WASHINGTON – Four new awardees were named this year as recipients of People of Life Awards, chosen by the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities for lifetime contributions to the pro-life cause. Honored at a July dinner for diocesan pro-life leaders and their guests, Mary Huber, Barbara Lyons, Greg Schleppenbach, and the late Laura Jean Ebert joined 37 other recipients since the secretariat established the award in 2007.
The award recognizes Catholics who have answered the call outlined by St. John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life” by dedicating themselves to pro-life activities and promoting respect for the dignity of the human person. It is bestowed in honor of their significant and longtime contributions to the culture of life.
Huber spent her 24-year career in pro-life ministry at the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, beginning as a part-time bookkeeper and ultimately becoming the director of Respect Life and Pastoral Care for the diocese’s Department of Life, Dignity and Justice.
Huber worked closely with the California Catholic Conference of Bishops advocating for life-saving protections for unborn children, women, and teen girls at risk for abortion and the elderly at risk for assisted suicide.
She launched the first diocesan Project Rachel program, coordinating training for priests and volunteers and providing bilingual phone counseling as well as abortion healing retreats in English and Spanish. Huber also facilitated mental health programming in parish ministries, particularly for those wounded by abortion, or struggling with end-of-life care. She ultimately developed comprehensive programs to provide educational resources for accompanying the dying during their final journey.
Lyons began pro-life work in 1974 as volunteer president of the Milwaukee County chapter of Wisconsin Right to Life. She joined the staff of Wisconsin Right to Life in 1977 where she served as legislative director for 10 years, becoming executive director in 1987.
She also led educational outreach through the Veritas Society media campaign and teen and college training programs.
She “retired” from Wisconsin Right to Life in 2014 after 40 years of work in the pro-life movement, yet in her 70s, she was asked to serve as coalitions director for the Patient’s Rights Action Fund. She has worked tirelessly into her 80s to prevent vulnerable persons from being targeted by assisted suicide.
Schleppenbach has dedicated his career to pro-life advocacy. He directed the pro-life office at the Nebraska Catholic Conference from 1991 to 2014 and served as Nebraska Catholic Conference’s executive director for two years.
From 2016 to 2022, Schleppenbach was associate director for the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. He is currently the executive director for the Culture Project, a missionary organization providing education and mentorship for teens on the issues of human dignity and sexual integrity.
Ebert, who passed away in 2021, spent her life in dedicated service to the Catholic Church and the pro-life movement. She helped establish pro-life pregnancy centers in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Canada. She also served as a housemother at a maternity home in Arkansas.
She was also passionate about Catholic education and worked for many years as a teacher in Illinois. She continued her leadership in compassionate service to women and children at pregnancy care centers near her home of Menominee, Michigan, until her death at age 73.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade “is, without question, an answer to prayer,” but in a post-Roe world, “Catholics must now work together for another, even deeper paradigm shift,” said the U.S. bishops’ pro-life chairman.
“We must move beyond a paradigm shift in the law in order to help the people of our nation better see who we can be as a nation by truly understanding what we owe to one another as members of the same human family,” said Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities.
“To build a world in which all are welcome,” he said, Catholics “must heed” the words of St. Teresa of Kolkata “and remember ‘that we belong to one another.'”
“We must shift the paradigm to what St. John Paul II described as ‘radical solidarity,’ making the good of others our own good, including especially mothers, babies – born and preborn – and families throughout the entire human lifespan,” Archbishop Lori said.
Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, concludes the annual March for Life rally in Washington alongside other supporters Jan. 21, 2022. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)
He made the remarks in a Sept. 21 statement for the U.S. Catholic Church’s observance of Respect Life Month, which is October. The theme of the observance is “Called to Serve Moms in Need.”
The first Sunday of October is designated as Respect Life Sunday, which is Oct. 2 this year.
In their June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a majority of the justices ended the court’s nearly 50-year nationwide “regime of abortion on demand,” the archbishop said.
This “regime” was “based on the indefensible view that the U.S. Constitution implicitly forbids government from protecting the preborn child in the womb from the violence of abortion,” he said.
The court “concluded that there is nothing in the Constitution’s text, history, American legal tradition or the court’s precedents that justified the extreme holding of Roe,” he said.
Dobbs was a challenge to a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The court affirmed the law 6-3 and also voted 5-4 to overturn the 1973 Roe ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide, and 1992’s Casey v. Planned Parenthood ruling, which affirmed Roe.
The ruling returned the issue of abortion to the states.
With Dobbs, the high court “cleared the way for a paradigm shift in American law, allowing it to enlarge its boundaries to again welcome a segment of the human family that had been outside of its protections for close to half a century,” he added.
He called Dobbs “a victory for justice, the rule of law and self-governance.”
“But for those of us who have prayed for this moment to arrive, it is the time for a renewal and rededication of our efforts to build a culture of life and civilization of love,” he said. “Justice is, of course, essential to this end. But it is not sufficient.
“To build a world in which all are welcome requires not only justice, but compassion, healing, and above all, unconditional love.”
“Abortion is a gruesome sign of how we have forgotten our mutual belonging,” Archbishop Lori continued. “The logic of Roe v. Wade has framed our national discourse on the issue of abortion as a zero-sum conflict among individual strangers.”
But “mother and child are not strangers; they are already bound together by flesh and kinship,” he said. “The new life that is developing under the heart of the mother is already situated in a network of relations, including family, neighbors and fellow citizens.”
Roe’s logic “offers the woman only the right to see lethal force used against her child, but it otherwise abandons her,” he explained.
But “the logic of the culture of life recognizes that the pregnant woman and her child are not alone – they are fellow members of our larger human family whose interwoven vulnerability is a summons to all of us, but especially Catholics because of the teaching of Jesus and his proclamation of the Gospel of life,” the archbishop said.
To practice “radical solidarity and unconditional love in a post-Roe world,” he said, means speaking and living the truth” with compassion – the truth that abortion not only “unjustly kills a preborn child, but also gravely wounds women, men, families and the nation as a whole.”
Through law, policy, politics and culture, society must do whatever it can to provide mothers, children and families in need “with the care and support necessary for their flourishing throughout the entire arc of life’s journey,” he said.
