louder.”
Deacon Joseph Maundu, a Kenyan, sums up the experience for many of the pilgrims: “When you know the history of a place, and then experience things there, you know it’s not about you. It’s about the issue, about what happened there. And you stop your own prejudices. We can sympathize with other people. I think this [pilgrimage] experience will give us a positive approach.”
John Feister is editor of this publication.
FROM Small Towns TO THE Universal Church
BY THERESA NGUYEN-GILLEN
Deacon Joseph Maundu looked around at the thousands of people gathered on the streets of downtown Indianapolis. “Have you ever been around this many people in your life?” he asks Pat Ioas, a parishioner of Glenmary’s St. John Paul II mission in Grainger County, Tennessee.
Parishioners from three Glenmary missions were waiting outside for the eucharistic procession to begin. Inside the Indiana Convention Center, Fathers Dan Dorsey, Aaron Wessman, and Glenmary coworkers invited Catholics from across the country to mark where they celebrate the Eucharist on an 8-by-8-foot map. It was all part of the fiveday National Eucharistic Congress in July.
Parishioners from three missions walked the procession together.
Indiana Convention Center welcomes thousands of Catholics.
Photo by Omar Cabrera
Photo by Theresa Nguyen-Gillen
“ PEOPLE ARE JOYFUL. THERE’S A GREAT SPIRIT HERE ”
—FATHER
Sharing the joy
Children, parents, college students, seminarians, bishops, retirees: Catholics of all ages came by Glenmary’s booth to hear about our mission and share our love of the Eucharist. “People are joyful. There’s a great spirit here,” says Father Dan Dorsey, before waving down a passerby to put a pin on the map of where they celebrate the Eucharist. By day four and five, several people return to the booth to see if other Congress attendees are from their same county and how the map has progressed.
DAN DORSEY
Father Dan greets Sister Magdalene Claire, DM, a friend of Glenmary.
Father Aaron, Brother David, Chris Phelps, and Father Dan (l to r) invite attendees to pin the map.
Photo by Theresa Nguyen-Gillen
Photo by Omar Cabrera
Photo by Casey Johnson, in partnership with the National Eucharistic Congress
Sharing the faith
“That’s the reason why I go to church—because of the Eucharist,” says Johcel Hughes, one of eight women from Glenmary’s St. Joan of Arc mission in North Carolina. Adoration at the Congress has moved her deeply. “It gives me goosebumps,” she says, to see the large monstrance on the stadium floor surrounded by thousands of Catholics in prayer.
Sharing the mission
A middle-aged woman walked up to the map in Glenmary’s booth to place her pin in the county where she grew up in Indiana. She was surprised to see that it was red—in fact the only red county in Indiana—indicating there is no established Catholic eucharistic presence. “I had no idea!” she says. Her family lived close to the neighboring county and always went there for Mass, not realizing there wasn’t a single Catholic church in their own county. Her surprise was echoed in the thousands of people whom Glenmary met at the Congress. “Wow, your ministry is so needed,” they tell us.
eresa Nguyen-Gillen is an assistant editor of this pubication. Assistant editor Omar Cabrera contributed photos.
Each day of the Congress ends with talks and adoration in Lucas Oil Stadium.
Twin girls pin where they celebrate the Eucharist.
Bishop Earl K. Fernandes, Diocese of Columbus, places his pin.
Photo by Theresa Nguyen-Gillen
Photo by Omar Cabrera
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
HAPPY 8 5 TH ANNIVERSARY TO ALL GLENMARIANS!
My four years of ministry in Grayson, Kentucky, alongside Glenmary priests and a Glenmary lay volunteer introduced and led me to an appreciation of the works of Glenmary and taught me to value the ministry of presence, "porch-sitting." Thank you!
May God continue to bless your ministry with "the forgotten and neglected regions of the US" and beyond.
Pat Colla, RSM | Elmwood, CT
REAL PRESENCE
Thank you so much for reminding us all that the real presence is not restricted to our beloved Eucharist (“From the Editor,” Summer 2024). With the current focus on eucharistic real presence, it can sometimes be forgotten that Vatican II reminds us of real presence in the Word and the gathered people of God as well. Your work is so important. Thank you for all that you do.
Patricia B Triggs | Springfield, MA
PRIESTLESS COUNTIES?
I just recently got around to reading the Summer 2024 issue of the Glenmary Challenge. I was startled when I studied the map of counties without an Established Catholic Eucharistic Presence.
I don't know how you got some of the information reflected in that map, especially for Virginia. I know we need to do a lot more evangelistic work here, but at least three counties (Frederick, Augusta, and Rockbridge) shown as having no Eucharistic Presence have parishes with continuous worship dating from the 19th century.
The only explanation I can come up with is that these parishes are all in what Virginia terms "Independent" cities, which are no longer considered part of the county for most purposes - even though they are commonly the county seats! (To the best of my knowledge, wisely no other state has chosen to follow Virginia in that plan.) The cities are surrounded by the county; and most people consider
we want letters to the editor !
them as part of the county, except for governmental purposes.
We are grateful for the Glenmary Home Missioners and gladly support them. (We'd do more, but we tend to give mainly to our parish and to the Dominicans, as one of our sons is a friar.) We've worshiped in a number of parishes Glenmary has founded, especially in Georgia.
Fletcher Bingham | Bridgewater, VA
Our archivist responds:
We didn’t make a mistake. And you are correct. Let me explain.
The state of Virginia has roughly 45 independent cities. Independent of the counties in which they are located. (There are three others in the US—Baltimore, St. Louis, and one in Nevada— but the rest are in Virginia.)
Yes, it is a state/governmental boundary, and often the county seat is in the independent city. The US census designates it separately, and so do we.
Send to: Editor, Glenmary Challenge, PO Box 465618, Cincinnati, OH 45246. Email: challenge@glenmary.org. Comments are printed at the discretion of the editor and may be edited for clarity and space. Please include a postal address with your letter.
Love – Serve – Learn
Glenmary Adult Volunteer Week October 27–November 2, 2024
Mission service is life changing! Join us for a week of ministry and prayer in Tennessee! All adults welcome! Cost to participate is $275.
Contact Joe Grosek at jgrosek@glenmary.org or 606-202-3658
“IF WE ARE TO HAVE PEACE ON EARTH, OUR LOYALTIES MUST BECOME ECUMENICAL RATHER THAN SECTIONAL. OUR LOYALTIES MUST TRANSCEND OUR RACE, OUR TRIBE, OUR CLASS, AND OUR NATION. ” dr. martin luther king jr., 19 6 7
Glenmary pilgrims encounter the site where Dr. King was assassinated.
Photo by John Feister
“ e Eucharist is God’s response to the deepest hunger of the human heart.”
—POPE FRANCIS
Photo by John Feister