In these days of school consolidation, it is truly a joyous occasion to dedicate the opening of a new Catholic school — or as they are called these days — a Catholic education and activity center. Hundreds of parishioners of Immaculate Conception, Columbia celebrated that joy as they attended Mass and the Rite of Dedication …
Immaculate Conception Church perches on Kaskaskia Island, a tiny outpost of Illinois on the western side of the Mississippi River. For more than three months this summer, its perch got a bit lonelier, as rising floodwaters covered the main road into the town, cutting off the church from most of its congregants.
We are facing a national crisis in the United States. As a Catholic Bishop striving to live by and teach the good news of justice and peace proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, I am compelled to name this truth. It is, in some way, a crisis of gun violence.
Sister Julia Huiskamp has spent the past 60 years serving God and the poor, creating havens where people on the margins can build escape ladders out of poverty and violence.
More than 30 years ago, St. Paul Parish in Vienna, Ill., was able to take a big step forward with the help of Catholic Extension. The parish was ready to expand from a small wooden structure in order to accommodate its growing congregation. Among the groups that contributed money to the project was what was then known as the Catholic Church Extension Society, an organization devoted to building and strengthening isolated faith communities.