“Building a world in which women are esteemed, children are loved and protected, and men are called to their responsibilities as fathers, requires us to understand and address the complex and tragic tangle of affliction and strife that culminates in the violence of abortion,” Archbishop Lori said. “This is a massive and daunting undertaking.”
“Catholics already have a strong foundation in the church’s centuries-long encouragement of parental and societal duties,” he said. “Millions of individual Catholics from all walks of life are already personally endeavoring to build the bonds of solidarity and compassion throughout our society.”
Many also are engaged in parish and community initiatives such as pregnancy resource centers, post-abortion counseling, he said, as well as Walking with Moms in Need, an initiative of the U.S. bishops to connect pregnant women and their families with parishes and to a growing network of resources.
(Editor’s Note: The full text of Archbishop Lori’s statement and Respect Life Month materials from the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities can be found online at https://www.respectlife.org/respect-life-month.)
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph, shows no signs of slowing down in her long-standing fight to end the death penalty.
At 83, she is writing her fourth book while directing her advocacy organization, Ministry Against the Death Penalty, in New Orleans.
She spends a fair amount of time on the road as she continues to give talks, especially on college campuses, about the injustices she sees with capital punishment. She also continues to minister to both death-row inmates and murder victims’ families.
She has accompanied six men to their executions.
Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph, is seen at the Vatican in this 2016 file photo. She has worked in prison ministry and against the death penalty for decades. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
When asked by Catholic News Service in a Sept. 30 interview where she gets her energy, her responses all revolved around the work she does.
For starters, she said she is energized by those she ministers to on death row – currently a Louisiana inmate in his 60s, Manuel Ortiz. The Salvadoran has been on death row for close to 30 years and continues to claim innocence for the sentence he received for hiring someone to murder his wife. Sister Helen said Ortiz is a prayerful man with a great devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
“How does he get up every morning in that cell 30 years now? How does anybody do that?” Sister Helen asked. She said she comes away more enlivened from every visit with him and is also overwhelmed by what he goes through – “knowing you’re innocent, knowing the lies they told about you in trial.”
His case, along with the 690 people currently on death row in this country, remind her “we’ve got our work cut out for us,” she said in her understated way. Her Louisiana drawl almost belies the urgency of the work she sees ahead.
Her passion for both the innocent and the guilty on death row – who all have God-given dignity, she points out – has been her driving force ever since she witnessed her first execution in 1984: the electrocution of Patrick Sonnier, a 34-year-man found guilty of killing two teenagers.
Sister Helen first came to know Sonnier as a pen pal, when she volunteered to write to someone on death row. From that correspondence she later became Sonnier’s spiritual adviser.
She has often referred to her decision to write to someone on death row as a move of “Sneaky Jesus,” saying Jesus sneaks up and draws you into doing something that seems small but in the end becomes life changing.
Because Sonnier wanted Sister Helen to be with him and to pray for him at his execution, Sister Helen agreed. But really, nothing could have prepared her for what she witnessed.
“What I saw set my soul on fire, a fire that burns in me still,” she wrote in her memoir, “River of Fire.” After leaving the prison, in the middle of the night, she said she threw up in the parking lot. But from that day forward, she knew that she had to do something about what she had seen.
As she put it: “Our faith awakens and we speak.”
“I knew very few people were going to get this opportunity ever to be in (the execution chamber). I’m the witness,” she said, adding that she began to speak with whoever would listen.
At first, she encountered a lot of criticism with people shouting things at her like: “What do you know? What’s your authority? The Catholic Church upholds a right of the state to take life!”
She didn’t back down though.
“You just stay in there because you know what your eyes have seen, you know what your heart has felt you know what the Gospel of Jesus says about loving your enemy and forgiving.”
So she has stayed in there, and continues to do so, for nearly four decades. Starting with parish talks and then moving on to writing “Dead Man Walking” and speaking to St. John Paul II and Pope Francis about death penalty wrongs.
“Have to do it. Can’t not do it,” she said of her personal crusade.
The woman religious who grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, entered the convent at 18 and spent years teaching in Catholic schools, has not held back in recounting details of what she has seen in state prisons in prisoners’ final moments.
Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph, who is a longtime opponent of capital punishment, speaks to an audience the Vatican Embassy in Washington Oct. 10, 2019. The embassy hosted the 10th anniversary celebration of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that works to end the death penalty. (CNS photo/Jim Stipe, Catholic Mobilizing Network)
In 1997, she told St. John Paul that she has walked behind a man on his way to be executed, with legs shackled, hands cuffed to a belt and surrounded by guards who whispered to her: “Please pray as I make this walk that God holds up my legs.”
“Where is the dignity in taking a human being and rendering them completely defenseless and killing them?” she said she asked the pope. “How do we respect the inviolable dignity even of the guilty? Can you help our church? Can you help us?”
And he did help, she said, in a 1999 visit to St. Louis where he described the death penalty as both cruel and unnecessary and said: “Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform.” His 1995 encyclical, “Evangelium Vitae” (The Gospel of Life”), the pope spoke against the death penalty but he included the caveat that it could be used if absolutely necessary to defend society. Sister Helen said that phrase made her heart drop because she knew those words would be used by anyone who wanted to sentence someone to death.
She likened St. John Paul’s discussion of the death penalty to taking the issue to the net, then Pope Francis pushed it over the net in 2018. That was when he announced the revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to include a description of the death penalty as “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and saying it was inadmissible in all cases.
There’s no doubt Sister Helen was pretty happy that day. But by no means did she just take a break afterward.
She knows there is still plenty of support in the U.S. for capital punishment, even as some states are abolishing it, and that Catholics are not much different from the general public in their death penalty views.
A 2021 poll by Pew Research shows that 60% of U.S. adults favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, including 27% who strongly favor it. It also showed Catholics falling into that same bracket with 58% of them generally supportive of capital punishment, with 27% strongly favoring it.
When asked how to reach people in the pews, Sister Helen said they need to learn about the death penalty in Catholic schools and parish adult education program.
