Sister Rosalind Gefre, known lovingly for her massage practice — particularly for fans attending St. Paul Saints games — died June 15 at age 96.

The Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet always patted people on the back or rubbed their arm “just to let them know there’s someone who cares,” she said in an interview with The Catholic Spirit in 2024.

“I remember one time I hugged a waitress and she broke down sobbing,” Sister Rosalind said. “She’d had a horrible day. In my mind, that is what I want to be: Be Jesus to others. And they are Jesus to me. Whatever I do to them is done to Jesus — that, I have grown to be very aware of.”

For almost two decades, Sister Rosalind would give massages and minister at Mass during St. Paul Saints baseball games. She received special recognition from the Saints Aug. 10, 2024, with an appreciation night. The first 1,500 fans to attend that game received a bobblehead called “The Massaging Nun.”

Many strangers poured their hearts out to Sister Rosalind at games, which she considered to be a privilege, but “it’s also hard, because after the game, you won’t see them again.”

Sister Rosalind grew up in North Dakota during the Great Depression. She had 12 siblings. Her family sold cream and eggs and lived on what little money they made. When she was 10 years old, she told Jesus, “I’m going to be a sister and a saint.”

“That was my desire,” Sister Rosalind said in 2024.

When Sister Rosalind was 19, she asked her boyfriend to take her to the train station. She traveled to a cloistered convent in St. Paul.

“I just felt if I would’ve put it off another day, I probably would not have entered,” Sister Rosalind said. “We usually had a goodnight kiss — a little peck on the cheek. That’s all we did. I feel that if I had given him that kiss that last time, I probably would not have left.”

“I still feel my life is rich. I go to Mass and say my private little prayers as I walk up and down the corridor. I pray a lot — not formal, but just, ‘Jesus, I love you.’ My life is basically praying all day,” she said. “I believe that I am loved tremendously by our heavenly Father and by Jesus.”

According to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Paul, Sister Rosalind’s funeral Mass will be held June 23 at Lumen Christi Catholic Community in St. Paul.

Pope Leo XIV said that although he is considering a final appeal to the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, the choice to splinter from the Catholic Church falls on them.

Speaking to journalists outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo June 16, the pope was asked about his feelings regarding plans by the traditionalist society, commonly known as SSPX, to proceed with the consecration of new bishops without a papal mandate.

The pope said that while he is “considering making another appeal to say: ‘Do not do this, let us try to live in communion within the Church,'” the decision to proceed “is their choice.”

“Certainly, division among Christians is always a painful point. But they refuse to accept certain fundamental elements of the Church, starting with several points from the Second Vatican Council,” Pope Leo said.

“If they make that choice, I am sorry, but we must move forward,” he added.

In February, Father Davide Pagliarani, superior general of the SSPX, announced the society would proceed with the consecration of new bishops July 1, following a breakdown in communication with the Vatican after requests for an audience with Pope Leo went unanswered.

After announcing their intention to proceed with the consecrations, Father Pagliarani was invited to meet with Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, who offered to continue dialogue with the SSPX, but only if the society suspended its decision to consecrate new bishops.

After meeting with SSPX council members, Father Pagliarani sent a letter to the cardinal saying that while he welcomed continued dialogue, he could not accept the conditions, noting that the society and the Holy See remained divided over the Vatican II and post-conciliar reforms.

In a May 13 statement, Cardinal Fernández said that without the “requisite pontifical mandate,” the consecrations would be considered “a schismatic act” and that “formal adherence to the schism constitutes a grave offense against God and entails the excommunication established under Church law.”

U.S.-Iran agreement

Pope Leo also expressed his optimism about the recent deal to end the war in Iran that is expected to be signed June 19 in Switzerland.

“Thank God, there is at least this memorandum that it seems they will officially sign this Friday, so they are saying,” the pope said about the tentative agreement between the United States and Iran.

According to a draft of the memorandum published June 17 by Bloomberg News, the agreement outlined a framework for an immediate end to the conflict, mandating an end to all hostilities, including in Lebanon, and the restoration of shipping traffic along the Strait of Hormuz.

It also dictates $300 billion from the United States and its partners to be used “for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and an end to sanctions on the country. For its part, Iran will commit to “never produce nuclear weapons.”

The pope expressed his hope that the agreement “will truly be a solution to the war, that the war is truly finished and that we can move forward for the good of all.”

“Eliminating nuclear weapons, yes, that as well; seeking the good of all peoples, and seeking how to resolve problems also at the economic and social level that have been created during this time,” he said.

Vacation, future travels

Asked about his recent June 6-12 visit to Spain, Pope Leo told journalists that “the enthusiastic response from so many people” was “something very beautiful.”

“Every moment was very well prepared, it must be said, by the bishops with so many lay people and so many volunteers in all the places who worked to prepare everything. It has been wonderful. From what I’ve seen, the people were very happy, and I am certainly happy to be able to celebrate the faith,” the pope said.

Regarding his summer vacation, the pope said that while he expects “a bit of rest,” there will also be “a lot of reading, reflection, and preparation for what comes next.”

