While Dan McNeil was a volunteer sponsor for the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) at Corpus Christi in Roseville earlier this year, he came up with an idea.

In 2025, he had spent nine days on the iconic Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain and thought it would be meaningful to do something on a smaller scale in Roseville. He was sponsoring Kade Flynn, who joined the Church in April, and he suggested to Flynn that the two go on a local pilgrimage. Flynn agreed, but it didn’t stop there.

“Then we decided to open it up to the parish,” McNeil said. The result was a one-day Sept. 26 pilgrimage that they named The Corpus Christi Way. McNeil and Flynn were joined by 21 others, who walked the streets of Roseville and parts of St. Paul before ending with Mass at Corpus Christi. Many were members of Corpus Christi, with others from St. Frances Cabrini in Minneapolis and St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Roseville.

The nine-mile pilgrimage began at the Franciscan Brothers of Peace Friary in St. Paul, next door to St. Columba. There was a brief time of prayer and a reflection on St. Francis of Assisi by Brother John Mary Kaspari, who also did the pilgrimage walk. After a blessing by a group of Franciscan Brothers, people embarked on their five-hour journey, with stops at two coffee shops and Holy Childhood church in St. Paul, where they could get bottled water and go to confession.

So, why do a pilgrimage like this?

“You know, it’s really simple — to help people grow in faith, to experience their faith, to exercise their faith,” McNeil said. Another key component was “to build community and help people know that they’re part of a community of faith.”

Having gone on the Camino de Santiago, which has routes in Portugal and France leading into Spain, McNeil wanted the Roseville pilgrimage to have a bit of Camino flavor. Each person wore a small button and cross, with 150 crosses donated by a parishioner of St. John Neumann in Eagan. Another feature was creating markers along the way — like those seen on the Camino — to keep people on track.

“The route was amazing,” McNeil said. “Kade picked out the route, did all the mapping of the route, and it brought us through a lot of wooded areas, a lot of (side) streets. We walked through the (Minnesota) State Fairgrounds, which was also nice.”

Flynn, 28, who joined the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass April 4 at Corpus Christi and had been attending Mass at Corpus Christi for more than three years, said he liked the fact that the pilgrimage went beyond the parish community, including the Franciscan Brothers of Peace. As Flynn and McNeil began talking with the brothers about the pilgrimage, Flynn began attending regular daily Masses at the brothers’ St. Paul friary.

“One of our hopes (for the pilgrimage) was to bring people together,” Flynn said. “It made me feel a real sense of God and (it) encouraged my faith.”

One important stop was at the original Corpus Christi church, which was built in 1940 at Cleveland and Buford avenues in St. Paul, near the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus. The parish was formed in 1939 and was named in honor of the 1941 National Eucharistic Congress, which the parish helped host, according to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

“I think it was very important for the Corpus Christi parishioners to go there and see where our faith community started,” McNeil said.

One final touch was creating a booklet for each person that could be stamped at stops along the route, similar to what happens on the Camino, McNeil noted. “We had stamps for each of the stops,” he said. “We had volunteers at the two coffee shops and then we had a stamp at the Holy Childhood church.”

“We want to do it next year,” McNeil said of The Corpus Christi Way pilgrimage. “We all thought it was a good experience.”

He added: “I think I heard Father Michael (Goodavish, pastor of Corpus Christi) say that he’d like us to do it again. So, I’d say it’s very likely we’ll do it again.”

Cretin-Derham Hall high school students gathered on their school’s football field in St. Paul Oct. 4 for an outdoor Sunday evening Mass aimed at helping young Catholics find community and take greater ownership of their faith.

Father Pat Kennedy — a 1969 graduate of Cretin High School, before it merged in 1987 with Derham Hall High School — celebrated the 6:30 p.m. Mass, which was part of Cretin-Derham Hall’s participation in Reclaiming Sundays, an initiative stemming from Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room.” Father Kennedy served as the school’s chaplain until he retired from that post in May.

For senior Ellie McQuillan, the Mass came at an especially fitting time.

“I feel like it’s really special timing being at the end of homecoming week,” McQuillan said before Mass. She looked forward to “getting to see everyone come together in a way that’s centered around faith, but still fun and casual.”

Jeb Myers, president of Cretin-Derham Hall, said the decision to celebrate Mass on the football field was partly practical. With about 800 students, the school’s organizers did not know whether 80 or 800 people would attend. The school’s chapel could not accommodate a large turnout, while preparing the field house for hundreds could leave it feeling empty if attendance was smaller.

Myers also drew inspiration from an outdoor Mass he attended years ago at a Benedictine priory in Vermont, where people sat on picnic blankets on a hill and the altar was in a barn.

His larger goal, however, is helping students develop ownership of their faith.

“We’re trying to build a community where students have full ownership of the Mass,” Myers said, including opportunities to participate as readers, music ministers and extraordinary ministers of holy Communion.

Christian Brother Michael Phipps, a licensed school counselor at Cretin-Derham Hall, said that sense of community is particularly important for young people.

“So much of when I’m talking and connecting with students, with young people, they’re looking for a community,” Brother Michael said.

Students sometimes share feelings of loneliness and isolation, he said. The Mass offered an opportunity for them to look around at their peers and recognize they are not alone in their faith journey.

In addition to the new Reclaiming Sunday Mass, which Cretin-Derham Hall plans to offer once every three weeks, the school offers a 7:30 a.m. weekly Mass in its Blessed Brother James Miller chapel.

