CONSECRATED VIRGIN Mary Rose Rynda, right, receives a blessing from Archbishop Bernard Hebda during a Mass June 16 at Immaculate Conception in Lonsdale, where she made vows to become a consecrated virgin. She joins four others who made similar vows at a Mass March 25 at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, which brings the total number of consecrated virgins in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to 15. Rynda is a parish secretary at Immaculate Conception. “This vocation is what Jesus put on my heart in 2017,” said Rynda, who sold her salon business in 2019 to work for Immaculate Conception parish and Holy Cross Catholic School in nearby Webster, “and it is a true gift.”
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for the Mission of Catholic Education has launched a new website as part of a branding initiative introduced earlier this year. A central resource for the archdiocese’s 91 preschool-12th grade Catholic schools, the website at SPmcatholicSchoolS org includes a map with links to schools’ websites, information for prospective families, leader and teacher profiles, and Spanish translation.
St. John the Baptist in Jordan recently installed a hearing loop system in its sanctuary to help parishioners who use hearing aids at Mass. The system transmits audio from sources like microphones directly to the telecoils in hearing aids. The Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota covered part of the cost of the system with a grant from its President Fund.
To help highlight abortion and gender ideology concerns of the Minnesota Catholic Conference that stem from legislation recently signed into state law by Gov. Tim Walz, The Catholic Spirit produced a TCS Podcast with News Editor Rebecca Omastiak interviewing Jason Adkins, MCC’s executive director and general counsel. To hear the podcast, titled “Inside the 2023 Minnesota Legislative Session,” go to thecatholicSPirit com/PodcaStS Retired Father James Reidy chalked up talk No. 100 May 13 and No. 101 June 10 on the sacrament of reconciliation for engaged couples who are preparing to marry in the Church. Father Reidy, who will be 93 July 5, talks for about 20 minutes at each marriage preparation retreat organized by the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Life. He discusses Christ’s forgiveness, healing, strength and love found in confession. Father Reidy began giving the talks in 2017 — and what started as a rotation with other priests over time led to Father Reidy giving the talk at each outing. Retreats are offered at various parishes 10 out of 12 months each year. Father Reidy’s milestone talks were given at St. Peter in Mendota. The girls lacrosse team at Benilde-St. Margaret’s in St. Louis Park won the high school state Class A championship for the first time in school history June 17 by defeating Edina 11-10 in the finals. Junior Maggie Graczyk scored four goals in the game, which gave BSM a 17-2 final record for the season.
Tim Murray, co-founder and CEO of Trinity Sober Homes in St. Paul, traveled to Italy June 4-11 at the invitation of the Vatican’s Dicastery of Spirituality and Sustainability to attend and speak at the Rome and Assisi Spirituality and Sustainability Conference. He gave a talk June 9 in Assisi called “The Spiritual Path of the 12 Steps” of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Spirituality and Sustainability Global Network helped convene this year’s conference, the 10th overall. Murray leads Trinity’s Catholic sober homes (three locations in St. Paul and one in New Richland) for men 40 and older that have a post-treatment recovery rate of 71%.
Two students from Chesterton Academy in Hopkins won first and second place in a Speaking Proudly oratory contest for female high school students June 17 at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. Francesca Rose Chastek, who will be a sophomore this fall, took first in the field of 18 students and won a trophy and a $2,500 prize with her eight-minute speech, “How to Escape the Prison You Built.” Elizabeth Lynn Mitchell, a senior headed to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in the fall, took second and won $2,000 for her speech, “Rediscovering the Roots of Liberty: Securing Our Nation’s Education.” The nonprofit, nonpartisan project of Metro Republican Women is held every two years. This year’s topic was “Securing the Blessings of Liberty in 21st Century America.”
On the June 23 “Practicing Catholic” radio show, host Patrick Conley interviewed Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who discussed the value of the recent presbyteral assembly, where priests from across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gathered for reflection, prayer and fellowship. Also featured are Tizoc Rosales, who described his new role as director of advancement at The Saint Paul Seminary; and Jesuit Father Joe Laramie, author, national preacher for the Eucharistic Revival and a speaker at the recent “Hearts on Fire” retreat at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, who described his special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingcatholicShow com or anchor fm/Practicing-catholic-Show with links to streaming platforms.
ON THE COVER: Father Jake Anderson tries to catch trout on a stream in northeast Iowa May 22 as part of a men’s fly fishing retreat he led May 22-25. He celebrated Mass, gave retreat talks and helped men improve their skills at fly fishing.
PARISH FESTIVAL GUIDE: Watch for a list of carnivals, festivals and other parish and school special events from late summer into fall in The Catholic Spirit’s July 27 print edition, with updates through the fall at thecatholicSPirit com
Though a proposal authorizing the creation of micro-unit dwellings on religious properties was not included in the final housing omnibus bill, as noted in a June 8 story “MCC: Families First finds foothold in legislative session, pro-life efforts continue,” it was included in a jobs, economic development, labor and industry omnibus bill that Gov. Tim Walz signed into state law.
In 2000, St. John Paul II made a Jubilee Pilgrimage to the holy sites of the Bible. While in the hill country outside of the ancient ruins of Ephesus, near the chapel that is a possible location for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the pope was asked, “What happened to Joseph?” The Holy Father pondered the question briefly and replied, “He faded away.”
Since 2013, the second part of my title as vicar general has been moderator of the curia — basically, chief of staff and operations. In the fall of 2021, much of my administrative duties at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center shifted to our chief operating officer, Bill Lentsch. Bill has done an exceptional job at the Catholic Center and continues to work with Archbishop Hebda and his staff to provide valuable services to our clergy, parishes, schools and associated organizations. Meanwhile, the title moderator of the curia has faded away. I will continue as a “vicar general in the field” as I pastor the wonderful people of St. Gerard Majella in Brooklyn Park.
Perhaps I am influenced by cinematography, but there is a “fading” that is but a transition to a new scene. In the changing chapters of priesthood, we know how the sadness of leaving one assignment can be balanced by the joy in arriving at another. For those priests who have “retired,” they did not
En el año 2000, San Juan Pablo II realizó una Peregrinación Jubilar a los lugares santos de la Biblia. Mientras estaba en la región montañosa fuera de las antiguas ruinas de Éfeso, cerca de la capilla que es un posible lugar para la Asunción de la Santísima Virgen María, se le preguntó al Papa: “¿Qué le pasó a José?”
El Santo Padre reflexionó brevemente sobre la pregunta y respondió: “Se desvaneció”.
Desde 2013, la segunda parte de mi título como vicario general ha sido moderador de la curia, básicamente, jefe de gabinete y operaciones. En el otoño de 2021, gran parte de mis funciones administrativas en el Centro Católico Arquidiocesano pasaron a manos de nuestro director de operaciones, Bill Lentsch. Bill ha hecho un trabajo excepcional en el Centro Católico y continúa trabajando con el Arzobispo Hebda y su personal para brindar servicios valiosos a nuestro clero, parroquias, escuelas y organizaciones asociadas.
Mientras tanto, el título de moderador de la curia se ha desvanecido. Continuaré como “vicario general en el campo” mientras pastoreo a la maravillosa gente de St. Gerard Majella en Brooklyn Park.
Quizás estoy influenciado por la cinematografía, pero hay un “desvanecimiento” que no es más que una transición a una nueva escena. En los capítulos cambiantes del sacerdocio, sabemos cómo la tristeza de dejar una tarea puede equilibrarse con el gozo de llegar a otra. Para aquellos sacerdotes que se han “jubilado”, no se desvanecieron simplemente. Más bien, comenzaron otro capítulo del ministerio sacerdotal. La jubilación es más un final civil al calificar para la pensión y el Seguro Social. Algunos sacerdotes continúan sirviendo como pastores a pesar de que se han “jubilado”.
Otros sacerdotes abandonan el rol administrativo de párrocos pero
just fade away. Rather, they began another chapter of priestly ministry. Retirement is more of a civil ending by qualifying for pension and Social Security. Some priests do continue to serve as pastors even though they have “retired.”
Other priests step out of the administrative role of pastor but continue to provide generous service to parishes. On behalf of my brother pastors, I offer my gratitude to God for our retired priests who continue their priestly ministry in multiple parishes.
I have had the opportunity over the past couple of weeks to reflect on the chapters of priesthood. One week, I was privileged to lead a retreat for the priests of the Diocese of Sioux Falls in South Dakota. The following week, I greatly enjoyed attending the Biannual Presbyteral Assembly of the Archdiocese at the University of St. Mary in Winona.
Whether in the first year of priesthood or in the 50th, there is no other life like it. In its distinction is a vocation where joy perseveres through the chaos of a changing world. We are, in the words of an old saying, “ordinary people serving an extraordinary God.” Through the many graces of our ordination, the sacrament of holy orders gives to our lives the challenge to bring holy order through right worship.
Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of WinonaRochester spoke to the recent assembly of archdiocesan priests and used the image of Noah and the ark. Some people considered Noah a fool for building a boat in
continúan brindando un servicio generoso a las parroquias. En nombre de mis hermanos pastores, ofrezco mi gratitud a Dios por nuestros sacerdotes jubilados que continúan su ministerio sacerdotal en múltiples parroquias.
En las últimas dos semanas tuve la oportunidad de reflexionar sobre los capítulos del sacerdocio. Una semana, tuve el privilegio de dirigir un retiro para los sacerdotes de la Diócesis de Sioux Falls. La semana siguiente disfruté mucho asistir a la Asamblea Presbiteral Bianual de la Arquidiócesis en la Universidad de St. Mary en Winona.
Ya sea en el primer año de sacerdocio o en el 50, no hay otra vida como esta. En su distinción está una vocación donde la alegría persevera a través del caos de un mundo cambiante. Estamos en las palabras de un viejo dicho, “personas ordinarias sirviendo a un Dios extraordinario”. A través de las muchas gracias de nuestra ordenación, el sacramento del orden sagrado da a nuestras vidas el desafío de traer el orden sagrado a través de la adoración correcta.
El obispo Robert Barron de la Diócesis de Winona-Rochester habló ante la reciente asamblea de sacerdotes arquidiocesanos y usó la imagen de Noé y el Arca. Algunas personas consideraron a Noé un tonto por construir un bote en medio del desierto. Sin embargo, al hacer la voluntad de Dios, la fidelidad de Noé fue grandemente recompensada cuando llegaron las inundaciones.
En cada capítulo de nuestro sacerdocio, incluso si somos considerados anacrónicos por una sociedad materialmente obsesionada que nos ve solo como arcas de construcción en el desierto, el trabajo de edificación de nuestras parroquias es para el bien de los fieles. A través de la vida sacramental, la Iglesia es un arca a medida que las inundaciones del cambio nos envuelven por todos lados. En cada encuentro con la persona y presencia
the middle of the desert. Yet, by doing the will of God, Noah’s faithfulness was greatly rewarded when the floods came.
In every chapter of our priesthood, even if we are deemed anachronistic by a materially obsessed society that sees us only as building arks in the desert, the work of building up our parishes is for the good of the faithful. Through the sacramental life, the Church is an ark as the floods of change envelope us from all sides. In every encounter with the person and real presence of Jesus Christ, we ourselves find our wholeness, our holiness and our eternal happiness in the body of Christ that is the Church.
The stories of the jubilarians are beautiful glimpses into the blessed life that is the priesthood of Jesus Christ. One of the regular comments in any gathering of priests is the humbled gratitude for the people from past chapters who let a priest know how their ministry so positively changed their lives. So, too, are the stories about how so many different people have so gracefully changed the lives of our priests.
I invite our continued prayers for our priests. We especially offer our prayers for the priests who are changing assignments. We offer our prayers of gratitude to God for the jubilarians celebrating the milestones of the passing years. May the transitions of one chapter fading into another be a time of grace, many blessings and much joy.
real de Jesucristo, nosotros mismos encontramos nuestra plenitud, nuestra santidad y nuestra felicidad eterna en el cuerpo de Cristo que es la Iglesia.
Las historias de los jubilares son hermosos atisbos de la vida bendita que es el sacerdocio de Jesucristo. Uno de los comentarios habituales en cualquier reunión de sacerdotes es la humilde gratitud por las personas de los capítulosanteriores que le hicieron saber a un sacerdote cómo su ministerio cambió sus vidas de manera tan positiva. También
Archbishop Bernard Hebda has announced the following appointments in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis:
Effective May 31, 2023
Deacon Stephen Boatwright, granted the status of retired deacon. Deacon Boatwright has served the Archdiocese as a deacon since his ordination in 1991, most recently at the Church of Saint Joseph in Rosemount.
Effective July 1, 2023
Deacon Jose Luis Rodriguez Alvarado, assigned as permanent deacon for the Church of the Risen Savior in Burnsville. This is a transfer from his current assignment as permanent deacon for the Church of Saint Stephen-Holy Rosary in Minneapolis.
Reverend Benjamin Attobrah, assigned as chaplain and instructor for Holy Family High School in Victoria, and as sacramental minister for the Parish of Saints Joachim and Anne in Shakopee. Father Attobrah is a priest from the Diocese of KonongoMampong in Ghana.
Deacon James Bauhs, assigned as coordinator of diaconate communications for the Archdiocese. This is in addition to his assignment as permanent deacon for the Church of Saint Michael in Farmington and as state chaplain for the Daughters of Isabella.
Deacon Bruce Bowen, assigned as permanent
lo son las historias sobre cómo tantas personas diferentes han cambiado con tanta gracia las vidas de nuestros sacerdotes. Invito a nuestras oraciones continuas por nuestros sacerdotes. Ofrecemos especialmente nuestras oraciones por los sacerdotes que están cambiando de asignación. Ofrecemos nuestras oraciones de gratitud a Dios por los jubilares que celebran los hitos de los años que pasan. Que la transición de un capítulo a otro sea un tiempo de gracia, muchas bendiciones y mucha alegría.
deacon for the Church of Saint Mary of the Lake in Plymouth. This is a transfer from his current assignment as permanent deacon for the Church of Saint Maximilian Kolbe in Delano and the Church of Saint George of Long Lake.
Reverend Brian Lynch, assigned as chaplain for Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. This is a transfer from his current assignment as parochial vicar for the Church of the Transfiguration in Oakdale. Father Lynch is also assigned as state chaplain for the Minnesota Knights of Columbus.
Deacon Tom Michaud, assigned as coordinator of diaconate vocations for the Archdiocese. This is in addition to his assignment as permanent deacon for the Church of Saint Joseph in West Saint Paul.
Most Reverend Lee Piché, assigned as vicar for retired priests. Bishop Piché is a former auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese.
Effective August 1, 2023
Reverend Joseph Gifford, assigned as parochial vicar to the Church of Saint Wenceslaus in New Prague. This is in addition to his current assignment to academic studies through the Catholic University of America.
Effective September 1, 2023
Reverend Terrence Hayes, granted the status of a retired priest. Father Hayes has been serving the Archdiocese as a priest since his ordination in 1972, including as pastor of the Church of Our Lady of Victory in Minneapolis for the past 30 years.
