As wider war threatens Middle East, pope asks Mary to intercede
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
As fighting in the Middle East intensified and spread, Pope Francis turned to Mary, begging her to “intercede for our world in danger.”
With members of the Synod of Bishops, pilgrims, ambassadors accredited to the Vatican and Catholics from the Diocese of Rome, the pope led the recitation of the rosary for peace Oct. 6 at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major.
The prayer service took place on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the deadly Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s massive retaliation in Gaza.
Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon have joined the fighting, firing rockets and artillery shells at northern Israel. Israel ramped up its response in late September, sending troops across the border and intensifying its targeting of what it said were Hezbollah hideouts. In April and again Oct. 1, Iran fired missiles on Israel in support of its Hezbollah allies. Many feared Israel would strike Iran.
Turning to Mary, Pope Francis prayed that she would intercede with God so that the world would “protect
life and reject war, care for the suffering, the poor, the defenseless, the sick and the afflicted, and guard our common home.”
“We beg you to intercede for God’s mercy, O Queen of Peace,” the pope prayed. “Convert the souls of those who fuel hatred, silence the noise of weapons that give rise to death, extinguish the violence that broods in the heart of human beings and inspire projects of peace in the deeds of those who govern nations.”
Pope Francis read his prayer to Mary during the service, but did not give a homily.
The pope led a similar service in May 2022, asking Mary to intercede to end Russia’s war on Ukraine and to bring peace to the world.
As the Middle East conflict escalated, he began his prayer by saying, “O Mary, our mother, once again we stand before you. You know the sorrows and difficulties that burden our hearts in this hour. We
lift our gaze to you; we focus on your eyes and entrust ourselves to your heart.”
“Hear our cry,” the pope prayed. “We need your loving gaze which invites us to trust in your son Jesus.”
Knowing that Mary is “ready to embrace our sorrows,” he prayed that she would “come to our aid in these times oppressed by injustice and devastated by wars (and) wipe away the tears from the suffering faces of those who mourn the death of their loved ones.”
But Pope Francis also prayed that Mary would rouse all people of goodwill “from indifference which has darkened our way and disarm our hearts from weapons of violence, so that the prophecy of Isaiah may be fulfilled immediately: ‘They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’”
Pope Francis reads a prayer he wrote to Mary, asking her to intercede to bring an end to war, after reciting the rosary for peace in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major Oct. 6. For more on conflicts in the Middle East, turn to page 12.
PAGETWO
BLUE MASS Members of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office and the Randolph-Hampton Volunteer Fire Department receive a blessing during a Blue Mass at St. Mathias in Hampton Oct. 5. The Mass “was an opportunity to gather a representative group of our area first responders to offer a prayer of blessing over them, their families, and for their safety as they witness to Christ by selflessly serving our community,” said Father Michael Tix, the celebrant of the Mass and pastor of the parish.
ANIMAL BLESSING
Dominican Father Joseph Gillespie blesses the animals on the front lawn of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis Oct. 6, in honor of the Oct. 4 feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Oct. 4
“Practicing Catholic” radio show included a discussion with Bishop Michael Izen about the importance of pruning season and how it relates to change, and an interview with Father Louis Floeder on the challenges of young people drifting away from the Church. The program also included a talk with Andy Kirsch and Gabby Doran about their musical project, a soundtrack inspired by the diary of St. Faustina. Listen to interviews after they have aired at archspm org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
There are so many hot spots in the world. It’s really a time when the Church needs to be united and we need to pray for peace. Those are the two core principles of the rosary campaign.
Edward Clancy, U.S.-based director of outreach for Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)
Clancy was addressing the many conflicts around the globe and the focus of this year’s ACN “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” campaign. ACN is inviting children, families, parishes, catechists and teachers to join in reciting the rosary Oct. 18 and to pledge their intention at ACN’s dedicated website for the initiative, millionchildrenpraying org The website also features numerous resources, such as prayer kits and reflections for the rosary, in 15 languages. ACN –– which since 1947 has worked under the guidance of the pope to provide pastoral and humanitarian assistance to persecuted Catholics, managing 5,000 projects in more than 145 countries each year –– will dedicate this year’s effort to interceding for peace and unity. More than 120 armed conflicts –– including the widening Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s 10-year war on Ukraine –– are currently taking place around the world, involving over 60 states and 120 non-state armed groups, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which provides humanitarian aid to, and promotes laws protecting, victims of war. Since the annual prayer campaign began in 2005, ACN has offered the rosary on Oct. 18, the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, whose Gospel contains several passages featuring Mary.
NEWS notes
Sponsored by the local Knights of Columbus Council 4021, students walked, ran and biked around Central Park in Roseville on Oct. 5 as part of the 2024 Marathon for Nonpublic Education. The event is “a long-standing tradition” for St. Rose of Lima in Roseville, according to organizers, helping to raise money for the school and raise awareness of Catholic education. Learn more about the fundraiser online at givemn org/organization/saint-rose
Sept. 19, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul announced the single-largest monetary gift for scholarships reportedly ever awarded to a Minnesota university. Beginning in fall 2025, the monetary gift from the Schoeneckers Foundation will create funding for scholarships for 250 undergraduate students each year. The funding will provide scholarships for undergraduate students in need, with the ability to recruit students to the university’s various programs, schools and colleges. “My father got his start and inspiration at St. Thomas,” Larry Schoenecker — son of Guy Schoenecker, chair of the Schoeneckers Foundation and CEO of BI WORLDWIDE — said in a statement. “He believed in the value of a St. Thomas education and was a leader in helping the university advance at every step of its transformation. We’re proud to continue his legacy of supporting St. Thomas and its positive impact on higher education, and on the lives of students and the people of Minnesota.”
The Ignatian Volunteer Corps Twin Cities’ annual Fall Forum Oct. 24 will feature a discussion on the Jesuits’ efforts to reconcile with the descendants of those the religious order once enslaved. Moderated by Archbishop Bernard Hebda, the discussion at St. Thomas More in St. Paul will feature Monique Tursclair Maddox, president and CEO of Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation, and Jesuit Father Timothy Kesicki, past president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. The evening will include a 5 p.m. social hour, 6 p.m. dinner and 7 p.m. program. IVC helps match retired men and women with nonprofits that can benefit from their expertise to serve the marginalized in the community. Service corps members also devote one morning a month to growing in Ignatian spirituality and building up their community.
COURTESY BARB BAUER
COURTESY BASILICA OF ST. MARY
FROMTHEVICARGENERAL
ONLY JESUS | FATHER MICHAEL TIX
Living as missionary disciples
One of the many activities that characterizes the fall season is football.
For a number of years, I have served as chaplain at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield. Among the duties of the school chaplain that predates me, is serving as chaplain of the school’s football team.
As chaplain, we have a weekly Mass with players and coaches, typically on game day. Then, I lead the pregame prayer, and after home games, we gather in the school courtyard for a prayer to St. Joseph as the school’s patron, honoring the Sisters of St. Joseph who founded the school. Aside from leading the players and coaches in prayer, I’m also with them on the sidelines and able to engage in a variety of conversations that at times even include prayer requests.
Like any sport, a football team has a mission of focus on the game at hand. Besides the game, however, there are lessons of faith and life to be learned in football or any team sport. Regularly we talk about the values of discipline, hard work and teamwork as core tenets of not only football, but life and faithfulness to our call to follow Jesus Christ.
In addition to football, the month of October is characterized by World Mission Sunday. When we think of World Mission Sunday, we rightly remember missionaries serving in developing countries and bringing the Gospel message to people often lacking the necessities of life.
While we remember and pray for all those serving in faraway places, Pope Francis reminds us that we are all called to be missionary disciples. As an expression of our baptism when we become children of God, we are
Vivir como discípulos misioneros
Una de las muchas actividades que caracterizan la temporada de otoño es el fútbol. Durante varios años, serví como capellán en la Academia de los Santos Ángeles en Richfield. Entre las funciones del capellán escolar que me anteceden, está la de ser capellán del equipo de fútbol de la escuela.
Como capellán, celebramos una misa semanal con los jugadores y los entrenadores, normalmente el día del partido. Luego, dirijo la oración previa al partido y, después de los partidos en casa, nos reunimos en el patio de la escuela para rezarle a San José, el patrón de la escuela, en honor a las Hermanas de San José, que fundaron la escuela. Además de dirigir la oración con los jugadores y los entrenadores, también estoy con ellos al margen y puedo participar en una variedad de conversaciones que, a veces, incluso incluyen pedidos de oración.
Como en cualquier deporte, un equipo de fútbol tiene como misión centrarse en el juego en cuestión. Sin embargo, además del juego, hay lecciones de fe y de vida que aprender en el fútbol o en cualquier deporte de equipo. Con frecuencia hablamos de los valores de la disciplina, el trabajo duro y el trabajo en equipo como principios básicos no solo del fútbol, también de la vida y de la fidelidad a nuestro llamado a seguir a Jesucristo. Además del fútbol, el mes de octubre se caracteriza por el Domingo Mundial de las Misiones. Cuando pensamos en el Domingo Mundial de las Misiones, con razón recordamos a los misioneros que sirven en países en desarrollo y llevan el mensaje del Evangelio a personas que a menudo carecen de los necesidades para vivir.
Mientras recordamos y rezamos por todos aquellos que sirven en lugares lejanos, el Papa Francisco nos recuerda que todos estamos llamados a ser discípulos misioneros. Como expresión de nuestro bautismo,
Another activity that characterizes these days of fall are parish festivals. People love these opportunities to gather and support one another and the mission of an individual parish.
sent into the world like the first Apostles and disciples to share the message of God’s love with all we meet. If there is any doubt, recall Jesus’ words, “Go out therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
We are sent into the world, to share something of God’s love in the ordinary ways of daily living that bring others to an encounter with Jesus Christ. It’s a mission that continues among us and is revealed in many ways this month, as it calls us to see and recall.
Some weeks ago, I received a call from a former neighbor. Tom and Barb lived behind me, and I watched their three girls grow to be fine, faith-filled adults. Tom called to share the news that his middle daughter was involved in a car accident. After picking up her three children from school like any other day, Jenni passed out and went off the road. Thankfully no one was hurt. In the moment of need, Tom and Barb stepped in to help Jenni and her husband take care of the kids as medical professionals worked to figure out why Jenni had blacked out and develop a treatment path moving forward. While a scary sequence of events, the action of Tom and Barb to do what needed to be done to help Jenni and her family — as well as the actions of the first responders at the scene and many people who continue to pray for Jenni and her family — is another example of living as missionary disciples, by sharing the love of God with others not only in ordinary moments but in those extraordinary ones that can unexpectedly burst
cuando nos convertimos en hijos de Dios, somos enviados al mundo como los primeros apóstoles y discípulos para compartir el mensaje del amor de Dios con todos los que conocemos. Si hay alguna duda, recordemos las palabras de Jesús: “Vayan, pues, y hagan discípulos de todas las naciones, bautizándolas en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo”. Somos enviados al mundo para compartir algo del amor de Dios en las formas ordinarias de la vida diaria que llevan a otros a un encuentro con Jesucristo. Es una misión que continúa entre nosotros y se revela de muchas maneras este mes, al llamarnos a ver y recordar.
Hace unas semanas, recibí una llamada de un ex vecino. Tom y Barb vivían detrás de mí y vi a sus tres niñas crecer hasta convertirse en adultas sanas y llenas de fe. Tom llamó para contarme la noticia de que su hija del medio había sufrido un accidente de coche. Después de recoger a sus tres hijos de la escuela como cualquier otro día, Jenni se desmayó y se salió de la carretera. Afortunadamente, nadie resultó herido. En el momento de necesidad, Tom y Barb intervinieron para ayudar a Jenni y a su marido a cuidar de los niños mientras los profesionales médicos trabajaban para averiguar por qué Jenni se había desmayado y desarrollar un camino de tratamiento para seguir adelante. Aunque fue una secuencia de acontecimientos aterradora, la acción de Tom y Barb de hacer lo que había que hacer para ayudar a Jenni y a su familia, así como las acciones de los socorristas en el lugar de los hechos y de muchas personas que siguen rezando por Jenni y su familia, es otro ejemplo de vivir como discípulos misioneros, compartiendo el amor de Dios con los demás no solo en los momentos ordinarios, sino también en aquellos extraordinarios que pueden irrumpir inesperadamente en nuestras vidas.
Otra actividad que caracteriza estos días de otoño son los festivales parroquiales. A la gente le encantan estas oportunidades de reunirse y apoyarse mutuamente y a la misión de una parroquia en particular.
Como administradora parroquial, una de mis parroquias se está preparando para su Cena Anual de
into our lives.
Another activity that characterizes these days of fall are parish festivals. People love these opportunities to gather and support one another and the mission of an individual parish.
As parochial administrator, one of my parishes is now preparing for its Annual Sausage Supper on Nov. 24 from noon to 6 p.m. at St. Mary in New Trier. New Trier is a city with a population of 85 people, and as a parish of 156 households, St. Mary’s Annual Sausage Supper feeds 800 or more people with a meal grounded in the area’s German heritage.
In addition to the number of people who come, what’s amazing to watch is the teamwork of the parish itself as it puts together this meal with hours of volunteer work from farm to table, which includes an active 103-year-old volunteer who helps make sauerkraut and is the keeper of the sausage spices. It’s another example of World Mission Sunday and how people live as missionary disciples by feeding the hungry of our world and sharing an experience of Jesus Christ in the sometimes-chaotic world around us.
October is characterized by World Mission Sunday. It invites all of us to not only look to the missionaries who serve far away, but to remember our call to be missionary disciples who bring a message of God’s love to our own time and place, by both word and deed, as we put faith into action and share the light of Christ for all around us to see and know.
Salchichas el 24 de noviembre desde el mediodía hasta las 6 p.m. en St. Mary en New Trier. New Trier es una ciudad con una población de 85 personas y, como parroquia de 156 hogares, la Cena Anual de Salchichas de St. Mary alimenta a 800 o más personas con una comida basada en la herencia alemana de la zona.
Además de la cantidad de personas que asisten, lo que es sorprendente de ver es el trabajo en equipo de la propia parroquia mientras prepara esta comida con horas de trabajo voluntario desde la granja hasta la mesa, que incluye a un voluntario de 103 años que ayuda a hacer chucrut y es el encargado de las especias de las salchichas. Es otro ejemplo del Domingo Mundial de las Misiones y de cómo las personas viven como discípulos misioneros al alimentar a los hambrientos de nuestro mundo y compartir una experiencia de Jesucristo en el mundo a veces caótico que nos rodea.
Octubre es caracteriza por el Domingo Mundial de las Misiones, que nos invita a todos a no solo mirar a los misioneros que sirven lejos, sino a recordar nuestro llamado a ser discípulos misioneros que llevan un mensaje del amor de Dios a nuestro propio tiempo y lugar, tanto con palabras como con hechos, mientras ponemos la fe en acción y compartimos la luz de Cristo para que todos a nuestro alrededor la vean y la conozcan.
OFFICIAL
Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointment in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis: Effective August 1, 2024
Reverend Joseph Gillespie, OP,
as parochial
assigned
administrator of the Church of Saint Albert the Great in Minneapolis. Father Gillespie is a priest of the Dominican Friars, Province of Saint Albert the Great.
