Father Bob Flannery likes to recall to the message of love of Jesus Christ as he works to protect the lives of immigrant detainees in one southern Illinois detention center. Father Bob, pastor of Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Carbondale, is a founding member of Detained Immigrant Spiritual Care, an organization started in 2018 by members of Carbondale’s Interfaith Council and trained volunteers of a variety of faiths and languages.
You might say that Poor Clares have practiced social distancing for 800 years. The women who follow St. Clare of Assisi see their lifetime “sheltering in place” as a response to a call which unites them more deeply to every person, enabling them to offer their lives and prayers for the needs of the world. …
By LYNN VENHAUS Contributing Writer As a global pandemic has changed American life in a matter of weeks, the three high schools and 26 elementary schools in the Belleville Diocese have had to quickly adapt. Several local administrators and teachers say they see positive outcomes in an unprecedented challenging time. Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered all …
Updates and the latest news regarding the Diocese of Belleville and the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Students at St. Joseph Catholic School in Olney have done that one better. When the world gives you plastic grocery bags, make sleeping mats for the homeless. As part of their study of homelessness and the affordable housing crisis, students in the sixth and eighth grades have been turning thousands of used plastic grocery bags into sleeping mats.
