For many retired priests and women religious, retirement doesn’t lead to a gold watch and a condo in Florida – it’s the first step to a continuing calling to help others. They serve in individual parishes and schools, in diocesan roles and in private prayer, serving as a spiritual force multiplier to accomplish greater goals than might be possible otherwise. The Diocese of Belleville will support their work through a special collection at Masses on Dec. 8-9 to benefit elderly Catholic sisters, brothers and religious order priests.

Within hours of the Oct. 27 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, religious leaders in Carbondale were making plans to come together in solidarity and healing. The next day, more than 150 people crowded into Congregation Beth Jacob in Carbondale offering prayers for the victims of the shooting, as well as everyone affected by the violent attack.

There’s no one way and no perfect time to discern a vocation. Some people realize as children that they want to become priests or sisters. Others hear their calling in high school or college. Still others come to it later in adulthood, after another career.

At St. Augustine of Hippo’s parish school of religion program, parents, church and catechists don’t operate separately, they are woven together to form a strong connection between children and their Catholic faith. Parents support the catechists through assignments that promote family religious education at home.

The death of a baby during pregnancy never leaves a parent. Emily York has seen those reverberations, as she works to provide ways for families to remember their children lost to miscarriage.

Father Federico Higuera, 77, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Anna, died Sept. 4 in Carbondale. He had been in failing health for some time. He was assigned to the pastorate of St. Mary Parish in Anna in 2009 and continued as the pastor of the Union County parish until his death. He was the face and presence of Hispanic ministry in the Cobden-Anna-Carbondale area for 35 years.

Diocesan priests Fathers Flannery and Salamanca say we should welcome the ‘stranger among us’

John Reed just made a triumphant return to the Metro East, bearing a gold medal he won in the 2018 Transplant Games of America in Salt Lake City. The road to that victory – and to the life-changing kidney transplant he received four years ago – ran through Holy Family Catholic Church in Cahokia. That’s where his parents, John and Dee, are members and where their fellow parishioner, Kathy Carron, learned about his need for a kidney donor.

Bishop Edward K. Braxton has appointed Jaime Gil Nuñez as the new Director of Faith Formation for the Diocese. The appointment is effective Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2018.
The director of faith formation provides a central role in the promotion and implementation of the National Directory for Catechesis to parishes in the diocese.

Three sisters growing up in rural Clinton County, chose a path of religious life – one that branched into separate journeys all over the country and even the world. Now the sisters, all of whom are celebrating jubilee years, have come to live together for the first time in decades.

Holy Trinity Parishioner Receives Inspiration on Journey of the Saint James Way

Twice a month, a group of men and women with a commitment to fostering vocations to the priesthood and religious life come together at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows to pray and learn.

Monsignor Thomas Flach’s journey in the priesthood took a difficult turn more than 10 years ago, when an unexpected illness slowed his steps.

Father Christian Reuter, OFM, is being remembered for his early work in the Civil Rights Movement and his admirable work with inmates in southern Illinois prisons and with ex-offenders.

They donated for years, sometimes decades, putting checks into envelopes that traveled thousands of miles to help sister parishes in Guatemala.