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St. Michael celebration
Father Nicholas Froehle, pastor of St. Michael in Farmington, holds up a mortgage deed after Mass Sept. 29 that recently was paid in full. He then burned it in a fire, as members of the parish watched. At right is Deacon Jim Bauhs, who serves at the parish and lit sparklers to mark the celebration of the payment of the mortgage, which the parish has had since 2000 when the building was dedicated. The mortgage burning took place on the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, which coincided with the annual parish festival, Feast Day Family Fest. The original plan was to pay off the debt by the end of 2026. Then, earlier this year, Father Froehle announced an anonymous gift of $1 million, and that a portion of that gift would help accelerate the payments. The news brought a “whoop of joy” from parishioners, one staff member said. During the festival later that afternoon, parishioners presented Father Froehle with a gift of a prayer calendar, which has recorded on each date the names of parishioners who will pray for him that day.
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On shared history and healing
Local event aims to foster understanding of Native American boarding school harms
By Rebecca Omastiak The Catholic Spirit
With tears in her eyes, Marcy Mears recalled the kindness extended to her and her family growing up in poverty near the Red Lake Nation reservation in northern Minnesota.
“I remember one time my dad was unemployed and was sick and my mom wasn’t working, and we didn’t have any food,” Mears told The Catholic Spirit. A member of the Red Lake Nation “came and brought us a deer, venison, and kept us alive. And if not for the grace of him and sharing with us, I don’t know where we would be. ... There’s so many examples of how they cared for us.”
Mears said, “part of my mission now as a professor in social work (at St. Catherine University in St. Paul) is really to draw the (American) Indian voices into classrooms, make sure that people know their history, the accurate history of the (Native American) boarding schools.”
She has traveled to different reservations and meets with elders. “What they tell me, the elders, is that they don’t want their voices to be lost,” Mears said.
Mears was among the roughly 130 people who registered for an Oct. 5 event at St. Catherine University called “Toward Healing Minds and Hearts: Reflecting for Right Relationship and Conciliation.”
Hosted by the Catholic Racial Justice Coalition (CRJC) and Gichitwaa Kateri in Minneapolis, the event drew members of Native American communities, local Catholics, members of the local Twin Cities community, and leaders within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to pray, to acknowledge harm caused by Native boarding schools, to learn, and to celebrate the vitality of Native cultures.
Attendees were invited “to reflect on their understanding of the issues, plural” that have resulted from Native boarding school harms, said Robert Haarman, director of the archdiocesan Office of Indian Ministry and community minister of Gichitwaa Kateri. “These issues are present in our community as mental health, substance use/abuse, inadequate housing, family issues and more.”
The intention of the event was to inform “our faithful (in the archdiocese) of the difficulties faced by these communities and begin (and) continue to deliver (on) our baptismal promise to meet those in most need,” Haarman said.
“We hope to provide information that may be new to some of our audience and provide resources for attendees to engage further,” said Meg Payne Nelson, vice president of impact for the St. Paul-based Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota (CCF) and a representative of CCF for the CRJC. The CRJC currently includes representatives of eight Catholic institutions in the Twin Cities metro area — the archdiocese; Catholic Charities Twin Cities; CCF; the GHR Foundation; the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet; and the universities of St. Catherine, Winona-based St. Mary (with a campus in Minneapolis) and St. Thomas (with campuses in St. Paul and Minneapolis).
The event opened with smudging, a drum song and a blessing of the “spirit plate” — a Native American prayer to give thanks for the plants and animals that serve as food.
“Our beloved Creator, miigwech (an Anishinaabemowin word meaning thank you) we thank you. You created us. You created all these creatures who now offer their life to help us to grow, to stay healthy, and to share what we have,” said Father Stan Sledz, sacramental minister of Gichitwaa Kateri, in part during the prayer. “Bless us to be a blessing to other people ... bless us always to share.”
During the lunch that followed, attendees reflected on questions placed at each table, including: “What do you know about our shared histories of Native boarding schools? Why does this shared history matter to you? How might you be a part of healing in our communities?”
Robert Haarman, director of the archdiocesan Office of Indian Ministry and community minister of Gichitwaa
in Minneapolis, addresses those gathered for an Oct. 5 event at St. Catherine University in St. Paul called “Toward Healing Minds and Hearts: Reflecting for Right Relationship and Conciliation,” hosted by the Catholic Racial Justice Coalition and Gichitwaa Kateri.
Ginny Helfrish-Simmons, 80, a member of Risen Savior in Burnsville, told The Catholic Spirit she is “glad the Church is taking real responsibility” in addressing its role in the harms caused by Native boarding schools. She added that it was “important and wonderful we’re doing this (the event) here on a Catholic campus.”
Lilieth Hamilton, 70, of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul, told The Catholic Spirit she attended the event to learn more. She said she hoped the event would encourage “more action (to be) taken … to help future generations of Indigenous people.”
Sarah Gleason, 62, and Ann Mongoven, 67, both of St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, told The Catholic Spirit they were interested in learning how individual parishes in the archdiocese could take action.
Gleason said she hoped the event would contribute to “a shared understanding of Native boarding school history and our shared responsibility.”
Mongoven emphasized the importance of listening to Indigenous people, “to hear from them what they need to heal.”
Although guest speaker Samuel Torres, deputy chief executive officer of the Minneapolis-based nonprofit National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, was unable to attend the Oct. 5 event, he had previously addressed the effects of Native boarding schools at the 84th annual Tekakwitha Conference in Bloomington last year.
During those remarks, Torres said addressing the effects of Native boarding schools must be a collective effort from people of every race, faith and nation. He encouraged a framework of restorative justice to heal wounds and recommended education and dialogue to combat a “culture of forgetting.”
Sharing her personal testimony Oct. 5, Valencia Littlethunder said a spiritual advisor has helped her understand historical trauma. Her mother is a Native boarding school survivor.
“This whole state is full of hurt,” acknowledged Littlethunder. She said, “It’s important for our Native community to come together to heal in this process.”
Littlethunder said learning about her Native ancestry helps her to embrace who she is: “It’s OK to be you, it’s OK to be Native, it’s OK to speak your language.”
She acknowledged a need for a collective conciliation effort: “We all have to share this land; we all have to share this space.”
NATIVE AMERICAN BOARDING SCHOOLS
At the end of July, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) released the second volume of its report on Native American boarding schools in the United States.
The ongoing investigation, launched in 2021, has indicated Native boarding schools, many of them operated by various religious orders, sought a process of forcibly assimilating Indigenous children to a European and Christian way of life, suppressing language and culture in the process. The DOI released its first volume of the report in 2022.
To compile the two volumes, the DOI reviewed roughly 103 million pages of records from the U.S. government and participated in listening sessions with hundreds of boarding school survivors at a dozen locations throughout the U.S.
Among other updates, the report’s second volume updated the DOI’s list of federal Native boarding schools to include 417 institutions across 37 states or then-territories (the first volume reported 408 boarding schools). It listed 127 different treaties that involved the Native boarding school system. It confirmed that “at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children died while attending Federal Indian boarding schools” as well as the existence of “at least 74 marked and unmarked burial sites at 65 different school sites.”
The second volume of the report indicated there were 20 Native boarding schools in Minnesota overseen by the U.S. government between 1819 and 1969, compared with 21 in the report’s first volume; two schools identified in the report’s first volume were determined in the second volume to be the same school.
Meanwhile, an online list at ctah archivistsacwr org references eight Catholic-operated U.S. Native boarding schools in Minnesota.
FURTHER RESOURCES
REBECCA OMASTIAK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Kateri
Archbishop Hebda urges parishes to conduct special collection for hurricane relief
By Joe Ruff
The Catholic Spirit
As Hurricane Milton threatened Florida’s stormbattered Gulf Coast and cleanup continued in Florida and five other states after late September’s Hurricane Helene, Archbishop Bernard Hebda urged parishes to conduct special Sunday collections for hurricane relief. Parishes are encouraged to take emergency collections on or near the weekend of Oct. 12-13, said Deacon Mickey Friesen, the director of the Center for Mission
By Josh McGovern
The Catholic Spirit
In his homily during Father Robert Valit’s funeral Mass Sept. 27 at St. Michael in Stillwater, Father Michael Skluzacek told a story about their friendship.
Advent, Father Skluzacek said, was Father Valit’s favorite liturgical season. Every year, Father Skluzacek could count on a call from Father Valit with an invite to Handel’s Messiah, a concert at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
“He loved the season that prepares to celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the word made flesh,” Father Skluzacek said. “The season that waits in joyful hope for the coming of the kingdom of God. … ‘Waving in joyful expectation for the full revelation of the glory of God’ might rightly be the theme of Robert Valit’s life. He lived every day of his life in joyful
in the archdiocese, which was helping to handle the collections.
“This crisis offers us an opportunity to stand in solidarity of prayer and give what we can to bring relief to those suffering from this crisis,” Deacon Friesen said in a letter to priests of the archdiocese. “The funds collected in this special appeal for Hurricane Relief will be sent to Catholic Charities USA, the U.S. Catholic relief agency, to provide immediate disaster relief with necessities such as water, food and shelter,” as well as pastoral and social needs of the Church as it reaches
expectation of the glory of God.”
“When we traveled (overseas) and he encountered a beggar, he wouldn’t think twice,” Father Skluzacek explained. “He would reach into his pocket and give the beggar 10 euros. I saw that happen so many times. He readily would give to others whatever he had, and he always had enough. God will not be outdone in generosity.”
Father Robert “Bob” Valit, who had served the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis since 1978, died Sept. 21 at the age of 96 at the Little Sisters of the Poor in St. Paul. Father Valit retired in 2001, wrapping up an eight-year tenure at Our Lady of Grace in Edina. During his retirement, he served St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater for 17 years.
Prior to Our Lady of Grace, Father Valit served as parochial administrator (1989), then pastor (1989-1993) of St. Peter in Forest Lake. He served as
out to those displaced by the natural disaster, Deacon Friesen wrote.
As parishes were to complete their collections, staff members were asked to send one check made payable to Center for Mission, with Hurricane Relief Appeal in the memo line, Deacon Friesen said.
As the Church responded to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, emergency
pastor of St. John the Baptist in Dayton (1983-1989); associate pastor of Our Lady of Grace (1983); associate pastor of St. Luke in St. Paul (1982-1983); and pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Little Canada (1980-1982). Father Valit served as associate pastor of St. Columba in St. Paul (1978-1980) and St. Margaret Mary in Minneapolis
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this issue.
(1975-1978), as well as chaplain at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale (1975-1978). He served as associate pastor of St. Anne in Minneapolis from 1974 to 1975.
“He sincerely believed that the most important and joyous experiences of his life were celebrating the Eucharist with the people of God,” Father Skluzacek said. “The Eucharist was the center of Father Valit’s life. It was the most important thing he did every day. He relished the opportunity to preside at Eucharist and to preach and as you know, he was a great preacher, an excellent homilist. He believed Jesus’ words that the Eucharist is the promise of eternal life. His entrance into the eternal glorious kingdom of heaven. That’s why he celebrated it with such care, such beauty. That’s why he loved exquisite vestments, beautiful music, quality sacred vessels. But most of all he loved the people of God.”
FATHER ROBERT VALIT
Catholic health care: A call to dialogue and collaboration in the care of body and soul
By Tim Montgomery For The Catholic Spirit
Archbishop Bernard Hebda opened the Sept. 18 Healthcare Leadership Summit at St. John Neumann in Eagan with a prayerful call to preserve the heritage of Catholic health care in the face of strong headwinds. It was a call to dialogue and collaboration in caring for body and soul at a time when the dignity and value of human life at many stages and in many forms is being debated.
Hosted by the Minnesota Catholic Conference and the Minnesota chapter of the Catholic Health Association, the event drew many health care professionals. Keynote speaker Dr. Kristin Collier, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, and six panelists in three panel sessions discussed abortion, assisted suicide and other topics.
Since the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization left the regulation of abortion to federal and state lawmakers, the Minnesota Legislature has enacted sweeping laws to increase its accessibility. At the same time, proposals to overturn Minnesota’s ban on assisted suicide have been presented in the name of compassion and death with dignity. Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in 10 states and the District of Columbia. One proposal in Minnesota, HF1930, which sought to establish an end-of-life option for terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live, did not make it out of committee in the 2023-2024 legislative session, which adjourned in May.
Abortion and assisted suicide are contrary to Catholic teaching, which honors life from conception until natural death. Panelists pointed out that physician-assisted suicide also goes against the American Medical Association Code of Ethics, which holds that “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.”
“How you see the value of human beings matters immensely,” said Collier, who acknowledged that as a medical student and before she became Christian, she was a “functional utilitarian” who
accepted abortion as a medical practice. She presented different states of patients seen by health care professionals while asking how one should evaluate their level of humanity –– and whether they should. Collier asked those present to consider whether someone is less human as a newborn, a quadriplegic, a person with cerebral palsy, or while under sedation with a diminished level of consciousness. Is their humanity diminished?
A panelist who was trained as a United States military physician described the health care profession as a battlefield.
In an increasingly secular environment where physicians are divided and scrutinized, freedom of conscience is at issue, she said. Noting that doctors are under attack every day and are often ostracized for their beliefs, she said that being Catholic and a health care professional should not be mutually exclusive. The Church needs to raise its voice on behalf of religious liberty, she advised, and let it be known that the dignity of humanity matters.
“Science is on our side,” Collier said in response to a question about how Catholic physicians can gain respect for their beliefs. The practice of abortion, she said, is an affront to the vocation of medicine. She referred to established facts surrounding the beginning of human life with fertilization in contrast to the arguments of convenience and choice in support of the practice of abortion.
“There is (currently) a low view of humanity in medicine,” Collier said, describing a practice which, instead of treating humanity with dignity, has bent it to transactional purposes.
Bishop Daniel Felton of Duluth emphasized the connection between the Catholic faith and caring for the health of others. Acting on one’s faith and moral beliefs in the care of others is a partnership between ministry and mission, the bishop said.
“This summit is not just to get us together,” concluded Bishop Felton, “It’s a statement that we need each other.”
In a health care landscape where some believe assisted suicide to be ethical and where abortion is often considered a solution to unwanted pregnancies, it was pointed out by several speakers
that the language used to describe these realities has become sterilized through terminology. Coded words are directed at religious beliefs. This means that, beyond just talk and making rational arguments, health care professionals need to live out their faith in their practice as a witness to their beliefs, panelists said.
Effecting long-term change in health care practice begins with education, said panelist Sister Agnes Mary Graves, director of the nursing program at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. Graves said a major challenge with today’s young people is severe deficits in reasoning ability. In answer to a question posed on how to teach young people to be rational and objective –– to know what is true –– Sister Agnes said the university needs more teachers of ethics, morality and Christian anthropology.
The laborers in the vineyard are few, she concluded, but the harvest
opportunities are rich.
“University and hospital systems originally came out of the Church as ministries of Jesus,” said Bishop Robert Barron of Winona and Rochester, who spoke to the roots of faith and caring in Christian anthropology. The question is whether bytes and buzzwords are so ingrained in the social psyche that people can “budget” other people, make abortion a decision of convenience, and confuse perceptions of gender, he said.
It was generally agreed upon by those in attendance that medicine is one of the most rewarding professions, but physicians need support from the Church and from parish communities to be true to their faith in practice.
“It takes courage,” said panelist Dr. Dennis O’Hare of Bluestone Physician Services, which has offices in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Florida. “It helps to have someone walk beside you.”
COURTESY MINNESOTA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
Bishop Daniel Felton of Duluth speaks at a Sept. 18 Catholic Healthcare Leadership Summit at St. John Neumann in Eagan, hosted by the Minnesota Catholic Conference and Catholic Healthcare Association.