She says she is hardly alone in her advocacy but part of a broader movement. She likens it to “a pot that begins to boil and these little bubbles start at the bottom and they start rising up. Well, I was one of those little bubbles.”
And even now, the work doesn’t get old for her.
“There’s a great life when you feel you’re fulfilling your purpose,” she said, adding that she is glad to be awake to today’s social injustices even though she said it took 40 years to happen.
“It’s a great grace to be awake and then to be engaged in soul-sized stuff,” she said. “Bring it on.”
NATION WASHINGTON (CNS) – Pope Francis has appointed Father John-Nhan Tran, a priest in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and pastor of Mary Queen of Peace in Mandeville, Louisiana, as auxiliary bishop of Atlanta. Bishop-designate Tran, 56, was born in Vietnam and escaped with his family to the United States after the Vietnam War as a refugee when he was 9. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1992. His appointment was announced Oct. 25 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Vatican nuncio to the United States. The bishop-designate attended Don Bosco College in Newton, New Jersey, and St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana. He earned a master of divinity in theology from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. He has served at eight parishes in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Father Michael Pfleger, a popular Chicago priest and outspoken advocate against gun violence, gangs, poverty and racism, has stepped aside from his ministry after the Chicago Archdiocese said it received an allegation that the priest had sexually abused a minor more than 30 years ago. Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich announced the decision in an Oct. 15 letter to Father Pfleger’s parishioners at the Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago. The 73-year-old priest has led the historically African American parish since 1981 and is currently its senior pastor. The priest strongly denied the accusation, which comes on the heels of a similar accusation against him in January 2021 where he also temporarily stepped aside from his ministry until an archdiocesan review found “insufficient reason” to suspect the priest was guilty of abuse allegations said to have taken place 40 years ago. Father Pfleger was reinstated at his parish in June of that year. In a current letter to parishioners, posted on the parish website, Father Pfleger said: “The process of the archdiocese today is that a priest is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Priests are vulnerable targets to anyone at any time. So once again, I have been removed from all public ministry while they investigate again.”
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (CNS) – The world still has not learned “the essential lesson” of the Cuban Missile Crisis that “the only way to eliminate the nuclear danger is through careful, universal, verifiable steps to eliminate nuclear weapons,” said Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico. “It is the very nature of these weapons that the possession of any nuclear weapons is an existential danger to all,” he said. “And Pope Francis has been explicitly clear that ‘the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral.’” He renewed his call “for dialogue on the existential issue of eliminating nuclear weapons” and said New Mexico’s congressional delegation should help lead this dialogue,” given that the federal government spends billions in the state on weapons production while New Mexico “remains mired at the bottom of numerous socioeconomic indicators.” Archbishop Wester made the comments in an Oct. 14 reflection on the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, “regarded as the closest that humanity has ever come to global nuclear annihilation,” he said. A month earlier, he took his summons to begin meaningful conversations to achieve full nuclear disarmament to the annual United Nations prayer service in New York. In August, he apologized for the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945 and to Indigenous New Mexicans, uranium miners and scientists suffering from ill health related to the nuclear weapons industry in the state.
VATICAN VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Completing a project to repatriate human remains held in the Vatican Museums’ ethnological collection, the Vatican and the government of Peru signed an agreement Oct. 17 to return to Peru three mummies sent to the Vatican in 1925. Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, and César Landa Arroyo, foreign minister of Peru, signed an agreement Oct. 17 in the Vatican Museums for the return of the mummies. The three human remains are thought to be several centuries old, but their exact age will not be known until after thorough studies are conducted in Peru. They were found at an altitude of more than 9,800 feet in the Peruvian Andes along the Ucayali River. The mummies are assumed to be Incan. The mummies were part of the Vatican Museums’ Anima Mundi ethnological collection, which features thousands of pieces of Indigenous art and artifacts from around the world. The mummies, like many of the pieces of art and cultural artifacts from the peoples of Australia and Oceania, the Americas, Africa and Asia, were sent to the Vatican for the 1925 Holy Year opened by Pope Pius XI. The celebration included a major exposition on Catholic missionary activity around the world. With a conviction that human remains are not works of art or collectibles, in 2010 the Vatican Museums began a project to return human remains in its collection to their countries of origin. The first remains, a mummy from Ecuador, were returned in 2014. Three years later, the museums returned to Ecuador a tsantsa, a specially treated head used in ceremonies.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Reviewing one’s life is an essential step in discerning God’s call because it helps one see places where God was at work, even in small things, and also helps one recognize “toxic” thoughts of self-doubt, Pope Francis said. A daily review of one’s actions and feelings is not mainly about acknowledging one’s sins – “we sin a lot, don’t we,” the pope said. Instead, regularly reviewing the day educates one’s perspective and helps one recognize “the small miracles that the good God works for us every day.” At his weekly general audience Oct. 19 in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis continued his series of audience talks explaining the key steps in spiritual discernment, focusing on how a daily practice of review and introspection trains a person how to look at the bigger picture of his or her life in order to discern God’s call. Learning to see that God was at work even in small things, “we notice other possible directions” that can be taken and that “strengthen our inner enthusiasm, peace and creativity,” the pope said. “Above all, it makes us freer from toxic stereotypes,” such as thinking, “I am worthless” or “I will never achieve anything worthwhile.”
WORLD KOCHI, India (CNS) – Laypeople in an archdiocese of India’s Syro-Malabar Catholic Church have begun a round-the-clock vigil to stop the Vatican-appointed administrator from gaining entry into the archbishop’s house. Lay leaders in the Kochi-based Ernakulam-Angamaly Archdiocese say Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, the apostolic administrator, unilaterally revoked the dispensation that had allowed priests to celebrate Mass facing the people, reported ucanews.com. The protesting groups want to continue with the traditional Mass in which the priest faces the congregation throughout, despite a rule that took effect in 2021. Under that rule, devised as a compromise, the Syro-Malabar synod ruled that the priest “will face the congregation until the eucharistic prayer, and then again from Communion to the end of the Mass. From eucharistic prayers until Communion, the priest will face the altar.” The vigil at the Kochi residence was launched Oct. 16, and teams of laypeople from different parishes were assigned to ensure a 24-hour watch, ucanews.com reported. “We no longer want the apostolic administrator to get inside our archbishop’s house,” Riju Kanjookaran, spokesman for the Archdiocesan Movement for Transparency, told ucanews.com Oct. 17.