From left, Elise McMahon and her sister Noelle look at a display called Eucharistic Miracles at St. Peter in Mendota June 16. Among the panels depicting more than 150 miracles, they stopped at one describing a miracle that took place in Lanciano, Italy, which their family visited in 1999. The two sisters grew up in the Twin Cities and belonged to Holy Family in St. Louis Park. They now live out of state and were back in town for their grandfather’s funeral. They attended 9 a.m. Mass at St. Peter’s historic church and learned of the display. “I really love the miracles because they reaffirm our beliefs,” Elise said. Noelle added, “It’s amazing. You hear about the eucharistic miracles, but you don’t see them spread out (in a display).” The display is stored at Epiphany in Coon Rapids, and parish administrators can contact Epiphany to gain access to it and set it up at their parishes. St. Peter parishioner Cathy Helmstetter did just that, and said it is important for people to learn about the eucharistic miracles. “We know that there are so many Catholics — people who call themselves Catholics — who don’t believe in the Real Presence,” she said. “And if we can change the heart of just one, that’s our mission.”
Honoring Indigenous Catholics’ spirituality and traditions, the 2023 Tekakwitha Conference is expected to draw hundreds of attendees from North America and beyond.
Set for July 19-23 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Bloomington, the theme of the 84th annual conference is “Gathering for Healing Through Living Waters.” In Dakota and Ojibwe spirituality, the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in Minnesota is considered a place of creation and healing. St. Kateri Tekakwitha — a 17th century Mohawk-Algonquin woman who was canonized in 2012 and is the conference’s namesake — also lived in a village established along a confluence of rivers in what is present-day New York.
Presentations at this year’s conference will feature healing and renewal, said Shawn Phillips, director and pastoral minister of Gichitwaa Kateri in Minneapolis and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Indian Ministry. Originally from Idaho, Phillips grew up on the Nez Perce Reservation before he and his wife moved to Minnesota. He’s been a member of Gichitwaa Kateri for 35 years, and a director of the parish for six.
Phillips, who is co-chair of the upcoming conference, said, “About three years ago, American Indians had a listening session with the bishops and the primary issue that American Indians in the United States wanted dealt with was boarding schools” including those affiliated with the Catholic Church. “And so, this became the topic as healing from the boarding school trauma.”
As federal research on Indigenous boarding schools was released, Church leaders issued statements of apology. Pope Francis made a penitential pilgrimage to Canada in July 2022, formally apologizing for the suffering and trauma many endured. Locally, Archbishop Bernard Hebda formally apologized for “the role that our Church played as part of the U.S. government’s systemic separation of families, often leading to the intergenerational trauma experienced by so many of our sisters and brothers.” A list of Native American boarding schools affiliated with the Catholic Church — including such schools in Minnesota — was made available in May.
This year’s conference will present opportunities for attendees to “get a clearer picture of what happened, but also give people an opportunity to share their stories and maybe do some of their own personal healing as well,” said Michele Beeksma, a member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
and a member of St. Lawrence in Duluth. Phillips said the conference is an opportunity “for everybody” to attend and learn. “Unless we really know the story and heal from that story, we’ll never change. So, we as Catholics also need to be a part of that.”
Beeksma, co-chair of the upcoming conference, said, “It’s the idea of coming and learning and listening.”
Phillips said organizers will provide guidance on how best to approach various events and how to ask questions.
A key event this year is a healing and reconciliation service to be held the night of July 20. The service will include the sacraments of reconciliation and anointing of the sick. Native healers will also be present.
Throughout the conference, sunrise prayers and recovery circles will be held. Keynote addresses and workshops include the topics of missing and murdered Indigenous women, archivist research on Native boarding schools, causes for sainthood among Indigenous men and women, and Native language hymns, among others. A grand entry and a pow wow will take place.
Three Masses will be held during the conference. Presiders include Archbishop Hebda; Bishop Chad Zielinski of the Diocese of New Ulm and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on Native American Affairs; and Father Maurice Henry Sands, executive director of the Black and Indian Mission Office in Washington, D.C.
July 19-23:
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel
7800 Normandale Blvd.
Bloomington, MN 55439
One-day, two-day and full conference registration options are available. Registration is open through the first day of the conference. Online registration is preferred; information and conference details can be found at tekakwitha2023.org
Starting in 1939, the conference now known as the Tekakwitha Conference brought Indigenous Catholics together to affirm their cultural and spiritual identities and traditions. It was legally incorporated as a nonprofit in 1979 and is currently headquartered in Alexandria, Louisiana.
With the intercession of St. Kateri, the conference now promotes healing, advocates for Indigenous communities, and encourages Indigenous Catholics to seek leadership positions within tribes and the Church. The annual gatherings are a time for Indigenous Catholics to express their identities and honor their traditions.
July 22, known within the conference as Cultural Day, will feature a water ceremony, Dakota and Ojibwe cultural speakers, food from Indigenous chefs, and Mass held outside at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Archbishop Hebda will celebrate the Mass.
Among those sharing their experience and knowledge will be Dana Thompson — co-owner and COO of the company The Sioux Chef and co-owner of the award-winning restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis. She will talk “about Native food, about her journey as a Native woman, and starting a business,” Beeksma said.
“It’s nice to share those success stories,” Beeksma said. “It’s nice to show that there’s a wide range of the Indigenous population.”
Beeksma, who heads up a Kateri Circle — circles include Native Catholics and support the Tekakwitha Conference — said she hopes conference attendees will “learn something about local Native culture” as well as the “unique subsection” of Native Catholic culture.
Phillips encouraged anyone who feels called to attend to register. “I know people are being called because this is great work to be done in the Church and God is calling lots of us. … so, check in with God and if he’s calling you, we’d love to see you.”
Recently retired priests in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have ministered for years in parishes across the archdiocese. The Catholic Spirit invited all priests who have retired since Sept. 1, 2022, to reflect on their ministries for this feature. The following priests — Father Patrick Hipwell, Father Terry Rassmussen and Father Steve Ulrick — agreed to be interviewed and share their stories with Barb Umberger and Dave Hrbacek, with photos by Dave Hrbacek. — The Catholic Spirit
When Father Patrick Hipwell retires from active ministry at the end of this month, he will continue doing what he has done for more than four decades — spend time with the many friends he has made in parishes where he has served.
The 73-year-old priest considers it “quite remarkable” to have been “surrounded by great people” during his years of ministry, dating back to his ordination in 1977.
“I have been befriended by people far beyond what a human being really has the right to expect in this life,” he said. “And, I feel very blessed.”
Most recently, he has been the pastor of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul, a role he has had for the last 15 1/2 years. That has been his longest assignment. He arrived in 2007, after Bishop Peter Christensen, the previous pastor, was ordained a bishop to serve in Superior, Wisconsin. Other parishes where Father Hipwell has served include Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka (1994-2007), St. Anne in Hamel (1988-1994), Maternity of Mary in St. Paul (1987-1988), Our Lady of Grace in Edina (1983-1987), St. Therese in Deephaven (19791983), St. John the Baptist in New Brighton (1978-1979) and St. Columba in St. Paul (1977-1978).
“I liked small town (ministry) in Hamel, I liked the
By Barb Umberger The Catholic SpiritFather Stephen Ulrick, who retires as pastor of Holy Name of Jesus in Medina July 1, said that he has too many highlights of his priesthood to name but a few.
“A priest gets invited into very sacred areas of people’s lives,” Father Ulrick said. They run the gamut of life from birth to death, including marriages and family crises and celebrations. “They’re all sacred areas,” he said. As a priest, he can “bring the Church’s blessing, sometimes be that instrument of the Lord who reminds them that he’s there or he’s guiding them through whatever is taking place, or he’s celebrating with them, whatever the event is,” he said.
Father Ulrick, 69, said his long ministry has presented special moments, including sacramental ministry to children whose parents he knew as children years ago at previous parishes he served. At this year’s first Communion service, for example, the mother of one of the second graders was a woman he had offered
western ‘burbs and, of course, I like Nativity because it was basically the type of place I was raised in,” said Father Hipwell, who grew up in south Minneapolis and belonged to Annunciation, attending the elementary school there and later going to DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis. “I’ve kind of run the gamut, and it’s all been good.”
At Nativity, he has been a part of the parish’s famous Nativity County Fair, which takes place every year in mid-September. Hundreds of volunteers eagerly participate every year, including a steering committee comprised of parishioners who “give it their all” to put on a three-day event that he calls “a well-oiled machine.”
“That county fair, for sure, sets the standard for church festivals,” he said. “I like it because it’s a nice kickoff in the fall.”
In the course of priestly ministry, he has enjoyed connecting with people at important times, like weddings and funerals. He found funerals particularly meaningful.
“Celebrating the funeral Mass of somebody who’s been a part of the eucharistic community is really a privilege,” he said. “We get a reinforcement of what the faith life is when we hand somebody over to the Lord after their earthly journey is over.”
Father Hipwell’s immediate plans for retirement
first Communion to back when she worshipped at his former parish, St. Hubert in Chanhassen. And the father of one confirmation student was a student of Father Ulrick’s when he served at St. Joseph in Hopkins. “And the student’s mom was a second-grade teacher who helped mentor me into my teaching ministry by working with me,” preparing second graders for sacraments, he said. “So yeah, those memories are special.
“After 41 years of priesthood ministry, I get a lot of those and they’re special moments in a very special ministry,” Father Ulrick said. He also treasures the daily Mass communities that he’s been “privileged to walk with, to shepherd over the years.”
“As I move into retirement, that’s one of the things I will miss — that connection, unless the Lord fulfills it, and he’s going to fulfill it somehow,” Father Ulrick said. Being with parishioners at those times is both humbling and “what I’ve been called to do,” Father Ulrick said. And with the exception of celebrating sacraments, it’s the part of his vocation that he enjoys
include moving to the Leo C. Byrne Residence for retired priests on Mississippi River Boulevard next to The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul. He will step back from Nativity to let the incoming pastor, Father Rolf Tollefson, establish his ministry there.
“I will still be an active priest,” Father Hipwell said. “I already have gigs signed up for July and August. I’ll help my priest friends out when they need help — vacation help, weekend help. I plan to play a lot of bridge, read a lot, go walking. And I will enjoy not being tied to a very busy and strict schedule.”
the most. “But flowing from that, just being a part of people’s lives,” he said.
Before Holy Name of Jesus, Father Ulrick served as FATHER ULRICK CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
Congratulations Father Daniel Haugan, Spiritual Advisor of the ACCW on your 20th anniversary to the Priesthood May 31, 2003
Father Ulrick: Priests get invited into ‘sacred areas of people’s lives’
By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit
Father Terrence “Terry” Rassmussen, 73, is retiring July 1 from the one parish he served as an archdiocesan priest: St. Joseph in New Hope, his home for the past 17 years. Father Rassmussen incardinated to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2006 after initially serving the Church as a Franciscan friar.
Father Rassmussen recalled the influence of his parish priest when he was discerning the priesthood. At the time, he was studying at Normandale College in Bloomington and his family attended St. Edward in Bloomington, with Father Paul Dudley as pastor.
“He was a wonderful example of priesthood to me,”
Father Rassmussen said. “He was always cheerful, hugged people, so compassionate, and I thought, he really makes priesthood look like something I would want to do.”
Because he knew Franciscan friars in Chaska, Father Rassmussen entered the Conventual Franciscan Order at Mount St. Francis, Indiana, in 1970, and was ordained a religious order priest in 1979. His assignments included St. Cecilia in Ames, Iowa; the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio; St. Bonaventure in Bloomington; St. Joseph University in Terra Haute, Indiana; and back to St. Cecilia, this time as pastor.
The main reason he switched in 2006 from a religious
FATHER ULRICK CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
pastor of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in Bloomington (2005-2011), pastor of St. Hubert in Chanhassen (19912005), parochial vicar of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul Park (1989-1991), chaplain at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics, and United Hospital in St. Paul (1988-1989), parochial vicar at St. Joseph in Hopkins (1984-1988) and associate pastor of St. Matthew in St. Paul (1982-1984). He also served as a regional vicar for the archdiocesan
order priest was that “the friars were pulling out of parishes, which we’ve seen here in the Twin Cities, too,”
Father Rassmussen said. “And I wanted to be a parish priest in Minnesota.” He was born in Grand Rapids and has six living siblings; being near family is important to him, he said.
Father Rassmussen said he has enjoyed having liturgies at St. Joseph and is grateful for “a good staff.” The parish also has a reputation for its “very good youth program” and “effective marriage mentor couples,” he said. “It has been a joy to work with them, to kind of share the ministry of helping engaged couples prepare for marriage,” he said.
As he looks to retirement, Father Rassmussen said he has mixed emotions, in part because St. Joseph has been “a wonderful parish” and a place where he has made good friends. “I will miss all of the different ministries that I was involved in here and the people that I’ve gotten to know.”
Challenges over the years have included paying for a new sanctuary, although that debt was paid fairly quickly, and getting through the COVID-19 pandemic, Father Rassmussen said. Overcoming those challenges, “that’s what makes me feel a little bit better about retiring now, because COVID is pretty much done and things are back to normal,” he said. “It just feels like the time is right.”
Chancery (2013-2016), and he is a member of the Archdiocesan Corporate Board of Directors and the Archdiocesan Finance Council.
Holy Name of Jesus is “a very active parish,” Father Ulrick said, “and it’s a lot of fun.” For example, the parish has two youth ministers and 300 or more children on site for vacation Bible school. With younger children participating, middle school and high school students serve as mentors, he said.
His retirement plans are still unfolding, Father Ulrick
Following retirement, Father Rassmussen said he plans to help at parishes, and will likely spend time kayaking on Medicine Lake or other waterways. His youngest sister and her family have a cabin near Motley, Minnesota, which he enjoys visiting — “swimming and fishing and just enjoying a relaxing time at the lake,” he said.
In August, he will play guitar and sing with his band “The Holy Ground” when it performs at the Irish Fair on Harriet Island in St. Paul. Half Irish and the only clergy member of the band, Father Rassmussen said he and his friends perform three or four times a year.
said, but he wants to be available to assist priests. In fact, he is already helping some parishes on weekends. “Retired priests say you do keep busy,” he said, which he welcomes. Father Ulrick also wants travel to be part of his retirement, though he has no particular destination in mind yet. He also enjoys biking.
Life will be different in retirement, not shepherding in the way he used to. “I don’t know what that’s going to look like, but I trust that the Lord has something in mind,” he said. “So, it’ll change, not end.”
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The late Pope Benedict XVI famously said that, in today’s increasingly secular world, the only effective defense of Christianity comes down to two arguments, “namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.”
Important examples of the “art which has grown in her womb” can be found at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minneapolis, one of the nation’s premier art museums, a neoclassical landmark of the Twin Cities that has stood for more than a century.
Mia is home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history. Its Department of European Art “is an internationally acclaimed collection of thousands of artworks in all media, dating from antiquity to the present day, presented in over 50 permanent galleries, as well as in special exhibitions,” according to Rachel McGarry, the institute’s chair of European Art and curator of European Paintings and Works on Paper.
Many local Catholics have enjoyed Mia’s collection, which includes a treasure trove of Catholic-inspired gems — depictions of biblical stories, Christ’s life and agony on the cross, a vast array of the saints, the contemplative life, and the day-to-day experience of Christians. This predominance of Catholic themes is not surprising given that Christianity shaped European culture in profound ways. As the 20th century expressionist artist, Marc Chagall, wrote: “For centuries painters have dipped their paintbrush in that colored alphabet that is the Bible.”