NATION+WORLD HEADLINES
uMembers of the Synod of Bishops must engage in genuine dialogue with those holding differing views, avoid pushing personal agendas and remain open to changing their minds about what is best for the Church, Pope Francis said. “We must free ourselves from everything that prevents the charity of the Spirit from creating harmony in diversity in us and among us,” he said in his homily at the synod’s opening Mass. “Those who arrogantly claim to have the exclusive right to hear the voice of the Lord cannot hear it.” The pope was joined by the 368 members of the Synod of Bishops for the Mass in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 2. Pope Francis urged synod participants to be careful “not to see our contributions as points to defend at all costs or agendas to be imposed,” but rather to see their personal contribution to the synod proceedings “as a gift to be shared, ready even to sacrifice our own point of view in order to give life to something new, all according to God’s plan.”
uRosary pilgrimage in the nation’s capital unites thousands of Catholics in love for Mary. Thousands of pilgrims from across the country gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington Sept. 28 to honor Mary, the Mother of God, and her gift of the rosary. “I am entirely yours, Mary, I am entirely yours,” the crowd sang in Latin as the second annual Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage opened with a procession of a statue of Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. “All that I have, Mother of Christ, all that I have is yours.” More than 3,000 people registered for the free, daylong pilgrimage celebrating the rosary hosted by the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph and their local charters of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary.
uHurricane Helene’s broad impact across an entire swath of the U.S. South means resources will be stretched thin following the massive storm, according to Peter RoutsisArroyo, the CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami. Helene garnered Category 4 major hurricane status just before landfall along the Florida Panhandle Sept. 26. The 500-mile-wide storm then carried catastrophic flooding and destruction through Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Routsis-Arroyo, who has helped facilitate hurricane response efforts around Florida for several decades, said he spent Sept. 28 to Oct. 2 driving throughout some of the affected areas of the Dioceses of Pensacola-Tallahassee and St. Augustine in Florida’s Big Bend area. This trip included rural interior towns impacted by Helene. The Archdiocese of Miami and Archbishop Thomas Wenski have launched an online relief fund appeal to support Catholic Charities’ efforts following the hurricane. One hundred percent
of all funds received will be directed to provide humanitarian relief and assistance to those affected by the hurricane. As of Oct. 7, more than 215 people were confirmed dead and hundreds of people are still unaccounted for. uNew texts for Eucharistic adoration and Communion outside Mass aim to promote unity. Three years after being approved by the U.S. Catholic bishops, updates to the ritual texts for distribution of holy Communion outside of Mass and for Eucharistic adoration will take effect. The revised version of “Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery outside Mass” will be implemented on the First Sunday of Advent, Dec. 1. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had signed off on the fresh texts in 2021, with the revisions reviewed by the USCCB’s Secretariat for Divine Worship and confirmed by the Vatican in March 2023. Father David Price, associate director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Divine Worship, told OSV
News that “the main thing to keep in mind” regarding the revisions is that “this is a new translation of the ritual book that was given in Latin in the 1970s — so it’s a new translation, it’s not a new ritual book per se.” He emphasized that “the discipline of distribution of holy Communion outside Mass that is in place now is not changing.”
uNew bishop of Rapid City pledges to love the faithful as “Mary loved Jesus.” “I’m really grateful to be here,” Bishop Scott Bullock, Rapid City’s new bishop, told the congregation at the conclusion of his episcopal ordination and installation Mass Sept. 23. “My desire is to love you the way the Blessed Mother Mary loved Jesus. When she was able to, with great confidence, say, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’ and then was overpowered by the Holy Spirit for that task,” he said. A priest in the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, for 33 years, he was ordained the 10th bishop of Rapid City at the Cathedral
Plan for Joy. Skip the Stress.
The leaves have turned, and soon snow will begin to fall. Suddenly, the end of the year is upon us. Your to-do list can seem overwhelming this time of year. Family commitments, shopping for gifts, seasonal events, parish and school obligations, and more demand our attention and energy. The responsibility of getting last-minute year-end donations to our favorite charities by December 31 can increase anxiety during an already stressful season.
It feels good to give. And giving should generate joy! Regrettably, processes, deadlines, logistics, and tax considerations can make charitable giving feel stressful. But did you know there’s another way?
What a Donor Advised Fund Can Do for You
Giving through a donor advised fund (DAF) can make your generosity joyful again. Here are some of the ways a DAF can work for you:
• When you establish your fund with an initial gift, you receive an immediate tax deduction.
• Your fund is invested and grows tax free.
• You decide when you give. No need to meet an IRS-imposed deadline.
of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis was the principal consecrator, with 15 other bishops in attendance.
uBoston College launches a millionaire project to empower Hispanic Catholic organizations. Boston College’s Clough School of Theology and Ministry has launched an initiative called “Nuevo Momento” to address the pastoral needs of the growing Latino population in the United States, which now makes up 45% of Catholics and 60% of Catholics under 18. This project, supported by a $15 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, aims to empower 15 organizations that serve Hispanic Catholics. Key components of the five-year initiative include building organizational capacity, promoting financial sustainability, and providing specialized leadership training, including a cohort-based Master of Arts in Ministerial Leadership designed for participants.
• A DAF is flexible. You can give a variety of assets, such as cash, appreciated stock, real estate, and personal property.
• A donor advised fund makes tax preparation easy. No need to hunt or dig for charitable giving receipts. Your gift history is recorded in one convenient place online.
• You’ll have the ability to name your fund — or give anonymously without having to establish a private family foundation.
Align Your Giving with Your Faith
When you partner with the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota (CCF) for your donor advised fund, you can rest assured your gifts are stewarded in alignment with your Catholic values. CCF has been recognized as a leader in faithconsistent investing. CCF also screens recipients of grants to ensure their work does not conflict with Catholic social teaching.
Curious how a DAF can increase your joy and minimize the fuss? The team at CCF is here to discuss your charitable giving goals and help you determine if a donor advised fund is right for you.
Pages 10-11:
uThe Miao diocese in India
uEucharist and the Karenni community
uCommunion opens door to dialogue
uArchbishop Bernard Hebda and World Mission Sunday
A mission that reaches to the ends of the Earth
By Deacon Mickey Friesen
For The Catholic Spirit
Twenty years ago, I met Bishop George Pallipparambil (aka PK George), the founding bishop of the Miao diocese, a new mission church located in the remote foothills of the Himalayan Mountains in northeastern India. It is one of the 1,100 mission dioceses in 100 countries that we support each year on World Mission Sunday.
Bishop PK George described his new church as very young with few resources other than the missionaries themselves living among the people and witnessing to the Gospel. And yet, he said the mission church was taking root and spreading among the many tribal groups in the area.
As he described their situation, I was reminded of the first churches described in the Acts of the Apostles. Like the Holy Spirit that led the Church from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and beyond, so Bishop PK George had been led by the Spirit to this remote area at the other end of the Earth.
He told me how the way he read the Acts of the Apostles had changed since living in Miao. His was a mission church introducing people to Jesus Christ for the first time. What I did not know until recently was that Bishop PK George had planted the seed of the Gospel many years earlier when he was the first Catholic missionary to introduce Jesus to these people. On World Mission Sunday Oct. 20, we celebrate the feast day for all Catholic missions. Pope Francis chose this year’s theme, “Go and invite everyone to the banquet.” With this special day, we are reminded again that the Church is in a permanent missionary state no matter where we happen to live. We are part of a universal Church with a mission that reaches to the ends of the Earth and on the margins of every society. On this day we join with the Church around the world to support the young and developing mission churches like the Diocese of Miao. It is for all mission Catholic churches for all the world. Pope Francis has asked
us to imagine the missionary spirit as being like the servants in the Gospel parable of the wedding banquet (Mt 22:1-14) going everywhere and anywhere to invite everyone to a great wedding feast. The story of mission in the Diocese of Miao is a present-day example of living this missionary spirit to invite others to the feast.
“Go and invite.” The spirit of mission is a welcoming spirit ready to go forth and invite others to the feast of God’s life. As a young seminarian, Bishop PK George was teaching in a Bible school and noticed young Indigenous tribal children living on the streets alone and vulnerable. Bishop PK George learned that these children had come down from the Himalayan foothills and were in a very vulnerable state. Moved with compassion, he reached out to these children and secured a place for them to live, provided food and clothing and made it possible for them to go to school. He found willing partners with the Missionary Sisters of Charity to provide this care and opportunity. When the children from different tribes returned home to their villages, their parents were impressed with all they had received from these followers of Jesus. They decided to send a delegation of elders to meet thenFather PK George in the city and provide the following message: “Dear Father George, please come to us and tell us more about this God Jesus who has done so much for our children.”
“Come to the feast.” In the mission parable, the servants go to bring the invitation of the wedding feast to the highways and byways and to invite as many as they find. Then-Father PK George accepted the invitation to go into tribal areas of northeast India to answer the call of the people to tell them more about the God Jesus. In 1979, he traveled through the jungles and foothills of the Himalayan Mountains to smuggle himself across the border into an area where Catholicism was banned. He never left. He stayed with the families and elders who had invited him. He proclaimed the Gospel to them with the children being the first translators. He said it was like walking in the
footsteps of the Apostles. The word spread like wildfire among the villages and tribes. As it was not allowed for outside priests and religious to enter this area, missionary activity was carried out by the youth and lay leaders. Then-Father PK George stayed with these young evangelists and together they announced the Gospel for the first time to those who heard it. Within two years, over 900 people were baptized in the Church.
“Everyone is invited.” The universal mission of Christ is meant for everyone. The master in the parable intends to fill the banquet hall. Every mission of the Church is born out of the heart of Christ who draws all creation to himself. In a world torn by division, the Gospel message is meant to bring unity and healing. Then-Father PK George faced many forces of division among the groups opposed to his mission. It was the Miao people themselves who demanded that they be allowed to be baptized. Some women and girls endured threats and violence, but they did not renounce their newfound faith in Jesus. They prayed and put their lives in God’s hands until they were finally released. From that seed of the Gospel, the Church in Miao has grown today to nearly 100,000 Catholics, hundreds of catechists, youth leaders, clergy and religious vocations, and 34 parishes have been established. The Church in Miao is still young and growing. It is also a joyful Church. As Pope Francis said of missionaries, “We should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet” (“Evangelii Gaudium,” 14).
We each have a role to play in serving and supporting God’s mission around the world. Please be generous in your support of the mission Church. On this World Mission Sunday, let us go forth in joy from the banquet of the Eucharist to love and serve the Lord — to go and invite many more to the feast.
Deacon Friesen is director of the Center for Mission, which supports missionary outreach of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He can be reached at friesenm@archspm org
COURTESY THE PONTIFICAL MISSION SOCIETIES
A World Mission Sunday 2024 poster.
Myanmar priest draws Karenni refugees in Minnesota together around Communion
By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit
In early 2013, Karenni priest Father Saw Joseph Kureh was 46 and running a parish in the Loikaw diocese in the Karenni State in Myanmar when his bishop suddenly asked him to go to the United States.
Father Kureh refused at first, but the bishop was adamant.
“No, your people are there,” he told Father Kureh, who is now associate priest at St. Bernard in St. Paul. The bishop explained to Father Kureh that American priests were requesting help from Karenni priests to minister to an influx of Karenni refugees in the U.S. who were fleeing persecution and war.
The bishop added, “So go and see them, pray with them and be with them.”
During the last 50 years, thousands of Karenni people, some of whom were Catholic or had previous exposure to Catholicism, fled from their homes in Myanmar’s smallest ethnic state, to refugee camps in the country’s border with Thailand as the Myanmar military persecuted and expelled them, Father Kureh said.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has struggled for decades with repressive military rule, widespread poverty, civil war and poor governance, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan foreign policy resource.
In 2006, about 20,000 Karenni people living in Thai refugee camps were allowed through United Nations refugee resettlement programs to apply and resettle in countries including the United States. Between 2006 and 2015, about 15,000 came to the U.S., according to a ResearchGate journal article.
Father Kureh and several other priests from his diocese followed their bishop’s request and fanned out across the U.S. to locations where the Sino-Tibetan people resettled.
After serving for two months in several Karenni communities in the Eastern U.S., Father Kureh was assigned to St. Bernard. He continues to care for “his people” of about 80 Karenni families and draws them into community with the Church by inviting them to Sunday Eucharist, initiating them in the sacraments, and providing faith formation and other opportunities for community fellowship.
Many of the Karenni people in the U.S.
learned aspects of the Catholic faith from catechists who visited their villages in Myanmar and in the refugee camps, but few were initiated into the sacraments, Father Kureh said. At the same time, he said, some continued to practice non-Christian animist traditions. Animists believe that objects, places and creatures have distinct, spiritual essences. Of the estimated 200 total Karenni families in Minnesota, a few continue in those traditional practices or other religions, Father Kureh said.
Recognizing that the Karenni people need more Catholic teaching, Father Kureh encourages them to attend the 10:30 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Bernard, where he preaches his homily in Karenni, Burmese and English. Some of the readings and music are also in Karenni. Father Kureh is the only priest at St. Bernard who speaks the language.
Ten other parish families from other regions of Myanmar speak Burmese, while a few native English speakers, Hispanic/Latinos and Vietnamese also attend the Mass, he said.
The Karennis people view the Eucharist as a mystery; Father Kureh said once they accept it, they become very devoted to it and are more likely to attend the Sunday “Karenni” Masses.
“We draw them into the Church and to the Eucharist because as Catholic people, the Eucharist is the first priority for spiritual nourishment,” he said.
Father Kureh offers the Karenni people options for weekly faith formation classes. Organizing the classes has been complicated somewhat by the fact that the teenage Karenni children moving into the parish from other U.S. cities didn’t receive sacraments when they were younger, he said.
Father Kureh continues to encourage baptized parents to bring their children to formation.
“We want to encourage them more and more, you know, to understand about this and to send their children” to faith formation, he said.
Father Kureh said he hopes to someday return to his country but adds that it has become even less stable since he left. The central building of his diocese, he noted, is currently occupied by the Myanmar military. “All the bishops and priests have run away into the jungle from the diocese center.”
Here in Minnesota, Father Kureh is happy to see his Catholic Karenni community thriving, in part because of the Eucharist.
“They’re very, very close,” he said.
Eucharist draws together young,
By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit
When Bishop George Pallipparambil was a Salesian seminarian in northeastern India more than 40 years ago, he started seeing increasing numbers of Indigenous teens in the streets of Lusukia, Assam, where he was teaching at his religious community’s Don Bosco Bible School.
He soon realized they were coming from tribal villages in the Himalayan foothills of the adjoining state of Arunachal Pradesh, which was under Indian military rule and basically cut off from the rest of the world.
Bishop Pallipparambil — who joined the Salesians, he said, because of their youth-oriented approach to missions — arranged housing for the boys, and later some girls, who continued to come from the state bordered by Tibet, China and Myanmar (formerly Burma).
For three years, he and his community provided for the teens’ material needs, educated them and introduced them to the Catholic faith.
“They came as non-Christians and seeing how we were living and how we were accommodating them and adjusting to them, they became Catholics,” Bishop Pallipparambil told The Catholic Spirit. Today, many of those students who approached Bishop Pallipparambil and the Salesians are lay leaders of the new Diocese of Miao (pronounced like “meow”), which Bishop Pallipparambil leads.
During a school year, the Salesians taught an average of 130 boys and 80 girls from small, remote Mongolian headhunting tribes.
The tribes were surprisingly accepting of what the children told them about the Catholic faith when they returned to their villages at the end of the school year. Elders in some of the villages invited Bishop Pallipparambil, who by then had been ordained a priest, to tell them about “this God Jesus” they’d hear about from their children.
Then-Father Pallipparambil sought permission from his bishop to travel through the militarycontrolled mountainous jungle, risking his life,
to teach tribal members.