“Celebrating Mass on the turf was intentional,” Brother Michael said. Young people can be suspicious of organized religion, and rather than simply expecting them to come to the Catholic Church, he said adults need to go to them.

Senior Katie Nobrega said before Mass that she was most looking forward to “community coming together.”

For Brother Michael, the timing during homecoming week gave that idea another meaning. Students already experience Cretin-Derham Hall as a home through the faith, academics, athletics and activities. The Mass offered another kind of homecoming.

“This Mass,” Brother Michael said, “is in some ways a spiritual homecoming.”

The U.S. Supreme Court began its new term Oct. 5, with cases on its schedule involving religious liberty, guns, immigration and the environment.

Among the noteworthy cases the high court will hear this term is St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, a clash between Catholic preschools and the state of Colorado over whether those schools can participate in the state’s universal preschool program.

Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, a religious liberty law firm representing the preschools in the case, told OSV News that their clients in the case and the Catholic Church in Colorado liked the idea of “a universal pre-K law designed to give every parent in the state the chance to send their kid to any pre-K program they want.” But he said the problem arose because “Colorado’s definition of universal excludes all the Catholic schools.”

“If your school operates according to teachings on sex and marriage that the state of Colorado does not like, Colorado says you can’t be in this program,” he said.

The program provides funds — up to about $6,000 — to parents to send their child to the preschool of their choice, public or private, including faith-based schools. However, Colorado has argued the Catholic preschools ran afoul of a nondiscrimination rule in the program that prohibits participating schools from refusing admission to any child on the basis of the sexual orientation and gender identity of the child or the child’s family.

Rienzi pointed to previous Supreme Court rulings that he said were relevant precedent in the case, including Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and Carson v. Makin. Each of those cases involved the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“I suspect the court will have some déjà vu and think that they’ve been here before,” he said.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy on Nov. 3., which is also Election Day for the 2026 midterms.

In another religious liberty case, the court will also consider Missionaries of St. John the Baptist, Inc. v. Frederic, a dispute that began in 2021 over a local zoning ordinance in Kentucky that prevented a religious organization from building a Marian shrine on its own property, which includes a church, because it was zoned as residential.

First Liberty Institute is representing the Missionaries of St. John the Baptist, a group of priests whose status as a public association of the faithful was suppressed in 2024 by Bishop John C. Iffert of Covington. While members of the Missionarities of St. John the Baptist no longer minister at the parish, the organization’s nonprofit corporation owns Our Lady of Lourdes’ church building and property in Park Hills, Kentucky, where the shrine was prohibited. Neither the Diocese of Covington nor Our Lady of Lourdes Parish are parties to the case.

“Telling a church it can’t build a modest place for prayer and reflection on its own property is outrageous,” Kelly Shackelford, First Liberty Institute president, CEO and chief counsel, said in an Oct. 2 statement. “Federal law provides clear protections for how faith-based organizations can use their property to support their mission. This is an important case for religious freedom.”

Asked how he expects the high court to approach religious liberty cases more broadly this term, Rienzi said, “I think the court’s been doing a good job taking religious liberty cases and making clear that religious liberty really protects the right of people to have different beliefs from what the government has, and to live those out, and to be treated fairly and equally in our society while living those out.”

Other cases the court will consider include a challenge to the Trump administration policy of carrying out third-country deportations, or removals to a country where a person who had migrated to the United States has no ties, and its policy of mandatory detention during deportation proceedings.

In Viramontes v. Cook County, scheduled for Dec. 2, the court will hear a dispute over whether local ordinances banning AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles, commonly called “assault weapons,” violate the Second Amendment.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in an amicus brief that did not take a side on the constitutional question, urged the court to decide the case “in a manner that preserves the traditional authority of political communities to regulate weapons capable of exceptional violence and that threaten the public peace.”

It stated, “Three principles embedded in our constitutional tradition, and independently affirmed in Catholic teaching, bear on this case: the right of self-defense, which is genuine but not unlimited; the government’’s authority to promote the common good and public safety; and the autonomy of local communities — federalism, which the Church knows as subsidiarity — to calibrate regulation to local conditions.”

During its 2025-2026 term, the high court issued major rulings striking down President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s sweeping tariff policy, but also permitting the Trump administration to reimplement a policy of turning away asylum-seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border before they enter the country, known as “metering,” and to end a temporary designation that shielded eligible Haitian and Syrian immigrants living in the U.S. from deportation. The court also upheld state laws requiring student athletes to compete on sports teams that correspond to their biological sex rather than their self-identified gender, among other key rulings.

The new term also begins as Trump has criticized the justices for ruling against his position in some of those cases. In an interview with Time published Oct. 1, Trump lashed out about the cases he saw as losses, and said he regretted selecting the three justices he nominated to the high court during his first term.

Rick Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, told OSV News that while Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch do not always agree with each other, “It was never the job of these justices — or of any justice — to somehow pay back the president who nominated them.”

“All three of President Trump’s nominees were and are talented and conscientious lawyers, who take seriously their oaths to the Constitution,” he said. “They do not regard their task as voting for, or against, the president; their task is to decide legal questions that are presented in legal disputes.”

Meanwhile, a recent Marquette Law School Poll national survey found approval of the Supreme Court dipped to 43% in September, down from 47% in July, closer to the conclusion of its previous term. The same poll found 60% of adults said the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Trump administration often or fairly often, while 40% said it has done so rarely or never.

On Oct. 5, the Supreme Court hears two cases: a lawsuit from officials in Boulder, Colorado, seeking to hold oil companies liable for driving climate change, and another case regarding a law limiting disability benefits for some incarcerated veterans.

Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington.

More than 100 seminarians in three buses from The St. Paul Seminary and 16 seminarians in three minivans from St. John Vianney College Seminary (SJV), both in St. Paul, traveled to St. Louis for the beatification Mass of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

“We absorbed all the trip had to offer by listening to (Blessed Sheen’s) radio archives, joining in prayer and seminarian fraternity, and experiencing the breadth and depth of the Catholic Church in America at the expo” area of the Dome at America’s Center, said second-year SJV seminarian Jack Van Moorleghem from the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska. “The journey culminated in the beatification Mass, the veneration of Blessed Sheen’s relics, and a visit to his tomb in Peoria, Illinois.”

Van Moorleghem said as he walked about the length of a football field processing into the Mass with seminarians and clergy, the choir sang from Daniel 3:84, “Priests of God, bless the Lord; praise the Lord, praise and exalt him above all forever, alleluia.”

“I like to think Fulton Sheen would have seen that as a poignant reminder that the priest is a visible sign of sacrifice and blessing through Jesus, upward to the Father,” said Van Moorleghem, whose group of seminarians were accompanied by Father Jonathan Kelly, SJV’s rector, and Father Jim Olofson, vice-rector.

Father Joseph Taphorn, rector and vice president of The St. Paul Seminary, said it was “a big lift” to bring 102 of the seminary’s 104 seminarians to the Mass (two seminarians were unable to go); Blessed Sheen studied at the seminary from 1917 to 1919 before being ordained for the Diocese of Peoria in the fall of 1919. “We simply couldn’t miss this!” Father Taphorn wrote in an email.

“Participating in the Mass, processing in with over 1,000 priests and over 800 seminarians and praying with attendees at our St. Paul Seminary intercessory prayer booth all reignited our joy for the Holy Spirit alive in the Church today,” Father Taphorn wrote.

William Heller, a third-year seminarian at The St. Paul Seminary from the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, noted the vast congregation of 50,000 at the Mass — young and old, families and single people.

Processing into the Mass, he saw people in tears, all gathered “to worship Jesus in a very special way,” Heller said — like in heaven.

“Seeing the impact of one man and his evangelization of all types of people” in such great numbers was overwhelming, he said.

Deacon Tobias Ellis, a seminarian at The St. Paul Seminary who will be ordained June 5, 2027, for the Diocese of St. Cloud, said he thought about something he heard Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston say about the meaning of Blessed Sheen’s beatification: “Then it’s possible for me to be a saint.”

Deacon Ellis said of Blessed Sheen, “He prayed at the same chapel where I am being formed.”

It was at that chapel that Blessed Sheen promised God he would make a Holy Hour before the Eucharist every day for the rest of his life — and he kept the promise.

The St. Paul Seminary helped sponsor the beatification Mass and with that came the opportunity to staff two booths, Father Taphorn said. One was dedicated to information about the seminary and the other was devoted to seminarians taking turns praying in pairs with people in the expo area of the Dome. More than 30 seminarians prayed for seven hours with visitors and attendees.

“Throughout the day, the line for prayer grew, so seminarians not signed up as volunteers jumped in to help,” Father Taphorn said. “Bishop (Michael) Izen stopped by a few times.”

Toward evening, Father Taphorn said, he was blessed to pray over people as well. “We heard intentions close to the heart and felt the presence of our healing God upon his people,” he said. “The air was thick with the Holy Spirit.”

The seminary also distributed 800 free copies of The St. Paul Seminary Press’ new book release: “The Hour: Reflections on the Holy Hour inspired by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.” The book includes a reprint of the chapter, “The Hour That Makes My Day,” from Blessed Sheen’s autobiography “Treasure in Clay,” along with 10 devotional essays on the power of the Holy Hour with writers including Archbishop Bernard Hebda; Bishop Cozzens; and priests, deacons and lay leaders at the seminary.

“It’s a unique volume offering insights into the contributors’ prayer lives, and we’re trusting that it will inspire and encourage a continuation of the Holy Hour practice, one that Sheen began at the seminary and continued his whole life,” Father Taphorn said.

Janine Ricker, global mission outreach coordinator for the St. Paul-based Center for Mission, said that through her office, 45 pilgrims attended the beatification Mass of Blessed Fulton J. Sheen in St. Louis Sept. 24.

“Most are from this Archdiocese (of St. Paul and Minneapolis), but we also have people joining us from as far away as Fargo and Green Bay,” Ricker wrote in an email Sept. 11. “And we have three priests from the Diocese of Kitui (in Kenya) also joining us!”

One pilgrim from Green Bay, Wisconsin, was 26-year-old Lily Smith. Being one of the youngest pilgrims on the bus to St. Louis, Smith said it was a gift to see the experience through the eyes of people older than her.

Archbishop Sheen died about 21 years before Smith was even born. Still, Smith said Archbishop Sheen is the reason she was baptized.

“My family wasn’t (Catholic),” Smith said. “When I converted to the faith, Bishop Sheen was my primary catechist.”

Everything she knows about the faith she originally learned from Archbishop Sheen, Smith said.

“I discerned with a cloistered Carmelite order because of his influence, and I’m studying theology and sacred art now. He’s been a huge, huge influence in my life.”

Much of Archbishop Sheen’s productions, such as TV shows and radio broadcasts, have been preserved online, which is how Smith found him.

“I think there was probably like 20 or 30 years in between the time he died up until the internet became a thing that a lot of his media wasn’t easily accessible,” Smith said. “But he was so prolific in his creation of these things that you could find him talking about just about anything. That’s a lot of what I consumed when I was in RCIA (now OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) and just trying to learn more about Jesus.”