Some of Mia’s Catholic art is on prominent display, but many of its gems are “hidden,” said Julia Doffing, 38, a parishioner of St. Paul in Ham Lake who is a Catholic artist and former art educator at Providence
Academy in Plymouth and Holy Family Academy in St. Louis Park. Doffing toured Mia with her students when she was teaching and now returns as often as she can. She believes Mia has a wonderful collection, “but you won’t be greeted by Catholic art as you walk through Mia’s front door, so you have to carefully seek it out.”
Bernard Carpenter, 68, who this year taught Christian Aesthetics at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, agreed: “In a recent visit to Mia, I was moved to tears by a small wooden sculpture of the lifeless body of Christ after his crucifixion, but I’d missed it completely on my many prior visits.”
Christian art can have a profound impact on daily religious life. In a 2011 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI said that visiting art galleries and museums is not only an occasion for cultural enrichment but also presents possibilities for “a moment of grace, an encouragement to strengthen our relationship and our dialogue with the Lord, where we can stop and contemplate, in the transition from simple external reality to a deeper reality, the ray of beauty that strikes us, that almost wounds us in our inner selves and invites us to rise towards God.”
Father George Welzbacher, a retired priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who has studied and appreciated Catholic works of art at Mia during his 72 years of priesthood, put it this way: “Christians, in their limited way, attempt to imitate and appreciate God’s beauty through art, which is why the great poet Dante described art as ‘the grandchild of God.’”
The Christian art at Mia illuminates the full range and depth of the Catholic faith. “Like the Catholic Church itself, Mia holds many artistic treasures and is open for all to explore,” noted Father James Perkl, pastor of MIA AND
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Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville and an iconographer who grew up visiting Mia.
One such “ray of beauty” is Anthony Van Dyck’s “The Betrayal of Christ,” painted between 1618 and 1620. The painting follows the familiar story of Christ’s betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Christ is the only vertical character in this swirl of action. All the other figures stand at angles and move against him like a storm-tossed sea breaking against a rock.
“Christ’s softly-lit face and resigned, confident look of compassion stand against the chaos around him,” observed Dominic Wolters, 23, a regular Mia visitor who is studying for the priesthood at The St. Paul Seminary and who hopes to use art in his ministry, as a means of conveying the splendor of God’s works and inspire awe at his love. “Van Dyck illuminates Christ as the source of our confident serenity in the midst of turmoil in the world and in our own lives,” Wolters said.
Every Catholic, noted Father Perkl, should view “The Betrayal of Christ” at Mia and ask this question: “Am I a follower of Jesus Christ or am I swept up in the chaos of the crowd and the world?”
“Saint Romuald,” painted in 1440 by Fra Angelico, himself a devout friar, illuminates a very different, contemplative component of the Christian story. This tiny painting is tucked away on one of Mia’s upper floors. St. Romuald was born in 950 and founded an order of monks who valued austerity and meditation. “The pensive, introspective look on St. Romuald’s face and the manner in which his eyes, full of sadness, are gazing downwards and to the side are very moving,” noted Carpenter. “It is as if he is turning away from the evil he sees.”
Father Joseph Johnson, pastor of Holy Family in St. Louis Park, who has led Catholic art tours at Mia, points out that this piece differs from “religious art,” such as the van Dyck, which tells a biblical story and is informational in nature. “Saint Romuald” is true “sacred art,” which — in an icon-like way — invites the viewer directly into a quiet pondering of Christian mysteries, Father Johnson said.
The “Church at Chailly,” painted in 1868-1869 by the French artist Jean-François Millet, brings into focus another important aspect of Christian experience — the parish church as the center of community life, where the faithful go to be baptized, married and buried.
“I love the simplicity and the connection between the bucolic scene of the life of the parishioners and the summit of their community: the parish,” said Wolters. “It places the Church into its context of the life of the believer and the creation that God made for us.” Doffing noted that, though central to the village, the church is still at a somewhat hazy distance from the viewer, “in order to emphasize that our faith is a journey to a distant goal.”
Christian art was everywhere in prior centuries — the eras of van Dyck, Fra Angelico and Millet — but people sometimes have the impression that modern art is hopelessly secular, observed Father Welzbacher. Mia’s “The Crucifixion,” painted by Georges Rouault in the early 1920s, is an example of this not being the case, the priest said.
Rouault began his artistic career as an apprentice to a stained-glass window painter of French Gothic cathedrals. That experience shows in the thick black lines and bold, luminous colors of “The Crucifixion,” and helps explain his self-perception as an artist: “I do not feel that I belong to this modern life … my real life is back in the age of cathedrals,” Rouault once commented.
The thick brushstrokes and splotches of color of “The Crucifixion” powerfully evoke the contortion and agony of Christ’s body on the cross. Carpenter said the painting is “a striking depiction of the central event of Christian history, featuring a very manly and human Christ.”
“The image speaks urgently to us — the suffering servant who longs for each of us to return to the Father,” added Wolters.
Special exhibits at Mia also bring Catholic themes to the Twin Cities. Rome’s Palazzo Barberini art museum recently loaned to Mia Michelangelo Caravaggio’s 1599 painting “Judith and Holofernes.” The painting is the
centerpiece of a new exhibit, which also features 14 other works that depict a range of perspectives on the same biblical story. The exhibit runs through Aug. 20 and admission is free. The painting portrays the story of Judith, an Old Testament heroine, saving the Israelites from subjugation by vanquishing the Assyrian general Holofernes through her courage, beauty and guile.
Caravaggio’s signature elements are all here: a dark background, against which intensely illuminated figures look so real they seem to burst beyond the frame. At first glance, the painting seems too gruesome to ponder. But Father Johnson observed that, “although we can get queasy in the presence of painted moments like this, the stark battle of good and evil is central to the biblical story.” In Father Welzbacher’s words, “Good art can be a warning — an incentive — to avoid great evil, especially when we see vividly the consequences of evil.”
This Caravaggio is the most recent in a series of special exhibitions at Mia featuring Catholic themes. Last winter, for example, Mia mounted an exhibition of Botticelli’s art, including depictions of the Madonna and Child, accompanied by angels and saints, which have been appreciated as “exceptionally beautiful
interpretations of a long-established subject in Roman Catholic art,” according to curator McGarry. (See: “Minneapolis Institute of Art exhibition features Italian Renaissance works from Uffizi Galleries” in the Oct. 28, 2022, edition of The Catholic Spirit, or go to tinyurl com/p22mxx5x).
McGarry envisions new Catholic gems on the horizon: “Currently, we are also working on strengthening our collection of historical Spanish art, and hopefully this will include some important Catholic works. Stay tuned.”
Artistic treasures such as those at the Mia serve important purposes in Catholic life and faith, Father Welzbacher said. They preserve memory of great biblical events (van Dyck’s “The Betrayal of Christ”); call us to contemplation and humility (Fra Angelico’s “Saint Romuald”); console us as we confront Christ’s supreme sacrifice and love (Rouault’s “The Crucifixion”); and warn us of sin’s consequences (Caravaggio’s “Judith and Holofernes”).
For Doffing, Catholic art also plays an essential role in personal renewal. “When my cares weigh heavy, I find that intellect alone sometimes falters and is insufficient,” Doffing said. “It’s then that I look to refresh my soul through beautiful Catholic art — the infinite understanding in an image of the Blessed Mother, Christ’s taking on of my pain in an image of his suffering on the cross.” In those moments, she added, “Catholic art reaches deep and finds those sometimes hidden places in me where God continues to whisper ‘you are an artistic work of beauty — you are made in my image.’”
By Joe Ruff
The Catholic Spirit
Bishop Lee Piché, who eight years ago resigned from the office of auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis amid charges that the archdiocese had ignored warning signs of a priest abusing minors, will return to service in the archdiocese as the archbishop’s representative to retired priests beginning July 1.
In his time away, Bishop Piché, 65, “has embraced a life of prayer and penance for the intention of victims of abuse in the archdiocese, and for efforts to bring healing into the lives of those who have been impacted in any way by clergy abuse,” the archdiocese said in a statement June 22 announcing the assignment.
On the same day, Archbishop Bernard Hebda announced to the priests of the archdiocese that Bishop Piché had accepted his invitation to return to the archdiocese as the vicar for retired priests, the statement said.
At Archbishop Hebda’s request, Bishop Piché also will continue to be available for restorative justice efforts related to abuse, according to the archdiocese. At a meeting of retired priests last month, the clergy gathered had “unanimously supported an invitation to Bishop Piché to serve as Vicar for Retired Priests,” the
By Rebecca OmastiakThe Catholic Spirit
Father John “Jack” Donahue — a spirited priest known for his depth of care — died June 20 at the age of 88.
That day, the churches of St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater made the announcement of Father Donahue’s passing on its social media pages.
Father Donahue, who was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in February 1960, served as assistant priest of St. Michael from 1960 to 1967 and returned upon his retirement to continue celebrating Masses. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Fr. Jack Donahue, our beloved priest and truly one-of-a-kind,” the announcement read, in part. “Please pray for the repose of his soul and continue to keep his family in your prayers during this time.”
The announcement prompted “an outpouring” of calls and messages into the parish office, according to Joan Mellor, pastoral minister. Responses to the announcement on social media included that Father Donahue was “always there for family, friends and complete strangers,” was “a wonderful
statement said.
“Prior to extending the invitation, Archbishop Hebda consulted as well with a number of individuals who had been personally impacted by the abuse crisis and other members of the community who have been involved in assisting the Archdiocese in its ongoing outreach to survivors and in its work to provide safe environments in our schools and churches,” the statement said. “Bishop
priest and a great person,” and that “his spirit and character endeared him to all who met him.”
A visitation for Father Donahue was held June 25 in St. Michael’s Rose Hall. A second visitation was held June 26 in the atrium at St. Michael prior to the funeral Mass. Archbishop Bernard Hebda presided at the funeral Mass. The homilist was Father John Anderson, pastor of Immaculate Conception and St. Patrick parishes in New Richmond, Wisconsin, and cousin of Father Donahue.
Concelebrants included Auxiliary Bishops Michael Izen and Joseph Williams, as well as Bishop Emeritus John LeVoir of New Ulm. A luncheon followed Mass. Interment took place at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights.
Bishop Izen, pastor of St. Michael and St. Mary from 2015 to 2023, described Father Donahue as “a very joyful man.”
“Just a very gregarious guy; when I first met him, I could not believe he was 80 years old. He acted with the energy of a
Piché will be assuming his new role July 1.”
In June 2015, Bishop Piché resigned alongside Archbishop John Nienstedt 10 days after the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office filed criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese as a corporation, without citing individuals, alleging it failed to protect three boys who were sexually abused from 2008 to 2010 by Curtis Wehmeyer, a former priest of
60-year-old,” the bishop said.
Bishop Izen recalled an early encounter with Father Donahue, who had an affinity for people’s ancestry: “As I was walking into the adoration chapel, I hear from the other end of the atrium, ‘You Lebanese prince!’” It was a title for Bishop Izen that Father Donahue used from then on.
In addition to his tenure at St. Michael, Father Donahue served as an assistant priest of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake from 1967 to 1968, Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul from 1970 to 1972, and St. Peter in North St. Paul from 1972 to 1973.
Father Donahue served as parochial administrator of St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park from 1968 to 1969 and St. Mary of the Lake in White Bear Lake in 1972. Additionally, Father Donahue served as director of the archdiocesan Office of Vocations from 1968 to 1972. He served as a military chaplain from 1962 to 1991 and as a cruise ship chaplain from 2013 to 2014.
He served as pastor of St. Patrick in Oak Grove (1973-1981) and of Maternity of Mary in St. Paul (1981-1999). His impact at the latter led to the dedication of “Donahue Gymnasium” in 2010, named after he helped establish the combined pre-kindergarten to eighth-grade Maternity of Mary-St. Andrew School.
Maurice “Gabbi” Harnett, 69, has been a member of Maternity of Mary since 1982. When asked how he got to know Father Donahue, Harnett quipped, “It’s hard not to get to know him.”
“He had a unique ability; he was fun, he was sincere and thoughtful and kind. He made everyone feel at home,” Harnett said. “He was just full of life, and it just glowed from him.”
Father Donahue played an important role in the lives of the Harnetts. He hitchhiked in a snowstorm to be with
the archdiocese, while he was pastor of Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul.
At the time the charges were filed, Wehmeyer had already been convicted of the abuse and sentenced to five years in prison. He was dismissed from the priesthood in March 2015. Criminal charges against the archdiocese were dropped in 2016 as Archbishop Hebda acknowledged the archdiocese’s failure in handling Wehmeyer’s case and Ramsey County officials cited the archdiocese’s collaboration in child protection efforts.
At the time of his resignation, Bishop Piché issued a statement saying that “the people of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis need healing and hope. I was getting in the way of that, and so I had to resign.”
While there were never restrictions on his ministry, Bishop Piché withdrew from public ministry to embrace a life of simplicity, prayer and penance. In recent years, he has provided some sacramental care to a community of cloistered nuns. In his new position, Bishop Piché will be available to provide pastoral care and accompaniment to the retired priests of the archdiocese, who number more than 100. He will collaborate with Deacon Phil Stewart, director of the Leo C. Byrne Residence, a home for retired clergy in St. Paul, and Mary Beth Sullivan, the archdiocesan social worker for clergy.
the family while Harnett’s son, Joe, was hospitalized due to a series of strokes resulting from epilepsy. “He told me he got some weird looks along the way but … there was no one that was going to stop him to do what he felt needed to be done,” Harnett said.
Father Donahue delivered the homily during a funeral Mass for Barb, Harnett’s wife, in March 2022. “For about half an hour (Father Donahue) talked about our family and our relationship,” Harnett said, his voice cracking. “People came up to me, and they still do, saying it was the best funeral service they ever attended.”
“He was always there for my wife and I and our family,” Harnett — who has two daughters, Molly and Carey, and a son, Neal, in addition to Joe — said, his voice full of emotion.
Harnett said he and Father Donahue would play hockey at Roseville Ice Arena “over the years.” Recalling a recent lunch together in Somerset, Wisconsin, Harnett said they met a woman whose wedding Father Donahue officiated. “Typical Father Donahue … he knew everyone,” Harnett said.
Not only did Father Donahue know many people, he “had an unbelievable grasp for people’s names,” Harnett said, including recalling people’s names when giving them the Eucharist at Mass.
Bishop Izen, too, recalled the strength of Father Donahue’s memory. “I can remember being at coffee and doughnuts with him and he would point at an elderly couple and say, ‘I had their wedding, back in ‘65.’ … He remembered people well.”
Father Donahue’s care is something Harnett said he felt fortunate to witness. His family was “just one of those lucky families that had such a good relationship with him, on a personal basis.”
Father Donahue, ‘sincere and thoughtful and kind,’ dies at 88
FATHERJOHN DONAHUE DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT Bishop Lee Piché receives the gift of wine during Mass Feb. 27, 2015. After resigning later that year from the office of auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, he is returning to serve as vicar for retired priests at the request of Archbishop Bernard Hebda.
Little is known about the early life of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, whom Pope Francis declared “venerable” June 22. However, it is possible she may become one of the United States’ first Black Catholic saints.
Likely of what today is Haitian ethnicity, Mother Lange — born Elizabeth Clarisse Lange — emigrated from Cuba shortly after the War of 1812 and made her way to Baltimore, where she ran a school for African-American children in her home. Sulpician Father James Joubert had been instructing Sunday school for Black Catholic children and recognized that many of them, particularly girls, were unable to read or write.