Though many of the tribes had they accepted as part of the Gospel Christian belief that all people brothers and sisters in Christ, Bishop Pallipparambil said. Under the system promoted by the Indian Indigenous people are considered caste.
Additionally, “we presented the one distinguishing mark of and that found great acceptance young as well as the old,” Bishop said. Within two years of his arrival, Pallipparambil baptized 900 new
The growth continued even Pallipparambil and others had torture and imprisonment. Churches burned, and many Catholics lost and jobs by the time the Miao inaugurated in 2005. The military the Indian government now accept he said.
In the area that was once off-limits
Mystery in the Eucharist can open dialogue
By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit
When considering the Catholic belief of the Eucharist as a sacred mystery, many Muslims could find common ground within their own faith, said Bob Brenneman, a professor and former evangelical pastor who spent 15 years sharing the Gospel with Muslims in the Middle East before becoming Catholic.
Just as the Church doesn’t fully understand how bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ through God’s power and the Holy Spirit’s action during transubstantiation, Muslims don’t fully understand why they feel moved when passages from Islam’s sacred book, the Quran, are recited in Arabic, even though the vast majority don’t read the book in that language, said Brenneman, who attends both St. Lawrence Newman Center in Minneapolis and Maternity of Mary in St. Paul.
Muslims have told Brenneman
they’ve felt “transfixed” when they hear the Quran recited, and that “something happened. I don’t have to understand it.”
Brenneman’s acceptance of Church teaching on the Eucharist and conversion to Catholicism in about 2020 followed years of sensing the mystery in it and discovering liturgical worship as a Pentecostal pastor, sharing the Gospel first in Chicago and then in the Middle East.
Brenneman and his family spent more than 15 years in Turkey, Cyprus and Iraq in the 1980s and ‘90s, evangelizing through friendship and Bible study in areas where open Christian proselytizing wasn’t permitted.
In 1982, Brenneman and his family moved to Turkey to minister to Kurdish Muslims. For two and a half years, they lived in a mediumsized southeastern city Brenneman didn’t want to identify to protect the Muslim converts with whom he worked. It was there he first experienced liturgical worship at an Orthodox church.
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
In this file photo from 2019, Father Saw Joseph Kureh offers a blessing to a World Youth Day participant at St. Bernard in St. Paul.
Bishop George Pallipparambil blesses India.
young, new diocese in remote Indian state
WORLD MISSION SUNDAY
ARCHBISHOP
BERNARD HEBDA
All are called as missionary disciples
Ahad been enemies, Gospel message the are equal as Bishop Hindu caste Indian government, considered the lowest
the Eucharist as of the Catholics acceptance among the Bishop Pallipparambil arrival, Bishop new Catholics. though Bishop faced arrest, Churches were lost their homes diocese was military leaders and accept the diocese,
off-limits to
Christians and Catholics, nearly 100,000 Catholics now find community in their faith, including regular Eucharistic adoration, as well as assistance with health, education and economic growth from the Miao diocese, which Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have supported through the World Mission Sunday appeal.
With his episcopal motto, “Let your light shine,” Bishop Pallipparambil said he believes in bringing to the diocese not only the light of the Gospel but human development and social action for the poor.
The Miao diocese has 34 parishes and many mission stations attached to them, serving 189 villages as well as 356 village catechists, 34 full-time catechists and youth leaders. It also has 33 diocesan priests, 62 religious priests, 155 religious sisters, a minor seminary, 55 schools, a college and a total of 1,450 teachers, according to a report the diocese released this summer.
Catholics belong to Basic Ecclesial Communities, smaller village groups where they study Scripture, catechesis and assist the needy.
Along with attending Mass, many gather in their churches on Fridays for “fasting prayer” — praying in Eucharistic adoration without eating until the Blessed Sacrament is reposed at 3 p.m. They also pray during Eucharistic adoration at a shrine called Christ the Light for all who send them prayer requests, said Deacon Rory Desmond, president of Christopher Missions, which assists the Miao diocese as part of its sister relationship with the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Deacon Desmond serves both Bishop Pallipparambil and the San Francisco archdiocese.
“This is not a one-way relationship,” Deacon Desmond said. “The people have nothing materially. They have a profound and deep faith that is alive and they share that with us and pray for us every day.”
Some villages in the Miao diocese still haven’t heard the Gospel, Bishop Pallipparambil said.
“My first target is to reach those unreached ones,” he said. “Secondly, we are concentrating a lot on equipping the youth in order to be effectively present in the society of tomorrow as not just leaders but Christian leaders, whether it be politics, administration or business.”
Eucharistic adoration has been essential to evangelization in the Miao diocese, and it’s also important for the entire Church of Asia, said Bishop Pallipparambil, who also serves as chairman of the Commissions for Evangelization for the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.
“We believe that, as Catholics, without stressing the Eucharistic devotion and regular celebration of it, our works will be futile.”
dialogue with Muslims who find mystery in their faith
Brenneman developed a rapport with the pastor who — once convinced that Brenneman didn’t intend to convert his Orthodox members — helped Brenneman connect with Muslims who sought information about Christianity. In that location, Brenneman said he ministered to more than 10 residents who gathered for worship and study.
Now living in Minnesota, Brenneman hopes to help a new generation in bringing the Gospel to Muslims and people of other faiths. He has long taught at several local evangelical colleges, and in his
CHALLENGES
Bob Brenneman identified five major issues in which Islam challenges the essence of historic Christianity:
uThe alleged corruption of the Christian Scriptures
uThe Trinity
uChrist’s divinity
uJesus as the Son of God
uJesus’ crucifixion on the cross and his resurrection from the dead
(From Brenneman’s book, “Rekindling the Fire Among the Nations of Pentecost: How the Peoples of the Bible became Muslims and Why Many are Now Coming to Jesus”)
current work as an adjunct professor at the University of Northwestern in Roseville, Brenneman introduces students to non-Christian religions and reaches out to non-Christian international students.
“I’m trying to get my voice out there a little bit at the seminaries and to places where I meet Catholics to say, can you do something on Islam, can you do something on the other religions?” Brenneman said.
During his first year of college, Brenneman had a faith conversion.
While he considered how to give his life to Christ, a missionary he met suggested he work with the Kurdish people, an Iranic ethnic group native to Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria. The Kurds, Brenneman learned, are descended from the ancient Iranian people, the
s we prepare to celebrate World Mission Sunday on Oct. 20, we are reminded of the global mission of the Church and the important role we play in supporting those who bring the Gospel to the farthest reaches of the world. This mission resonates deeply with our Archdiocesan Synod’s call to be witnesses of Christ and to build communities that serve evangelization, as outlined in my pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room.”
The history of World Mission Sunday dates to 1926, when Pope Pius XI instituted this special day to encourage Catholics worldwide to pray for and support mission territories where the Church is young, poor or struggling. Inspired by Blessed Pauline Jaricot, who founded the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, one of four Pontifical Mission Societies that oversees the collection, this initiative has fueled the growth of the Church across continents. Catholics from all walks of life contributed as little as a penny a week, and these small donations laid the foundations for churches, schools and communities in places where the Good News was just taking root.
In fact, our own Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has deep ties to the mission spirit. When our diocese was established in 1850, it was considered mission territory itself, and we received funds from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith to help build the Church in this region. Missionaries like Father Lucien Galtier, the first priest assigned to minister to French Canadian settlers in what was then called Pig’s Eye (now St. Paul), played a key role in establishing the Catholic presence in Minnesota. Few cities in our country can say as clearly as we can that, “In the beginning, there was a parish.” Father Galtier built this little log chapel, and it became a cathedral and a school and a hospital, and the name of the city and the name of the capital of Minnesota.
As the Church grew here, we became a missionary diocese in our own right. Archbishop John Ireland, known for his visionary leadership, sent priests and laypeople to serve in mission fields around the country and the world. Our rich missionary tradition continues today through organizations like the Center for Mission, the local branch of the national office of The Pontifical Mission Societies, which promotes and coordinates outreach efforts both locally and globally, helping to build bridges of faith between our archdiocese and more than 120 countries.
This year’s World Mission Sunday theme, “Go and invite everyone to the banquet,” was chosen by our Holy Father Pope Francis, and it reminds us that we are all called to be part of this mission. When you contribute to the World Mission Sunday collection, you are helping to bring the Gospel to life in places that desperately need hope, just as missionaries once brought hope to the early Catholics of Minnesota.
Your donations do more than support the material needs of the Church — they provide the foundation for spiritual growth. Funds from this collection help to build churches, train seminarians, and provide for the basic needs of communities in mission territories. Just as our archdiocese once relied on the generosity of others to grow, today we are blessed to be able to give back to mission territories in places like Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America.
In the spirit of our Archdiocesan Synod’s vision of missionary discipleship, I invite you to prayerfully consider how you might support this vital work. Through your generosity, you are offering an invitation to the banquet of God’s love to people across the world who may never have heard the Gospel message.
All are called as missionary disciples. Together, let us answer Christ’s call and continue to extend that invitation to all. May God bless you abundantly for your missionary spirit and your faithful support.
COURTESY DIOCESE OF MIAO blesses people gathered for a village church blessing in the Diocese of Miago, in
COURTESY DIOCESE OF MIAO
Bishop Pallipparambil confirms a woman in a village in the diocese.
DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
US bishops’ pro-life chair: ‘Revival of prayer and action’ needed to end abortion
By Gina Christian OSV News
For Respect Life Month, the pro-life committee chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging “a revival of prayer and action” to end abortion and uphold the sanctity of human life.
A statement for the October observance, written by Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, was released by the USCCB Sept. 19 and posted to the website of the USCCB’s Respect Life Month initiative. The effort traces its origins to 1972, just prior to the U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the two 1973 decisions that broadly legalized abortion.
In his message, Bishop Burbidge stressed that “Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, gives us the fullness of life,” and “calls each of us to respect that gift of life in every human person.”
The bishop pointed to the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, held during July in Indianapolis as part of the National Eucharistic Revival, the U.S. bishops’ three-year effort to rekindle devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The congress and the Eucharistic processions leading up to it “involved hundreds of thousands of Catholics who will never be the same,” he said. “The revival continues, and is so needed, especially in our efforts to defend human life.”
He quoted a 2013 address by Pope Francis to Catholic medical professionals, in which the pope said that “every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection.”
However, “the law and millions of our brothers and sisters have yet to recognize this reality,” said Bishop Burbidge.
A young woman is seen with her child during the annual March for Life rally in Washington Jan. 24, 2020. In a statement issued Sept. 19 for October as Respect Life Month, Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Va., chair of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called for “a revival of prayer and action” to end abortion and uphold the sanctity of human life.
Despite the Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, enabling elected officials “to reduce or end abortion … fifty years of virtually unlimited abortion has tragically created a national mindset where many Americans have become comfortable with some amount of abortion,” said Bishop Burbidge. “This allows the abortion industry to continue to provide any amount of abortion.”
Abortion rates actually rose or stayed at pre-Roe levels in the U.S. following the Dobbs decision, which overturned the Roe and Doe rulings.
Globally, there are a total of some 73.3 million abortions each year, according to the Guttmacher Institute –– a number about 4 million greater than
United Kingdom’s current population, and almost 15 million more than the United Nation’s 2019 crude death rate, or total number of deaths worldwide in a given year.
“Given this challenge, the U.S. bishops have affirmed that, while it is important to address all the ways in which human life is threatened, ‘abortion remains our pre-eminent priority as it directly attacks our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, destroying more than a million lives each year in our country alone,’” said Bishop Burbidge, quoting a 2024 document by the U.S. bishops on conscience formation and political responsibility for Catholics.
With the U.S. presidential election just weeks away, Bishop Burbidge asked Catholics in the U.S. to “renew our commitment to work for the legal protection of every human life, from conception to natural death, and to vote for candidates who will defend the life and dignity of the human person.”
In addition, he said, “we must call for policies that assist women and their children in need, while also continuing to help mothers in our own communities through local pregnancy help centers and our nationwide, parish-based initiative, Walking with Moms in Need.”
The faithful must “likewise continue to extend the hand of compassion to all who are suffering from participation in abortion,” highlighting the Church’s abortion healing ministries, such as Project Rachel.
“Most importantly, we must rededicate ourselves to fervent prayer on behalf of life,” said Bishop Burbidge, who invited Catholics “to join me in a concerted effort of prayer between now and our national elections, by daily praying our Respect Life Month, ‘Prayer for Life to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.’”
The text of the prayer, along with several resources for Respect Life Month, is available on the initiative’s website at respectlife org/respect-life-month
CNEWA launches emergency campaign as Israel-Hamas war expands into Lebanon
By Gina Christian OSV News
As the Israel-Hamas war expands into Lebanon, an agency of the Holy See has launched an emergency campaign to assist thousands of displaced families in that nation’s south.
The Catholic Near East Welfare Association-Pontifical Mission announced the campaign Oct. 3, with CNEWA-Pontifical Mission president Msgr. Peter Vaccari saying the agency had immediately released $250,000 for bedding, food, drinking water, nursing formula and medicine.
Founded by Pope Pius XI in 1926, CNEWA provides a range of support for, with and through the Eastern churches, including humanitarian relief; the formation and education of clergy, religious and lay catechists; religious education for children; and aid to the marginalized, especially survivors of human trafficking, the elderly and those
WORLD MISSION SUNDAY
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
Medes, who are mentioned numerous times in the Bible.
Before the Iowa native responded to that call, Brenneman spent a number of years helping those with substance use disorders in Chicago during his first pastoral assignment. Brenneman also briefly pastored a small church in Chicago, and without knowing much
with special needs. The Pontifical Mission was founded as the Pontifical Mission for Palestine by Pope Pius XII in 1949 to care for Palestinian refugees and placed under the direction of CNEWA. The mandate of the mission has been extended by several pontiffs to care for all those affected by war and poverty in the Middle East.
In its Oct. 3 announcement, CNEWA said it is “focusing its initial relief efforts on families fleeing the south and seeking shelter in church-run facilities,” working with bishops, priests and religious orders such as those in the archeparchies of Tyre; the Good Shepherd Sisters in the Bekaa Valley; the Joint Christian Committee and Little Sisters of Nazareth in Dbayeh, northeast of Beirut; the Salvatorian Fathers and Blessed Sacrament Sisters in the Keserwan district; and the Sisters of Jesus and Mary in Bourj Hammoud.
For the first phase of the relief campaign, the Beirut office of the agency estimates it will need $700,000
then about the Catholic teaching on transubstantiation, he emphasized to his congregation the importance of Communion.
“I always had a real strong reverence for Communion, even though I wasn’t Catholic or knowing about the Catholic understanding of it,” he said.
From Brenneman’s experience working with Muslims both in the Middle East and in the United States, he said God may give them
–– $560,000 for food packages and hygiene kits for 8,000 families, $90,000 for mattresses and bedding for 2,000 people, and $50,000 for counseling for 500 mothers and their children.
“Lebanon faces a humanitarian disaster,” said CNEWA-Pontifical Mission’s Michel Constantin, who directs CNEWA’s operations for Lebanon, Syria and northern Iraq from Beirut, in the Oct. 3 media release.
In September, the Israel-Hamas war –– launched in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when militants from the Gaza Strip gunned down more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took over 240 civilians and soldiers hostage –– extended into Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Shia militia Hezbollah is based.
Now, Lebanon is facing a deepening humanitarian crisis as Israel warns residents in southern Lebanon villages to evacuate, and as strikes on Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, continue.
On Oct. 4, Lebanon’s Masnaa border
understanding of aspects of Christian faith through dreams or they may be drawn to mysteries such as the Eucharist. Either way, Brenneman said he “always looks for open doors to share.”