Smith will have been Catholic for 10 years this coming Easter. She joked that she’ll be 10 years old.

The Center for Mission, which promotes and coordinates the global mission outreach of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, sponsored the trip with Father Spencer Howe, pastor of Holy Cross in Minneapolis. Ricker and Deacon Mickey Friesen, director of the center, were the two leaders from the Center for Mission.

The group left Sept. 21 and returned Sept. 25. On the way to St. Louis, the Center for Mission pilgrims stopped in Peoria, Illinois, to visit sites related to Archbishop Sheen.

Janie Marie Rief, a pilgrim on the trip with her husband, Mike, said Ricker took care of everything and made the trip easy.

“It was a beautiful trip on the way down,” Jane Marie Rief said. “We enjoyed prayer together. We watched Fulton Sheen videos, and that was fun.”

At the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, before Archbishop Sheen’s beatification, the altar was covered in a cloth. His tomb was covered too, said Joel Justin, a pilgrim on the trip with his wife, Karin.

“On Tuesday, we had time at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria,” Jane Marie Rief said. “We had ample time and a tour of St. Mary’s. Then we had time to just sit in prayer by then-Venerable Sheen’s tomb. That was lovely.”

Then, on the way back from St. Louis, the group stopped for Mass again at the cathedral in Peoria. There was a long line to pray in front of Archbishop Sheen’s tomb, Joel Justin said.

“The moment (Archbishop Sheen) became a (blessed) in St. Louis, they showed a video of the people in Peoria removing the cloth from the tomb and from the altar and everything,” Joel Justin said. “We were there Tuesday. Most people at the (beatification) probably had no idea that feeling that we had because we saw the altar being covered and then to see it being removed at the exact same time was very, very powerful. It was just too awesome for words.”

Jane Marie Rief said this moment made both churches feel united.

Joel Justin said he watched Archbishop Sheen’s TV programs on EWTN.

“I’m not old enough to (have) watch(ed) it on TV. My parents were,” Joel Justin said. “When I heard about (the beatification), I told Karin we’re going. It’s the same thing back in 2024 with the Eucharistic Congress. There hasn’t been one for a long, long time; Karin, we’re going. I’m really serious about my faith. I thought the Eucharistic Congress was going to be once in a lifetime. And the beautification Mass? I found out there are only two of them in our country.”

On Sept. 23, the group went to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis and attended the vespers that night for Archbishop Sheen.

Smith said Bishop Robert Barron, of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, gave a moving speech.

“It was amazing to see all of the priests and seminarians there, and the whole place was packed,” Smith said. “I was amazed because I got to see my bishop and vicar general there, and I didn’t see anybody else I knew.”

Smith said that during the beatification Mass Sept. 24, there were easily 50,000 people in attendance. The Mass was close to three hours long, Joel Justin said.

Mike Rief said the entrance procession for the beatification Mass had thousands of seminarians, priests, bishops and cardinals coming into the church.

“That didn’t even count the (religious) sisters and any brothers that were already present before the procession started,” Mike Rief said. “It was just such a beautiful outpouring of support from everywhere and everyone possible.”

“It was kind of hard to walk around. There were so many people,” Smith said. “It was a huge grace to see just how loud the expo hall would be, and then you go in for adoration or see people waiting in line for confession, and it was as quiet as you can get.”

During the Mass, a relic of Archbishop Sheen was unveiled. Smith expected a tuft of hair, or something small. She couldn’t believe it when Archbishop Sheen’s jaw was brought out for veneration.

“It was amazing to be able to see the jaw that taught me everything I know and introduced me to Christ,” Smith said. “He’s as close as a family member to me, I would say, in regard to his intercession in my life, and in regard to his mission and how much he loved the poor.”

During the trip, Joel Justin met a woman from another country in an elevator. She gave him extra books about Archbishop Sheen that she didn’t use. Joel Justin gave the books to Ricker to give to others back home, because “not everybody could have gone.”

In Peoria, the Center for Mission group stopped at the Archbishop Fulton Sheen Museum. There, the Justins picked up a video about Archbishop Sheen that they watched on the bus ride to St. Louis.

“That made the trip to St. Louis really special,” Joel Justin said.

On the way home from St. Louis, Archbishop Bernard Hebda traveled with the group. During the trip back, Archbishop Hebda spoke and let the pilgrims ask any questions they had.

“The conversations were just a real blessing,” Jane Marie Rief said. It started with “questions about the beatification process, and then just kind of grew into just questions about the archdiocese and the Church outright. … That was a real pleasure to have lunch and to interact with the archbishop in that way.”

Mike Rief said he feels far more enlightened about Archbishop Fulton Sheen than ever before. Jane Marie Rief agreed and said that whenever she reads the works of the saints, “it’s like a journey, getting to meet a new friend.”

“I feel like I know Archbishop Bolton Sheen better now,” Jane Marie Rieef said. “You just really get to know these saints. You’ve got another person that you can ask to intercede for you.”

Jane Marie Rief said she and Mike Rief went to the beatification because it’s a rare opportunity to see a beatification Mass in the United States.

“Once upon a time, as a very young married couple, the pope (St. John Paul II) came,” Mike Rief said. “He was in Iowa, and we said, ‘Oh, we’ll catch it the next time around. We’re busy. We’re still going to school. We got studying and tests and whatnot.’ What a dumb thing to say! How often does the pope come around? Having missed that and kicking ourselves, we’re not getting another opportunity like this.”