LVIV, UKRAINE (CNS) – After Ukrainian women were released in a prisoner swap with Russia, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church said their stories “simply break the heart, make the blood run cold in your veins. This war will go down in history as one in which Russia uses sexual violence as a weapon against Ukraine,” said Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych. On Oct. 17, more than 100 Ukrainian women were released from Russian captivity. Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, said it was the first female-only exchange, and he called it “especially emotional and truly special. Mothers and daughters, whose relatives were waiting for them, were held captive,” Yermak said. On Oct. 18, Archbishop Shevchuk thanked God that the women were able to return to their families. “Let us wrap these women together today with our attention, love and prayer, and warm them up with our national warmth,” he said.
NAIROBI, Kenya (CNS) – Eritrean authorities are continuing to detain Catholic Bishop Fikremariam Hagos Tsalim of Segheneity, who was arrested at the Asmara International Airport Oct. 15. After the Catholic Church queried about the situation and his whereabouts, government authorities confirmed the bishop, who turns 52 Oct. 23, is in their custody. Bishop Tsalim was picked up soon after returning from a trip to Europe, but as of Oct. 18, government authorities had not given any reasons for his detention. Fides, news agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies, said Bishop Tsalim and two other priests were being held at Adi Abeto prison. “We have received this ominous news (of the arrest) with immense pain and bewilderment at what is happening in our country,” Father Mussie Zerai, a Catholic priest of Eritrean origin who works with migrants, told Catholic News Service. “Our hope (is) that all priests and the bishop currently in custody will be released as soon as possible.” On Oct. 11, security agents arrested Father Mihratab Stefanos, the priest in charge of St. Michael’s Catholic Church in the diocese. Another Catholic priest, identified as Capuchin Abbot Abraham, was detained in the western town of Teseney.
By Dennis Sadowski WASHINGTON (CNS) – Dioceses and parish volunteers who have embraced the “Walking with Moms in Need” initiative are still in the early stages of assessing its effectiveness.
Statistics – counting the numbers who have been helped – are an inconclusive means of measuring how well the initiative is working. But anecdotes so far give an encouraging picture.
This initiative of the U.S. bishops aims to connect pregnant women and their families with parishes and to a growing network of resources with the help of volunteers.
The rollout of the program was slowed because it was launched March 25, 2020, just as the pandemic began to take hold, but it is underway.
This is the logo for “Walking with Moms in Need.” (CNS/courtesy WalkingWithMoms.com)
“It’s not an abortion alternative,” Cindy Ketcherside, a coordinator at St. Theresa Parish in Phoenix, observed in an interview with Catholic News Service. She calls the women “abortion vulnerable,” but “what we’ve found are more working moms who already have children.”
Seldom do the women have to be dissuaded from an abortion. By the time “Walking with Moms in Need” is involved, that decision usually has already been made not to have an abortion.
Promoting the initiative is typically as simple as posters on parish bulletin boards and brochures. But those in need, going by anecdotal evidence, come to the program from all directions, and even through private conversations following Mass.
The common thread in the parish-level stories: There’s no such thing as a stereotype of the women who are helped.
Kathleen Wilson, coordinator of Respect Life for the Archdiocese of Detroit, likes to tell the story of the single mother with triplets. Forced to move back in with her mother because of the financial strain, she turned to the initiative for clothing, medical and nutrition needs.
“It shows you that we’re accompanying them even in very challenging circumstances.”
Another was a 17-year-old girl. Wilson praised the parish’s “lack of (harsh) judgment” so it was able to “embrace these young parents. There’s been this continuation of supporting this young life as a parish family.” The key question to ask, she said, is “How do we meet that person where they are?”
Parishes are encouraged to find the skills within their ranks, and Wilson knows of one that including a lactation specialist who was happy to add her expertise.
Megan Morris, director of the Life Center of Santa Ana, California, calls that loving the mother “where she’s at.”
“Our hope is not only saving the unborn baby, but bringing the mother and baby home to Christ and a community of support,” she said.
There are training sessions for volunteers. Each mother is assigned a companion to accompany them on the stressful trek of applying to state agencies who provide nutrition and housing assistance.
Among the worries, “formula is a big one,” Ketcherside said. Other help includes finding access to parenting classes and vouchers for Section 8 subsidized housing.
Sometimes the contact starts with a phone call, said Denise Malone, the Respect Life coordinator at St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Parish in Anthem, Arizona.
“I heard from a grandmother. Her very young daughter had had a baby out of wedlock. So the mom and the baby were living with the grandparents,” Malone told CNS.
And the request was a little different from food, shelter and clothing. “They wanted the mother to financially support the child. They asked for help in finding at-home day care. Money wasn’t an issue. And they wanted the mom to enroll in classes. So that was successful.”
The key to training volunteers: “Active listening is a really, really big thing, and being able to understand the mom and where they’re coming from. You can’t make assumptions.”
Another common element, Malone has found, is “fear. They’re all in a position where they’re fearful they can’t raise the child that they’re pregnant with. It is going to be a heck of a lot better to know that the mother will have their baby and we will protect them.”
“They’re overwhelmed,” Ketcherside agreed. “They don’t know where to go.”
In July, pro-life leaders in Baltimore for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Diocesan Pro-Life Leadership Conference noted that supporting women in choosing life is a top priority for them especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision June 24. The ruling overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, and returned the abortion issue to the states.
Since Dobbs, interest in “Walking with Moms in Need” seems to have increased somewhat. For example, in the 10 days following the ruling, the Archdiocese of Detroit’s “Walking with Moms in Need” webpage received nearly 1,600 unique page views.
In 2021, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said the initiative “directly confronts the false, yet popular, narrative that the Catholic Church merely condemns abortion, without providing the resources or support women need in raising their children.”
(Editors: More about “Walking with Moms in Need” can be found online at walkingwithmoms.com.)
