Category: Church

The Catholic Church in Cambodia.

Candlelight Vigil

Tonight a group called Leviticus 19, mobilizing for immigrant justice, held a candlelight vigil at Our Mother of Sorrows Church in Louisville.
Fr. Pat Delahanty organized the vigil. He has been working on social justice issues for many years.
Representative Morgan McGarvey from the U.S. of Representatives spoke of the value and the rights of immigrants. He also honored his predecessor, Rep. Romano Mazzoli, who authored the last major immigration bill in Congress. Rep. Mazzoli’s son Michael also spoke.
The ever-faithful contingent from the larger Dittmeier family also made their appearance in support of immigrants and their rights.

Psalm 121:8

The Lord will guard you as you come and go, both now and forever.

The bishop’s office asked me to take masses at St. Boniface Church in Louisville for November and December, until the new pastor is in place, and I am happy to do that. I just need to limit my work mainly to places within bicycle range. St. Boniface is only three miles from where I live so that was no problem.

Where to put my bicycle during the morning masses was another question. The liturgical minister solved it by our taking the (expensive) bicycle into church to a side chapel where a trustworthy guardian could keep an eye on it.

Sr. Paul Klein-Kracht

In the first years I was a priest, before I worked with deaf people in Asia, I was a teacher-chaplain-counselor at Angela Merici High School which was on the same property as my first parish assignment. For four years of my time at A.M.H.S., Sr. Paula Klein-Kracht, OSU, was the principal. She was a well-educated and very competent woman. Paula died last week and today we had her funeral at the Ursuline Sisters motherhouse. There were so many people there who recognized and greeted me from 40 or 50 years ago!

Fratelli Tutti: Our Human Family

For a healthy relationship between love of one’s native land and a sound sense of belonging to our larger human family, it is helpful to keep in mind that global society is not the sum total of different countries, but rather the communion that exists among them. The mutual sense of belonging is prior to the emergence of individual groups. Each particular group becomes part of the fabric of universal communion and there discovers its own beauty. All individuals, whatever their origin, know that they are part of the greater human family, without which they will not be able to understand themselves fully.

Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti

Diocesan convocation

Every year in the fall, the priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville have a one-day convocation, mainly to bring the priests together because they are so spread out, but also to address a topic of interest. Today we gathered and Fr. Patrick McDevitt, the president of the St. Luke Institute, spoke about ministry in an age of storms in society, the church, and our personal lives.
It was a low-intensity, non-threatening gathering that allowed us to discuss with each other about ministry in the local church and the national church.

Room in the Inn

This morning I was bicycling from Nazareth Home to a mass at St. William Church. It was in the low 40ºs and when I passed the old chancery office, there were 20-25 men and women, a couple in wheelchairs, sitting on the curb wrapped in whatever clothes and blankets they have. They had spent the night outside on the street because there were no shelters spaces open. They had to be really cold and hungry and it made me think what the church, what I should be doing to help them.

Then when I saw the bulletin of St. Frances of Rome church, where I ended up attending mass, I was pleased to see a notice about RITI, Room In The Inn, a program started in Nashville by a Catholic priest who let street people sleep in his church building on really cold nights. The program has now spread to other cities, including Bardstown, Lexington, and Bowling Green in Kentucky. St. Frances of Rome is going to meet this week to discuss expanding a trial program started in January this year in Louisville. Go, St. Frances of Rome!