”There has to be an encounter with truth, and Islam denies the basic truth of the Gospel, especially the cross and the Trinity,” Brenneman said.
Brenneman’s encounters with the truth of the Eucharist — including
crossing, which connects Lebanon and Syria, was “very significantly bombed,” according to Matthew Hollingworth, Lebanon director for the United Nations’ World Food Program. Along with cutting off a key route for Lebanese residents seeking to flee to Syria, the damage to the crossing will prevent the delivery of crucially needed relief supplies, said Hollingworth.
The current crisis in Lebanon compounds long-running socioeconomic difficulties for that nation, which has also been home to an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees fleeing their nation’s repression and political instability.
CNEWA said in its campaign announcement that “more than a million people in Lebanon … of an estimated total population of 5.8 million people” have been displaced since Sept. 17, and Constantin said in the news release that “many of these families are desperate, sleeping on the streets.”
what he’s heard from a number of priests in the archdiocese — influenced him to become Catholic, though his respect continues for the good he sees the evangelical denominations doing in sharing the Christian faith with Muslims and other non-believers.
“If some of that fire could be caught on into the Catholic Church and some of that stability of 2,000 years could be turned on to the evangelicals, we’d have quite a combination.”
FAITH+CULTURE
MCC stresses legislation and other initiatives to assist mothers, families in need
Lobbying, gardening and bearing good fruit
By Christina Capecchi
By Joe Ruff The Catholic Spirit
For The Catholic Spirit
As Catholics gather across the country in January for pro-life Masses and marches — including in Washington, D.C., Jan. 19 for the national March for Life and at the Minnesota State Capitol and Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul Jan. 22 for a march and prayer service — The Catholic Spirit asked Maggee Hangge, policy and public relations associate with the Minnesota Catholic Conference, to address the abortion landscape in Minnesota. Hangge’s emailed responses:
Taking the time to plant good seeds –– as a mother, as a gardener and as a lobbyist for the Minnesota Catholic bishops –– comes naturally to Maggee Hangge, 28, a New Prague native who draws inspiration from her Catholic faith and her small-town roots. She and her husband, Jim, are parents to 7-month-old Veronica.
Hangge works as the policy and public relations associate for the Minnesota Catholic Conference in St. Paul, advocating for pro-life causes at the Capitol and identifying common ground. “Just because someone voted one way, doesn’t mean they’re set in their thinking,” said Hangge, a member of St. Wenceslaus in New Prague. “There’s a wrestling, and we’re working with the legislators through the wrestling.”
Q The state’s Catholic bishops and Minnesota Catholic Conference fought hard against decisions by the Legislature and Gov. Tim Walz in January last year to codify a right to abortion in Minnesota for any reason and without limit on viability. What might the faithful do now to help end the right to abortion in this state?
Q It sounds like you live on the set of a Hallmark movie –– a small town, a two-acre lot bordering cornfields, your parents and siblings all just five to 10 minutes away.
A Some clarification is in order. Minnesota was already bound by the 1995 state Supreme Court decision Doe v. Gomez — our own version of Roe v. Wade. The decision protected the right to abortion as a matter of state law and mandated that indigent women could receive taxpayer funded abortions.
A It’s so rare! We were just a closeknit family. My parents are both from New Prague. Growing up, both sets of grandparents lived here, out in the country. My parents both owned businesses in town, so we were really involved in the town as kids, too, and my dad was the fire chief. We’re just drawn to the space.
Q Tell me about your garden.
In 2023, Minnesota Democrats codified that decision when they passed into law the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act so that if Gomez was overturned, abortion would continue. And then they went a few steps further by protecting “reproductive freedom” more generally, which means that Minnesota courts have license to protect almost any choice one makes regarding the use of one’s reproductive organs, including, possibly, removing them.
A It’s about 15 by 25 feet, and I’d like to double it next year. We grow mostly veggies –– anything we want to eat for the year: carrots, beans, herbs, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, little baby red potatoes. We did pumpkins this year so we’d have some for Veronica.
informed consent in writing requirement for an abortion, and the mandatory 24-hour waiting period before a woman can undergo an abortion. Is there legislation in the works to reverse those decisions?
A I got to ease my way into the policy realm after starting as Jason Adkins’ assistant (Adkins is MCC’s executive director and general counsel). He’s been a great boss and mentor as I’ve grown into this role. I don’t have a political science degree. I’ve really enjoyed learning about the political arena and what impacts our Church.
Q And you tap into your Catholic Studies degree from the University of St. Thomas.
A Putting safeguards back into place, such as the 24-hour waiting period between requesting an abortion and the procedure, or Women’s Right to Know, would be quite difficult. The 2022 Doe v. Minnesota decision in Ramsey County District Court ruled these and other safeguards to be unconstitutional. Unless that case is explicitly overturned or re-tried, and the composition of the Legislature changes, there is little path forward for these health and safety protections to return.
A It really pushed me, as ... (John) Boyle would say, to learn how to think. That was my introduction on how to think about cultural issues from a Catholic lens, and not just the lens that was in front of me from any given class or media.
Q So many gifts in your life have flowed from your Catholic connections. You met your husband through St. Paul’s Outreach. You got your job through Catholic Studies.
And when this “fundamental” right is in conflict with other rights, such as parental rights or religious liberty, it is not clear which will prevail in court.
Q Is gardening a spiritual exercise?
A It’s really peaceful. I try not to have anything on (to listen to) when I’m out there. I don’t listen to the radio or
Notably, there is also no indication in the PRO Act that this so-called right of reproductive freedom is limited to adults. The PRO Act is extreme and dangerous, and the Catholic bishops’ letter in opposition to this law was read to all House members on the floor during the debate.
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
widely available, we must now redouble our efforts to reduce the demand for abortion at both the Capitol and in our parish communities. For example, some women procure abortions for economic reasons. To help lift this financial strain, we can work to pass bills such as a state income tax exemption on necessary baby items like cribs and car seats (HF2125 / SF2182). But it cannot stop there. If we desire to build a culture where every child is welcomed in life and respected by law, we must work to change hearts and minds. The practice of abortion cannot just be illegal, it must be unthinkable. That is a challenge for each of us.
podcasts. I just listen to what’s around me. It relaxes me to work in the soil, pulling weeds. If I’m upset, and then I’m out there, my attitude shifts: “OK, it really wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was.” It gives me that space to think about all the things going on in my life and to not be consuming some kind of media.
It’s also practical because we want to eat healthy and know what we’re eating. And it keeps our grocery bill down! We can spaghetti and pizza sauce, salsa, carrots, beans and bruschetta mix. We freeze our zucchini, veggies, strawberries for smoothies and zoodles (zucchini noodles). It feels rewarding to be eating the food that we grew ourselves and to know that we’re using our land to nourish our bodies.
Q There was concern that Minnesota would become a destination state for abortions. Have you seen evidence that has happened?
Q That ties into your faith.
A If it weren’t for our faith, I don’t think we would be doing this. There wouldn’t be a reason not to just fall into the consumer society where you can go to the store and get anything. Instead, I look in the freezer or fridge and say: “OK, God provided us with a really big bean crop this year. What are we going to do with them?” Then we get creative.
Q What else do you do to be a homemaker?
was overturned and surrounding states started to limit abortion access, the number of abortions in our state increased by about 20 percent to around 12,000. Two thousand of the 12,000 abortions were performed on out-ofstate residents. This is a 50 percent increase over the previous year. About 900 of those individuals came from Wisconsin, 400 from North Dakota, 200 from Iowa, 150 from Texas, along with people from South Dakota, Florida, Nebraska, Michigan, Missouri and more.
A It’s nice on a fall day to be baking bread or zucchini bread or cookies. Growing up, my mom always celebrated the holidays really well and decorated. Jim and I aren’t really good at living liturgically, but we want to be better. We’re still working that out.
Without any safeguards in place surrounding abortion practices, and abortion clinics popping up around our borders, as we have already seen in Moorhead, and even a mobile unit roaming the state, the number of abortions performed here on both residents and out-of-state individuals will likely continue to increase.
Q You’ve been with the Minnesota Catholic Conference for four years now.
A I always try to seek God’s direction in making sure I’m following his will and not just what I want to do. I try to have the discipline to be able to go where he’s leading me. And he’s opened all these doors.
Q How do you approach your job?
In the short term, as noted above, we must focus our work on the demand side of abortion by walking with mothers and families in need. At the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy voice of the state’s bishops, we are working to enact policies that, among other things, reduce demand for abortion through our Families First Project. Legislation such as the Child Tax Credit, which passed in 2023 and was spearheaded by MCC, provides a tax credit or refund for each dependent child in a household if the household meets the income requirements. Notably, there is no cap on how many children qualify for the credit. Lowincome families could see a tax credit of up to $1,750 per child. A family of eight with an $80,000 household income could receive $10,000 per year in tax credits.
Policies like these will help women and parents who find themselves facing an unexpected pregnancy feel more financially secure and supported if they choose life.
A We’re always working to find solutions to propose, not impose. I can always look to Church teachings to back up what I’m saying, but I’m always trying to bring positive solutions. It’s fun to think about what those are and have those strategic conversations. I’m curious, but I’m also determined –– that probably trumps my curiosity. If I’m posed a question, I’m going to find an answer. I got a really simple question this morning in my inbox, and I could’ve given a really simple answer, and instead a half hour went by when I gave them all they needed and more. I was determined to give them the exact answer. That drives me.
Pope moves to make Rome a ‘living church,’ not a ‘museum’
We also saw during the 2023 legislative session the removal of nearly all the statutory safeguards surrounding abortion that promote informed consent and protect women and girls from dangerous abortion providers.
A Minnesota has already become a target destination for abortion tourism, and we will likely see that trend continue. This upward trend of abortion incidence can be seen from comparing the 2022 abortion report released by the Minnesota Department of Health with the 2021 report.
The Diocese of Rome, like the Rome city government, has put so much effort into ensuring services in the historic center of the city that it often neglects the suburbs where most people live, Pope Francis said.
Given the current political landscape, which makes the supply of abortion
The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, ordered a reorganization of the diocese’s geographical divisions –– a series of “sectors” and “prefectures” similar to deaneries –– saying he wanted to create “not walls but bridges” so that Catholics in the suburbs can benefit spiritually from the sacred art and architecture housed in the city center.
In 2021 and in recent years past, there were about 10,000 abortions per year in Minnesota. And the general trend was a slow decline in the number of abortions. In 2022, after Roe v. Wade
Rome,” the pope said. At the same time, the historic center “has become increasingly isolated” with the risk of becoming “a museum to be visited” rather than a living Church and source of inspiration for all Catholics in the city. All Catholics in Rome, and not just tourists and foreign pilgrims, should be able to benefit from the city center being “a mine” of spiritual treasures that can enrich parishes in the Rome suburbs throughout the liturgical year, the pope wrote.
Q The Legislature left few care requirements in place for infants who survive attempted abortions. Can you remind us of where the state stands in this regard now?
A Although nearly all of the health and safety protections surrounding abortion were repealed and are no longer law, a few laws were altered and left on the books. One of those laws is the formerly named “Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” The new version — “Recognition of an Infant Who is Born Alive” — is stripped of many of the protections previously afforded to infants born from botched abortions.
Q A pro-life United for Life rally and advocacy day was held for the first time in the State Capitol Feb. 28 last year as the care requirements and 24hour waiting period bills were set for debate. The rally drew nearly 700 prolife advocates, many of whom fanned out to visit with lawmakers. Any plans for a similar rally and lobbying this year?
“often the clergy assigned to the Central Sector are only resident in worship facilities, then living out their ministry in other assignments or offices.”
The Diocese of Rome published “The True Beauty,” Pope Francis’ document ordering the changes, Oct. 3.
Support • Information • Encouragement
Offering life-affirming support, information and encouragement to families facing an adverse diagnosis of a child
The city center, which has hundreds of churches but only 35 parishes, will no longer be a separate “sector,” but its territory will be divided geographically and added to the existing north, south, east and west sectors “to better integrate the suburbs and the historic center,” the pope wrote.
P.O. Box 2225 • Maple Grove, MN 55311
763-772-3868
www.prenatalpartnersforlife.org
Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life “from the moment of conception unto death”
“Many outlying areas, and consequently many parishes, although configured within the municipality and Diocese of Rome, have not been treated with the attention to beauty and identity that characterizes
Among his examples, the pope said all Catholics in the city could benefit from retracing St. Philip Neri’s pilgrimage to the “seven churches” –– traditionally a 15-mile walk to seven historic basilicas; visiting the catacombs in November to remember the dead; praying at Christmas before what is venerated as the cradle of Jesus in the Basilica of St. Mary Major; visiting the Holy Stairs and the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem during Holy Week; and discovering some of the hundreds of Marian icons in churches and on street corners during the months of May and October.
“To these should be added catechesis through art, making available all the artistic heritage kept in the churches of Rome’s historic center,” the pope wrote.
Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services
What happens now, Pope Francis said, is that the city center is the administrative headquarters for the diocese but without a strong pastoral outreach because
The law now states that an infant who is born should be recognized as a human person and that infant should receive standard, reasonable medical care. No definitions are tied to the statute, meaning what is considered “reasonable” is left vague. It is also unclear whether a baby who survived a botched abortion is considered born. This lack of clarity could be lifethreatening.
“The diocese has had difficulty designing an effective pastoral plan capable of meeting the spiritual needs of a population characterized predominantly, but not exclusively, of commuters, business owners and tourists,” the pope said.
In addition, he said, with fewer full-time residents in the city center and a decline in fully functioning parishes, there are hundreds of churches open only occasionally or only for tourist visits, but they are “a heritage with high potential that has long been lying dormant, asking to be rethought and put at the service of God’s people.”
A Although we have no immediate plans to host an identical rally at the Capitol this year, we always encourage Catholics to get to know their legislators and speak out on key issues. The Conference will again be hosting First Friday Adoration at the Capitol from January through May. This is a great opportunity for Catholics to come to the Capitol to pray for their elected officials and any pending legislation being deliberated. If they wish, attendees can walk upstairs to see the Legislature in action or go flag down their elected officials.
Fyodor Dostoevsky famously said, “Beauty will save the world,” and he was right, the pope said, but “beauty will save the world only if the church succeeds in saving beauty; saving it from the ideological manipulations of false progress and from submission to commerce and economics, which often reduce it to an illusion or an ephemeral consumer good.”
Q Lawmakers eliminated the
Q A Pro-Life Leadership Summit was held in Eden Prairie Sept. 27, 2023, with more than 140 pro-life leaders seeking a way forward. One key takeaway was a desire to build on common principles and identify new modes of collaboration among
“Behind every work of art in a church lies a catechesis, behind every monument in Christian Rome lies a message to be deciphered and discerned,” and all of them point to Christ, the pope wrote.
Q&A continued on next page
COURTESY MINNESOTA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
AND THE BEAUTIFUL | MADELYN REICHERT
Historical novel set in the Philippines contrasts violence and peace
“Vassals of the Valley” by Robin Sebolino. Plaza Books. (Manila, 2023). 301 pp., $14.99.
We live in conflicted times. As war and bloodshed continue to escalate in many places throughout the world — including Ukraine, Sudan and the Middle East — the Holy Father has called the world to embrace peace. We Catholics pray for peace every day in our parishes and homes. And yet, here in Minnesota, many of us (though certainly not all) have spent our lives sheltered from the realities of violent conflict. It can be tempting to see “peace” as a given, instead of something precious and in need of preserving, something with real value.