La gente pasa junto a una calabaza inflable mientras asisten a un festival de otoño en Manorville, Nueva York, el 16 de octubre de 2022. (Foto de CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz)
Van Tran limpia afuera de su casa dañada luego de graves inundaciones en Melbourne, Australia, el 17 de octubre de 2022. El primer ministro australiano, Anthony Albanese, recorrió partes de Melbourne afectadas por las inundaciones, mientras tres estados del sureste continúan lidiando con una crisis de inundaciones después de días de fuertes inundaciones. lluvia. (Foto del CNS/Sandra Sanders, Reuters)
Los trabajadores descansan mientras descargan bolsas de granos como parte de los alimentos de ayuda enviados desde Ucrania en el almacén del Programa Mundial de Alimentos en Adama, Etiopía, el 8 de septiembre de 2022. Con motivo de la celebración del Día Mundial de la Alimentación de la ONU, el 16 de octubre, el Papa Francisco dichos actos de amor y solidaridad son clave para combatir el hambre. (Foto del CNS/Tiksa Negeri, Reuters)
La gente compra linternas en un mercado en Mumbai, India, el 28 de octubre de 2021, antes de Diwali, el festival hindú de las luces, que este año comienza el 24 de octubre en la mayoría de los países. (Foto del CNS/Niharika Kulkarni, Reuters)
Rishi Sunak, nuevo líder del Partido Conservador de Gran Bretaña, camina frente a la sede de la campaña conservadora en Londres el 24 de octubre de 2022. Sunak se convertirá en la primera persona de color del Reino Unido en ocupar el cargo de primer ministro. (Foto del CNS/Hannah McKay, Reuters)
NATION WASHINGTON (CNS) – Catholic immigration advocates are emphasizing that the Oct. 5 ruling by a federal appeals court – finding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is unlawful – sends another signal that permanent legislation is needed to protect young immigrants from deportation and put them on a path to U.S. citizenship. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans affirmed a lower court’s ruling last year that said the Obama administration did not have the legal authority in 2012 to create DACA in the first place. This appeals court decision, similar to the ruling last summer from a federal judge in Texas, prevents the Biden administration from enrolling new participants in the program. The new court decision continues to leave DACA in limbo. It did not say the program had to completely shut down or stop processing renewal applications, but it leaves in place last year’s order from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen that said DACA could continue only for current recipients with no new participants. The 5th Circuit also returned the case to the lower court asking the judge to review new DACA regulations the Biden administration announced in August and set to go into effect Oct. 31. “DACA, like asylum, the border – immigration policy writ large – doesn’t belong in the courts,” Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, tweeted after the ruling was announced. “Congress and the White House need to pass legislation that honors our values, the rights and dignity of those who migrate, and the contributions of those who make America home.”
WASHINGTON (CNS) – A federal court in Indiana sided with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and one of its Catholic high schools in a lawsuit filed by a former guidance counselor who said her contract was not renewed because of her same-sex union. The Sept. 30 ruling in Fitzgerald v. Roncalli High School and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, relied on previous Supreme Court rulings that have emphasized a ministerial exception protecting a religious school’s hiring and firing practices from government intrusion. The recent decision echoes a nearly identical ruling from a year ago based on a lawsuit filed against the same school and archdiocese from another school counselor whose contract was similarly not extended due to her same-sex union. The decisions in both cases were issued by U.S. District Judge Richard Young for the Southern District of Indiana. Young said the Indianapolis Archdiocese and its schools can select, retain or dismiss faculty according to their religious standards, something he also stressed a year ago. The current case involved Shelly Fitzgerald, former co-director of guidance at Roncalli High School for 15 years. Her employment was terminated in 2018 after she confirmed to the school that she was in a same-sex union and the school declined to renew her contract for the following year. School officials said her conduct was prohibited by the agreement she signed with the school.
VATICAN VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The refusal to help desperate migrants “is revolting, it’s sinful, it’s criminal,” Pope Francis said as he canonized a bishop dedicated to assisting migrants and a Salesian brother who had immigrated with his family to Argentina. “The exclusion of migrants is criminal. It makes them die in front of us,” the pope said Oct. 9, referring to the deaths of migrants and refugees crossing dangerous seas in search of freedom and a dignified life. At the beginning of the liturgy in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis formally recognized the holiness of St. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian who founded the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo to care for migrants, and St. Artemide Zatti, an Italian immigrant in Argentina who became a Salesian brother, pharmacist and nurse. The prayers at the Mass included one for “those forced to leave their homeland,” and asking God to teach people to share “his welcoming gaze toward all people” and “heal the throwaway culture of indifference.” Pope Francis focused much of his homily on the day’s Gospel reading about the 10 lepers healed by Jesus and, therefore, allowed back into society. “When we are honest with ourselves, we realize that we are all sick at heart, all sinners in need of the Father’s mercy,” the pope said. “Then we stop creating divisions on the basis of merit, social position or some other superficial criterion; our interior barriers and prejudices likewise fall. In the end, we realize once more that we are brothers and sisters.” Pope Francis asked the estimated 50,000 people at the Mass to think about whether in their families, at work and in their parishes, they are willing to walk with others and listen to them, “resisting the temptation to lock ourselves up in self-absorption and to think only of our own needs.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – As thousands of people sat in the dark in St. Peter’s Square, they watched fish jump from the facade of the basilica, saw the word “no” form and dissolve three times and heard an actor reciting the part of St. Peter speak about the overwhelming love and mercy of Jesus. They also heard tenor Andrea Bocelli sing four songs, including “The First Noel” from the soon-to-be released Christmas album he made with his children Matteo and Virginia. The nighttime event Oct. 2 was the premiere of “Follow Me,” an eight-minute film about the life and faith of St. Peter. Using “video mapping,” images of St. Peter from the basilica’s collection and that of the Vatican Museums were turned into 3D video clips and projected onto the facade of the basilica, which is built over the presumed tomb of the apostle. The film was to be shown every 15 minutes between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. until Oct. 16.