“There is always work too, but peacefully,” he said.

Among the most anticipated events after the summer is the pope’s Sept. 25-28 visit to France. In a June 9 statement, the French bishops’ conference released additional details on the upcoming papal trip, which includes stops in Paris, Metz and Lourdes.

When asked about other trips after France, Pope Leo said he was “looking into others.”

Although the Vatican has yet to announce any other trips, Peruvian President José María Balcázar told journalists outside a polling station in Chiclayo, the pope’s former diocese, that Pope Leo is expected to arrive in Peru Nov. 10, the Peruvian news site RPP reported June 7.

Regarding a possible 2027 visit to Mexico, Pope Leo told journalists that he hoped it would be much sooner.

“We will see about that, but hopefully not too much time passes,” he said.

Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City said in January that he had invited the pope to visit Mexico, “which he had originally extended a few days after the conclave.”

“In response, the Holy Father expressed his gratitude and stated his desire and interest in being in our country soon to entrust his pontificate to the Virgin of Guadalupe,” the statement read.

Mexico City is home to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is on the site of Mary’s apparitions to St. Juan Diego in 1531.

Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News.

Reflecting on his weeklong trip to Spain, Pope Leo XIV said one of his clearest impressions came from the Canary Islands, where migration revealed both the challenges facing Europe and what he described as a Christian path toward a “civilization of love.”

Speaking at his weekly general audience June 17, the pope said the archipelago’s role as a gateway for thousands of migrants from Africa offered a “comprehensive insight” into a complex issue that also challenges Christians to reread the Gospel in today’s world.

He said migration is “complex and requires organic and coordinated action plans,” but it also challenges Christians to “reread the Gospel in today’s world, exchanging with each other the gifts of our respective cultures, and in particular the results produced in them by the fruitfulness of Christ’s message.”

“This path is not easy; it requires goodwill and God’s help, but it is the path that leads to the civilization of love,” he said in St. Peter’s Square.

The pope repeatedly returned to migration during the final days of his trip, delivering some of the strongest language of his pontificate on the issue.

“A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” he said while meeting organizations helping integrate migrants in Tenerife June 12.

Standing at the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria the previous day, he warned against indifference to migrant deaths.

“We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead,” he said. “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border.”

Despite joking with journalists on the flight to Spain that more people might be interested in the Bad Bunny concerts taking place in Madrid the same week, the pope encountered massive crowds throughout the country. More than 1.2 million people attended a Mass at Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles, and another 500,000 gathered for a youth prayer vigil at Plaza de Lima.

“I was able to observe with joy how much people of every age and situation were looking forward to the pope’s visit: everywhere I found multitudes who welcomed me with great warmth. This fact was not to be taken for granted, and is worthy of reflection,” he said.

Throughout the trip, Pope Leo said the service of the papacy is to promote communion, dialogue and unity through diversity, themes he emphasized in speeches across Spain.

Reflecting on the enthusiastic reception he received, he said, “I believe it reveals a widespread need to find unity on a true and deep foundation, one that is neither ideological nor based on partial interests.” What people are searching for, he said, can ultimately be found only in Christ, whose Gospel responds to humanity’s search for truth and thirst for justice.

Among the major moments of the trip, the pope highlighted his visit to Barcelona’s Basilica of the Sagrada Família, where he celebrated Mass and blessed the newly completed Tower of Jesus Christ, which made the basilica the tallest church in the world.

“This encounter of ancient and modern Catholic tradition and contemporary culture enabled me to perceive first-hand the very character of Europe, its inestimable wealth, as a living reality, not a thing of the past,” he told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

“It is a heritage to be safeguarded with care, so that it may be invested in today’s global world with its momentous challenges: peace, integral ecology, equitable and sustainable development, and respect for human dignity.”

The pope also reflected during his weekly audience on his encounters with young people, abuse survivors and prisoners, saying modern society often leaves people searching for hope and meaning.

“It is important to recognize how mental health is increasingly threatened in the context of societies that consider themselves advanced,” he said June 9 at Barcelona’s Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium. “This is a sign that there is something deeply wrong with a certain notion of progress that subjects people to pressures, expectations and tensions that compromise healthy balances.”

While in Spain, he also rejected attempts to “spiritualize pain, superficially attributing it to ‘God’s will’ or to some mysterious plan of his, because this risks minimizing that suffering, silencing it and hurting people.”

“God does not want suffering. He carries it with us and invites us to trust in him with perseverance,” he said, because “with God, life is always reborn.”

The motto of the journey was “Lift up your eyes,” drawn from the Gospel account in which Jesus teaches his disciples to look beyond their circumstance and recognize the desire for life, truth and fullness in others. Pope Leo said he witnessed that longing throughout Spain.

“Today I would like to share this invitation with you: let us lift up our eyes! Let us learn from Jesus to look at our neighbor, at people, at the world ‘through God’s eyes,’ that is, with love, respect and compassion,” he said June 17.

Gov. Mike DeWine announced June 16 his opposition to capital punishment, as Catholic opponents of the practice urged him to end the practice in the state before he leaves office.