Because of this, he sought to open a school for girls and asked Mother Lange and another woman to operate the school and start a religious order to staff the school. With that, the Oblate Sisters of Providence were born in 1829. Under Mother Lange’s leadership, their mission grew from running schools to offering career development classes for women and operating homes for widows and orphans.
At the time, Maryland was a state where legalized slavery of Black
uPro-lifers call for action at ‘National Celebrate Life Day’ rally on Dobbs anniversary. The June 24 event in Washington, D.C, commemorated the court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, and freed states to decide abortion policy. “I hope next year, this time, that we have much more to celebrate,” 64-year-old David Porter told OSV News. “In order to do that, I and the rest of the people that are pro-life have much work to do.” The event invited pro-life Americans to celebrate the anniversary, honor past pro-life heroes and unite to protect the unborn from abortion as persons under the 14th Amendment. The crowd in the hundreds appeared significantly smaller than the March for Life rally in Washington. But, like the March for Life, the crowd was youthful. Nearly 2,000 joined to watch the event online, via livestream.
uSupreme Court rejects Texas and Louisiana lawsuit over Biden deportation guidelines. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 23 that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to sue the Biden administration over its deportation policies. With its 8-to-1 decision, the court revived immigration enforcement guidelines issued in 2021 by the Department of Homeland Security, which had set priorities about which unauthorized immigrants should be arrested and deported, focusing on those who were considered security threats or recently entered the country. Texas and Louisiana sued to block the guidelines, arguing that they conflicted with federal immigration law. Last June, a Texasbased federal judge blocked the use of the guidelines nationwide. After the Supreme Court’s ruling, the White House will again be able to follow its own guidelines for enforcement.
Americans had also infected the Catholic Church. In 1838 — at the same time Mother Lange was giving authentic witness to Jesus Christ’s Gospel by carrying out her educational ministry to Black young people — to save Georgetown University from bankruptcy, the Maryland Jesuits sold 272 Black Catholics, enslaved to them, to plantation owners in Louisiana.
Slavery would be abolished in Maryland officially only in 1864, during the U.S. Civil War, under a new state constitution. It would take another century of struggle, however, for Black Americans to achieve legal equality in the state.
Mother Lange died in her 90s on Feb. 3, 1882, at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, which she founded. The school today is owned and operated by the Oblate Sisters of Providence.
“Mother Mary Lange practiced faith to an extraordinary degree,” Mother Lange’s official sainthood cause website states.
“In fact, it was her deep faith which enabled her to persevere against all odds.
To her Black brothers and sisters she gave of herself and her material possessions until she was empty of all but Jesus, whom she shared generously with all by being a living witness to his teaching.”
In 1991, Cardinal William Keeler of
Baltimore opened an investigation into Mother Lange’s life. In 2004, documents describing Mother Lange’s life were sent to the Holy See, and the then-
Mother Mary ELizabeth Lange is one of six Black American Catholics who have been declared venerable or whose causes are under investigation as servants of God. The others who have been declared venerable are Mother Henriette Delille, a free woman of color who founded the Sisters of the Holy Family in New Orleans; Father Augustus Tolton, the first publicly recognized AfricanAmerican priest ordained for the U.S. Catholic Church; and Pierre Toussaint, a Haitian American brought to New York City under slavery, who became a free man, hairdresser and philanthropist known for his generosity. Those denoted servants of God are Sister Thea Bowman, the first African-American member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and founder of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans; and Julia Greeley, known as the city of Denver’s “Angel of Charity.”
Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the cause for her sainthood. “Venerable” is a declaration of a sainthood candidate’s heroic virtues. Next would come beatification. The third step is canonization, or sainthood.
u’People are suffering from trauma’; multifaith event panel highlights need for solidarity with refugees, displaced people. To minister to those whose lives have been changed by displacement, faith organizations need to collaborate, make connections and advocate for lasting solutions, said a panel of experts at a multifaith event for World Refugee Day. The June 20 livestreamed event in Washington, D.C., was moderated by Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees now estimates that by the end of this year, the total number of displaced persons will be 117 million. “These numbers are staggering and unacceptable,” Matt Reynolds, of UNHCR, said. But “while numbers can provide
uU.S. Bishops overwhelmingly approve 10-year plan to address pastoral needs of Hispanic Catholics. The U.S. bishops approved a new National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry to multiply pastoral responses addressing the realities of close to 30 million Catholics. On June 16, with 167 supporting votes out of 171, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resoundingly approved a comprehensive 10-year plan aimed at responding to the needs of Hispanic/Latino Catholics in the U.S. and strengthening Hispanic/ Latino ministries across the country at the national, local and parish level. The last time the U.S. bishops put forth such a plan was in 1987. The priorities listed in the plan include ongoing formation, accompaniment of families, immigration and advocacy, care for those on the peripheries, the promotion of vocations, and the need to engage with youth and young adults.
uUSCCB approves plan to revise medical guidelines for transgender patients at Catholic health facilities. June 16, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops authorized a process to revise part three of the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” which concerns the relationship between Catholic health professionals and their patients and patient rights. The doctrine
committee would seek to incorporate into the ERDs a doctrinal note released March 20 that dealt with transgender chemical and surgical interventions, which the note stated did not accord with “the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body.”
— OSV News
Story and photos
ith the stealth of a Navy SEAL, Father Jake Anderson creeps through tall grass on the bank of a small stream in northeast Iowa. He stays low to the ground as he glances at the current flow, his right hand grasping a fly rod. When he spots a change in current where a brown trout might lie in ambush waiting for a bug to float by, he puts his fly rod in motion.
The back-and-forth movements are smooth and snappy, the rod seeming like an extension of his arm. The keen attention to detail, the passion for hooking trout on his assortment of hand-tied flies, and more than two decades of experience wading streams in several states have made him an expert in the eyes of anyone who fishes with him — though far less so in his own eyes.
On this particular trip to a state that is home to miles and miles of blue-ribbon trout streams, he is joined by 13 other men, including a priest he has fished with, and another man who was ordained to the priesthood just days after the retreat. It is an annual men’s fly fishing retreat, complete with a spiritual theme and a patron saint — St. Zeno of Verona, after whom they have named a group they formed, with members going on local outings throughout the year that sometimes include wives and children.
The 11 laymen at the retreat belong to the parishes of St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater, where Father Anderson served as parochial vicar from 2015 to 2018. He was looking for an activity that could draw men together for fellowship, fun and faith, and discovered that there were several parishioners who shared his passion for fly fishing. Among them was Pat Houlton, 73, who helped get the group — St. Zeno Anglers — started in 2016 and helped Father Anderson launch the first fly fishing retreat four years ago.
Also making the retreat were Father Jim Livingston, with whom Father Anderson has fished in recent years and who is pastor of St. Paul in Ham Lake, and Father Julian Druffner, who was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, May 28.
Father Anderson’s devotion to what some call an “art” started when he was 11 and growing up on a small farm near Baldwin, Wisconsin. He remembers exactly when he first desired to pick up a fly rod.
“It was a June day,” recalled Father Anderson, 37, who was ordained in 2015 for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and now serves at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis. “My mom went shopping and my dad wasn’t working that particular day. And, he said, ‘Hey, do you want to watch a movie?’ I said, ‘Sure.’”
The movie was “A River Runs Through It,” a fly fishing drama produced by Robert Redford in 1992 and starring Brad Pitt. It won an Oscar that year for cinematography, with spectacular river and mountain scenes filmed in Montana. After watching the movie, Father Anderson was hooked on fly fishing.
“That day, I said, ‘Dad, I want to learn how to do that,’” Father Anderson said.
So, he did. His father, Mark, who has since died, went to the garage, pulled out an old fly fishing rod that he had made while in college, and started teaching his young son how to cast.
“I started practicing in the yard and then went to Fleet Farm and bought some cheap rubber hip waders,” Father Anderson recalled.
The Rush River was just a few hundred yards off their property, and he started making regular trips there on his bike, wearing the hip waders while pedaling. He quizzed people who were fly fishing, took copious notes, and also poured over books on the subject.
His passion grew and continued through formation for the priesthood at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul. He got away to fish whenever he could, and grabbed fellow seminarians to join him. He took day trips during his free time, and he waded miles of streams
with his fly rod in search of trout. He enjoyed teaching other men to fish, but even more, he sought to “deepen a sense of fraternity.”
This year’s retreat took place May 21-24, with fly fishing sessions in the mornings and afternoons, and retreat talks, prayer and Mass interspersed during other parts of the day. For Father Anderson, it’s as easy to mingle faith with fly fishing as it is to drop a hand-tied “woodchuck caddis” into a trout’s line of vision.
“We want to just keep it as simple as possible,” he explained. “It’s not like a retreat center. You’re not going into formal silence and there’s not three meditations a day. It’s more like just taking something guys like doing and yet having the Lord at the center.”
It works. Men arrived promptly on Sunday for this year’s retreat, and all of them brought enthusiasm and attentiveness to the opening Mass, which Father Anderson celebrated outside on a deck of the large
cabin where the men were staying. He engaged them with a homily about the ascension of Jesus, with conversations about spiritual and earthly topics continuing through dinner and well after sunset around a campfire.
“There’s something beautiful” about going on the retreat, said Mark Setterstrom, 39, who is married children and at one time played in the NFL. “I know these men so deeply. There’s such a deep commonality that comes together, not just from the fishing, but (from) spending time together in the Eucharist, in prayer, and then in God’s great creation.”
When the retreat dates — usually sometime in — are put on the calendar, “I make it a priority” to up, Setterstrom said. “This is the most deeply manly thing most of us will get in the entire year.”
For him, it boils down to one thing: “We know through this.”
them deep the with know commonality but in May to sign manly
St. Zeno of Verona lived in the fourth century and is the patron saint of fly fishing anglers. A group of parishioners at St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater, led by Father Jake Anderson, who served at the parish from 2015 to 2018, formed a fly fishing club in 2016 and named it St. Zeno Anglers. They commissioned local artist Nick Markell to create an icon for the group, which each year is blessed at an annual men’s fly fishing retreat led by Father Anderson and given to one member to take home and keep until the next retreat.
Pat Houlton, a member of the group who helped start the annual retreat, had it in his home for two years (he was not able to attend the retreat last year) and passed it to Todd Knaeble during a special ceremony May 22 after the retreat’s opening Mass. Houlton’s wife, Janet, has been battling cancer, and he said it was meaningful to have the icon in their home during the last two years. Also, it was Janet who discovered that St. Zeno is the patron saint of fly anglers and informed Pat. During his opening talk of the retreat this year, Father Anderson talked about St. Zeno, who lived in Verona, Italy. He noted that the saint “was a great fisherman” who often went fishing in the river that flowed through Verona, which is why art depicting him often includes a fish dangling from his crosier.
85, wholeheartedly embraces this retreat for similar reasons. He has been on all four of them and he attends most of the local outings, too.
He is known to take naps in between fly fishing sessions, but he is fully awake to the benefits of this type of gathering, and to having men of faith, including Father Anderson, to share a stream with.
“They’re all deeply faithful men, Catholic men,” Kriesel said. And “the families that they’re raising — the younger guys — are absolutely amazing.”
He reserved the strongest words of praise for Father Anderson, whom he honored during a campfire tribute on the first evening of the retreat.
“God bless you, Father Anderson,” Kriesel said, as applause broke out among the men encircling the embers. “You’re the glue for this whole thing, you really are. You give us the heart, the spirit — and you out-fish all of us.”
That last remark drew hearty laughter from the men, but it’s true. On the first afternoon of fishing, Father Anderson worked a short stretch of flowing water and landed more than a dozen trout in conditions all the men described as very difficult. Seeing him ply the waters with his fly rod, it’s clear that his is a refined craft, performed with hands as skilled as a sculptor’s.
The men who came this year ranged in age from 28 to 85, and that is part of the draw. Some of them are young fathers who like to fish and pray together with men who have decades of experience in both raising children and working in the professional world. The older men are eager to share what they have learned throughout their lives, including the art of fly fishing. The men vary in skill when it comes to casting for trout. That’s why they are divided into teams of two or three, with experienced fly anglers on each team assigned to help beginners and novices. Houlton, in addition to helping organize the retreat, serves as one of its main fly fishing mentors, a role he relishes.
After doing it for more than 30 years and sharing the sport with all five of his sons, he finds joy in continuing to help others catch fish. He also likes the friendships he has formed through both the retreat and St. Zeno club events. They are what keep him coming back.
“It’s just great fellowship,” said Houlton, who taught Father Livingston how to fly fish. “As men, we bond through activity. ... And, the fly fishing allows us to have an activity that we can share together.”
It also opens the door to more serious topics while sitting around a campfire at night — like the battle Houlton’s wife, Janet, is fighting with cancer, and the battle his son-in-law’s sister is also fighting with cancer. Fishing first and talking later is, perhaps, an indirect road to the things that matter in life. But, it is a destination these men always reach during the retreat.
“If you put men together in something like this,” Houlton said, “then they will talk more freely and they will talk about things — and, I think, more personal things. It opens that up.”
It is why Houlton declares: “This is my kind of retreat.”
The oldest man at this year’s gathering, Buzz Kriesel,
Make no mistake — fierce competitiveness burns within Father Anderson. He does not like to lose a fish, and he definitely does not like to get skunked (that rarely happens). Yet, he would never measure a trip by its trout. In the end, fly fishing is but the means to something deeper, something greater. From beginning to end, there is no mistaking what he is really aiming for on this retreat — helping the men deepen their relationship with Christ.
The men know that. This is the true bounty they take back home to their families, in addition to any trout that fall under their fillet knives.
Their wives know that, too. Travis Amiot, 42, said even though his wife teases him about calling three days of fly fishing a “retreat,” she is on board with him leaving her and their children for a few days to share fly rods and fellowship with the other men.
“She knows the quality of the men that are coming, and she knows for sure I’m better for coming,” he said. “She likes to give me a hard time by joking that it’s not really a retreat. But, in the end, she knows that coming here, the notes that I’ll take from what Father Jake says, and the time with these guys, we’ll be a better family because of it.”
The Catholic Spirit is honored to celebrate the priests who are marking significant anniversaries of their ordination to the priesthood this year. In addition to jubilarians celebrating 10, 25 and 50 years of ministry who spoke
As he celebrates 10 years as a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Father Luke Marquard described an earlier decade of his life during which he ran away from a priestly vocation — but God proved that time fruitful for Father Marquard’s ministry today.
A seed for Father Marquard’s priesthood was planted when the late Archbishop Harry Flynn told the Faribault native at a dinner for high school graduates that he looked like one of his friends. Several weeks later, the archbishop mailed Father Marquard pictures of his friend — a bishop — and wrote, “this is what you’re going to look like when you’re older.”
Father Marquard, now 44, wasn’t immediately convinced. He set aside the idea of priesthood as he attended college and later worked in mediarelated jobs for about five years. He went on to complete a two-year education program through the University of Notre Dame, earning a master’s degree in education, and taught eighth graders in Denver.
But Father Marquard couldn’t get the idea of priesthood out of his mind. He
As the youngest of 14 children, what Father Peter Richards learned growing up on the Iron Range in Biwabik in northeast Minnesota has helped him minister to Catholics as an archdiocesan priest for the past 25 years.
“I grew up in a big, sloppy family and I’m just a pastor of a big, sloppy family,” said Father Richards, 56, who currently leads Our Lady of the Lake in Mound. “You just learn to associate with, and to love, and to be patient with all kinds of different personalities and people.”