In his novel “Vassals of the Valley,” Robin Sebolino introduces the reader to the setting of 16th-century Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines — a setting where peace is certainly not a guarantee. The central character of the novel, a man named Kalag, stands at an interesting juncture of the problem of peace; an ex-pirate with a history of violent misdeeds behind him, he now seeks a life as free from bloodshed as possible. For Kalag has a secret, which he must keep from his enemies at all costs: The former warrior has developed a condition that causes
him to faint at the sight of blood.
Included among those enemies are Datu (Chief) Mactal, who has taken up with Kalag’s sister, Tala — who purports to practice magic and talk to spirits. Don Fernando, the gobernardorcillo (local Filipino governor) of the nearby pueblo of Nueva Avila is
currying favor with the dangerous pirate Captain Kenki against the wellbeing of the town. Thankfully, among his allies Kalag can count his sister Doña Margarita and her husband Don Pedro, also residents of the pueblo, his servant Aton and his sons, and Padre Domingo, the local Spanish priest.
From the mountain villages of Luzon and the colonial town of Nueva Avila to the bustling multicultural city of Manila, Sebolino tracks Kalag’s journey in search of peace, prosperity and just enough adventure to suit his tastes. He even converts to Catholicism (albeit for less than devout reasons). But when the pirates begin to harass Nueva Avila and Spanish authorities prove ineffective at defending the town, Kalag’s control over his secret condition and his new Christian values are faced with their greatest challenge yet.
“Vassals of the Valley” is a skillful historical novel that paints a vivid picture of its world and rewards its readers with a fiery finale. The pacing is a bit slower than contemporary audiences might be used to, and the style more reminiscent of 20th century Catholic novelists; in a 2023 interview, Sebolino cited Tolkein, Hemingway and Endo, among others, as his literary inspirations, and this novel feels at home in that venerable canon. The novel’s characters feel fresh and alive, especially the hardnosed Doña Margarita and the wistfully ambitious Padre Domingo. Its lush descriptions of 16th century life in the Philippines and devotion to historical accuracy are vividly immersive, transporting the reader back to a time and place not their own. And it is in this setting that Sebolino makes the fragility of life felt and puts Christian values into creative tension with the dangers of living in a sinful world, asking readers to consider how violence, especially unnecessary violence, affects the human soul — and consequently, just how highly they should value peace.
Reichert is publications administrative coordinator at The Catholic Spirit. She can be reached at reichertm@archspm org
FOCUSONFAITH
Generosity of spirit
Nearly every Christmas season growing up, my family would watch Frank Capra’s famous film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart.
Stewart plays the character George Bailey, a gregarious dreamer who spends a lot of time wishing for more glorious circumstances in his life but tries to peacefully and generously accept the circumstances that have been given to him. At the climax of the film, Bailey is facing prison due to misplaced funds, and he is at risk of losing everything. Through the miraculous circumstances that the film lays out, all of the people who were blessed by Bailey’s generosity and faithfulness in the small matters are able to come together and provide him with more than enough funds, and his brother Harry ends the night with the memorable toast: “to George Bailey, the richest man in town.”
This movie always comes to mind when I hear this Gospel passage. The rich young man could be equated to Bailey if he had gotten the things that he spent so much time dreaming about but is still plagued by that desire for something more. Christ proposes to the young man that there are different riches entirely that all our souls long for; riches in the kingdom of heaven, which worldly riches not only cannot compare with, but actively hinder us from receiving these heavenly riches.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Bailey’s dreams; even the rich young man had been presumably faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord. But we are made for more, just like the rich young man recognized that simply keeping the commandments
FAITH FUNDAMENTALS | FATHER MICHAEL VAN SLOUN
Configured to Jesus, priests preach, teach and are instruments of healing grace
Editor’s note: This is the second of two columns on priests as configured to Christ. The first appeared in the Sept. 12 edition.
Jesus was a tremendous preacher and teacher. He taught large crowds, small groups and individuals. Sometimes he taught in synagogues. Sometimes he spoke plainly, other times in figures of speech taken from ordinary life, all to help his listeners encounter God and live according to God’s ways.
Configured to Jesus, a priest devotes considerable time and energy to the preaching task with prayer, study and reflection. He grounds his preaching in Scripture, explains it with insight and clarity and makes it applicable to daily living. He preaches at Mass and teaches in adult education, the school, faith formation, retreats and other settings.
In his teaching, Jesus placed an extremely high priority on love and forgiveness. He taught about love and modeled it by the way he loved everyone. He taught about forgiveness and modeled it by the way he forgave those who offended him, particularly his tormentors at the foot of the cross, as well as Peter who denied him and the disciples who abandoned him.
Configured to Jesus, a priest preaches frequently about the commandment to love one’s neighbor, and very importantly, is a shining example of love himself by the kind way he treats his parishioners, his staff, liturgical ministers, school children, visitors and strangers.
In addition, because every person has been hurt, and every person
We’re never meant to rest on our proverbial laurels. When asked by a rich aristocrat what she should do for the poor, a saintly man replied, simply, ‘more.’
felt insufficient. Brothers and sisters, it’s so much easier to face that dissatisfaction now. We’re certainly called to obedience to the Lord. You never “graduate” from being a disciple whose first concern is to hear the word of the Lord and do it. But God invites us deeper, especially into service and mission and generosity of spirit. We’re never meant to rest on our proverbial laurels. When asked by a rich aristocrat what she should do for the poor, a saintly man replied, simply, “more.”
We’re meant to be dissatisfied with treasure here on Earth. That very dissatisfaction is a sign of our heavenly calling. The way that the Lord proposes is one of generosity of spirit, letting go of anything that would prevent us from following Christ more closely, even if it means giving of our finances to the point that it hurts.
Two final things: the first is a book recommendation on this topic, “Happy are You Poor” by Father Thomas Dubay. This book is an excellent reflection on the call given to all disciples to embrace poverty. The second is this: it’s hard to live generously. It’s hard to receive and live this teaching. But as Bede the Venerable states about this passage, Christ is instructing us “to prefer the glory of God to the things of this world.” As we let the teaching of Christ sink deeper and deeper, we know that it is holding to the true glory of God to let these things go and follow Christ more closely. Then, like George Bailey, we will be the “richest in town” as we enter the heavenly city and see the true treasure that we have been actually longing for all along.
Father Vance is parochial vicar of Our Lady of Grace in Edina.
has hurt someone else, it is imperative that the priest preach about forgiveness, its importance and how to forgive. Moreover, the priest himself has hurt others and must own up to his offenses and make amends. And the priest has been hurt, maybe by an employee, maybe by a parishioner, sometimes badly, stung to the heart. The priest must let go of his desire to retaliate or carry a grudge. He must forgive from his heart, just as his master did.
Jesus was deeply concerned about the sick, injured and those suffering from disease. He treated them with compassion, came to their aid, and set aside time and energy for his healing ministry. Configured to Jesus, a priest has a special concern for anyone who is suffering from some form of affliction. The priest seeks out the sick, listens to their concerns, offers encouragement and spiritual support and is an agent of God’s healing grace. The priest makes time to visit the homebound, hospital patients, the residents of care centers, and troubled souls, and he encourages and facilitates the ministry of others who care for the sick.
Jesus cast out demons. He liberated people from the evil forces that had control over them. Configured to Jesus, a priest opposes evil and the devil whenever and wherever he may encounter them. The first place is within himself. If the devil has control over some aspect of the priest’s life, he must face it, name it and with the grace of God, drive it from his life. The priest helps his people see and admit the self-destructive and demonic forces that possess them, and how to invoke the power of Jesus Christ, the liberator, to give them release and freedom. The priest is carefully attuned to his parish and school, the neighborhood, the Church, organizations, and society, and formed by Jesus, can identify those things that are contrary to the Gospel and prophetically provide a vision for how to live according to God’s ways. Jesus is the truth. He spoke the truth, and he came to testify to the truth. He declared that the truth will set us free. Speaking the truth has consequences. Jesus did not say that the truth will get you killed, but he could have. Nevertheless, nothing deterred Jesus from speaking the truth. Conformed to Jesus, a priest has an obligation to seek the truth, speak the truth and uphold the truth. This takes exceptional courage. Those who espouse lies detest the truth and those who speak it. A priest needs to be ready for the battles that are sure to come and realize that he will not be liked by all. A priest need only please one person ––Jesus, the great high priest.
Father Van Sloun is the director of clergy personnel for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
DAILY Scriptures
Sunday, Oct. 13
Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Wis 7:7-11
Heb 4:12-13 Mk 10:17-30
Monday, Oct. 14 Gal 4:22-24, 26-27, 31–5:1 Lk 11:29-32
Tuesday, Oct. 15
St. Teresa of Jesus, virgin and doctor of the Church Gal 5:1-6 Lk 11:37-41
Wednesday, Oct. 16 Gal 5:18-25 Lk 11:42-46
Thursday, Oct. 17 St. Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr Eph 1:1-10 Lk 11:47-54
Friday, Oct. 18
St. Luke, evangelist 2 Tm 4:10-17b Lk 10:1-9
Saturday, Oct. 19
Sts. John de Brébeuf and Isaac Jogues, priests, and companions, martyrs Eph 1:15-23 Lk 12:8-12
Sunday, Oct. 20 Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 53:10-11 Heb 4:14-16 Mk 10:35-45
Monday, Oct. 21 Eph 2:1-10 Lk 12:13-21
Tuesday, Oct. 22 Eph 2:12-22 Lk 12:35-38
Wednesday, Oct. 23 Eph 3:2-12 Lk 12:39-48
Thursday, Oct. 24 Eph 3:14-21 Lk 12:49-53
Friday, Oct. 25 Eph 4:1-6 Lk 12:54-59
Saturday, Oct. 26 Eph 4:7-16 Lk 13:1-9
Sunday, Oct. 27 Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Jer 31:7-9 Heb 5:1-6 Mk 10:46-52
ST. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (d. c. 107) This Syrian-born martyr, who gave himself the nickname “God-bearer” because of his certainty of God’s presence within him and who may have been a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, became bishop of Antioch about 69 A.D. Eventually he was arrested and sent to Rome, where his strong desire for martyrdom was fulfilled when he was thrown to the lions in the Colosseum. In seven letters written to Christians in Asia Minor and Rome, he stressed the need to heal Church conflicts, the authority of local bishops and the Eucharist as a source of unity. His feast day is Oct. 17.
| CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
Sacred scribbles:
piece by piece, page by page
Opal Whiteley was 6 years old when she began keeping a diary, scrawling with a crayon in tightly spaced, phonetically spelled words. She recorded her wanderings and wonderings in the woods of her Oregon logging community. She was prodded by her mother’s admonition to write about what, where, when, how and why, and she was grasping at the transcendent, describing a “Cathedral” of cedars.
“I hear songs –– lullaby songs of the trees,” Whiteley wrote. “I am happy, listening to the twilight music of God’s good world. I’m real glad I’m alive.”
Whiteley stored her diary in a hollow log in the forest, maintaining it for six years. She felt a duty to document nature’s music, whispered by the wind “to folks to print for other folks.”
But heartbreak came at age 13, when her destructive younger sister found the diary and tore it to pieces. Whiteley collected the shreds and put them in a hatbox, tucked out of sight and mind for years.
BRIDGING FAITH | DEACON MICKEY FRIESEN
Bringing Communion to the world
One of my main ministries at my parish is serving Communion. This ministry includes serving Communion at Mass, but it also extends to people in our parish community who are unable to join us because of age, infirmity or other obstacles. In these cases, I bring Communion to them.
I remember very well the first time I was allowed to go back into one of the care homes we serve to bring Communion to residents after the restrictions from COVID-19 were lifted. One of the men told me that they had not been able to receive Communion for nine
That is our work this season, when each falling leaf gives permission to change, to weep, to let go. ‘Behold!’ we proclaim. ‘God makes all things new.’
As a young woman, Whiteley tried to launch a writing career and one day visited the Boston office of the prestigious Atlantic Monthly magazine. Charmed by her personality but unimpressed by her writing samples, the editor asked if Whiteley had kept a diary.
The hatbox was delivered promptly –– some scraps as large as a half-sheet of notebook paper, many the size of a thumbnail. Whiteley spent nine months reassembling the diary, an undertaking the editor called “enormous” and “methodical.”
“First, the framework of a sheet would be fitted and the outer edges squared,” the editor wrote. “Here the adornment of borders in childish patterns and the fortunate fact that the writer had employed a variety of
months. He said it felt like “being in a desert hungry and thirsty.” Through tears he said he could not have been more grateful for the gift of Communion. Week after week, I get to witness the fruit of sharing God’s word and communion in the Body of Christ and the way it strengthens people in faith, hope and love.
I am mindful at each Mass that we are sent forth into the world to bring the Communion and call we have received –– to love and serve the Lord –– to those we meet each day, in familiar or unfamiliar situations. Being and bringing Communion are missionary acts. Missionaries are called to cross many borders to bring Christ’s presence into the lives of those they meet through their word and witness, their service and sacrament.
We are called to become what we have received in the Eucharist. As St. Augustine taught, “If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying ‘Amen’ to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear ‘The body of Christ’, you reply ‘Amen.’ Be a member of Christ’s body, then, so that your ‘Amen’ may ring true!” (Sermon 272).
On World Mission Sunday, we renew our “Amen” to Communion in mission with the Church around the
colored crayons, using each color until it was exhausted, lent an unhoped-for aid.”
The entire process guts me: the destruction, the restoration. Painstaking, bleary-eyed work.
Beginning in March 1920, the first two years of Whiteley’s diary were serialized in the magazine, billed as “a revelation of the spirit of childhood” and a balm for Americans disillusioned by the recent war in Europe.
It was a hit.
That September, the excerpts were published as a book.
Whiteley had heeded advice that I think of often –– as a Catholic, as a writer, as a seeker of wonder ––three “instructions for living a life” from the poet Mary Oliver: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
That is our work this season, when each falling leaf gives permission to change, to weep, to let go. “Behold!” we proclaim. “God makes all things new” (Rev 21:5).
We send postcards from the road. We share revelations from the back pew. We light candles and we kneel, we confess and we listen.
When I think of the cornerstone Catholic belief that all people have inherent dignity, I picture Whiteley’s diary, reassembled piece by piece. A story worth telling. A little girl who still matters.
This is what our Heavenly Father does for each of us: taking our discarded bits and piecing them together, making a masterpiece of our scraps. This is what Catholics are called to do for each other: encountering a mess and seeing the promise, taking great care with the smallest of parts.
It is hard, holy work.
Capecchi is a freelance writer from Inver Grove Heights.
world. We pray and offer financial support to the young and developing churches bringing the Communion of Christ’s life and mission to those who still hunger and thirst for it. We partner with missionaries of mercy who bring the Communion of Christ to those who live on the margins of every society and those who live under the threat of violence, war, family separation and religious persecution. We bring the Communion of Christ’s love and healing to the children and the most vulnerable ones who cannot speak for themselves.
The mission spirit is a Eucharistic spirit. Let us deepen our “Amen” to Communion in mission together. Let us become the mystery that we receive and bring it forth around the world and around the corner. Let us together seek out and be attentive to those who still hunger and thirst in the deserts of life, who still live in isolation and feel alone, and who find life burdensome. Let us bring Communion to the world, be in communion together in Christ and go forth to be the Communion of Christ that we receive. Let us go forth to love and serve the Lord!
Deacon Friesen is director of the Center for Mission, which supports missionary outreach for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He can be reached at friesenm@archspm org
SIMPLE HOLINESS | KATE SOUCHERAY
Our time in history
Most people would say we are living through one of the most difficult times in human history. Even though we have advancements that would appear to indicate we are a superior society, it is our civil, moral and social maturity that signifies our true advancement as human beings. In other words, how we treat each other is the real indicator of how welldeveloped we are as human beings.