During his time in the U.S. House and Senate, DeWine supported legislation that expanded the use of the death penalty, and as a previous attorney general in Ohio, he oversaw capital cases. But DeWine has postponed every execution since he took office as governor in 2019.

“I believed that in some cases capital punishment could serve as a deterrent to keep some people from killing,” DeWine, who is Catholic, said at a press conference. “For me, it was the moral justification for having a death penalty.”

“It is impossible today to make the case that the death penalty is a deterrent,” DeWine continued. “I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder.”

He argued, “The most effective thing to deal with violent crime is to go after the repeat violent offenders and lock them the hell up, that’s what’s effective.”

Opponents of the practice have pushed DeWine, a Republican whose term ends in January, to support their effort to end capital punishment in the state during his final months in office.

Brian Hickey, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said in a June 16 statement that DeWine “is correct that Ohio should not kill human beings, given the flawed system of execution.”

“Ohioans are increasingly recognizing that the death penalty perpetuates a cycle of violence, deprives offenders of rehabilitation, and increases costs to the state,” he said. “We appreciate Governor DeWine highlighting the role of state employees who must execute a fellow human. Such a task, even in a volunteer role, is unnatural and immoral as employees must strap up a defenseless human being and force them to take their last breath.”

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, said in a statement DeWine’s “call for the abolishment of capital punishment in Ohio is an encouraging sign and reflects growing recognition that the state can move toward a more just and life-affirming approach.”

“There currently are 114 individuals on death row in Ohio,” she said. Throughout his term, Governor DeWine has upheld a moratorium on executions. I am so “grateful for his dedicated leadership and conviction on this pro-life issue.”

The state’s previous attorney general, Dave Yost, pushed to end the state’s unofficial moratorium on executions, arguing in an April statement that not carrying out those sentences makes “a mockery of the justice system and of the dead and their families.” In a June 17 statement, Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said state law currently permits the practice.

“I understand that the Governor issued a statement indicating his opposition to the death penalty,” Wilson said. “The governor is a religious man who cares deeply about the sanctity of life. His opinion reflects his lifetime of working in the criminal justice system and serving the people of Ohio.”

Wilson added, “While I respect his opinion, each Ohioan is entitled to their own view on this issue, and I’m certain that those opinions would vary greatly on whether we should or should not have the death penalty.”

“Having personally handled several death penalty trials, I understand the value of the death penalty as an option for prosecutors and victims in very limited circumstances,” he said. “The decision to seek the death penalty is the most serious decision a prosecutor can make. My experience working with prosecutors across the state is that they do not make this choice lightly.”

But Vaillancourt Murphy and Hickey each urged DeWine to take further steps in his remaining time in office.

“Governor DeWine is a Catholic whose faith has always inspired his public service,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. “As fellow Catholics who advocate for the dignity of every human life, we urge him to go further and grant clemency to those on Ohio’s death row. The time to act is now.

Hickey argued, “Eliminating the state’s ability to kill citizens is not a partisan issue.”

“More and more Republicans support the State of Ohio removing the death penalty due to their Christian faith or understanding the flawed practice of a state’s human execution system,” he said. “As Governor DeWine noted convincingly, the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to the unacceptable violence we witness in Ohio’s communities.”

“We join Governor DeWine,” he concluded, “in urging Ohio legislators to pass House Bill 72 and Senate Bill 134 to prohibit the State of Ohio from funding the intentional termination of human life — including abortion, assisted suicide, and State-sanctioned execution — and to abolish the death penalty in favor of life without parole.”

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

75 years

Father George Welzbacher, 98, has been retired since 2013, but from 1999 to 2021 he was on the Board of Censors for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Before retiring, he was pastor of then-St. John (2006-2013) and St. Agnes (2001-2006), both in St. Paul, and St. Nicholas in New Market (1995-2001). He was parochial administrator (1994) of St. John in St. Paul and assistant priest of St. John the Baptist in New Brighton (1955-1966) and St. Peter in North St. Paul (1951-1955). In addition to parish ministry, Father Welzbacher was an instructor at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights (1961-1966) and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul (1966-1995).

70 years

Father James Reidy, 95, retired in 1997. Before retiring, he was on the faculty of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul (1958-1997). He was parochial administrator of St. Henry in Monticello (1963) and assistant priest of then-St. Michael in St. Paul (1956-1958).

60 years

Father Robert Hazel, 85, retired in 2006. Before retiring, he was pastor of St. Joseph in New Hope (1999-2006), Ascension in Minneapolis (1993-1999) and then-St. Mark in Shakopee (1985-1993). He was associate pastor of St. John the Baptist in New Brighton (1984-1985), assistant priest of the Venezuelan Mission parish Jesucristo Resucitado (1979-1984). He was associate pastor of then-St. Austin in Minneapolis (1975-1979), then- Newman Center and Chapel in Minneapolis (1970-1975), Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale (1967-1970) and Corpus Christi in St. Paul (1966-1967).