Inspired as a college student by the idea of priests being servant leaders, Father Richards has gone on to pastor four parishes since his 1998 ordination. In all his assignments, he said he’s appreciated having the support of staff and parishioners, as well as his brother priests in the Companions of Christ, a fraternity of diocesan priests and seminarians in the archdiocese.
Father Richards first considered the priesthood as a junior at St. John’s University in Collegeville, when he surrendered his life to God. But he still felt called to marriage.
finally decided to enroll in The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul without committing to becoming a priest. He was ordained a diocesan priest in 2013. Seeking a fraternal life with other priests, Father Marquard joined the Companions of Christ, a fraternity of diocesan priests and seminarians in the archdiocese.
At his teaching parish, St. Peter in Forest Lake, and in his first assignment, as parochial vicar, at Epiphany in Coon Rapids, Father Marquard said the pastors were mentors who helped him develop his preaching and other aspects of ministry.
He brought what he learned from his earlier assignments, plus the media and teaching skills from his earlier jobs, to his first assignment as a pastor, at Good Shepherd in Golden Valley in 2015.
One thing he has sought to do at the parish is encourage parishioners to receive the sacrament of reconciliation more frequently, Father Marquard said.
“And I now see the fruit of those efforts, even if in the beginning it was a lot of time by myself in the confessional,” he said. “Now, I often run out of time in the confessional.”
As Father Marquard prepares for his ministry as pastor of St. Joseph in West St. Paul in July, he said he looks forward to sharing some of what he’s learned with his first parochial vicar, newly ordained Father Kyle Etzel, also a Companion of Christ who will start at the parish at the same time.
Four years later, while serving with the Army ROTC and working at a residential treatment center for troubled youth, he was invited to a Called by Name dinner by the late Archbishop John Roach. There, he became convinced he should apply for the seminary. “After that, it wasn’t like it was a lightning bolt,” he said. “It’s just this is the way the Lord wants me to live out my life as a Catholic.” At that time, he belonged to the Community of Christ the Redeemer, a West St. Paul Catholic covenant community, and became familiar with the Companions of Christ.
“I just knew that I didn’t want to be walking the priesthood and life alone,” he said, adding that the Companions’ dedication to transparency and accountability challenged and appealed to him. Father Richards’ teaching parish, Holy Redeemer in Montgomery, helped form him as a priest and showed him how parishes run, he said, adding that parish support has been a common thread through all his assignments.
“They want me to be a good priest.”
During his first assignment at Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, the pastor, the late Father Eugene Tiffany, mentored the new priest.
“They say that in marriage the first three years are the hardest, and that probably applies to priesthood, too, so to have Father Tiffany there, a seasoned pastor who wasn’t critical of me and he
with reporter Susan Klemond and are featured on these two pages, with photos by Dave Hrbacek, the men listed on page 16 are celebrating 10, 25, 50 and 60 years of priestly ministry this year.
Congratulations to all the priests — including those not listed on these pages — celebrating milestone anniversaries this year. Religious order priests, brothers and sisters marking jubilees will be celebrated in the July 13 issue.
“I want to be able to foster a healthy relationship because I’m convinced that when the people see the priests living Christian friendship, and it’s clear that they have a love for one another, love for the Lord, and love for the mission, that’s to me what’s going to change things,” and strengthen the faith people have in their clergy, he said. “We need to see our priests on mission together and in deep friendship two by two.”
As he settles into his new parish, Father Marquard said he also hopes the Archdiocesan Synod will result in the laity gaining greater awareness of their role in the Church.
“Because the more the faithful can know and understand and embrace who they are and how vital they are to the life of the Church, the more we can embrace that we’re in this together,” he said.
gave me very good advice, helped me through some difficult things,” Father Richards said. Father Richards took the guidance he received to his next three parishes where he served as pastor: St. John the Baptist in Dayton, St. Albert in Albertville and St. Michael in St. Michael.
Father Richards said he’s still learning — currently, from a program called the Amazing Parish, which helps pastors lead their parishes more effectively as
fathers rather than CEOs. “It’s helped me not to feel alone as a pastor,” he said. “It’s involving a lot more people in the leadership and bringing more cohesion to the whole parish.”
Considering his next 25 years, Father Richards said he’s open to where the Lord calls him but believes he’s in the right place: Growing in a parish together with the community and reflecting on how the parish can “be more evangelistic.”
From being a founding class member of a new seminary program in the late 1960s to pausing his retirement this year to help a parish transition between pastors, Father Robert Fitzpatrick has seen himself as a bridge during his 50 years as an archdiocesan priest.
Throughout his priesthood, Father Fitzpatrick, 75, said he’s also seen himself bridging the tumultuous period of post-Vatican II.
The Church of Corpus Christi in Roseville extends our congratulations to Fr. Robert (Fitz) Fitzpatrick , celebrating 50 years of priesthood.
of the four-member founding class of St. John Vianney College Seminary at then-College of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He and his classmates finished their priestly formation at The St. Paul Seminary, also in St. Paul.
During his first assignment, as an associate pastor of St. Olaf in downtown Minneapolis, Father Fitzpatrick welcomed many Twin Cities visitors to the parish and learned about preparing homilies from the pastor, the late Msgr. Francis Fleming, while helping St. Olaf navigate the many post-Vatican II liturgy changes.
Thank you for your ministry with us. God’s blessings as you continue to serve His people.
“I grew up in the ‘50s, and like everybody else I had to memorize the Latin (words) to be a server for Mass,” Father Fitzpatrick said. With Vatican II changes to the liturgy and other aspects of Church life, the work has continued as a pastor, Father Fitzpatrick said, helping people make the transition to present day and what Vatican II “really calls us to.”
The Church of Corpus Christi 2131 Fairview Avenue North Roseville, MN 55113 www.ccmn.org We’ll see you at the State Fair!
Father Fitzpatrick grew up in New Jersey but lived with his family in Minnesota during high school. He first shared his interest in the priesthood with his second-grade teacher.
After high school, he enrolled at Nazareth Hall preparatory seminary in Roseville. Nazareth Hall closed after Father Fitzpatrick completed his first two years of college, so he became part
The Church of Corpus Christi in Roseville extends our congratulations to Fr. Robert (Fitz) Fitzpatrick, celebrating 50 years of priesthood.
Thank you for your ministry with us. God’s blessings as you continue to serve His people.
The Church of Corpus Christi 2131 Fairview Avenue North Roseville, MN 55113 www.ccmn.org
In 1977, Father Fitzpatrick was appointed associate pastor of Holy Spirit in St. Paul, where he established a youth ministry that worked on service projects. In his first assignment as a pastor, at St. John the Evangelist in Little Canada in 1984, Father Fitzpatrick said he sought to heal the relationship between clergy and parishioners who were confused because they’d seen six priests come and go for different reasons in the previous seven years. He also oversaw building projects at St. John, but realized his calling went beyond facilities to rebuilding the parish’s spirit.
Father Fitzpatrick said he continued rebuilding and bridging as a pastor when he was appointed to St. Rose of Lima in Roseville in 2005, and seven years later when St. Rose was clustered with another Roseville parish, Corpus Christi.
“My job was to acknowledge the
unique gifts of each community and how they could work together on some things, but they had to be their own community,” Father Fitzpatrick said.
Father Fitzpatrick retired in 2018, but when the pastor of a parish where he sometimes celebrated Mass — St. Francis of Assisi in Lake St. Croix Beach — stepped down because of a disability last January, Father Fitzpatrick was asked to lead and facilitate the transition for the next pastor, Bishop Michael Izen, who will begin as pastor in July.
Taking another shot at retirement, Father Fitzpatrick said he plans to continue helping at parishes but also take a pilgrimage, a cruise or a road trip.
Lessons from his half-century of priesthood include understanding that “It’s not about me, it’s about the glory of God,” he said. “It’s not about being in charge, it’s about getting things done and letting others do the same thing, knowing that the Lord has this wrapped in the hem of his garment.” And, lastly, “It’s also the wisdom of the Holy Spirit leading from start to finish.”
On the 40th AnniversaryofOrdinationtothePriesthood
On the 40th AnniversaryofOrdinationtothePriesthood
the 40th AnniversaryofOrdinationtothePriesthood
Thank you for your service to the Church of the Holy Name and St. Leonard of Port Maurice in South Minneapolis
Thank you for your service to the Church of the Holy Name and St. Leonard of Port Maurice in South Minneapolis
Thank you for your service to the Church of the Holy Name and St. Leonard of Port Maurice in South Minneapolis
MayGodcontinuetoblessyourministry!
MayGodcontinuetoblessyourministry!
MayGodcontinuetoblessyourministry!
We’ll see you at the State Fair!
Father Mark Pavlik
The Catholic Spirit is honored to celebrate the priests who are marking 10, 25, 50 and 60 years of priestly ministry this year. In addition to the jubilarians featured on pages 14-15, the following men are observing these significant anniversaries of their ordination to the priesthood.
Congratulations to all the priests — including those not listed below — celebrating milestone anniversaries this year. Religious order priests, brothers and sisters marking jubilees will be celebrated in the July 13 issue.
Father Leonard “Lennie” Andrie , 46, has served as a vicar for evangelization at the chancery since 2022 and as parochial administrator and then pastor of St. Therese in Deephaven since 2016. He also ministered at Hill-Murray School in Maplewood as chaplain (2015-2016), St. Joseph in West St. Paul (2013-2016) and Convent of the Visitation in Mendota Heights (2013-2015) as chaplain.
Father Andrew Brinkman , 37, has served as priest in solidum/moderator at Holy Childhood and Maternity of Mary in St. Paul since 2022. He also ministered at Community of Saints Regional Catholic School in West St. Paul (2020-2022), Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul (2015-2022) as parochial administrator and then pastor, St. Matthew in St. Paul (2015-2016), St. Michael in West St. Paul (2015-2016) and Nativity of Our Lord (2013-2015) in St. Paul.
Father John Drees , 36, has served at St. Francis Xavier in Franconia and St. Joseph in Taylors Falls since 2017 as parochial administrator and then pastor. He also ministered at St. Peter in Forest Lake (2016-2017), Holy Name of Jesus in Medina
(2015-2016) and St. Hubert in Chanhassen (2013-2015).
Father Joah Ellis , 36, has served at Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis since 2016 as parochial administrator and then pastor. He also ministered at St. Michael in St. Michael (2015-2016) and at St. Stephen in Anoka (2013-2015).
Father Spencer Howe , 36, has served as a vicar for evangelization at the Chancery since 2022. He also has ministered at Holy Cross in Minneapolis since 2017, and as parochial administrator and then pastor, Holy Name of Jesus in Medina parish and school (2016-2019), St. John Neumann in Eagan (2014-2016) and Divine Mercy in Faribault (2013).
Father Andrew Jaspers , 44, has served as chaplain for the Curatio Apostolate and at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale since 2021, and for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, since 2018. He also ministered at St. John the Baptist in New Brighton (20212022), Hennepin County Medical Center (2020-2021) as chaplain, St. Stephen in Minneapolis (2019-2021), St. John Vianney College Seminary (2016-2020), the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul (2017-2018), St. Agnes in St. Paul (2016-2017), St. Joseph in Miesville (2016-2017), St. John the Baptist in New Brighton (2014-2016) and St. John Neumann in Eagan (2013-2014).
Father Brian Park , 42, has served as pastor of St. Michael in St. Michael since 2020, pastor of St. Albert in Albertville (20202021), chaplain for NET Ministries (2018) and pastor of Annunciation in Minneapolis (2015-2020). He also has ministered at St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony (20132015) and at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis (2013-2014) as chaplain.
Father James Peterson , 37, will serve as pastor of St. Odilia in Shoreview (effective July 1). He has served as chaplain for the Serra Club (North Minneapolis) since 2020 and representative for Totino-Grace High School in Fridley since 2019 (also 2014-2015 as chaplain). He also has ministered at Immaculate Conception in Columbia Heights (2018-2023) as parochial administrator and then pastor, the Archdiocesan Mission in Venezuela (2015-2018) and St. Odilia in Shoreview (2013-2015).
Father Andrew Stueve , 50, will serve as pastor of Holy Trinity in Waterville and St. Andrew in Elysian (effective July 1). He also has ministered at Chesterton Academy of the St. Croix Valley in Stillwater as chaplain (March 8-June 30), St. Charles in Bayport (2020-2023), St. Ignatius in Annandale (2018-2020), St. Timothy in Maple Lake (2018-2020), St. Anne in Le Sueur (20152018) as pastor, and Holy Name of Jesus in Medina (2013-2015).
Father Joseph Johnson , 52, has served as a member of the Pastors Review Board at the Chancery since 2019 and pastor of Holy Family in St. Louis Park since 2012. He also has ministered at St. Patrick in Edina (Jan. 3-April 3), the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul (2006-2012) as rector, the Cathedral’s St. Vincent de Paul campus (2004-2012) as pastor, the chancellor’s office (2004-2006) and St. Olaf in Minneapolis (1998-2004).
Father Biju Mathew , 53, has served as parochial administrator of St. Boniface in Minneapolis and as chaplain at M Health Fairview St. Joseph’s Hospital since 2019. He also has ministered at St. Matthew in St. Paul (2020-2022), HealthEast St. Joseph Hospital (2018-2019) as chaplain, University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview (2018) as chaplain, St. Boniface in Minneapolis (2017-2020), St. Mary in St. Paul (2009-2017) as pastor, and Regions Hospital in St. Paul (2008-2009) as chaplain.
Father Jose Gutierrez , 90, retired in 2001 after serving at St. Margaret Mary in Golden Valley (1999-2001), Serra Clubs (1999-2002)
as chaplain, St. Bernard in St. Paul (19951999), the Archdiocese’s Hispanic Ministry Leadership Team (1995-1999), Most Holy Trinity in St. Louis Park (1994-1995) as pastor, St. Francis Xavier in Franconia (19931994) as pastor, and St. Raphael in Crystal (1990-1993). As a religious order priest, he served at St. Raphael (1990-1992), Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul (1989-1990), and St. Boniface in Minneapolis (1984-1989) as pastor.
Father Thomas Hunstiger , 86, retired in 2002 after serving at St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo and St. Therese, all in St. Paul, since 1993 in roles including pastor, administrator, canonical administrator and senior parochial vicar. He also served as pastor of Holy Spirit in St. Paul (1984-1993; also assistant priest in 1963-1964), Immaculate Conception in Faribault (1976-1984), Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka (1972-1976) and St. Stephen in Minneapolis (1970-1972). He was a chaplain at the Army Reserve Hospital at Fort Snelling and served at Most Holy Trinity in St. Louis Park (19691970), St. Austin in Minneapolis (1964-1969), St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony (1963) and St. Luke in St. Paul (1963).
Father George Kinney , 86, retired in 2007 after serving as pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle in Corcorcan since 1994. He also ministered at St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove (1979-1994) as pastor, St. Paul in Zumbrota (pastor) and St. Mary in Belvidere (1974-1979), All Saints in Lakeville (1971-1974), Our Lady del Valle, Latin America apostolate, Archdiocese of Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela (1970-1971), Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka (1968-1970), Sacred Heart in Faribault (1968), Immaculate Conception in Faribault (1966-1968) and St. Mark in St. Paul (1963-1966).