I have a major in teaching and a minor in history, with which I taught ancient history and eventually Church history at a Catholic middle and high school. As I prepared my lessons each year, I tried to step back and observe the plans I was teaching with a wider lens. What I observed was that there have been major changes in human history roughly every 500 years.
In 476 A.D., the Roman Empire fell, which led to the Dark Ages in Europe. The centuries of desolate human survival were incomprehensible and presented a significant change from the Roman domination and advancement under which the empire had previously lived.
The next significant change came in 1054 A.D. with the schism between the East and West Catholic churches. The distance between them prevented the churches from adequately communicating with each other, causing them to evolve separately in their theology, contributing to the split between them.
Then in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his theses to
ALREADY/NOT YET
| JONATHAN LIEDL
Avoiding pastoral roads to nowhere
When I was in seminary, part of my formation was volunteering with the chaplaincy office at the Veterans Affairs hospital. I would visit with Catholic patients, most of whom were no longer practicing their faith.
When we’d get to discussing why this person wasn’t practicing, it struck me that, almost without fail, the reason wasn’t because they disagreed intellectually with any particular Church teaching. Instead, someone who represented Catholicism in their life — a parent, a teacher, a priest — had treated them poorly, and had effectively been a counter-witness to the truth, goodness and beauty of the Gospel.
This experience underscored the importance of being pastoral — of being kind, of being solicitous, of knowing how and when to broach a difficult subject. The end goal, after all, isn’t to “speak truth to power.” Instead, it’s for the listener to receive the Gospel. Presenting it in a way that others can receive it is therefore crucial for effective evangelization. Because of this truth of human communication, current Catholic discussions rightfully place a great premium on being pastoral. In Africa, for instance, there is renewed focus on how to effectively engage with Catholics who are in polygamous relationships. As Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, head of the African bishops symposium, recently said, “affirming the doctrinal elements is not enough. Pastoral accompaniment for polygamists is urgently needed.”
In the West, discussion of pastoral accompaniment also tends to focus on groups whose sexual behavior might place them at odds with the Church’s moral teaching, such as people in same-sex relationships,
the church door of Wittenberg, declaring his issue with the Church offering indulgences to Catholics to get into heaven if they died in a state of sin. This led to the Reformation and the split between the Catholic Church and the many denominations that followed the rebellion of the Lutheran Church.
What can be gleaned from these previous major changes in human history is that humanity survived. We also know there were people of great courage and virtue who lived during each of these previous eras. These people understood our Christian faith, lived consistently according to its teachings and received guidance from these teachings. They had the Scriptures; the teachings of the popes, the councils, the catechisms; as well as the lives of the saints, whose holy examples inspired them to live courageously.
We are now in 2024, and we are experiencing significant turbulence in our world, including deadly wars, the development of AI and the technology evolution that is transpiring directly in front of us, and an election next month that will likely determine the direction we take as a country, perhaps for decades to come. This is not an easy time in which to live.
And if we are looking for an easy way, we are not going to find it now. The time in which we are living is requiring us to understand who we are as Catholics and to live according to our values. We must study and align ourselves with the truth, so we are able to stand firmly for what we believe. This will require time and effort.
One area that requires such time and effort is in forming our consciences to vote according to our values as Catholics.
Catholic married couples often share similar values and thus, often vote for similar candidates. However, when Catholic married couples disagree on political
The shepherd doesn’t simply stay with the lost sheep out in the wilderness. Instead, he ‘sets it upon his shoulders with great joy’ and goes home.
cohabitating couples, and divorced and remarried persons.
Pastoral accompaniment — meeting people where they’re at, especially in our broken and confused culture — is of the utmost importance. It isn’t some weak-kneed, modernist compromise, but is instead done in imitation of Jesus Christ, the good shepherd who goes out in search of the lost sheep, stranded in the spiritual and existential peripheries, and whose loving outreach is itself a testament to the truth of the message he bears.
However, it also strikes me that we can speak about pastoral accompaniment, and even engage in it, in a way that actually undermines what it’s all about. We do this when we treat pastoral practice — being kind to someone, remaining on good terms with them, not offending them — as the “be all end all” of Christian witness.
Consider how Christ ends the parable of the lost sheep, cited above. The shepherd doesn’t simply stay with the lost sheep out in the wilderness. Instead, he “sets it upon his shoulders with great joy” and goes home.
Pastoral accompaniment fails if it isn’t clearly aimed at “going home” — if it remains on some sort of road to nowhere.
If one error is to speak “truth to power” without regard for how the recipient might receive what we say, the other extreme is to focus on not ruffling any feathers at the expense of sharing the truth, and, ultimately, the other’s salvation.
After all, Jesus Christ is the good shepherd not only because he looks at us with love, but because “in green pastures he makes me lie down; to still waters he leads me,” as Psalm 23 tells us.
The green pastures and the still waters that Christ
ACTION STRATEGIES
uDo whatever you can to educate yourself about our faith and stand firmly for our Catholic values when you are challenged.
uResist becoming entangled in any disagreements or arguments with your spouse surrounding the election. Pray and ask God to place his hand on our country at this pivotal moment in human history and upon your family for unity and peace.
candidates, they must keep the peace in their homes when, or if, they vote for opposing platforms. Maintaining civility is essential for the health of the family.
If Catholic spouses differ politically, they can begin by attending Mass together and praying about the election. They can take time to read the Ten Commandments together and discuss what they believe God has directed his people to do since the time of Moses and the peoples’ wandering in the desert. If the couple differs on a key point, they should each civilly explain their belief. The spouses must continue to support and strive to understand the perspective of the other, regardless of their own political views. Finally, they can pray for each other to form their conscience and vote in a way that reveres life.
We must each embrace this time and understand that much is being asked of us and we must accept that we need to learn to think. We do have what this time requires of us. However, it may not be easy or comfortable, which has been a consistent principle of Catholicism since the beginning.
Soucheray is a licensed marriage and family therapist emeritus and a member of St. Ambrose in Woodbury.
leads us to are nothing other than relationship with God. And because God is our creator, being in right relationship with him encompasses all of us — including how we live and even how we express something like our sexuality.
The moral teachings of the Church are not optional “add-ons.” They flow from the very salvation that Christ offers us, a salvation that doesn’t merely promise a ticket to heaven but provides us with the grace and the blueprint to flourish here below. Any pastoral plan needs to be rooted in, and certainly not avoidant of, these moral truths.
This was brought home for me while listening to the Gospel reading from this past Sunday (Oct. 6). In the reading from Mark, Christ is unmistakably clear and emphatic that divorce is not part of God’s plan for marriage. “Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” Christ even says that someone who divorces their spouse and marries another commits adultery.
As the son of divorced parents, I know that this teaching is hard. But if we are truly going to lead people to green pastures and still waters, there is simply no way around it. This is what God incarnate has told us about the nature of marriage. Who are we to ignore it?
Living consistent with the teachings of Christ and his Church is the home that we are always called to bring others toward. This destination can never slip from our minds amid our pastoral accompaniment — and if it does, then we are no longer being genuinely pastoral.
Because the Good Shepherd doesn’t leave people stranded. “He guides me along right paths for the sake of his name.” And we, as participants in Christ’s salvific mission, are called to do the same.
Liedl lives in South Bend, Indiana, and is senior editor for the National Catholic Register. He is a former longtime resident of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, alum of the University of St. Thomas’ Catholic Studies graduate program and a current student at The St. Paul Seminary and School of Divinity, both in St. Paul.
GUEST COLUMN JESSICA TRYGSTAD
Archdiocese is first Lumenaccredited diocese in the country
Representatives from The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C., visited the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Oct. 3 to formally award Lumen Accreditation to its system of 90 Catholic schools.
In a milestone more than a year in the making, the ceremony officially recognized the archdiocese as the first Lumen-accredited diocese in the country.
Peter Kilpatrick, president of CUA, presented the archdiocese’s Lumen Accreditation certificate to Archbishop Bernard Hebda at Ave Maria Academy in Maple Grove. He was joined by Jason Slattery, the archdiocese’s director of Catholic education and superintendent of schools, and Emily Dahdah, director of educational quality and excellence.
With CUA’s Thomas Smith, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences; Daryl Hagan, director of the Institute for the Transformation of Catholic Education; Andrew Kremer, director of the program of accreditation; and Todd Sweda, associate director of the program of accreditation; Kilpatrick also presented certificates of achievement to Ave Maria Academy and St. John Paul II Catholic School in Minneapolis. Speaking to Ave Maria Academy
It’s so important at this moment in our Church’s history in the United States that we all come together to learn from each other so that we can more closely identify with our Lord Jesus, with God, with our faith. And there’s so much to learn. So, let’s continue to work together and lift each other up as we pursue the very best in Catholic education.
Peter Kilpatrick
students, faculty, staff and guests after reciting a decade of the rosary, Archbishop Hebda highlighted that the most important work of Catholic schools is passing on the faith to young people.
“Ave Maria is an excellent school; we’re trying to make sure that this school and all our Catholic schools are more excellent,” the archbishop said. “Not only do we pray about that and try to do our best, but we also seek the help of experts from around the country.”
Lumen Accreditation, the archbishop noted, provides that kind of expertise and the best resources in what makes an excellent Catholic school — forming young minds, “not only in coming to know Christ, but also to thrive in so
many areas.”
In his remarks, Kilpatrick said the Lumen Accreditation process helps schools think more deeply about how to be even better, and he was proud to present the very first Lumen Accreditation certificates to Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
At St. John Paul II, the archbishop and Kilpatrick addressed students, faculty, staff and guests in the gymnasium before presenting the school’s certificate.
closely identify with our Lord Jesus, with God, with our faith. And there’s so much to learn. So, let’s continue to work together and lift each other up as we pursue the very best in Catholic education.”
Thanking her school community, The Catholic University of America and the archdiocese, Principal Tricia Menzhuber commended the collective effort to achieve Lumen Accreditation.
“This is a huge milestone for us,” she said. “I am confident that we are going to grow, we’re going to get better and better, and we’re going to live our Catholic faith more truly.”
At both schools, Archbishop Hebda and the CUA representatives visited with members of the school communities and toured the campuses.
•“As good as we might be, we can always be better,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s so important at this moment in our Church’s history in the United States that we all come together to learn from each other so that we can more
This special service of remembrance is for anyone who lost a child before birth, whether recently or many years ago, and offers a safe place to acknowledge the children who died before birth.
Registration is required to this free event. Scan the QR code or call 651-228-9991.
The accreditation ceremonies came just weeks after a team from Lumen Accreditation and other Catholic educational institutions from across the United States completed an onsite visit in the archdiocese to learn how its Office for the Mission of Catholic Education is advancing the Church’s vision of education and meeting the requirements for systems accreditation through its Catholic School Study, which each school participates in.
The team of experts met with OMCE, conducted more than 100 interviews with a cross section of stakeholder groups — including Archbishop Hebda, pastors, heads of schools and Catholic school parents — and visited six Catholic schools to see how the archdiocese is maintaining the highest standards for academic excellence, character development, spiritual growth, governance, financial sustainability and all aspects that make its Catholic schools exceptional.
“Lumen Accreditation is a hopeful undertaking for the good and future of Catholic schools — not only here in the archdiocese, but also across the United States,” Slattery said. “We are grateful to our Catholic schools for their partnership in this important work to advance an integrated vision of educational quality and excellence across our system in a way that is consistent with our mission and tradition.”
Trygstad is associate director of Catholic Education: Communications in the Office for the Mission of Catholic Education. She can be reached at trygstadj@archspm org
Peter Kilpatrick, president of The Catholic University of America, presents a Lumen Accreditation certificate to Archbishop Bernard Hebda Oct. 3 at Ave Maria Academy in Maple Grove.
JIM BOVIN COURTESY OMCE
CALENDAR
More events online at TheCatholicSpirit.com.
PARISH EVENTS
Living a Joyful Life Gala — Oct. 12: 5:30-8:30 p.m., at Maternity of Mary, 1414 N. Dale St., St. Paul. Living a Joyful Life Gala Dinner and Silent Auction is a celebratory event hosted by the ProLife Group of Maternity of Mary & Holy Childhood. Emceed by Brian Gibson with special guest, Abby Hewitt. Registration is required. tinyurl Com/36St4mbd German Dinner and Polka Mass — Oct. 13: 11 a.m.3 p.m. at St. Boniface, 633 Second St. NE, Minneapolis. 11 a.m. Polka Mass. Dinner served noon-3 p.m. Featuring Rod Cerar’s band. Silent auction. Tickets: $15 for adults; $10 for children (12 and under). Takeout available. For information, call 612-379-2761.
SHCCW Treasure Hunt Rummage Sale — Oct. 16, 17, 18, 19: Oct.16, noon-6 p.m., pre-sale: $5 at door; Oct. 17 and 18, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Oct. 19, 9 a.m.-noon, $5 bag day. Clothes, furniture, household items, jewelry and more.
Shrmn org
Duo Miric: A Classical Guitar Sister Act in Concert
— Oct. 19: 7 p.m. at Holy Cross, 1621 University Ave., Minneapolis. Bosnian-born sisters Tanja Miric and Darka Kooienga team up as Duo Miric to perform a wide variety of music, spanning from the Baroque Era to Bosnian folk music, and everything in between. The concert is free, though a $20 donation is encouraged. tinyurl Com/7meCwnS6 Pumpkin Patch — Oct. 17-31: 3-6 p.m. (Mon.-Fri), 10 a.m.-7 p.m. (Sat. and Sun.) at Our Lady of Peace, 5426 12th Ave. S., Minneapolis. Experience autumn in Minneapolis at Our Lady of Peace Pumpkin Patch. 2,000+ pumpkins, food trucks, games, and fun for all ages. No long drives—enjoy fall fun with your community close to home. Join us for weekend events and create lasting memories!
olpmn org/pumpkin-patCh/
Vatican International Eucharistic Miracles Display
— Oct. 24-27: 4 p.m. at St. John the Baptist, 4625 W. 125th St., Savage. Enter through Door #1. Viewing of the Vatican International Eucharistic Miracle Display created by Blessed Carlo Acutis. 150+ historically documented miracles and a first-class relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis available for veneration. Free admission. People of all ages are invited. StjohnS-Savage org/eventS/euChariStiC-miraCleS-exhibit
WORSHIP+RETREATS
Men’s Freedom and Life Retreat — Oct. 11-12: Oct. 11, 6-10 p.m.; Oct. 12, 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m.; at All Saints, 19795 Holyoke Ave., Lakeville. Presenter Deacon Ralph Poyo from New Evangelization Ministries will guide men through a faith journey of growing in discipleship with our Lord! This two-day retreat includes dynamic presentations, confession, meals and group/individual prayer. allsaintschurch.com/men
A Path to Holiness: Recognizing God’s Call Women’s Retreat — Oct. 12: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at St. Patrick, 6820 St Patrick’s Lane, Edina. God has called you to love and serve him through your current vocation. Join women from around the archdiocese as we learn from Catholic speakers how we can live out our current vocation infused with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. StpatriCk-edina org/womenSretreat Mass of Remembrance — Oct. 12: 9:30 a.m. at St. Hedwig, 129 29th Ave. NE, Minneapolis. Please join us in
remembering and giving thanks for the little ones who have been lost through miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth, sudden infant death, or other causes of death of a child. Everyone welcome. Reception to follow Mass.