Jane Marie Rief said the year was 1979. She and her husband were attending Iowa State in Ames, only a 30-minute drive from the gathering.

“Michael’s parents called us and invited us to come with them, and we said, ‘Oh, we just couldn’t manage to. We had too much going on. We couldn’t do that.’ Never knowing what a special moment that was.”

“We weren’t gonna have that happen a second time,” Mike Rief said.

It seemed a foregone conclusion that a contingent from Holy Spirit Academy in Monticello would travel to St. Louis for the beatification Mass of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Sept. 24.

When the school first opened in 2014, the founders proclaimed that Archbishop Sheen, named venerable at the time, would be the patron of the school. As time went on, he became a more integral part of everyday life at the school. His writings are now part of the theology curriculum and a prayer for his intercession is read aloud every day.

“The founders were really inspired by Blessed Sheen’s ability to evangelize,” said Andrew Lang, 42, headmaster of Holy Spirit Academy. “He was, of course, profoundly wise and knowledgeable in matters of the faith, but he was also wordly-wise in the sense that he knew how to communicate the perennial truths of our faith in a way that was accessible to so many people.”

Twenty-four students, nearly half of the school’s population in grades nine through 12, rode on a bus to St. Louis, along with four school staff members, including Lang, and about a dozen parents. Still other families and alumni drove separately, which pushed the total of students to about 30, Lang said. That number included two of Lang’s children — Leo, a junior, and Eve, a sophomore. A third child, eighth grader Madeleine, also made the trip.

“We were greeted with an absolutely marvelous experience at the beatification,” Lang said, noting that there was a Holy Spirit Academy family in attendance spanning three generations. “Holy Spirit Academy alum, Jacob Roberg in the class of 2026, was one of the seminarians (at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul) in the marvelous Mass procession, which was one of the highlights of the day.”

Holy Spirit Academy students were primed and ready for the afternoon beatification. On the way down, they read books by Blessed Sheen that were donated to the school just the week before. They arrived several hours early at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, where the beatification Mass was held, to browse the numerous exhibits featuring information about Blessed Sheen.

“I think we got into the event center at around 8:30 or 9 (a.m.),” Lang said, which was more than four hours before the start of Mass. “We got there before the big rush and that allowed us to do a lot of engaging in the different presentations and expos they had on Fulton Sheen. There was a tremendous amount of information about him and a lot of amazing archival footage and books for sale, and all kinds of things.”

Even though students are now back in the classroom at Holy Spirit Academy, the impact of being at the beatification Mass has not ended. The next step is praying for his canonization, which will require a second miracle attributed to Blessed Sheen’s intercession.

Lang had cards made with a prayer asking for the canonization of Blessed Sheen and he is handing them out to students, family members and others. In the meantime, everyone at the school will continue reading daily a special prayer asking for the intercession of Blessed Sheen. It reads, in part:

“Grant that through the intercession of Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, we may pursue the truth with the same zeal shown by our patron in his studies and teaching. Guide us by his example and give us the grace to become holy, as he did, by fearlessly bringing the Gospel to others.”

“That’s a unique prayer to our school,” said Lang, an avid reader who has his own collection of about 30 books written by Blessed Sheen. “Now, I think there is a new chapter of devotion to him. … We’ve been praying for his beatification for a decade. Now, we get to pray for his canonization, and we’re looking forward to that.”

A photograph of Pope Leo XIV blessing Marie-Garance, a 10-year-old girl in a blue dress who has multiple disabilities, went viral after the pope encountered her in Paris Sept. 26.

A police officer lifted the girl into his arms as the pope passed in the popemobile along the Champs-Elysees before Mass at Place de la Concorde.

Agence France Press photographer Ludovic Marin captured the moment the pope leaned toward Marie-Garance, took her hand and met her eyes. Her adoptive mother, Clotilde Noël, told OSV News the blessing represented vulnerable people who are often set aside because they are different.

Following the special moment, Noël gave numerous interviews on television and in newspapers, speaking about the special blessing for her daughters.

Noël’s other daughter, Pépa Teresa, also got a papal blessing that day, but was not photographed. She uses a wheelchair, though her disability is slightly less severe.

“I agreed to share my story because, for me, these blessings went far beyond them and our family,” Noël told OSV News.

“Marie-Garance was carried into the pope’s arms and looked at him with trust and a sense of surrender,” she said. “Carried by others, she represented that entire segment of humanity that is so often set aside because it is different, and particularly vulnerable.”

After that moment, there was a moment of silence around the Noël family, followed by warm applause. “It was a tribute to Marie-Garance, one she truly deserved!” Noël said. “All around us, the emotion was palpable.”

“This little girl was born anonymously, and that in itself is a miracle,” Noël continued. “I saw the pope’s blessing as a blessing for Marie-Garance’s biological parents as well. I pay tribute to them, because they chose to bring her into the world, despite all her disabilities. Through her, the pope’s blessing was for all courageous parents who face complicated, troubled lives, yet still decide to bring the children they carry into the world — even if other arms will eventually carry them, just as Marie-Garance was carried from hand to hand, all the way to the pope.”

Today, Clotilde and her husband, Nicolas, have 10 children, four of whom they have adopted — all their nonbiological children have disabilities.

“We are blessed to have been chosen to be the parents of these children,” she said. “They never cease to amaze us. My husband often talks about how fortunate he feels to have them, because they’ve taught him to be more patient — due to the slower pace they require of us — and more grounded in the value of each present moment. He often says that thanks to them, his life is deeply meaningful and overflowing with tenderness, rather than being swept up in a whirlwind of hectic activities.”