Father Kenneth Pierre , 86, retired in 2003 after serving as pastor of Annunciation in Minneapolis since 1991. He also ministered at St. Peter in Mendota (1982-1983), Immaculate Heart of Mary in St. Paul (1982), St. Peter in North St. Paul and St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis (1981-1982). He served as chaplain for Serra Clubs (1974), rector of St. John Vianney College Seminary (1971-1981) and director of the Consultation Services Center at the archdiocese (19711991), and he served at Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul (1963-1964).
By The Catholic Spirit
The Catholic Spirit won seven awards and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Communications won four awards at the 2023 Catholic Media Conference’s awards ceremony, which celebrated the 2022 work of Catholic Media Association members.
Participants can submit work for the awards in a variety of categories that highlight writing, design, photography, production and editing. Awards honor “the outstanding work of members in their efforts to further the mission of the Church,” said the CMA, which serves professional Catholic communicators in the United States and Canada, on its website.
The June 9 awards banquet was held in Baltimore at the conclusion of the CMA conference held June 6-9. Below are the awards The Catholic Spirit and the Office of Communications won this year.
The stories can be found in print editions and online at TheCaTholiCSpiriT Com The Office of Communications videos can be found on the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ website arChSpm org and social media.
First Place (4)
Best in-depth news/special reporting – non-weekly, first place: “Troubling past: The Church’s role in America’s Indian boarding school era” April 28 print edition — Maria Wiering
Best story and photo package – by an individual, first place: “Pray Ball: Catholic Softball Group puts Jesus at the center of weekly gatherings on the diamond” June 30 print edition — Dave Hrbacek
Best personality profile – non-weekly, first place: “On the cusp of 80, Mary Jo Copeland is unwavering” Sept. 15 print edition — Christina Capecchi, for The Catholic Spirit
Best story and photo package – by two individuals or more, first place: “On the cusp of 80, Mary Jo Copeland is unwavering” Sept. 15 print edition — Christina Capecchi and Dave Hrbacek
Second Place (3)
Best analysis/background/round-up news writing
– The Gerard E. Sherry Award – non-weekly, second place: “MCC urges people to consider the dangers of recreational marijuana” Oct. 14, 2021 print edition (start of a series that ran through 2022) — Joe Ruff Best print special supplement – on a bishop’s transition, second place: “‘Follow Christ’ — At Jan. 25 ordination, Bishop Williams encourages faithful to share Gospel” Jan. 27 print edition— The Catholic Spirit staff Individual excellence – photographer of the year, second place: Dave Hrbacek
First Place (1)
Hot topic – the Dobbs decision, first place: “We Need More Love, More Life!” — Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Zach Jansen, Tom Halden
A parishioner of St. Matthew in St. Paul won honorable mentions for best book cover artwork and best Catholic novel in the 2023 Catholic Media Association’s Book Awards. Margaret A. Blenkush was recognized for her work, “The Doctor of Bellechester.”
Blenkush, who worked in religious education in parishes and at the chancery of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis beginning in the 1980s until her retirement in 2005, said “receiving this book honor confirms my belief that the deepest desires of our heart were put there by a loving God. If we listen, trust and pray, those desires will be fulfilled in the most amazing way.”
The cover artist, Lisa Kosmo of Two Harbors, drew in oil the image of a tree limb encircling like a picture frame two people at a bustling city’s park bench.
Written during the COVID-19 pandemic to take readers away from difficulties and violence of the moment, Blenkush’s book follows the challenges and triumphs, and the value of mentorship and friendship, in the life of a young female doctor in a central London hospital in 1959. The book is available at St. Patrick’s Guild gift and religious supply store in St. Paul and the author’s website, margaretblenkush com
Third Place (2)
Best diocesan pastoral message – audio or video, third place: “Archbishop Hebda’s Invitation to Read the Pastoral Letter” — Office of Communications staff Best use of live video in social media, third place: “PLAM Dobbs Decision Rally” — Zach Jansen
Honorable Mention (1)
Best video – hot topic – the Dobbs decision, honorable mention: “Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s Statement Regarding Dobbs Ruling by U.S. Supreme Court” — Tom Halden, Zach Jansen
Complete awards details can be found online at CaTholiCmediaConferenCe org/liSTS
By Christina Capecchi
For The Catholic Spirit
Deacon Dan Wesley was one of the first deacons to be ordained for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He recently marked his 40th anniversary and retired from active ministry, allowing him more time to spend with his grandchildren and enjoy his rural homestead between Waterville and Elysian, land his greatgrandfather once farmed.
“Your heritage becomes more important the older you get,” said Deacon Wesley, 76, a member of St. Andrew in Elysian.
Q How has your hometown changed?
A Growing up, there were a dozen farms on Highway 60. Now there’s not one that’s being farmed by a resident farmer. I grew up at the right time. When I was a kid, they still threshed wheat and oats, and the neighbors all came together to do that and have a meal. We filled silos together and then would sit around and have a beer.
Q At the same time, there’s been a widespread decline in Mass attendance.
A I look at it and I see family life has declined, and I think that really contributes to the decline in the number of people going to church.
But I’m excited about the Synod. My wife, Gloria, and I have been involved. And at St. Andrew, we’re signing people up and getting new membership. We make a point to be welcoming — we greet people when they arrive and say we’re happy they’re there, Father is right at the door, and when they come out of the church, we have coffee and rolls every Sunday.
Q How did you meet your wife?
A I was 2 years old! Her family sat right behind my family one Sunday at St. Andrew in Elysian. I had long curly hair back then, and she reached forward and pulled my hair. I always tell the boys in youth group that if you ever have a girl reach forward and pull your hair, you might as well get the marriage license!
Q You dated as teens.
A She was definitely pretty and a very nice, likable person. A lot of guys wanted to go out with her. I give her a hard time about it; she dated everybody and then the only person left was me. When I came home from service
in Vietnam, she was going to nurse’s school down in Rochester, at St. Mary’s (Hospital School of Nursing), and you couldn’t get married until you graduated. She graduated in May ’70 and we got married in July of ’70.
Q You farmed in your 20s, but then the farming crisis of the ’80s hit. How did you find a new path?
A We discerned that farming was not my vocation anymore, and the diaconate formation came along. We started volunteering with a youth group and volunteered to chaperone a retreat. We didn’t think we knew anything, but then all of a sudden, someone asks you a question, and you realize you do have something to say.
When we came home, it definitely felt like there was some kind of calling. The priest asked if I’d ever thought about diaconate. I said, “What’s diaconate?”
I talked to someone who was in the process of diaconate formation, and we figured we’d apply, and if it wasn’t our calling, someone would tell us no.
It wasn’t long after I was ordained that it was confirmed every day that this was what God had called us to. And I say “us” — it’s not just me, Gloria and I do a lot together. It’s enriched our marriage in a lot of ways.
Q As a deacon, you’ve done Latino ministry, prison outreach and sacrament preparation and you’ve served as parish administrator three times. What have you learned during the past four decades?
A It’s always about relationships. You can’t do prison ministry unless you have a relationship. My wife and I volunteered at Faribault state prison. Every Sunday I had Mass at the prison, and then, out of that, we led a gathering every Tuesday evening. We called it “inquiry class” — whatever the inmates needed, that’s what it was. Sometimes it was just a support group, sometimes we did Scripture sharing. One time an inmate told me about a letter the U.S. bishops had just put out on restorative justice, so I looked it up and printed it out, and we used that for a number of weeks.
I became the liaison to the community for the restorative justice committee at the prison. The inmates were making these little chairs, and the back would be the head of a lion or an elephant. They were very professionally done, and they would give those chairs to the domestic abuse center in Faribault.
We got a list of all the homeless people who had died in the last year,
and we led a memorial service for them. The guys made tombstone replicas using plywood and put their names on them and then we displayed them in Central Park (in Faribault). The youngest one was 1 (year old). The guys shed some tears over that.
Q You relinquished your agenda for those Tuesday nights — your own notion of how it should go and what would be most beneficial — and instead let the inmates shape it around their needs.
A There are aspects of my life I like to control, but I think the first lesson I learned in the Church is: You have power, but don’t use it. The only time when power is really valuable in the Church is when it’s used to promote the love of God.
Q What do you appreciate about living in the country?
A We get up in the morning, and just to hear the birds singing, and go out and feed the birds, all the different kinds of birds that come in to eat. That’s a real joy. In a lot of ways, it’s a spiritual experience.
You can’t look at them and see all the wonders and not relate that to: They’re God’s creatures. And God created all of them — in such a simple way. In a lot of ways, God is very simple.
Q We shouldn’t over-think it. I was just reading a quote from St. Jane de Chantal: “put yourself very simply before God.” Children do that naturally. What’s the best part of being a grandparent?
A Not being responsible for them! We can just spoil them and send them home.
I always joke that the best part about having children is that you have grandchildren. The honest-to-God truth is the best part about grandchildren is watching your children be parents.
Q What do you know for sure?
A I’m going to die someday. That’s for sure. Other than that, I know for sure that God loves us. I’m so grateful that I have the gift of my faith, and I don’t struggle at all with the love of God and how powerful it is. I love being Catholic. I love the celebration. I love the liturgy and the richness of it. I love coming together as a community to continue our rituals. Where else are you going to find that?
Fr. Thomas Niehaus on 15 Years of Priesthood
We are grateful for your service, dedication, and compassion to the Churches of Most Holy Redeemer/ St. Canice & St. Patrick.
The responsorial psalm for July 2 captures the common thread throughout the readings from this 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.”
In the first reading, the woman of influence is promised to be blessed with a son after caring for the holy man of God, Elisha. In the second reading, St. Paul reminds us that through our baptism, we are raised up to live in newness of life with Christ. In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of the rewards that one will receive by caring for his people. The goodness of the Lord is truly amazing. You may notice that the rewards and the Lord’s goodness demand something from us. The woman of influence cares for the prophet of the Lord. St. Paul tells us that we must live for God and be dead to sin. Jesus gives certain criteria to receive these rewards.
It is good for us to have faith in Jesus and to believe in the Gospels, but it must also have an effect on our lives. Jesus says that we must love him above all else. This means putting him first, over and above all good things. He wants that priority of
ASK FATHER MIKE | FATHER MICHAEL SCHMITZEditor’s note: This column is reprinted from the August 2012 issue of The Northern Cross.
Q I recently attended a wedding in a nonCatholic church. The minister invited everyone there forward to be united at this wedding to receive Communion. I didn’t know what to do, so I went up to receive. Did I do something wrong?
A Thanks for the question. It is a very good one. Believe it or not, your situation is common for many people. Since this particular congregation or pastor explicitly invited all visitors up to receive, how could it be wrong? I attempted to address the issue of “intercommunion” a number of years ago, but I think you bring up a new context: What do we do when other Christians invite us to Communion?
I would look at it in at least two ways: personally and communally.
Personally, we never want to lie. Now, I am not exactly sure of the “formula” that was used when you went up to receive, but chances are pretty good that they said something along the lines of “body of Christ,” to which one is expected to respond, “Amen.” And yet, is that truly the body of Christ? You and I do not believe that the minister has the same ability as the priest to “confect” the Eucharist.
I know that I am assuming something here; I am assuming that you profess the teachings of the Catholic Church. I don’t mean to be offensive in that assumption, but it is kind of a prerequisite for receiving the Eucharist in the Catholic Church.
But if that is the case, in responding “Amen,” I am saying, “I stake my life on the belief that this is the body of Christ.” But what happens if I actually don’t believe that? I have, in a sense, “told a
place in our lives.
It is easy for other things to demand our time and energy, to take priority in our lives. Maybe it is schoolwork, with exams and papers. Maybe it’s your kids and all their extracurricular activities. Maybe it’s the demands of a job. Sometimes it is social media and constant scrolling to see the next attention-grabbing thing on the screen. In no way is this to say that some of these things are not good. But do they get in the way of our first and greatest love?
These things continually seek our love and attention, just as Jesus does, and we must ask ourselves, where is Jesus? Is Jesus first? Does my love for others flow from my love for Jesus? Does my desire to be successful with work or study come from my love to please Jesus? Do I allow Jesus to have the priority in life, trusting that he will provide all the rest? At times, we will find ourselves challenged, but that should not surprise us. Jesus tells us, “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”
The cross is heavy and there are moments in life when we would rather not have anything to do with it. But when we truly love our Lord, the way that he loves us, we come to realize that the cross that each of us must carry is but one of the ways that we live out our love for him.
As we carry our cross each day, and love our Lord above all else, the Lord will surely reward us with his goodness. Jesus will keep his promise and generously pour grace into our lives. Then, with the psalmist, we can sing forever the goodness of the Lord.
Sunday, July 2
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16a
Rom 6:3-4, 8-11 Mt 10:37-42
Monday, July 3 St. Thomas, apostle Eph 2:19-22
Jn 20:24-29
Tuesday, July 4 Gn 19:15-29
Mt 8:23-27
Wednesday, July 5 Gn 21:5, 8-20a Mt 8:28-34
Thursday, July 6 Gn 22:1b-19 Mt 9:1-8
Friday, July 7 Gn 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67 Mt 9:9-13
Saturday, July 8 Gn 27:1-5, 15-29 Mt 9:14-17
lie.” Now, keeping in mind that not all falsehoods are lies (lying involves both knowing the truth and a conscious rejection of the truth, and in this case, you weren’t even considering that this would be a misrepresentation of the truth), your culpability is greatly reduced. But does that initial part make sense?
It seems like the minister was being hospitable. I am certain that was the intention behind the invitation to come forward. But no one wants to lie in the name of “hospitality.” For good reason, we have to endure the discomfort of the felt division.
There is also a “communal” dimension to “Communion” (ha!). This communion means that we are united as the original Church was described in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Acts 2:42-47). But if I am not united with this group of Christians because of the divisions that we (as Lutherans or Catholics or whatevers) have chosen, then you see how quickly this external sign of unity is also a false sign. We pretend that we are united during this wedding or that funeral, but that isn’t true.
Isn’t it interesting how painful it can be to be in those situations? In those moments when we most want to be united (weddings, funerals, etc.), it is hard to not be able to extend the offer of Communion to our separated brothers and sisters in the Lord. But I would say that this makes it all the more important that we retain this.
Why?
If we were to be honest with ourselves, I think that most of us see the divisions between Christians and don’t really care all that much. It doesn’t bother many of us — until it is time for Communion in each other’s churches. At that moment it stings a bit, and we don’t like it. Good! We shouldn’t like it! We should actually work to overcome our divisions. In fact, in the great prayer during the Last Supper, Jesus explicitly prayed that “all may be one” (Jn 17). We can easily overlook how much of an obstacle to Christianity our divisions are for non-Christians. We need to preserve the fact that we cannot receive Communion in each other’s churches at the very least so that we might have a fire lit underneath us and work toward real unity rather than “comfortable and complacent division.”
Again, let me console any nervous part of you: If there was no intentional disregard for the Church’s teaching (which there wasn’t, because it sounds like you hadn’t even heard of that), then you can be at peace. While you may have committed the act, there was no malevolence or intended rebellion.