Father Michael Slusser, 85, retired in 2006. Before retiring, he was on the faculty of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (1987-2006) and had stints as a faculty member of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul (1985-1987, 1975-1981 and 1968-1970). Father Slusser was a graduate student at the University of Oxford in England (1970-1975) and was on the faculty of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (1981-1985). In addition to his work in education, Father Slusser was pastor of St. Frances Cabrini in Minneapolis (1985-1987), chaplain of DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis (1967-1968) and assistant pastor of then-Our Lady of Perpetual Help (1967-1968) and then-Resurrection (1966-1967), both in Minneapolis.

50 years

Father Paul Jaroszeski, 75, will retire effective July 1. Before retiring, he was pastor of St. Katharine Drexel in Ramsey (2004-2026) and of then-St. Rose of Lima in Cherry Grove (2004). He was parochial administrator of 12 parishes at various times between 1993 and 2004, including St. Luke in Clearwater; Guardian Angels in Oakdale; Most Holy Trinity in Veseli; St. Henry in Monticello; Holy Cross and Holy Name, both in Minneapolis; Annunciation in Hazelwood; St. Dominic in Northfield; St. Ignatius in Annandale; Transfiguration in Oakdale; Immaculate Conception in Columbia Heights and St. William in Fridley. He was pastor of St. Cecilia in St. Paul (1993-2004), then-St. Peter in Credit River (1993) and St. Patrick in Maple Grove (1992-1993). He was parochial administrator of seven parishes at various times between 1990 and 1992, including St. Nicholas in New Market, then-St. Anne in Minneapolis, St. Columba in St. Paul, Holy Trinity in Waterville, St. Cecilia in St. Paul, St. Peter in Richfield, Most Holy Trinity in Veseli and St. Thomas the Apostle in Corcoran. Father Jaroszeski was pastor of St. Patrick in Jordan (1987-1990), parochial vicar of Annunciation in Minneapolis (1985-1987) and associate pastor of St. Olaf in Minneapolis (1981-1985) and St. William in Fridley (1976-1981). In addition to his parish ministry, Father Jaroszeski was executive secretary of priest personnel in the chancery (1990-1993).

Father Stephen LaCanne, 76, retired in 2015. Before retiring, he was chaplain at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis (2014-2015) and pastor (2011-2015) and parochial administrator (2010-2011) of St. Leonard of Port Maurice in Minneapolis. He was director of pastoral care at then-Health East St. Joseph Hospital in St. Paul (2003-2010) and chaplain for then-University of Nebraska Medical Center, Fairview in Minneapolis (2000-2003). He was pastor of St. Bartholomew in Wayzata (1990-2000) and served on the Commission on Chemical Health in the chancery (1989-2015). He was parochial vicar of Pax Christi in Eden Prairie (1988-1990), chaplain of then-St. Mary’s Hospital in Minneapolis (1982-1987) and associate pastor of Incarnation in Minneapolis (1977-1982) and St. Matthew in St. Paul (1976-1977).

25 years

Father Cory Rohlfing, 56, has been ministering at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul as an external spiritual director in the propaedeutic year program since 2021 and has been pastor of St. Michael in Kenyon and Divine Mercy in Faribault since 2019. He was pastor of St. Jude of the Lake in Mahtomedi (2011-2018) and a part-time minister to clergy as part of parish and clergy services in the chancery (2018-2019). He was parochial administrator (2005-2010) and pastor (2010-2011) of St. Canice in Kilkenny and pastor of Most Holy Redeemer in Montgomery (2004-2011). He was parochial vicar of St. John Neumann in Eagan (2002-2004) and St. Joseph in Lino Lakes (2001-2002).

Father Rolf Tollefson, 55, has been pastor of Nativity of Our Lord in St. Paul and an external spiritual director at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul since 2023. He was an external spiritual director (2024-2025) at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul. He was the parochial administrator at St. Nicholas in Carver (2020-2021) and St. John the Baptist in Excelsior (2019). He was a pastoral advisor at Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria (2011-2023). He was pastor of St. Hubert in Chanhassen (2011-2023). He was a chaplain for the archdiocesan Office of Marriage, Family and Life (2008-2011) and Curatio Apostolate (2002-2010). He was a spiritual director at The St. Paul Seminary (2004-2011).  He began his priestly ministry as parochial vicar of St. Charles Borromeo in Minneapolis (2001-2004).

Father Jon Vander Ploeg, 56, has been the director of spiritual formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul since 2021. He was the parochial administrator at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis (2020) and St. Dominic in Northfield (2003-2004). He was the spiritual director at The St. Paul Seminary (2019-2021). He was chaplain (2013-2019) at the University of Minnesota, director and pastor at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis (2013-2019). He was pastor of St. Paul in Ham Lake (2004-2013) and parochial vicar of St. Dominic in Northfield (2001-2003).