Marie, who has Down syndrome, was the first to be adopted by the family in 2013, when the Noëls already had six biological children. She was just a few months old at the time. Next came Marie-Garance. “She was so severely disabled that social services couldn’t even imagine placing her with an adoptive family,” Noël said.

She was followed by a little boy, Frédéric Moïse. “He had a fairly severe physical disability that prevented him from feeding himself and walking normally,” Noël recounted. “But now he’s doing very well.”

Finally, Pepa Teresa arrived. “She came to live with us at four and a half, straight from the hospital,” the mother explained.

“At first, it was simply a long-term foster placement, at the request of social services, who didn’t think they could place her for adoption. Then we decided to keep her with us forever. She is seven years old now.”

For Noël, this unusual journey she has shared with her husband is a “vocation within a vocation,” which first manifested as “her desire to learn more about adoption.”

“I had to find out more, because this desire was eating away at me so much,” she said. “I then discovered that only children with disabilities were eligible for adoption. And there were many.”

“Before I got married, I had thought about becoming a nun,” Noël explained about her life vocation search. “And I had also considered going on humanitarian missions. But in the end, all those aspirations came together in this mission to serve these children, right within our own family, rather than on distant missions in other countries. This calling, then, was born within our calling to marriage, which comes first.”

“My husband accepted it,” she said, “and I thank him for that. His acceptance is a daily commitment, reflected in the practical care we must provide for our children every day — children who sometimes have long hospital stays, during which we spend a great deal of time with them whenever necessary.”

Noël emphasized the “sense of wonder” her children inspire in her, which she sought to convey in the three books she has written to tell their story, rich with joyful anecdotes, with the account of their spiritual journey as parents, and the transformation of every member of their family brought about by the arrival of these children.

The second of these books, “Risquer l’infini” (“Take a Chance on Infinity”), is dedicated to Marie-Garance’s story. Noël is now working on a fourth book.

For Noël, however, this sense of wonder goes hand in hand with a deep concern for the experiences of other parents of children with disabilities. Together with her husband, she founded the organization Tombée du Nid, or Fallen From the Nest in English, named after her first book, to support them.

“I thought of all of them when I saw Marie-Garance being blessed by the pope,” she said. “As for us, we have not endured anything. We have not suffered. We have not been physically wounded by the discovery of a disability. There is a great deal of suffering that we have not experienced.”

Noël said she was moved by the pope’s words in his homily, that day, in which he spoke of families “who face many difficulties in their daily lives and courageously persevere in their mission.”

“He spoke of Christ carrying the weary or wounded sheep on his shoulders,” she said. “Many parents do suffer. Many mothers lead painful lives, for a variety of reasons. Marie-Garance’s blessing was also for all of them. It was like a breath of fresh air and a source of comfort for all those for whom life is hard. The pope is truly the guardian of our humanity. He brings light into our darkness.”

Caroline de Sury writes for OSV News from Paris.

“That the world may have life.” Few papal journeys have embodied their motto as fully as Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic journey to France.

From his arrival in Paris on Sept. 25 to his encounters with the sick and disabled in Lourdes, Pope Leo made the dignity of every human life the defining theme of his first visit to the country.

He challenged French lawmakers over their recent approval of assisted dying, condemned abortion and surrogacy, and delivered a message that extended beyond the political debates of the moment: No human life is disposable, and suffering does not diminish a person’s worth.

Pope Leo’s previous visits to other countries this year have highlighted different priorities of his emerging pontificate. In visits to the Canary Islands and Lampedusa, he offered a strong and politically nuanced defence of the rights and dignity of migrants. Throughout his journey to four countries in Africa, the pope cemented his identity as a global voice for peace, refusing to back down from his calls to end war in the face of personal attacks from President Donald Trump.

But France was where Pope Leo emerged most visibly on the world stage as the voice for the disabled, the elderly, the unborn, and the most vulnerable in a society that, he warned, risks mistaking death as the answer to human suffering.

The pope’s defense of life touched on some of Europe’s most contentious social questions, yet with his humble and measured manner, his message hit differently than the “culture wars” of decades past.

Pope Leo was received like a rockstar by hundreds of thousands of people in France, even by those who might disagree with his positions politically. The most visible of which was President Emmanuel Macron, an ardent supporter of the “assisted dying” bill to legalize euthanasia in France earlier this year who also championed the French Parliament in making abortion a constitutional right in 2024.

Yet after Pope Leo came to Macron’s official residence, the Élysée Palace, and proclaimed that “the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation of every other human right” in a speech that condemned “assisted dying,” abortion and surrogacy, Macron went out of his way to rearrange his schedule to be able to attend Mass with the pope at Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Metz on Sept. 28, despite criticism that the president’s political opponents who argued that his attendance violated “laïcité” — France’s strict principle of separation between church and state.

Pope Leo also used his visit to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris to deliver a warning about the relationship between technological progress and human dignity. In the speech, widely anticipated to touch on the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, the pope warned diplomats and academics gathered at the U.N. agency that human dignity was being discarded in the name of efficiency and productivity in the era of AI.

The following day, more than 800,000 turned out for Pope Leo’s Mass in the heart of Paris, lining the Champs-Élysées with all eyes looking toward the papal altar where six of the altar servers with Down syndrome assisted Pope Leo with the Mass, a poignant witness to life in the capital of a country where 68% of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome end in abortion, according to a 2020 study published in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

It was just before that Mass that a photograph, described by some as the defining image of Pope Leo’s pontificate so far, was taken and quickly went viral. The image shows the pope blessing Marie-Garance, a 10-year-old girl with multiple disabilities wearing a blue dress. Some observers noted its composition and emotional resonance, comparing it to Michelangelo’s famed “Pietà.”