Father Schmitz is director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth and chaplain of the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
Sunday, July 9
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Zec 9:9-10 Rom 8:9, 11-13 Mt 11:25-30
Monday, July 10 Gn 28:10-22a Mt 9:18-26
Tuesday, July 11 St. Benedict, abbot Gn 32:23-33 Mt 9:32-38
Wednesday, July 12 Gn 41:55-57; 42:5-7a, 17-24a Mt 10:1-7
Thursday, July 13 Gn 44:18-21, 23b-29; 45:1-5 Mt 10:7-15
Friday, July 14 St. Kateri Tekakwitha, virgin Gn 46:1-7, 28-30 Mt 10:16-23
Saturday, July 15
St. Bonaventure, bishop and doctor of the Church Gn 49:29-32; 50:15-26a Mt 10:24-33
Sunday, July 16
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 55:10-11 Rom 8:18-23
Mt 13:1-23
ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE (?-72) Named among the Twelve Apostles in all four Gospels, St. Thomas figured prominently in several stories in the Gospel of John. He said he was ready to die with Jesus, that he didn’t know where Jesus was going and so couldn’t follow, and famously doubted a post-Resurrection appearance until he himself saw the risen Lord. For this, history has called him “doubting Thomas,” but his name remains among the most popular Christian names. Four apocryphal writings were attributed to St. Thomas, and in Church tradition he evangelized in Syria, Persia (now Iran) and India. Indian Catholics believe he was martyred and buried there. St. Thomas is the patron saint of India, builders and the blind. His feast day is July 3.
Given the creation of parishbased Synod Evangelization Teams across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and the related May 20 Activated Disciple Seminar that drew more than 1,500 people to Minneapolis, I’m running into a good number of the faithful who are seeking to better understand what’s going on.
The questions are arising not only during men’s ministry activities, but from fellow parishioners. A recent Sunday Gospel verse is a reminder of the mission — a mission we’re all on, whether we are part of a parish evangelization team or not: “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so, ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”
The three-year Archdiocesan Synod culminated in a June 2022 Synod Assembly that drew 500 people and led to Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s pastoral letter released in November 2022, “You Will Be My Witnesses, Gathered and Sent from the Upper Room.” The Synod and the letter call for forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization, forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’ love and respond to his call, and forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young.
This mission of evangelization, this pursuit, this responsibility as Christians, applies to all of us, not just with the evangelization teams of 12, which will soon increase with the formation of more activated disciples through parish small groups.
We need to keep it going at the parish level. So, pray to the master, just like Jesus did in the “ask” of his first disciples. He chose his disciples, pointed out to them that there are plenty of people who need healing — spiritually and physically — and then sent them on their first mission.
First and foremost, these apostles were to pray that God would raise up workers for his kingdom. Our Lord told them that they — his first disciples — were going to help multiply his efforts to shepherd the lost sheep.
GUEST
Upon entering a large secondhand store, I’m immediately struck by the volume of used clothing. A sea of garments greets me, rack after rack. I’m there to find a cute used flowerpot. You know the old saying, “One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.”
I’m a treasure hunter at heart.
But all those clothes stopped me in my tracks as I wondered, “Who is going to buy all this? And what happens to the leftovers?”
If you, like me, have weeded through a closet thinking you’ll give away stuff to someone who “needs” it — and thereby justify buying more stuff — there’s an eye-opening documentary worth your time. “Trashion:
In helping execute this first year of Synod implementation, the shepherds of our archdiocese are guiding us (as Jesus did) to the abundance of the harvest, and to the need to pray for more disciples to work its plenty. The parish Synod Evangelization Teams, or SET, are simply setting the stage — tilling the soil — for more disciples to come and diligently build God’s kingdom, guided by their pastors and overall, by Archbishop Hebda. Just like Jesus with his first disciples, the archbishop and clergy are sending people out on mission to evangelize the world. This ministry started with the original disciples, then more disciples, and we are still at it, making more disciples for the harvest 2,000 years later.
“True disciples become workers out of the overflow of their growing relationship with Jesus Christ,” according to a book titled “No Man Left Behind, Catholic Edition: How to Build a Strong Disciple-Making Ministry for Every Man in Your Parish,” published by Wellspring in 2017.
The emphasis here is on first making disciples of men who are on fire for loving God and loving their neighbor.
Extrapolating this to the broader Synod implementation plan and inspiring what parish evangelization teams would call activated discipleship, the Church needs people who love God — with their heart, soul, body and strength — and love their neighbor.
“Only by moving through the discipleship gateway can people truly affect their parish, and their parish can affect them,” contend the writers of “No Man Left Behind.”
The gateway to discipleship (per the aforementioned book) for the Catholic Watchmen is following the basic disciplines of the movement that witness to love of God and love of neighbor. The basics of building that gateway are prayer, reading Scriptures, being a spiritual father, attending Mass, serving others, going to confession and having regular fellowship with a band of Christian brothers.
This all starts at home and extends to the parish community — strengthening family and parish life — and helping to evangelize and transform the culture. Ready, SET, go forth!
Deacon Bird ministers to St. Joseph in Rosemount and All Saints in Lakeville and assists with the archdiocesan Catholic Watchmen movement. See heroicmen com for existing tools supported by the archdiocese to enrich parish apostolates for ministry to men. For Watchmen start-up materials or any other questions regarding ministry to men contact him at gordonbird@rocketmail com
The Stealth Export of Waste Plastic Clothes to Kenya” can be Googled and watched on YouTube.
What’s “trashion”? It’s “fast fashion,” or clothing that has become so cheap it almost seems disposable. Wired Magazine reports that fashion brands are now producing twice the volume of clothing than they did in 2000. And literally, much of it becomes trash — sometimes in the most environmentally unfriendly ways.
Living simply is a near-universal principle of spiritual practice. When I joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps decades ago, “simple living” was one of the tenets, and it still is. But we are immersed in a consumer society. Coming to grips with our spending, especially on clothes, is a spiritual challenge.
In Kenya, 900 million items of clothing arrive annually, sometimes illegally in the dark of night. Maybe some of it was once mine. The supply vastly outpaces the demand. We’re introduced to real people who deal with this as a business. They’re unpacking the bales and weeding through them to see what may be marketable.
A woman in the documentary, wearing a cute T-shirt, possibly a “find” among the bales, shows us the waste contained in these bundles. A stained shirt, pants with holes, fabrics stretched or ripping. As she makes a pile of
Catholic social teaching espouses a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. In the public policy context, this means that policies should first be evaluated based on how they will affect those most in distress (Mt 25). It also means that addressing the needs of the poor and vulnerable should be one of the most important priorities in the legislative process, at whatever level of government.
To expand its anti-poverty advocacy, the Minnesota Catholic Conference has for decades joined the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, the Islamic Center of Minnesota and the Minnesota Council of Churches in sponsoring the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition (JRLC). Guided by God’s vision of the common good as reflected in Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, the JRLC mobilizes religious communities to influence public policy in Minnesota. Despite our differences, the JRLC tries to embody the importance of building common ground for the common good, as well as promoting civility in public discourse. The JRLC had some important legislative successes during the 2023 session.
The Sacred Settlements bill, which passed, provides a list of inspection and permitting guidelines for congregations that want to house chronically homeless people in tiny homes on their property. After three long years of advocacy, this bill is now law.
The JRLC became a champion of this bill when a pioneering Nazarene congregation in St. Paul offering these “tiny homes” brought it to the group’s attention, and it was clear that this religious liberty matter had to be resolved so that people of faith could be free to serve those most in need.
The JRLC sponsors are hopeful that more congregations will consider using the Sacred Settlements model to house their chronically homeless neighbors, and that more people will find supportive communities and permanent housing.
The proposed expansion of online sports betting did not pass this session. The JRLC has long opposed gambling expansion due to the harm it would cause low-income families and individuals dealing with gambling addiction, as well as its impact on young people prone to developing compulsive gambling behaviors.
The JRLC’s efforts concentrated on ensuring that any proposal discussed included extensive safeguards to mitigate potential harm. Most of those safeguards are present in the House and Senate versions of the bill. This work to mitigate the harms of putting online casinos on cellphones will continue into the 2024 session.
After a last-minute push to persuade the governor and Senate to adopt the House proposal of $150 million in emergency shelter funding, $137.53 million in emergency shelter funding was included as cash appropriations in the Capital Investment Bill. JRLC put together a letter of support as part of a significant effort by homelessness advocates to secure this funding. JRLC’s interfaith letter included signatures from 66 clergy, and among them were several of our state’s bishops. Expanding shelter capacity will help build out resources and beds ahead of this upcoming winter.
Inside the Capitol is an update from Minnesota Catholic Conference staff.
COMMENTARY | EFFIE CALDAROLA
When I was returning to the Church in my late 20s, I worked as a singer. Frequently, after I finished work very late, I would visit an adoration chapel open all night. I was often the only person there, except for Jesus. In those precious hours of quiet, on my knees before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, a fresh desire to embrace my faith and the Church’s devotions began to take root. You simply cannot be in the Real Presence and not be changed. It was then that I discovered the Rosary to the Holy Wounds.
This simple chaplet was given to a French nun in the 19th century, Sister Mary Martha Chambon (1841-1907), of the Monastery of the Visitation of Chambery. The cause for her beatification was introduced in 1937. Just as St. Faustina was given the Chaplet of Divine Mercy through interior locutions with the Lord, so Sister Mary Martha received this chaplet, along with the long list of promises that are offered to those who pray it. They include: “My wounds will repair yours,” “Plunge your actions into my wounds, and they will be of value,” “When you have trouble, something to suffer, quickly place it in my wounds and the pain will be alleviated.” This simple entreaty for healing of the soul quickly became one of my favorite devotions.
In previous columns, I’ve mentioned the influence that Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement have had on me.
Though sometimes today the movement is known for being only marginally Catholic, its founders — Day and Maurin — were staunchly loyal to the Church and its teachings and saw their movement as simply putting the faith into practice. They were probably the biggest influence in my decision to become Catholic in 2016. In this and subsequent columns, I’d like to introduce their thoughts and explain why their ideas are even more relevant for the Church today than they were in their own time.
Beginning in 1933, the movement sought to bring the social teachings of the Church to the poor and oppressed as well as the average Catholic in the pews. Amid the Great Depression, it was a time of great civil unrest and agitation, with competing social philosophies, ideologies and ways of life coming into increasingly open conflict with each other.
I have prayed it daily since.
I often teach this chaplet to groups when I travel to speak and without fail, people are drawn to it — or rather, drawn into it. After one retreat, however, a woman approached me and said, “But how do you do that? How do you place your wounds into the wounds of Christ?” I stammered in my reply. I had a sense of what that meant to me, but it was so personal, so deep, there really weren’t words to explain it.
But just recently, a holy woman of deep prayer gave me a compendium of Carthusian devotions to the Sacred Heart (“Ancient Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Carthusian Monks of the 14-17th Centuries,” Gracewing Publishing, 2018). To answer this woman’s question, these ancient voices have provided far better images than I might have conjured on my own. To “read the wounds of Christ,” that is, to understand them more fully, these holy monks drew upon the vivid themes of the Canticles: “The Holy Spirit says to us in the Canticle, ‘Come, O, my dove, into the clefts of the rock.’” They equated this hiding place with the holy wounds of Jesus. It’s worth resting a moment in this idea, especially in this month when we celebrated the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“The soul,” recommends one monk, “should fly away as a timid dove, and take refuge in the clefts of the Rock, namely in the Wounds of Jesus Christ, and above all in the deep hollow place ... in the Wound of the Side of Jesus and in His Heart. There she has nothing more to dread. If she builds her nest in the Heart of Jesus, if she there deposits her good works, there finds shelter, there rests and takes her sleep, the evil spirits will never attempt to set their snares for her; they dare not approach the Wounds and the Heart of Jesus.” Amen.
What wound would you hide in the cleft of the
It was a time of obvious inequality; hordes of those experiencing homelessness wandered the streets and many who could find employment were bound to mindless and lowpaying grunt work. It was an increasingly polarized time and people gravitated to the comfort and stability of well-worn social and political “camps.”
It was also a time that saw the rise of revolutionary new positions, such as communism, socialism and anarchism. And there were growing numbers who refused to engage in argument at all, cynically rejecting all reasoning about the “issues” as a waste of time. Politics, many thought, had become simply about power — and amounted to no more than a battle to get more than the other guy. So, political differences had begun to become absolute differences, with liberals and conservatives demonizing one another. Sound familiar? Today, everyone, it seems — including the poor, oppressed and even the growing number of homeless — is searching for someplace solid to stand. Catholics themselves, often precisely because of their faith, feel increasingly compelled to give their allegiance to this or that party.
The Catholic Worker had a message and a program for its time, as well as ours: the Catholic Church, too, has a vision of society and a well-developed philosophy of life that is deeply relevant to the pressing debates of the day. It is a philosophy rooted in the teachings of Jesus, the Fathers of the Church, and the message of the popes. It stands for solidarity with the poor, harmony between classes, justice for the oppressed, the sanctity of all life, the just distribution of wealth and power, simplicity of life, the goodness of labor, limits to government, peace and even pacifism, small and local
On the crucifix and first three beads:
O JESUS, Divine Redeemer, be merciful to us and to the whole world. Amen.
STRONG God, holy God, immortal God, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Amen.
GRACE and mercy, O my Jesus, during present dangers; cover us with Your Precious Blood. Amen.
ETERNAL Father, grant us mercy through the Blood of Jesus Christ, Your only Son; grant us mercy, we beseech You. Amen, Amen, Amen.
The following prayers, composed by Our Lord, are to be said using the rosary beads.
On the large (middle) beads:
Eternal Father, I offer You the Wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Response: To heal the wounds of our souls.
On the small (decade) beads: My Jesus, pardon and mercy.
Response: Through the merits of Your Holy Wounds.
rock of his sacred heart? An illness, a betrayal, a disappointment? Let’s borrow this ancient wisdom, purified and fashioned through lives of asceticism, and take refuge in the sacred heart of Jesus.
Stanchina is the author of 12 books, including “A Place Called Golgotha.” Find the Rosary to the Holy Wounds prayer card on her website or in her book, “The Rosary: A Path into Prayer” at lizk org
economies, and humane technology. The Catholic Worker program, outlined by Maurin, had and has three main aspects:
1. A newspaper, “The Catholic Worker,” and “roundtable” discussion to provoke conversation about, and awareness of, the Church’s social teaching;
2. Hospitality houses at which those experiencing homelessness could be fed and housed and at which Christians could meet Christ in the poor;
3. Farming cooperatives or “agronomic universities” (as Maurin called them) at which rich and poor alike could rediscover good work and re-establish a natural connection with the land.
Perhaps most relevantly, then as now, Day and Maurin hold out a comprehensive, wholistic vision of Catholic life. It is a vision through
which everything in life is seen in the light of the Gospel, and where every part of our lives, from what we eat for lunch to who we eat lunch with — and not just what we do on Sunday morning — are capable of being taken up into the mystery of Christ. The Catholic Worker holds not just a set of abstract social teachings, line items to take with you to the polls and then go back to life as usual, but a set of thoroughly Catholic practices to help reimagine daily life.
In the coming month, I’ll unpack this in more detail.
Miller is director of pastoral care and outreach at Assumption in St. Paul. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University, and lives with his family at the Maurin House Catholic Worker community in Columbia Heights. You can reach him at colin miller1@protonmail com
were very much the order of the day, but the spartan life was borne with humor-laced esprit de corps — except perhaps in the matter of shampoo. Marilou’s mom heavily diluted each bottle — on the theory that watered-down shampoo would go farther. Her daughters objected, “But Mom, we just end up using twice as much!”
Even in the family’s disagreements, I found much to admire. Still, I might’ve ended by concluding that Marilou’s family were just nicer people than my family and I were. Happily, the story doesn’t end there.
Marilou invited me to join her family at church.