Projected images detailing the life of St. Peter the Apostle are seen on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Oct. 2, 2022. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sang for thousands in St. Peter’s Square as the Vatican inaugurated a two-week showing of a short film about the life of St. Peter. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
WORLD FULDA, Germany (CNS) – The president of the German bishops’ conference demanded an apology from a Swiss cardinal at the Vatican over comments that brought up Germany’s Nazi past. Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, demanded an apology from Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, who seemed to compare what is underlying the German bishops’ Synodal Path process with a mistaken Christian ideology that underpinned the rise of Nazism. Cardinal Koch said he had been misunderstood. At the end of the German bishops’ plenary assembly Sept. 29, Bishop Bätzing said that, with his remarks, Cardinal Koch had “disqualified himself from the theological debate” about the Synodal Path. “If a public apology does not happen immediately, I will file an official complaint with the Holy Father,” Bishop Bätzing said. Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch apologized for offending people and said he never intended to imply that supporters of the German church’s Synodal Path were doing something similar to what a group of Christian supporters of the Nazis did in the 1930s. At a meeting Oct. 4 in Rome with Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, “Cardinal Koch expressly emphasized that it was completely far from him to want to impute the terrible ideology of the 1930s to the Synodal Path,” said a statement published the next day by the bishops’ conference. “Cardinal Koch asks for forgiveness from all those who feel hurt by the comparison he made,” the statement continued.
MEXICO CITY (CNS) – Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega blasted Catholic leaders as a “gang of murderers,” in comments amping up persecution of the church and scorning Pope Francis’ call for dialogue in the Central American country. In a fiery address, Ortega took aim at Nicaragua’s Catholic bishops for promoting democracy as an exit from the country’s political crisis, alleging without proof that they called on protesters to kill him during the 2018 protests – which his regime violently repressed. He called the bishops and Pope Francis “the perfect dictatorship,” then asked, accusatorially, “Who elected the bishops, the pope, the cardinals?” He continued in the Sept. 28 speech marking the 43rd anniversary of the National Police: “With what moral authority do they speak of democracy? Let them start with the Catholic vote. … Everything is imposed. It’s a dictatorship, the perfect dictatorship. It’s a tyranny, the perfect tyranny.” Catholic clergy in Nicaragua have remained mostly silent as Ortega – who won elections in 2021 after disqualifying and imprisoning opposition candidates – has persecuted priests and bishops speaking out on issues of human rights and democratic deterioration. The government also has closed church-run charitable and education initiatives, along with Catholic radio stations, and expelled priests and nuns, including the Missionaries of Charity. Ortega claimed in his comments that he was Catholic, but did not feel “represented,” partly because, “We hear talk of democracy, and they don’t practice democracy.”
By Rhina Guidos WASHINGTON – As authorities in Florida continued rescue efforts, Catholic parishes and dioceses in the U.S. moved rapidly to collect aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, and U.S. President Joe Biden said it could take years to rebuild what was destroyed.
Though Ian was downgraded to a tropical storm after wrecking swaths of Florida, it regained strength and regrouped as a hurricane before heading toward South Carolina.
Biden approved an emergency declaration to send federal help before it made landfall in Charleston Sept. 30. Residents of Florida and the Carolinas face a recovery estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars. As of Oct. 2, at least 80 people were confirmed dead, and more than 1,600 people had been rescued in parts of southwest and central Florida.
The Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, will hold a special collection at its parishes in October to help with the damage, including in the neighboring Diocese of Venice and is asking for others to help at https://www.dosp.org/disasterrelief.
“Our hearts are moved with compassion for all those who have suffered damage and destruction due to Hurricane Ian, especially our brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Venice,” St. Petersburg’s Bishop Gregory L. Parkes said of the diocese that suffered the brunt of the damage.
A flooded community in Fort Myers, Fla., is seen Sept. 29, 2022, after Hurricane Ian caused widespread destruction. (CNS photo/Marco Bello, Reuters)
At the Vatican Oct. 2, after reciting the Angelus prayer with people in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said: “I am close to the populations of Cuba and Florida, afflicted by a violent hurricane. May the Lord receive the victims, give consolation and hope to those who suffer, and sustain the solidarity efforts.”
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called on Catholics and all people of goodwill to pray for those who lost their lives in the Caribbean and the southwest United States due to Hurricane Ian.
He urged prayers “for the comfort of their grieving families and communities” as well as prayers for those who have lost their homes and businesses. “May they find peace and comfort in God’s enduring love for us, even amid these most trying circumstances,” he said.
In a statement released late Sept. 30, the archbishop also prayed the emergency responders would be kept “from harm as they seek to bring relief, comfort and healing” to storm victims.
At a news conference Sept. 30, Biden told Floridians that the federal government would do all it could to help, particularly to rescue people and other recovery efforts.
He also announced that 44,000 utility workers were working to restore electricity for those left without power since the hurricane struck.
In preparing for Ian, the Florida Division of Emergency Management said it had coordinated with utility companies to make sure crews were prepared “to respond and restore power.”
As of Oct. 2, 590,000 people were still without power in Florida, but that figure was a significant reduction from the nearly 2 million who had no power immediately after Hurricane Ian struck.
“It’s not a crisis for Florida, it’s an American crisis,” Biden said during the news conference.
He said the situation on the ground was “far more devastating” than initially believed and “is likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history.”
The president and first lady Jill Biden were visiting Puerto Rico Oct. 3 to see the devastation wrought by Hurricane Fiona, which slammed into the island a week before Ian hit Florida. The Bidens planned to visit Florida Oct. 5.
In the Diocese of Venice, Bishop Frank J. Dewane gave thanks via Twitter for those who prayed for people in the path of the Hurricane Ian.
“Damage is still being assessed, but it is clear that the devastation in the diocese is widespread,” he wrote. “There are several crews already at work throughout the diocese, and Catholic Charities is putting their local team into action. We are grateful for all those who have helped, and continue to help, during this difficult time.”
Catholic Charities USA is collecting donations at https://ccusa.online/Ian.
In Charleston, South Carolina, Bishop Jacques E. Fabre-Jeune offered Mass hours before the storm made landfall “for the protection of all people affected by Hurricane Ian and especially for our essential personnel working to keep us safe,” the diocese said on its Facebook page.