Speaking to OSV News after the photograph circulated widely, the girl’s adoptive mother, Clotilde Noël, who has adopted four children with disabilities, said she saw the pope’s blessing as extending to Marie-Garance’s biological parents as well.

“I pay tribute to them, because they chose to bring her into the world, despite all her disabilities,” Noël said.

For Pope Leo, one of his personal highlights of the four-day apostolic journey to France was his visit to Lourdes. During the in-flight press conference, he described the experience of accompanying the sick and suffering as especially meaningful.

“Walking with, accompanying so many people who are sick and suffering and seeing how the grace of God’s presence manifested in many different ways, touches people’s hearts, transforms their lives, and — to use an expression that I mentioned there — restores dignity to the sick, the elderly, those who in some parts of society are discarded,” he said.

The visit to the Marian shrine in Lourdes, which draws thousands of people with sickness or disabilities each year, was filled with moving encounters between the pope and pilgrims. The pope praised the shrine as being a place where the sick and disabled are not simply accommodated, but are welcomed, honored, and celebrated.

From her wheelchair, Gabriella Panizzardi, 84, from Milan, Italy, described to OSV News why she had returned to Lourdes for her 15th pilgrimage.

“Look at this heavenly sight, something out of the ordinary — it brings such peace. Yes, everyone loves one another and helps those who are sick. It’s beautiful, truly,” she said.

It was in a speech outside the Accueil Notre Dame in the Lourdes sanctuary, addressing the sick and suffering and their caregivers directly, that Pope Leo delivered what could be considered some of the strongest words of his pontificate so far in defense of human life.

“No one ever has the right on the basis of laboratory algorithms, to decide the life of a given embryo or elderly person!” the pope declared. “Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death.”

Speaking directly to the sick and disabled, the pope said, “No human law should ever make you lose the certainty of your dignity. On the contrary, it is precisely in the name of this inalienable dignity of the human person that we must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion.”

“It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal. What is legal is not necessarily moral,” he added, as his speech was repeatedly interrupted by thunderous applause from people in wheelchairs, medical patients, their families and caregivers.

Pope Leo’s forceful defense of human life during his Sept. 25-28 visit to France also reignited debate over the country’s assisted-dying legislation, which lawmakers had largely considered settled following its passage through Parliament in July.

“The pope’s remarks in Lourdes come at just the right time to ensure we do not give up the fight against these deadly laws,” Lucie Pacherie, a lawyer and spokesperson for the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, told OSV News after the visit.

During the in-flight press conference on his return from France, Pope Leo was asked why he had spoken so frequently about euthanasia and end-of-life issues during the trip. He responded that the Church’s defense of life was not an attempt to enter political debates.

“When the Church speaks about defending life, when it speaks about questions of social doctrine, we’re not entering into politics, we’re applying the Gospel to people’s lives,” he said.

“The defense of life is something that as you all know the Church teaches, believes very deeply,” he added, acknowledging that France and other countries in Europe and around the world were debating end-of-life legislation.

But he returned to the experience of Lourdes, where people living with sickness, disability and pain were searching for something deeper: an understanding that their lives still held meaning.

“Being in a place especially like Lourdes where people are searching for something much deeper and understanding that their lives, even in the midst of sickness or disability or pain of different kinds, that their life has meaning,” he said. “The Church, because of Jesus Himself, wants to be close to those people and to affirm the values that life itself I think holds for all of us.”

“So, I would say, if that’s politics, I did that,” he concluded. “But it was not to get involved in French politics. It was to teach what the Church really believes.”

Courtney Mares is Vatican editor for OSV News.

Honoring a diocesan partnership that spans 21 years, two officials with the Center for Mission within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis traveled to Kenya in August to attend the episcopal ordination of Bishop John Mbua Mwandi for the Diocese of Kitui.

The bishop is a longtime friend to the archdiocese, having participated as a priest in the partnership since its inception. Only last year, now-Bishop Mwandi visited archdiocesan offices, parishes and schools with six other priests, a nun and four laypeople from Kitui as part of the two-way partnership that has developed. In January 2027, a delegation of 13 people from the archdiocese will visit the Diocese of Kitui.

In addition to a spiritual and pastoral partnership, the archdiocese, through donations, has helped build sand dams and install water tanks to capture badly needed water in the Diocese of Kitui.

“It is out of (God’s) love that you have made a difference in Kitui, which is arid and dry, and many people are living without water, and you have provided water to the people in Kitui,” now-Bishop Mwandi said last year during his homily at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul while presiding at Mass in the chapel.

“Bishop Mwandi has been here multiple times,” said Kim Williams. Williams, office manager for the center, traveled with Janine Ricker, the center’s global mission outreach coordinator, to Bishop Mwandi’s Aug. 8 ordination. “We know he is totally on board with the partnership and will take it to new levels.”

The exuberance at the ordination was expressed through singing and dancing, with an opening procession of children ranging from youngest to oldest as clergy processed to the altar, including Bishop Joseph Maluki Mwongela, Bishop Mwandi’s predecessor in the Diocese of Kitui who now serves as the coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Machakos in Kenya.