Retired

Father Stephen Boatwright, 7X, retired in March after serving as sacramental minister at St. Joseph in Rosemount and St. Michael in Kenyon (2025-2026). He was ordained May 31, 2025, after ministering for 33 years as a permanent deacon and retiring in 2023. As a deacon, he ministered at St. Joseph in Rosemount (2011-2023), St. Leonard of Port Maurice in Minneapolis (2007-2011) and St. Olaf in Minneapolis (1991-2006). In addition, as a deacon, he was a chaplain at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis (2006-2011).

Asked to reflect on his 50 years of ministry and pending retirement as a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Father Paul Jaroszeski produced an answer with little hesitation.

“I think what stands out the most to me is God’s faithfulness in the midst of everything,” said Father Jaroszeski, 75, who was ordained on May 29, 1976, by then-Archbishop John Roach. “Not just my life as a priest, but also the life of this community of faith and our establishing it and trying to bring it to fruition.”

He is referring to the parish of St. Katharine Drexel in Ramsey, which he helped start in 2004 with School Sister of Notre Dame Dianne Perry. It began in a very unconventional manner, with both co-founders walking on lots of pavement in the neighborhoods of Ramsey, an outer-ring suburb in the northwest metro.

“When we started, there was nobody — absolutely nobody,” Father Jaroszeski recalled. 
“Sister Dianne and I started having what we called listening sessions, and we rented some space from the city. We got a list of Catholics in the area, so we sent out postcards to them inviting them to listening sessions.”

That effort produced 25 households when the church first became a faith community in 2004. It was the first step on the way to becoming a full-fledged parish. The first Mass, which was held on Jan. 31, 2005, was a sign of the growth that lay ahead.

“It was packed,” Father Jaroszeski said. “There were about 400 people there. … So, a lot of people showed up for it.”

The first place where worship took place was in space rented from PACT Charter School in Ramsey. For nearly two decades, this continued until the people of St. Katharine Drexel were able to build a permanent church on land donated by a parishioner, Jerry Bauer. The 35 acres he gifted to the parish stood idle for more than 10 years due to economic uncertainties, then the project moved forward with groundbreaking in 2023.

Regular Masses are being held in the new worship space, while construction of other portions of the campus is nearing completion. It will include a new kitchen, which is finished, plus rooms for other aspects of parish ministry. The total cost of the project is $5.3 million, which was covered through three fundraising campaigns. The campaign got a boost after 20 acres were sold by the parish to PACT Charter School for $1.4 million. The K-12 public charter school, which now sits across the street from the new church, is using the space for its new high school.

Father Jaroszeski counts this part of his ministry among the highlights of his 50 years. He noted that the parish now has 525 families, including a few of the original 25, and that St. Katharine Drexel in recent years has welcomed immigrants from Africa to form a sizable community within the parish.

“I just think that founding a parish is a unique opportunity for the community and for the priest who’s involved,” Father Jaroszeski said.

On July 1, Father Jaroszeski will transfer leadership of the parish to Father Ryan Glaser, who will serve as parochial administrator and was appointed by Archbishop Bernard Hebda. Ordained in 2023, Father Glaser is currently serving as parochial vicar at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. Father Jaroszeski, who served as the director of the Office of Priest Personnel for the archdiocese from 1993 to 2004, said he is confident that Father Glaser is the right person to help the parish move forward.

“I knew that the parish needed somebody younger, somebody with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and dedication,” Father Jaroszeski said. “The archbishop made a perfect choice with Father Ryan because he’s all of those things and more.”

Father Jaroszeski will have a chance to celebrate his retirement and say goodbye to parishioners at a 4:30 p.m. Mass June 27, with dinner and a reception following across the street at the PACT Charter School’s high school campus.

The list of parishes where he has served is long, including St. William in Fridley, St. Olaf in Minneapolis, Annunciation in south Minneapolis, St. Patrick in Jordan, St. Thomas the Apostle in Corcoran and St. Cecilia in St. Paul. His longest tenure has been 22 years at St. Katharine Drexel, with St. Cecilia next at 11 years (1993-2004).

Now, his thoughts are turning to retirement. He will move from Ramsey to a Catholic Eldercare independent living facility in northeast Minneapolis. He will remain available to the parish and Father Glaser however he is needed, including celebrating Masses when Father Glaser is away.

“I’m a little nervous about it (retirement) because I’ve always been very busy,” Father Jaroszeski said. “It’s going to be different, but I think I will find ways to keep busy. I’d like to take some time to not say yes to anything and just kind of get my feet on the ground about being retired. But eventually, I want to be able to be helpful to others — other parishes and stuff if I can. I also would like to do some volunteer work.”

In the near future, he plans to take a trip to Poland to connect with his Polish roots, which include growing up as a Polish Catholic in Northeast Minneapolis and attending Holy Cross, a parish that still practices Polish traditions.

“Two friends and I are going to Poland in October, and I’ve never been to Poland,” he said. “I’ve traveled with these friends a lot and we’ve done (trips to) various places in Europe. We’re getting up there in age, so we think this might be the last transatlantic kind of (trip).”

He said he is ready to step away from leading a parish. “A lot of me is looking forward to it,” he said. “No more meetings that I have to be at. No more responsibility for a budget. I’ll be very happy with letting that go.”