Ian hit close to 2:30 p.m. local time Sept. 30 as at Category 1 hurricane, flooding historic Charleston, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. The storm was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it hit North Carolina.
As the storm went through the Carolinas, about 850,000 people had no electricity but news reports said power was restored to more than half of them by the weekend.
(Editor’s note: The Diocese of Jackson will take up a second collection the weekend of Oct. 15-16 as a part of the Bishops Emergency Disaster Fund. The fund will be used to support immediate emergency needs and to aid in long-term rebuilding and recovery efforts.)
FORT MYERS, Florida (CNS) — El padre Patrick O’Connor, párroco de la Parroquia Jesús Obrero, situada al noroeste del centro de Fort Myers, organizaba una operación el 4 de octubre mientras se hacía camino por el salón parroquial que se encontraba repleto de ropa.
Una eficiente línea de distribución de alimentos y agua estaba en pleno funcionamiento para atender a miles de miembros de la comunidad — en su mayoría trabajadores agrícolas e hispanos — que llegaron en lo que fue el día más ocupado de distribución de suministros de emergencia desde la llegado de Ian, según reveló el padre O’Connor.
Los voluntarios de una estación de radio en español en West Palm Beach acababan de terminar de descargar una entrega de suministros donados cuando el padre O’Connor se acercó para ofrecer abrazos y una bendición — y para tomar parte en la foto grupal con el personal de la estación de radio.
“Hicieron correr la voz por nosotros y nos trajeron cinco camiones llenos de agua, alimentos, ropa, y artículos para bebés, pañales, y productos femeninos, y todo tipo de cosas que la gente necesita en este momento, especialmente en East Fort Myers, que fue golpeado tan duramente”, expresó el padre O’Connor sobre la entrega de la estación de radio.
Los feligreses de la Parroquia de la Sagrada Familia en Sydney Mines, Nueva Escocia, preparan comidas para los residentes de la comunidad afectados por la tormenta postropical Fiona. La comunidad estuvo sin electricidad durante nueve días después de la tormenta e hizo uso de estufas de gas en el salón parroquial. (Foto de CNS/cortesía de Norma Blinkhorn)
Esta fue una labor que el mismo sacerdote y la despensa de alimentos de la parroquia desempeñaron después del huracán Irma de 2017; ahora estaban haciéndolo de nuevo después del aún más devastador huracán Ian de categoría 4 que arrasó el suroeste de Florida después de tocar tierra una semana antes en la costa oeste del estado.
“Esta es una comunidad muy pobre en esta parte de Fort Myers, y realmente no pueden evacuar como otras personas, por lo que están un poco atrapados”, manifestó el sacerdote, quien es un oblato de San Francisco de Sales.
El total de muertes solo en el área del condado de Lee, que incluye la ciudad de Fort Myers, se estimó en 45. El número de muertes en Florida es mucho más alto, y se espera que las cifras sigan aumentando.
El padre O’Connor dijo que su comunidad inmigrante, compuesta en su mayoría por trabajadores mexicanos y centroamericanos, es la que más necesita donaciones de alimentos y agua en este momento, ya que la situación de la cadena de suministro no ha sido muy buena.
Según los informes, la ciudad de Fort Myers tiene agua, pero ha advertido que sigue contaminada y no es seguro consumirla sin hervir en este momento. El padre O’Connor señaló que las personas en esta comunidad no pueden darse el lujo de conducir a otras comunidades para comprar suministros.
El padre Patrick O’Connor, párroco de la parroquia Jesús Obrero (Jesús el Trabajador) en Fort Meyers, Florida, saluda a una voluntaria para la distribución de suministros de emergencia el 4 de octubre de 2022, en medio de las secuelas del huracán Ian. (Foto del SNC/Tom Tracy)
“Parte del condado aún no tiene agua ni para las casas, han pasado días sin agua en algunas casas”, indicó el sacerdote. La hermana María Isabela Jaimes, una Hermana Franciscana de María Inmaculada de Bucaramanga, Colombia, que estaba ayudando en la Iglesia Jesús Obrero, dijo que nunca había experimentado una crisis de huracán hasta el paso de Irma.
“Gracias a Dios estoy viva, pero es porque pude evacuar antes de la tormenta”, dijo la hermana. “Pero sí me siento muy cerca al sufrimiento de mis hermanos y hermanas a causa de este huracán, y me he dado cuenta de la grandeza de Dios, pero también del respeto por el poder de la naturaleza”.
La hermana Jaimes dijo que la comunidad estaba relativamente de buen ánimo una semana después, cuando pasaron al modo de recuperación. “Veo a la gente aceptando la voluntad de Dios, ahora están en paz, están tranquilos”, acotó. “Vienen por bienes (donados), pero lo que realmente necesitan es solidaridad y paz interior, y comunidad”.
En el cercano Centro de Caridades Católicas Elizabeth Kay Galeana en Fort Myers, Alex Olivares, director regional de Caridades Católicas de la Diócesis de Venice, ayudó con la distribución de agua y suministros de emergencia. Los equipos de remoción de árboles y las compañías eléctricas cercanas estaban ocupados con proyectos de limpieza. “Esta tormenta nos golpeó muy fuerte; algunas personas la esperaban, pero la mayoría no, así que todos están luchando. Mucha gente todavía no tiene agua ni electricidad”, expresó Olivares.
En comparación con el huracán Irma, Olivares dijo que pensaba que el huracán Ian iba a ser menos severo, pero parece haber sido mucho peor para esta comunidad latina y afroamericana conocida localmente como Dunbar. Un empleado local de Caridades Católicas perdió toda su casa debido a las inundaciones, dijo Olivares. “El daño ha sido catastrófico en algunas áreas; partes de Fort Myers han quedado realmente destrozadas”, dijo.
Mientras tanto, el gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, según se informa, dijo que las reparaciones en el puente de Pine Island deberían completarse para el final de la semana para que la remoción de escombros y los equipos de servicios públicos puedan avanzar a restablecer la energía. Pine Island es una de las islas de barrera más afectadas por el huracán Ian, junto con Sanibel, que se espera que permanezca en gran medida inaccesible después de que Ian destruyó la calzada.
