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

To celebrate the ministry of priests in the diocese, The Messenger invited parishioners to comment on how priests’ pastoral ministries affect their spiritual and personal lives or the parish community.

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.