Despite minor setbacks, including the last-minute thwarting of a separatist demonstration and the grounding of the papal flight to Rome, organizers said Pope Leo XIV’s weeklong visit to Spain was an overwhelming success.

At a June 16 press conference in Madrid, Archbishop Luis Argüello of Valladolid, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, admitted that “the visit has overwhelmed us in our expectations and in what we have lived.”

“The trip had a heart, which was seeing the evangelization of the Church in action. It was an apostolic journey in which the Word was proclaimed, the liturgy was celebrated, and the charity of the Church was exalted with harmony in the various places where the visit took place,” Archbishop Argüello said.

The Spanish prelate was joined by the organizers of the visit: Yago de la Cierva and Fernando Giménez Barriocanal. According to the organizers, the papal visit drew an estimated 2.5 million participants across Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands.

The organizers also revealed that although the total financial cost of the visit was about 26 million euros ($30.1 million), initial assessments of its economic impact are expected to surpass 150 million euros ($174 million).

According to Giménez, the Madrid region conducted a recent study estimating the economic impact just for the region alone at 120 million euros ($139.2 million), “which allowed us to project the total impact of the visit.”

However, the organizer also noted that while the trip has had a positive economic impact on the country, its spiritual impact has been immeasurable.

“There are still no metrics to evaluate all the contributions to the common good made by the Holy Father, which undoubtedly result in a social benefit that is not measured in the GDP. The Holy Father also spoke about this in his speeches, and they undoubtedly have great value,” Giménez said.

Archbishop Argüello also provided details on how authorities thwarted an attempted demonstration by a group of choir members sympathetic to the Catalan independence movement.

According to the Spanish newspaper Diari de Catalunya, police removed dozens of choir members who planned to disrupt the inauguration of the Tower of Jesus Christ at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica June 10.

Archbishop Argüello said the would-be demonstrators had swapped out music folders containing the lone star flag of the Catalan separatist movement, known as the “Estelada.”

Once in position, the rogue choir members planned to unfurl the flag, shout for independence, and sing the Catalan national anthem, “Els Segadors” (“The Reapers”) in front of the pope and King Felipe VI of Spain, the archbishop explained.

“Some members of the choir were the ones who alerted (authorities) over the situation,” Archbishop Argüello said, adding that the police operation was done so discreetly that no one realized what had happened until after the event.

The organizers also commented on the mechanical failure that grounded the papal flight back to Rome June 12 and prompted King Felipe to offer Pope Leo a ride home aboard his royal Falcon jet.

Although the pope departed several hours later than scheduled, journalists and Vatican personnel traveling aboard the papal flight were forced to remain in Tenerife awaiting a replacement flight, arriving in Rome in the early morning hours the following day.

Due to the change in aircraft, the pope was unable to hold his customary in-flight press conference with journalists.

“Iberia has compensated all the journalists who arrived very late and, above all, who lost the opportunity that all reporters look forward to at the end of the trip, which is the press conference, which is something priceless,” de la Cierva said.

Engineers, he said, were given a 30-minute window to check whether repairs could be made and ultimately decided that the plane wasn’t suitable for flight.

Nevertheless, de la Cierva praised Iberia for putting the safety of the pope and the passengers aboard the papal flight above all.

“If they had to tell the pope, ‘We can’t fly,’ it seems to me like (it deserves) a ‘chapeau bas’ (‘a tip of the hat’) to put the most important thing of the trip first, which is safety,” he said.

Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News.

Anthropic — which recently joined Pope Leo XIV in unveiling his new encyclical on AI — broadly called for “a meaningful slowdown or pause” in advanced AI development, as the technology is poised to accelerate “sooner than most institutions are prepared for.”

That message was issued in a June 4 post on the Anthropic Institute website, with authors Marina Favaro and Jack Clark explaining the concept of “recursive self-improvement” — or, in the words of their article’s title, “When AI builds itself.”

Through recursive self-improvement, an AI system uses existing AI technology to improve upon itself, potentially becoming “capable of fully autonomously designing and developing its successor,” Favaro and Clark said.

Recursive self-improvement is “effectively the creation of an automated AI engineer, or many, many, many automated AI engineers (as many as they have the computational capacity to run),” explained Brian Patrick Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “Rather than humans programming AI, AI becomes powerful enough to program itself.”

Green added that such self-improvement is “one of the goals for AGI,” or “artificial general intelligence.”

But, warned Favaro and Clark, while self-building AI could bring either “enormous good for the world” — for example, in science and healthcare — “full recursive self-improvement also might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems.”

Others hold that the potential loss of human oversight is more nuanced, with humans retaining varying levels of control amid rapid AI growth, as author Mathew Hutson noted in a May 7 article for IEEE Spectrum, the flagship publication of the global technical professional organization IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Still, said Green, Anthropic’s concerns are well-founded, especially given the critical role of alignment, or the process of ensuring the technology squares with human values, so that AI models safely serve human interests.

“Recursive self-improvement can lead to a situation called ‘values lock-in,'” said Green.