I’d never been inside the local Catholic church, though our school bus passed the humble white frame building twice each day and our school days were punctuated by the ringing of its bells. None of that prepared me for what I would experience when I passed through the doors of St. Louis Catholic Church on a late April morning in 1967.
I think of the moment as the first expression of my Catholic gene. A coming home.
Within weeks, I’d begun private instruction that I assumed would lead to my baptism the following Easter. We were not a churchgoing family, but there was no particular hostility to the practice of faith. In fact, Mom read occasionally from the Bible she’d been given on the day she was confirmed in her Lutheran faith. And Dad frequently trumpeted that kids “should be allowed to make their own decisions about church.”
Turns out, Dad hadn’t meant that his kids were free to join “that” church. But it was St. Louis’ pastor who tapped the brakes on my conversion. As I came to the end of my period of instruction, Father urged delaying my baptism out of consideration for my parents’ feelings. He further asked me to spend time considering whether my eagerness to convert might be my “teenage rebellion.”
Nothing was lost in the waiting.
By Debbie KaczmarekMARILOU. The story of my being Catholic begins with that name.
It’s a decades-old story — and not an especially exciting one. I dusted it off recently, though, in response to an inquiry from our young pastor. I wished then — and now — that I could honestly include mention of a locution or two — or a vision, perhaps. I can’t. Still, there may be something in the ordinariness of my story that applies in this time when so many people identify as non-religious.
Marilou’s family farmed land at the opposite corner of our expansive rural school district. Still, I knew that the family was Catholic, for on Fridays, Marilou and her many siblings sat at the lunchroom tables occupied by students who could not consume school lunches, which ran heavily to Iowa beef and pork.
Maybe that was the initial attraction — that Marilou and I were from religious minorities. Catholics were scarce in our corner of Clay County; non-church-going households like mine were even less common. Or perhaps the connection was forged through music: Marilou, a grade ahead of me, was the creamy-voiced alto in several vocal ensembles in which I also sang. During my sophomore year, as we rehearsed after school and evenings for spring music competitions, Marilou invited me to join her family for supper.
That invitation planted the seed for my life as a Catholic.
Visiting Marilou’s home was my first experience of a home in which the Catholic faith was lived. It wasn’t a church-y place, though the farmhouse décor featured a crucifix and images of Jesus and Mary his mother, and meals were preceded by prayer. Frugality and discipline
The door to a Catholic life was opened to me by the simple hospitality of a farm girl. It was kept open — opened more widely — by the example of ordinary, faithful Catholics I encountered in the years before I joined the Church as a 21-year-old bride-to-be and in every day of the 50 years that have followed.
Kaczmarek retired from teaching English and speech to return to her farm roots. She and her husband, Duane, raise sheep and free-range chickens at St. Isidore Farm, their Rice County acreage. Lifelong involvement in the pro-life cause and interest in responsible public discourse led Kaczmarek to join in the founding of Speaking Proudly, an oratory contest for Minnesota high school girls. Parents of three grown children, the Kaczmareks are members of Immaculate Conception in Lonsdale.
“Why I am Catholic” is an ongoing series in The Catholic Spirit. Want to share why you are Catholic? Submit your story in 300-500 words to C S @
Grandparents Apostolate Feast Day and anniversary celebration — July 26: 8:45–10:30 a.m. at Nativity of Our Lord, 1938 Stanford Ave., St. Paul. The Grandparents Apostolate of Sts. Joachim and Anne will be celebrating the feast of its patron saints as well as its 12th anniversary. Chaplain and Parochial Vicar Father Bill Duffert will give a presentation. Mass at 8:15 a.m. Handicap accessible on Prior Ave. More information available on website. nativityStpaul org/eventS/grandparentS-feaSt-day-Celebrationwith-fr-bill
Help for struggling couples — Aug. 4-6 at Best Western Dakota Ridge Hotel, 3450 Washington Drive, Eagan. Retrouvaille is a lifeline for troubled marriages. Learn the tools to rediscover each other and heal marriage.100% confidential. Next weekend: Oct. 6-8. helpourmarriage org
Catholic Social Difference speaker series — Aug. 31, Sept. 7, 14, 21: 7–8:15 p.m. at Assumption, 51 7th St. W., St. Paul. The Catholic Social Difference is a four-week series (Aug. 3, Sept. 7, Sept. 14, Sept. 21) of conversations with local Catholic leaders (see website for speakers) introducing Catholic Social Teaching and imagining how to practice it in real life. Talks are free and open to the public. For more information and to register please visit CatholiCSoCialthought org CatholiCSoCialthought org/2023-CatholiC-SoCial-differenCe-Conf
Garden Party — July 9: 1–3 p.m. at Franciscan Retreats and Spirituality Center, 16385 St. Francis Lane, Prior Lake.
The friars will share refreshments and fellowship as visitors stroll the assorted garden and prairie areas and visit with the gardeners themselves. Retreat Center tours are available. franCiSCanretreatS net/eventS/garden-party
Elevate Life Golf Classic — July 31: 10 a.m.–7 p.m. at Crystal Lake Golf Course, 16725 Innsbrook Drive, Lakeville. Open to individual golfers and foursomes. Cost per golfer: $150. Elevate Life has been helping pregnancy centers and clinics thrive since 1974, assisting 38 centers and clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Not a golfer? Support the work of Elevate Life as a sponsor or donor. elevatelifeuSa org/golf
Bridge Club — Last Saturdays: 7–8:30 p.m. year-round at St. Joseph, 13015 Rockford Road, Plymouth. From veteran to new, all are invited. For additional information, contact Mike or Janet Malinowski 952-525-8708.
Calix Society — First and third Sundays: 9–10:30 a.m. First Sunday via Zoom, third Sunday in person hosted by the Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul. In Assembly Hall, lower level. Calix is a group of men, women, family or friends supporting the spiritual needs of recovering Catholics with alcohol or other addictions. Zoom meeting link, call Jim at 612-383-8232 or Steve at 612-327-4370.
Career Transition Group — Third Thursdays:
7:30–8:30 a.m. at Holy Name of Jesus, 155 County Road 24, Wayzata. Hosts speakers on various topics geared toward helping people look for a job, change careers or enhance job skills. Networking and opportunities for resume review. hnoj org/Career-tranSition-group
Caregivers Support Group — Third Thursdays: 6:30 p.m. at Guardian Angels, 8260 Fourth St. N., Oakdale. For anyone juggling the challenges of life, health, career and caring for an aging parent, grandparent, or spouse. guardianangelS org/event/1392201-2019-09-19-CaregiverS-Support-group
items worth saving, the waste pile quickly outgrows it. Kenyans have no more desire to wear torn, stained clothing than you or I do.
And what are “plastic clothes”? Many items in our closets fit this category. Amazingly, 342 million barrels of petroleum are used annually to produce plastic-based fibers such as polyester, nylon or acrylic. These fibers are cheap materials, but are not biodegradable and will be around, polluting rivers and oceans with microfiber, for centuries. Fashion is a surprisingly large contributor to our environmental crisis.
A man in the documentary shows us the nearby Nairobi River, clogged with garbage clothing. We see discarded remnants burning as fuel on an open cooking
Healing Hope grief support — Second and fourth Thursdays: 6 p.m. at St. Timothy, 707 89th Ave. NE, Blaine. Facilitated by Bob Bartlett, licensed therapist. No fees or required registration. ChurChofSttimothy Com
Job transitions and networking group — Tuesdays: 7–8:30 a.m. at St. Joseph the Worker, 7180 Hemlock Lane, Maple Grove. Network, share ideas and learn about searching for a job at this faith-based meeting every Tuesday. Email Bob at bob Sjtw@gmail Com or visit Sjtw net/job-tranSition-networking-group
Natural Family Planning (NFP) — Find a class at arChSpm org/family or call 651-291-4489.
Dunrovin Sunset Benefit Cruise — July 19: 5:30–9 p.m. at St. Croix Boat and Packet Company, 525 S. Main St., Stillwater. Please join us for Dunrovin Christian Brothers Retreat Center’s casual evening of fun, food and fundraising! Proceeds provide funds for underserved students who would otherwise not be able to afford a leadership retreat experience. Cost: $50 for individual tickets. To register: SeCure qgiv Com/for/dCbrC/event/867890/
For additional information, please visit: tinyurl Com/2ar88zff
Restorative Support for Victims-Survivors — Monthly: 6:30–8 p.m. via Zoom. Open to all victimssurvivors. Victim-survivor support group for those abused by clergy as adults — first Mondays. Support group for relatives or friends of victims of clergy sexual abuse — second Mondays. Victim-survivor support group — third Mondays. Survivor Peace Circle — third Tuesdays. Support group for men who have been sexually abused by clergy/ religious — fourth Wednesdays. Support group for present and former employees of faith-based institutions who have experienced abuse in any of its many forms — second Thursdays. Visit arChSpm org/healing or contact Paula Kaempffer, outreach coordinator for Restorative Justice and Abuse Prevention, kaempfferp@arChSpm org or 651-291-4429.
fire, spewing microfibers into the environment.
Some African nations — Zimbabwe, for example — have banned the import of secondhand clothing. But other nations endure the same problems as Kenya. Many of these nations have a poor capacity to manage landfills and process waste.
Here’s another statistic that’s mind-blowing: yearly, 8 billion plastic hangers end up in landfills.
What does this have to do with Catholicism?
Well, I love clothes as much as the next person and I’ve been guilty of “retail therapy” — that idle shopping which often results in the purchase of clothes I don’t need and wasted money which could have gone to a better cause. Filling our closets with things we don’t need won’t fill up any holes in our lives, or our spirits. For items we do need, there are lovely consignment shops. There are also upscale thrift stores, like the one I
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shop at frequently that supports a home for unsheltered pregnant moms.
Shopping in a more environmental fashion is an option. But when I am merely filling my own emptiness with more stuff, I need to stop and ask why. And how do I resist the pull of the void that is our consumer culture? How do I honor the environment and my faith by living more simply?
Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Seattle University. She is a columnist for OSV.
Editor’s Note: “Faith at Home” by Laura Kelly Fanucci is not available this month. More information as to when the column will resume will be provided at a later date.
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Beekeeper Kyle Hagberg spent time on a hot afternoon June 21 checking on hives in a section of Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights, part of an initiative by The Catholic Cemeteries also based in Mendota Heights, to implement principles found in Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.”
Thousands of bees fly throughout a section of Resurrection each day, pollinating native flowers as they go, whimsically bringing to mind a Scripture verse found in 1 Corinthians: “Where, O death, is thy sting?”
With the cemetery’s large tract of 190 acres, the bees in this section will not be near any cemetery visitors, said Joan Gecik, executive director of The Catholic Cemeteries.
Using a small metal smoker to calm the insects, Hagberg pulls out several wooden frames without incident, despite not wearing gloves. Hagberg, 31, a beekeeper for six years, is a member of a local team from Chicago-based Alvéole, which works to bring bees and education about them to businesses, schools and various organizations to meet engagement and sustainability goals. The Alvéole team maintains hives at Resurrection and at Gethsemane in New Hope, also part of The Catholic Cemeteries. Gethsemane presently has 10 hives and Resurrection 14.
Both serve as metro area staging grounds for hives in early spring that are distributed to local business representatives who agree to have hives on their property. If bees at client sites experience health problems, their hives are brought to one of the cemeteries so beekeepers can give them resources from the other, healthy hives and monitor them more frequently.
The Center for Mission at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is coordinating 15 to 20 two-hour listening sessions mid-August to September with Catholics across the archdiocese. Participants will be asked about “their experiences of the environment” and how those experiences relate to their faith and understanding of Catholic teaching on the environment.
Data gathered, reported anonymously by person and parish, will be used with other information to create a “Laudato Si’” action plan for the archdiocese. For details on dates and locations, watch for bulletin announcements and check online archdiocesan calendars in mid-July: thecatholicspirit com/calendar and archspm org/events
he said. “And there’s lots of native prairie growth around that area,” with much in bloom for bees to eat.
Hives at other sites, such as the Minneapolis Convention Center plaza, are kept smaller on purpose “so that (the bees are) nice,” Hagberg said, meaning less defensive. “We keep the population a little bit smaller because we bring people out to the hives to meet the bees,” including during educational workshops.
Larger hives at the cemeteries are not worrisome because “we’re beekeepers, we’re very comfortable working with bees that are a little bit more defensive,” he said.
The Catholic Cemeteries started working in spring 2022 with Alvéole, to place and maintain beehives at the two sites, and are adopting a number of ways to care for creation within the cemetery, Gecik said.
“We are doing a lot of pollinator grasses,” she said, overseeding a section and allowing grasses and flowers to grow. “It’s to preserve the earth and work with the pollinators.” The natural burial section at Resurrection is “Minnesota prairie,” Gecik said, not mowed and “very natural.”
Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, another of The Catholic Cemeteries, is considering adding “some pollinator areas and maybe some gardens around the cemetery,” Gecik said. “So, anything concerned with the environment, a lot of it comes from ‘Laudato Si’,’ because we are stewards of the earth for sure,” she said. “I think that’s part of what we’re called to do.”
Some ways to help the environment
are simply about preservation, Gecik said. “There’s so much development and no more green space for a lot of animals, plants and insects,” she said. “We’re basically ‘concretizing’ them out of what was their land,” she said. Hosting the hives promotes using spaces “that could help protect the animals and insects, and it supports the environment,” Gecik said.
The work of honeybees is vital to food supplies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in June 2022 that honeybees are the main commercial pollinator in the U.S., with more than 100 U.S.-grown crops relying on honeybees and other pollinators, “including birds, moths, butterflies and other insects.” The pollinators play “a key role in ensuring we have an abundant food supply and a vibrant ecosystem,” according to the USDA.
While Minnesota is home to more than 500 species of native bees, Italian honeybees are maintained at the two cemeteries because they are more “generalists,” Hagberg said, pollinating “a lot of different flowers, which is really good and useful,” while native bees only pollinate certain varieties. But native bees are about 300 times more efficient at pollinating, Hagberg said, “so it’s super important to keep the native pollinators around.”
The open spaces at the cemeteries are “just beautiful spots for the bees,” Hagberg said. “It’s basically everything you could ask for.” Bees like to be out in the open sun, especially in winter,
Having native prairie habitat that blooms “is amazing for the bees and also for native pollinators,” Hagberg said. The bees have “lots of native flowers to forage off of, and ... (cemetery staff) don’t spray any harsh chemicals, so they’re not contributing to any pesticide.” Hagberg said he always sees “a ton of insect life” at the cemeteries, which he doesn’t see everywhere.
Hairs on the bees’ legs are designed to grab pollen, and they “smooth that down to bring back to the hive,” Hagberg said. The rest of the pollen that attaches to their abdomen and body transfers to the stamens of each plant as they move from flower to flower, pollinating them as they collect their resources, he said. “It’s a beautifully symbiotic relationship that they have developed with the plants in order to provide for each other.”
In winter, the bees eat their honey and pollen, “and shake their wings and vibrate special muscles to keep the hive at about 95 degrees all winter,” Hagberg said.
In an article in the August 2022 issue of Catholic Cemetery magazine, Gecik wrote that shedding light on honeybees promotes the public’s attachment to them, ensuring “a commitment to all living beings as well as a transformed view of the environment.”
“We are not looking to go into the honey-producing business, but it is good to know that our cemeteries can be places to help sustain the environment even as we care for grieving families,” Gecik wrote.