Una estatua de San Francisco de Asís permanece de pie afuera de Fort Myers, Florida, hogar de Elizabeth Reyes, instructora de arte, y su esposo, Luis Reyes, empleado de Caridades Católicas de la Diócesis de Venecia, 5 de octubre de 2022. El huracán Ian trajo al menos 3 pulgadas de lluvia a la residencia de la familia Reyes el 28 de septiembre y provocó la caída de un árbol y un cable eléctrico de la casa. (Foto del SNC/Tom Tracy)
Fort Myers Beach también fue severamente dañada por Ian; DeSantis la describió como una zona de desastre total. Muchas comunidades desde el norte de Nápoles hasta Sarasota y más allá todavía esperan que se restablezca la energía. Un periódico informó que alrededor de una cuarta parte de los 2.2 millones de cortes de energía se han restablecido en los días transcurridos desde que Ian tocó tierra. El Departamento de Manejo de Emergencias de Florida también desplegó unas 11 estaciones de depósito de combustible en todo el estado, y se desplegó un camión de combustible móvil en la ciudad interior de Arcadia, que está muy afectada, para ayudar a los residentes sin acceso a combustible.
El gobernador también anunció la apertura del primer Centro de Recuperación por Desastre para los floridanos afectados por el huracán Ian en la Biblioteca Regional de Lakes en Fort Myers. El padre O’Connor instó a que los suministros de agua y alimentos se dirijan a las comunidades rurales y de trabajadores agrícolas como la suya.
“Estas son personas muy trabajadoras”, dijo el padre O’Connor. “Trabajan en restaurantes, construcción, paisajismo, son cocineros, chefs, cuadrillas de caminos, hacen todo el trabajo pesado; trabajadores agrícolas: son la columna vertebral de la comunidad y son los que limpiarán todo después de esto y serán parte fundamental e importante de la reconstrucción de toda la comunidad”. “En este momento están en crisis y necesitan mucha ayuda”, agregó.
A new documentary from NewGroup Media and the Diocese of Jackson, MS, Going Home Like a Shooting Star: Thea Bowman’s Journey to Sainthood, presents the riveting life of Sister Thea Bowman, an African American Catholic Franciscan Sister who used her powerful gifts to educate and challenge the church and society to grow in racial inclusivity. Her skills of preaching, music, and teaching moved many Catholics to begin to confront their own racism while she urged her African American brothers and sisters to claim their gifts and share their “fully functioning” personhood. Thea worked tirelessly to proclaim this message until her untimely death from breast cancer in 1990.
The film features interviews and commentary from her family, Sisters in community, colleagues, friends, and former students. Input from African-American scholars, clerics and bishops will speak to the ongoing issue of systemic racism in the church and country. Extensive use is made of archival media that portrays Thea in action–photographs, film, video and audio recordings recorded in locations of significance to her life.
The program title is drawn from a quotation attributed to Sojourner Truth. When Thea was asked what she wanted said at her funeral, she answered, “Just say what Sojourner Truth said: ‘I’m not going to die. I’m going home like a shooting star.’”
The film, part of the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission’s fall documentary season, will begin airing on ABC stations nationwide on October 2, 2022. As of Sept. 30, the following stations have scheduled showings of the film:
WTVA Tupelo- Oct. 2 at 10 a.m. WTOK Meridian – Oct. 2 at 11:30 p.m. WLOX Biloxi – Oct. 16 at 1 p.m. WAPT Jackson – Oct. 30 at 1 p.m.
Sister Judith Ann Zielinski, OSF researched, wrote and produced the film, from early COVID-quarantined research in spring, 2020 through fund-raising, location production, scriptwriting, and delivery to ABC in fall, 2022. She coordinated dramatic re-enactments from Thea’s childhood and early convent life and conducted all of the program’s interviews—with Thea’s childhood friends, former students, teaching colleagues, two bishops, several priests and Franciscan Sisters, weaving together their personal memories and testimonies as a basis for the script.
Christopher Salvador, NGM Partner, directed the dramatic re-enactments within the film, coordinated budget, contractual and network relations, and oversaw post- production.
Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, Ordinary of Jackson, MS, initiated Sister Thea’s Cause for Sainthood in 2018 with an appeal to the full body of US Bishops which won unanimous approval. As Executive Producer, he supported the production of the film, actively collaborated with the production team, and continues to oversee the advancement of Sister Thea’s Cause.
Other interviewees include:
Rev. Maurice J. Nutt, CSsR, Preacher and pastoral theologian; Thea’s doctoral student; her biographer; associate producer instrumental in gathering pivotal colleagues and friends of Thea to participate in the project;
Rev. Bryan Massingale, Theology Professor, Fordham University, Authority/ speaker on systemic racism in the US and church;
Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, Ordinary, Archdiocese of Washington, DC, senior African-American Bishop who was present at Sister Thea’s famous Seton Hall address to the US Bishops in 1989;
Sr Eileen McKenzie, FSPA, President, Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, Thea’s religious community, La Crosse WI;
Sr Dorothy Ann Kundinger, FSPA, Thea’s friend, companion and caretaker during Thea’s struggle with cancer and present at her death
Going Home Like a Shooting Star includes extensive use of Bowman family photos, archival material, and footage of Thea from varied public appearances, including her famous interview with Mike Wallace on CBS’ 60 Minutes.
Going Home Like a Shooting Star was filmed on location in:
Jackson and Canton, MS
New Orleans, LA
La Crosse, WI
Washington, DC
San Antonio, TX
New York City
South Bend, IN
The film makes a strong connection between Thea’s Gospel call for justice, love and unity and the current effort of Black Lives Matter activists and efforts to combat systemic racism. Many in the film cite Thea’s voice as an influence on their ongoing efforts to achieve social and racial justice.
Production of Going Home Like a Shooting Star: Thea Bowman’s Journey to Sainthood was made possible with funding from the Catholic Communications Campaign of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as well as support from various foundations and congregations of U.S. men and women religious.