In such a scenario, he said, “whatever the values are at the start of improvement become locked-in for all subsequent models because the machine is really in charge of making new versions of itself.”

That includes “choosing its values,” Green said, noting that “humans might no longer be in a position to control the machine’s behavior.”

“It is very important to get recursive self-improvement right, otherwise it could spiral out of control and create new versions of itself that are not friendly,” he said.

Favaro and Clark underscored that any downshifting in frontier AI development would require a “global coordination mechanism” in order to prevent bad actors from exploiting such a pause.

Green also commended Anthropic’s move to comply (albeit grudgingly) with a June 12 Trump administration order to suspend foreign access to the company’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models due to national security concerns.

The two AI models have, among other features, strong performance levels in agentic coding (displaying reasoning and programming abilities), knowledge work (providing expertise and critical thinking) and spatial reasoning (representing objects in relation to each other).

In a statement that same day, Anthropic said it would remove access to the two AI models “for all users,” stressing, “We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people.”

The company reiterated its earlier statement that “government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts.”

However, said Anthropic, “this action does not adhere to those principles.”

The company regarded the Trump directive as “a misunderstanding,” and planned to “restore access as soon as possible.”

Regarding the federal halt, Green said it was “better to be safe than sorry.”

“Mythos has demonstrated powerful cyberoffense capabilities, and it is understandable that the U.S.government would not want enemy nations to gain access to such a tool,” he said.

He noted that “Anthropic itself has recommended this caution, so the disagreement seems to be whether the restrictions are good enough, which is a matter of judgment.”

Green admitted that “in some ways, the restrictions might be too stringent in that even Anthropic’s own non-U.S. citizen employees — many of whom are from friendly nations like Canada, the U.K. and Germany — are no longer allowed access.”

That move signals “direct government interference with business activity, and should cause American businesses some concern about government overreach,” said Green.

Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News.

Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy in Washington now has a relationship with a $100 million fundraising campaign to expand an acclaimed Los Angeles gang-intervention program founded by Jesuit Father Greg Boyle.

Frank McCourt Jr., the billionaire Georgetown alumnus who founded the school in 2013, is leading the Homeboy Industries fundraising, announced in October, with an initial $10 million.

The capital drive was promoted June 11 at the McCourt School with what was billed as the Global Homeboy Network D.C. Summit.

Homeboy Industries was inspired in part by the Ignatian meditation about finding God “in the lowly place,” Father Boyle said. That “is where the joy is.”

“You stand in awe of what the poor have to carry, rather than judgment,” he said.

The fundraising campaign supports the development of the Father Gregory Boyle Center for Radical Kinship — a major expansion of the Homeboy Industries campus, which will become the centerpiece of Hope Village, billed as “a visionary initiative reimagining reentry in Los Angeles.”

Hope Village will also redevelop the neighborhood surrounding Men’s Central Jail and The California Endowment’s Center for Healthy Communities. The plans are for more than 200 units of “supportive and transitional housing” and 35,000 square feet of space dedicated to mental health care, substance use disorder treatment, job training and career development.

McCourt said the expansion will “solve real problems, not just kick the can down the road.”

Boyle founded Homeboy Industries in 1988. Now with a nearly $50 million annual budget, 8,000 clients in the Los Angeles area, and hundreds of affiliates and partners around the world, it includes 10 businesses ranging from a bakery, pet grooming, an art academy and a shop for “recycled” apparel.

Its 18-month program includes job training, substance abuse treatment, tattoo removal, and education for former gang members, many of whom are recently out of prison.

The three principal goals are gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry into the workforce, and, as Father Boyle said at the summit, to “provide hope for those for whom hope is foreign.”

“What I saw in Homeboy is what I learned from the Jesuits in practice,” McCourt said. He called it “a combination of the vision with the real success.”

But Boyle said he prefers to “never use the word success.” He is fond of quoting St. Teresa of Kolkata: “We are called to be faithful, not successful.”

“We live in a strange world,” said McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers who started the school named for him with two $100 million donations. “We don’t talk about goodness, beauty and truth enough. There seems to be a coarseness now. It’s too easy to exclude, too easy to push away, when we should be doing the opposite.”

Following the violence that accompanied last year’s raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles, “we’re at the very low point,” McCourt said. “But things are going to change. We need to find a way for our national politics to change.”

Father Boyle said he was in Minneapolis in December when President Donald Trump at a White House Cabinet meeting referred to Somalian immigrants there as garbage, but the priest added that he observed hopeful responses after that remark.

“People left their homes, and they’re suddenly feeding people and transporting children (to and from school),” the priest remarked, saying he was heartened to see signs there proclaiming, “We love our neighbors.”

“Everything worth happening will grow from below,” he added.

At the time of the Trump remarks, Minneapolis was the focal point of a major immigration enforcement surge, and much of the news coverage said many immigrant families — particularly within the Somali community — were afraid to leave their homes. At the same time, a fraud investigation was launched into taxpayer-funded programs, with several U.S. citizens of Somali descent arrested and charged with fraud.