“I love being in Kitui,” said Williams, who was a delegate on an archdiocesan trip to Kitui in 2023. “I love worship in Kitui because they are all-in when it comes to worship. They sing with their whole heart. I hear four-part harmonies in the congregation.”

The ordination Mass — which was celebrated outdoors with tents and colorful drapery at the St. Charles Lwanga Secondary School near the town of Kitui — drew about 12,000 people, Williams said. It was particularly joyful because Bishop Mwandi was born and raised in the Diocese of Kitui, she said.

“He is a home-grown son,” Williams said.

Williams and Ricker said the hospitality during their Aug. 4-12 visit was extraordinary. It included being seated on padded chairs next to Bishop Mwandi’s parents while many others in the congregation were in plastic chairs. It included attending the bishop’s Mass of Thanksgiving at his home parish and having dinner at the bishop’s house with time for relaxing conversation, Ricker said.

“It was the first time I’ve been to Kitui when I wasn’t leading a group,” said Ricker, who has been to Kitui three times and will help lead the delegation traveling there in January. “It allowed me the opportunity to just kind of immerse myself without having to worry about all the administrative things that come with delegation trips.”

“It was good to see old friends,” Ricker said. “I’ve known Bishop Mwandi now for many years, and it was really special being able to watch him be ordained a bishop.”

Williams, left, Bishop Mwandi and Ricker following the bishop’s Mass of Thanksgiving at his home parish of St. Augustine in Nguutani. COURTESY KIM WILLIAMS

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Bishop Robert E. Barron met Pope Leo XIV for a private audience at the Vatican Oct 1, describing his first extended, one-on-one conversation with a pope as covering “a lot of different topics.”

The Chicago-born pope opened with a hometown connection, “‘Well, two guys from Chicago,'” Bishop Barron recalled Pope Leo telling him.

“It was just a very comfortable conversation. We covered a lot of different topics, but it was just delightful to be with him and, you know, to be with the successor of Peter and our spiritual father,” he said in a video posted to social media shortly after the meeting in the Apostolic Palace.

In an interview with OSV News the day before the papal audience, Bishop Barron, who has led the Minnesota Diocese of Winona-Rochester since 2022, reflected on the influence of Pope Leo and signs of renewed religious interest in the United States.

“There is a revival going on for a lot of different reasons and some of that antedated Pope Leo, but I think his papacy means a lot to our country,” Bishop Barron said in the interview at the U.S. Embassy in Italy on Sept. 30.

“When you hear the pope speaking in the dulcet tones of Chicago, I think that has an impact on Americans,” he added, noting that he sees Pope Leo’s presence and charisma positively influencing young people.

“They say, well, look, I can understand this fellow,” he said. “And just his presence, his charisma. And precisely as an American, I think sure has a positive impact on our country.”

Bishop Barron was in Rome to ordain 18 American seminarians from the Pontifical North American College to the diaconate during an evening Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 1. In his homily, the bishop told the seminarians to imitate the example of Blessed Fulton Sheen in preaching the Gospel.

“Preaching is not sharing your opinions on culture or politics, not even offering your point of view on matters spiritual, nor is it talking about Jesus or God or the Church,” Bishop Barron said.

“Authentic preaching happens when you allow Jesus to use you to speak his Word to his people,” he emphasized. “You preach when Jesus has so seized your heart, your mind, your personality that he effectively speaks through you.

Bishop Baron, 66, is the founder of the Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, a global Catholic media apostolate. He gained national prominence more than a decade ago as the host of the television series “Catholicism” and through his regular YouTube videos exploring popular culture, faith and Catholic teaching.

His latest documentary, “Heaven in Stone and Glass,” which explores the Gothic cathedrals of France, was shown in U.S. movie theaters on the eve of Pope Leo’s visit to France.

Reflecting on the papal visit, Bishop Barron told OSV News he was particularly moved by the stadium prayer vigil celebrating France’s Catholic heritage attended by 80,000 young people.

“It was a wonderful celebration of the Catholic culture of France, which I think is much needed today when an aggressive secularism is trying to push religion out,” he said.

Bishop Barron described the event as a “bold reaffirmation” of France’s Catholic heritage, adding that he found it especially encouraging that the event was held “in the presence of the Pope, who was clearly moved himself by it.”

“I think it is part of this trend of revival that you can find all across the West,” he said. “Spiritual hunger meeting social media, which allows us now to reach out to that world. That’s a powerful combination.”

Bishop Barron also said that a papal visit to the U.S. by Pope Leo would be “a wonderful event for our country” that could help revive “the hearts and minds” of American Catholics.

During his visit to the Eternal City, Bishop Barron also addressed diplomats and scholars at an event hosted by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See on Sept. 30 celebrating the 250th anniversary of America’s independence this year.

In his remarks, he highlighted President Abraham Lincoln and civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as examples of prominent Americans whose understanding of public life was shaped by biblical principles.

“There are very important points of contact between the American political sensibility and Catholicism,” Bishop Barron told OSV News after the event. “It’s not perfectly congruent, but there are important points of contact. You can’t really talk, I think, coherently about freedom and about rights without talking about God. And if God is removed from the conversation, those are severely threatened,” he said.

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch, who also spoke to OSV News after the bishop’s speech, commented on how “Bishop Barron pointed to is this deep compatibility between the Church’s understanding of democracy, of freedom, of rights, of equality, and the American founding.”

“There’s some real, I think, specialness to that compatibility that I think is worthwhile thinking about as we map where this papacy will go and how the Holy Father will be thinking about these very important questions that are important to the United States,” the ambassador added.

Courtney Mares is Vatican editor for OSV News.