I still need haircuts in Kentucky

In Cambodia, I had my haircut by our Job Training Project students and I learned from running the program how important it is for training programs to get customers so the barber trainees get as much experience as possible. That led me to Tri City Barber College in Louisville where Connor gave me a haircut today.

Coming September 3….

In 2024, Pope Francis proclaimed the Final Document of the Synod on Synodality to be magisterial teaching [official doctrine], including the historic Paragraph 60 on women’s leadership in the Church. Under Pope Leo, our Church has entered the 2025-2028 Synod Implementation Phase, where all of the baptized are called to implement the proposals of the Synod’s Final Document and to report back on their experiences of living into synodality. Below is a quote from Paragraph 60 of the final document of the synod.

[From Paragraph 60] There are women who hold positions of authority and are leaders of their communities. This Assembly asks for full implementation of all the opportunities already provided for in Canon Law with regard to the role of women, particularly in those places where they remain underutilised. There is no reason or impediment that should prevent women from carrying out leadership roles in the Church: what comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. Additionally, the question of women’s access to diaconal ministry remains open. This discernment needs to continue.

Falls of the Ohio River

Today I bicycled across the Ohio River to Indiana where the Falls of the Ohio national park is located.

The statue is of Meriwether Lewis (R) and William Clark, the commanders of the Lewis and Clark expedition that set out in 1803 from what became Louisville to explore the American West between Kentucky and the Pacific Ocean. Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president, sent them out.
Riverboats coming down the Ohio from the new northeastern American colonies could only travel as far south as the falls of the Ohio River, not a dramatic waterfall but a drop of about twenty-five feet over these now exposed shoals loaded with fossil remains. Today Lock and Dam 41 enables river traffic to be routed around the falls. The concrete wall in the rear creates a channel by the island in the background which provides access to the locks. Lewis and Clark left here in 1803 and returned in 1806 after an epic journey.

Notable Quote

In the coming Sunday gospel, Jesus says we must take up our cross and follow him.

What would the life Jesus is offering, with its cross, look like now, in this world? It would mean becoming compassionate people, having integrity and strength in our relationships, and being courageous as we speak and act on behalf of the least among us.

What a paradox! We find our true life not by clinging desperately to ourselves, but by giving ourselves away in love.

Fr. Jude Siciliano, OP — Preacher Exchange

Fratelli Tutti

We forget that “there is no worse form of alienation than to feel uprooted, belonging to no one. A land will be fruitful, and its people bear fruit and give birth to the future, only to the extent that it can foster a sense of belonging among its members, create bonds of integration between generations and different communities, and avoid all that makes us insensitive to others and leads to further alienation”.

Pope Francis in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, #53

UP is not working!

Two weekends ago, a big thunderstorm passed over us and a lightning strike fried three of the four electronic control panels for the elevator in Cedar Hall, the independent living section of Nazareth Home Clifton. It has been a bit harrowing for the second floor residents who are ambulatory but don’t feel safe on the stairs. They are getting cabin fever after being limited to their second floor where food has to be brought up to them. The elevator company initially said the panels would not be repaired until after Labor Day but a tech showed up with them today and started installing them. He has to come back tomorrow but we hope he can finish the job then.