October Women’s Weekend Retreat #2 — Oct. 18-20: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18 to 1 p.m. Oct. 20, at 16385 Saint Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Theme: Finding God in Difficult Times. In addition to the four conference talks, this women’s retreat includes classic retreat elements such as unhurried confession, guided prayer, spiritual direction, Mass and generous unscheduled periods. tinyurl Com/yCkhb3uf
Married Couples Weekend Retreat: “Do This in Memory of Me” — Oct. 18-20: Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. “Do This in Memory of Me.” Explore the meaning of these words Jesus spoke to the disciples at the Last Supper. kingShouSe Com
Fall in Love, Stay in Love: An Ignatian Weekend Retreat for Couples — Oct. 24-27: 4 p.m. Oct. 24 through 1 p.m. Oct. 27, at Christ the King Retreat Center, 621 First Ave. S., Buffalo. A silent preached weekend retreat for couples based on Ignatian Spirituality offered by Susan Stabile. tinyurl Com/3h3242ez
Praise and Worship Concert — Oct. 25: 7-9 p.m. at St. Mary of the Lake, 4741 Bald Eagle Ave., White Bear Lake. Featuring vocalists Jennifer Eckes, Julia Ennen, Daniel Greco and Sheena Janson-Kelley. Instrumentalists include Jaclyn Schwartz (music director), Ernest Bisong, Greg Byers and David Feily. Wine and appetizers to follow; donations appreciated.
Friends of Francis Retreat — Oct. 25-27: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 25 through 1 p.m. on Oct. 27 at 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake. Theme: Francis of Assisi – Teach Us to Pray. Presented by Father Wayne Hellmann. This is for anyone interested in the charism of St. Francis. Includes conference talks, confession, Mass, guided prayer and restful open periods. tinyurl Com/vj8fz4z3
CONFERENCES+WORKSHOPS
Faith and Science Series — Oct. 11, Oct. 25: 6-8:30 p.m. at Nativity of our Lord, 1938 Stanford Ave., St. Paul. Are you interested in the dialogue between faith and science? Come to our speaker series with a talk and opportunity to network with other enthusiasts. This series is also the starting point for a local chapter of the Society of Catholic Scientists. nativityStpaul org/adult-faith-formation
Marriage Encounter — Oct. 19-20: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at Mt. Olivet Retreat Center, 7984 257th St. W., Farmington. Great marriages don’t just happen, couples create them. Marriage Encounter has been enriching, saving, and celebrating marriage for 52 years. Begin creating the marriage of your dreams by signing up for the Oct. 19-20 Marriage Encounter. marriageS org
SPEAKERS+SEMINARS
Resisting the Throwaway Culture: Whose Life Matters? — Oct. 12: 6:30 p.m. at St. Odilia, 3495 Victoria St. N., Shoreview. The Respect Life Committee presents Dr. Charles Camosy, encouraging us to combat a culture that fails to respect life and our inherent God-given dignity. Enjoy light appetizers after the 5 p.m. Mass in the courtyard before the 6:30 p.m. presentation in the church.
Truth and Reconciliation: Paving a Path Forward — Oct. 24: 6 p.m. at St. Thomas More, 1079 Summit Ave., St. Paul. The Ignatian Volunteer Corps hosts Archbishop Hebda moderating a discussion between Monique Maddox and Father Tim Kesicki, S.J. on the Jesuits’ efforts to seek reconciliation with the descendants of those whom the religious order once enslaved. tinyurl Com/ytvvSmhx
OTHER EVENTS
Native Veterans Remembered — Oct. 12: 10-11 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Cemetery, 8601 93rd Ave. N., Osseo. Please join us in celebrating the dedication of a new headstone for Native Civil War Veteran Peter Bottineau, son of Pierre Bottineau, a Minnesota legend. Included will be a history of the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment by author Ken Files, Bottineau history, a eulogy by historian Fritz Anderson and Civil War re-enactors.
St. Pascal’s Men’s Club Booya — Oct. 13: 10 a.m. at St. Pascal’s, 1757 Conway St., St. Paul. Drive-thru sales only at the Conway Street circle until empty. No dine-in. No personal containers. 48 oz. containers $20 each. Cash, check or card accepted. Come early, as it sells out fast. Proceeds benefit K-eighth grade education and parish needs. Pro-Life Sidewalk Ministry Training — Oct. 22: 7-9 p.m. at First Evangelical Free Church (Youth Center), 2696 Hazelwood St., Maplewood. Learn peaceful, legal methods of saving babies from abortion through prayer, literature, and words of truth in love outside local abortion facilities. To register, contact gary gillet@plam org or 651-797-6366. More info at plam org/eventS
ONGOING GROUPS
Fire on the Hill — Third Saturdays: 5:15 p.m. Mass followed by Praise and Worship at the Cathedral of St. Paul, starting Sept. 21 2024, until May 17, 2025. Gifted and Belonging — Fourth Sundays: 6:308 p.m. at St. Matthew, 510 Hall Ave., St. Paul. Providing Catholic fellowship for young adults with disabilities, seen and unseen. Gather together to share a time of prayer and reflection, followed by games and social activities. Invite friends, and bring a caregiver as needed. For more information on monthly activities and/or volunteer opportunities, call Megan at 612-456-1572 or email giftedandbelonging@gmail Com NOTE: In this new year, Gifted and Belonging will begin meeting at Maternity of Mary in St. Paul every second Friday from 6:30 to 8 (starting Oct. 11).
Natural Family Planning (NFP) — Classes teach couples Church-approved methods on how to achieve or postpone pregnancy while embracing the beauty of God’s gift of sexuality. For a complete list of classes offered throughout the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, visit arChSpm org/family or call 651-291-4489.
Secular Franciscan Meeting of St. Leonard of Port Maurice Fraternity — Third Sundays: 2:15-3:45 p.m. at St. Olaf, 215 S. Eighth St., Minneapolis. Any who are interested in living the Gospel life in the manner of St. Francis and St. Clare are welcome.
Abria Together for Life Gala — Oct. 25: 6-9 p.m. at InterContinental MSP Airport, 5005 Glumack Drive, Minneapolis. This inspiring evening will feature stories of hope and opportunities to support Abria’s life-affirming mission. aeSbid Com/elp/abria24
Part-time Law Office Typist in West St. Paul, Minnesota: Produce legal documents including Wills, Trusts, Briefs, Pleadings, and Reports. Administrative support to attorneys and paralegals. In addition, a paralegal or legal assistant is also needed with similar duties but expanded to include research and composition of documents and other related duties. Contact John Trojack 651-451-9696 or complete “Contact” on our website: TrojackLaw.com.
GREAT CATHOLIC SPEAKERS
CD of the Month Club
CALENDAR submissions
DEADLINE: Noon Thursday, 14 days before the anticipated Thursday date of publication. We cannot guarantee a submitted event will appear in the calendar. Priority is given to events occurring before the issue date.
LISTINGS: Accepted are brief notices of upcoming events hosted by Catholic parishes and organizations. If the Catholic connection is not clear, please emphasize it in your submission. Included in our listings are local events submitted by public sources that could be of interest to the larger Catholic community.
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uTime and date of event
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HURRICANE RELIEF
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6
management and National Guard units have responded from across the country, including from Minnesota. Gov. Tim Walz signed an emergency executive order Oct. 7 authorizing the Minnesota National Guard to provide emergency assistance to Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton, which could hit the coast Oct. 9.
“Minnesota will provide every resource we can to support communities across the south that have been devastated this hurricane season,” Walz said in a news release. “In this time of crisis, Minnesota’s first responders have demonstrated unyielding dedication.”
To manage anticipated widespread damage from Hurricane Milton, Florida requested assistance from first responders under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, a mutual aid agreement among all 50 states. In response, the Minnesota National Guard was working with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Homeland Security and Emergency Management division to determine the mission requirements. The Minnesota National Guard, St. Louis County Mobile Command Post, and the Minnesota All Hazard Incident Management Team were also on site in North Carolina and South Carolina assisting with recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene.
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THELASTWORD
2 St. Paul parishes collaborate in bringing mostly Latino congregations together
By Susan Klemond For The Catholic Spirit
Twin sisters Daniela and Mariana Villalta so enjoyed attending the Steubenville St. Paul youth conference last year that they hoped to return this year.
However, the 16-year-old sisters who were confirmed last May learned the Steubenville conference had long been sold out and the youth group at their parish, St. Francis de Sales in St. Paul, planned to attend a different retreat in 2024.
But thanks to a collaborative relationship between Daniela and Mariana’s parish and Our Lady of Guadalupe (OLG) — another mostly Latino St. Paul parish that had two last-minute conference cancellations — the sisters were able to attend the Steubenville retreat along with 60 OLG youth.
“We started talking to all of (the youth from OLG) and they were really nice, and they were really welcoming,” Daniela said.
The retreat “was really fun,” Mariana said. “We did the (prayer service with Eucharistic) adoration, which we were so excited to do because we liked it last year.”
The teens, who are juniors at River Falls High School in River Falls, Wisconsin, made new OLG friends at the retreat. They will have opportunities to see them again, as well, as the two parishes share staff, pool resources, offer joint youth and young adult events, develop faith formation together and find other ways to maximize resources.
knowledge and resources, Crea said. “When you work as a team, everything goes well and the same at the church,” she said. “Sometimes it can be a challenge. We’re with a lot of people and especially people from the other church, but we are one Church.”
OLG parishioners are aware that the two parishes are using the same system and work plan, said Jesus Zarate, who helps develop parent formation. “It’s been good because we know that we’re going in the same direction and at times we share ideas, they share their ideas.”
The new program was an adjustment for parishioners at first, said Zarate, an OLG parishioner for 13 years. “But as they learned they got more involved in the community, with the Word of God, the sacraments. They liked it because they were understanding.”
The collaboration between the two parishes grew from the friendship among St. Francis de Sales pastor Father James Adams, OLG pastor Father James Bernard and Bishop Joseph Williams — who, until he left the archdiocese to lead the Camden, N.J., diocese this summer, served both as an archdiocesan auxiliary bishop and at OLG.
Inspired in part by the St. StephenHoly Rosary merger three years ago in Minneapolis with then-Father Williams as pastor, the St. Paul parishes have a “structural collaboration” –– not a merger –– for the benefit of both independently functioning parishes, said Father Adams.
“We’re trying to take (collaboration) seriously and figure out how do we do that together as parishes that do have a lot in common and with various needs that are very hard to all do on our own in a robust way and get all kinds of people involved and staff,” Father Adams said. Parish collaboration makes sense, said Father Joseph Bambenek, assistant director of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for the Renewal of Structures.
“In my mind it’s clearly going to be the way of the future in terms of we believe that the Body of Christ, the
people, we complement each other, and we have gifts to offer. … The same is true that parishes … have some areas of strength, some areas where they could really benefit from collaborating with others, with those around them,” said Father Bambenek, adding that several other archdiocesan parishes collaborate but not to the same extent.
Many of the faithful in the St. Paul parishes’ congregations are from Mexico, with a minority of parishioners from other Central and South American countries, Fathers Adams and Bernard noted.
Because many Latino immigrants receive little faith formation in their home countries, both parishes were already offering parental faith formation, Father Adams said. The St. Paul parishes’ new mandatory two-year parent program helps parents grow in their own faith and then receive catechesis to help educate their children about the sacraments, Father Adams said.
“Most of these parents are coming fresh,” Father Adams said, noting that many Latinos seek faith formation mainly for their children’s sacrament preparation. “They might want the sacrament for their child, and they may not even be going to Mass. And so, we’re trying to help them go through their two years (of formation) and encounter Jesus there and are maybe prepped to be a part of the parish.”
In offering formation for children and parents, the parishes have sought to make Sunday like a retreat day for families, Father Bernard said.
“The idea is that the parents, too, will encounter Christ and that they’ll be able to better be the primary teachers of the faith to their children, trying to not just drop off your kids and then they go to class but they’re both growing in their faith.”
Between the two parishes last year, 10 parishioners gave talks at the Sunday formation, about 10 were small group leaders and seven seminarians from The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul helped with youth and confirmation classes. Along with the formation program, the parishes share bilingual administrator Deacon Luis Rubi, who continues to find
areas where the parishes can maximize resources together.
Deacon Rubi served at St. Stephen in Minneapolis and was a full-time administrator at OLG for a year before agreeing to divide his time between OLG and St. Francis de Sales. Being in both places sparks ideas for sharing resources, he said.
“Or it creates a different mindset as you’re doing work at either parish that isn’t being done at the other one. Then that light goes on because you’ve got all this other cooperation that’s happening,” Deacon Rubi said.
The parishes have also collaborated on organizing joint events and trips for youth and young adults.
“We’re called to be good stewards of what we have and we’re both kind of inner-city parishes with not just an unlimited amount of money,” Father Bernard said. “Any way that we can collaborate makes us stronger. With the youth and young adults, it’s so much more exciting when we’re getting together to do formation sessions for World Youth Day and they see, rather than like, 10 people, now it’s like 30 people in a room. We’re all sharing the same faith, and I think it makes us stronger.”
A challenge in the collaboration between St. Francis de Sales and OLG has been helping non-Latino parishioners understand the new programs, especially the parishioners at St. Francis de Sales who went through the parish’s 2011 merger with St. James and have seen other changes, Father Adams said.
“It’s a challenge for people, especially our older English-speaking” parishioners at St. Francis de Sales. “They’ve been through a lot. They’ve lived through a lot. So, it’s kind of like, what now?”
Daniela and Mariana Villalta’s mother, Brenda Cea, has been active at St. Francis de Sales since soon after her family arrived in the United States from El Salvador five years ago. When she joined the sacramental formation team last year, Brenda Cea didn’t know what to expect. “But now I believe that chatting with people from the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been a great blessing for me and for all my family.”
The team benefits from everyone’s
While there have been challenges with the collaboration, both pastors said Sunday Mass attendance and formation participation have increased and the relationship aligns with the efforts of Archbishop Bernard Hebda as outlined in his 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room.”
For example, the fact that both parishes consider parental formation to be a necessary aspect of their children’s sacramental preparation aligns with the letter’s 2025-2026 goal of parents as the primary educators of the faith for their children, the priests said.
“We’re close in proximity (less than five miles apart) and synodality means walking together,” Father Bernard said. “That’s the whole thing with the (Archdiocesan) Synod, accompanying one another and having limited resources, we can share those resources. Maybe you meet once or do one training, then do it together and then that makes it a lot more possible.”
St. Stephen-Holy Rosary parishioners Oscar Saldivar and Maria Montalvo, who helped implement the formation program at the Minneapolis parishes, have also been helping the two St. Paul parishes for the past year. The couple also accompanies Spanish-speaking small group leaders at eight archdiocesan parishes.
“We see two parishes also with great desire, truly two communities with great desire, very hardworking, with a lot of effort, open to initiatives,” Saldivar said. “And we see that it is God first in his time, in his moment, and it will have its reward.”
Montalvo said God continues to be present in bringing the parishes together. “There are always hearts in need of God,” she said. “And a community that continues to grow, both are communities that are growing, new members arriving.”
Few parishes can do everything well for everyone, Father Adams said. “It doesn’t seem like right now we’re all being called to each be on an island and try to cover all these bases and be the amazing person in all those areas.”
As OLG and St. Francis de Sales find more ways to collaborate, the parishes continue to listen in prayer to what God’s doing, Father Adams said. “Maybe we’re overlooking blessings that are there, too,” he said. “We always can grow. We always can learn from each other.”
FATHER JAMES BERNARD
FATHER JAMES ADAMS
JOE RUFF | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Susana Gomez, 38, right, a member of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul, prays in adoration of the Eucharist next to her niece and fellow parishioner Denise Gomez, 23, as they and about 250 other Spanish-speaking adults learn about confirmation at the parish Oct. 6. The classes run at the same time as the children of many of the adults prepare for confirmation nearby.