An October announcement said the McCourt School “will work with Homeboy to guide research and help elevate their work to a national level.”

“Belonging is not just an ideal,” said Carole Roan Gresenz, dean of the McCourt School. “It is a public safety strategy.”

“Radical kinship” refers to what Homeboy staff members call “a familial bond between staff and clients.”

Steve Avalos, vice president of operations at Homeboy Industries and a former gang member, said that means “we celebrate accomplishments: getting jobs, getting off probation, getting their children (out of foster care).”

“There are no conditions. You just have to walk through the door and want it,” he said.

“This approach to the work is very radical. It’s not normal,” said Jose Arellano, another vice president of operations. It involves “a lot of hugs.” When he first entered the program, “people went above and beyond to connect with me. They just continued to shower me with love.”

Father Boyle was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2024.

Kurt Jensen writes for OSV News from Washington.

At their spring assembly in Orlando, Florida, the U.S. bishops focused on strengthening the Church’s mission and addressing challenges while keeping the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the key to personal and public transformation in focus.

The June 10-12 assembly was animated in particular by its culminating event, the national consecration of the United States during a June 11 Mass at Orlando’s Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe.

“To consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart is ultimately to accept Christ’s invitation to remain in his love and to allow that love to shape every aspect of our lives, public and private,” Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, the homilist for the Mass, said. “It is a declaration that the future does not belong merely to political movements, economic forces, or human plans. The future belongs to God.”

The opening session of the U.S. bishops’ meeting June 10 had two addresses that reflected on the Church’s evangelizing mission and the Sacred Heart.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, in his first address to the bishops as USCCB president, spoke of how “the truth of Christ must be proclaimed all the more confidently” to restore hope that is under threat from wide-ranging attacks on human dignity and polarization “within our country, and even within our Church.”

In response, he called for preaching that “life is a gift from God,” the “cultivation of interpersonal relationships and conversations between those who may disagree,” and acting on the bishops’ mission directive “to reach out to the disaffiliated and the unaffiliated.” But above all, Archbishop Coakley reminded his brother bishops, “It is the love flowing from the Sacred Heart of Jesus that feeds our hope.”

Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia gave his inaugural address to the bishops as nuncio to the U.S. and also highlighted the consecration of the U.S. Church to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He urged the bishops to fulfill their mission as missionary disciples by welcoming immigrants in their midst, and reminded the bishops his ministry is there to support them.

The start of the public session also included a message from the U.S. bishops to Pope Leo XIV thanking him for shining “the light of the Gospel and the tradition of the Church on the new opportunities and challenges posed by the rise” of artificial intelligence and “emerging technologies” through his new encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas.”

Other presentations that day also lifted up exemplars of the Church’s witness and opportunities to strengthen that witness.

Mathematical biologist Santiago Schnell, provost of Dartmouth University, addressed the bishops on “Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” St. John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic universities, and invited them to explore how they can reawaken the Catholic imagination in academic life and nurture leaders who can become “voices for the Catholic Church.”

The bishops heard a report on World Youth Day 2027, which is to take place Aug. 3-8 in Seoul, with 10,000-15,000 pilgrims expected to travel to South Korea from the U.S. Seoul Auxiliary Bishop Paul Kyung Sang Lee, general coordinator for WYD 2027, shared with the bishops that the Catholic Church in Korea began with the laypeople, became strengthened by the blood of 10,000-plus martyrs, and served as a sanctuary for democracy and human rights.

The bishops also gave a unanimous consent June 10 to support the advancement of two American canonization causes: Duluth, Minnesota’s pioneer missionary priest Msgr. Joseph Buh, and upstate New York’s entrepreneur-turned-evangelist John Rick Miller.

Duluth Bishop Daniel J. Felton spoke of how Msgr. Buh is a model for how “missionary discipleship demands courage, sacrifice, perseverance and complete availability to God’s will.” Miami Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski spoke of Miller — who worked to re-evangelize Latin American countries and have them consecrated to the Sacred Heart — as having “lived the baptismal call to holiness in an exemplary way.”

On the second day of public sessions, the U.S. Catholic bishops approved portions of two texts with near unanimity: a new edition of the Lectionary for Mass, which provides the Scripture readings and psalm for each day’s liturgy; and the 2025 Roman Missal-Liturgy of the Hours Supplement.

The bishops also ultimately agreed to move ahead and approve updates to their landmark document on protection policies for minors. The revision commits the Church to “act on the presumption of the sincerity of those who bring forth a complaint of sexual abuse” while also maintaining “a corresponding presumption of innocence on the part of the accused until guilt is proven.”

The bishops voted on the floor to add a further revision that would commit themselves to form future clergy in “trauma-informed” pastoral care.

Sara Larson, executive director of Awake, a community of abuse survivors, Catholic advocates and other allies, issued a statement following the vote commending the “important progress” the Catholic Church in the U.S. has made in two decades in protecting children, but emphasized it was important for the bishops to extend that protection to adults who “continue to experience devastating abuse in situations of vulnerability like confession, spiritual direction, pastoral support, religious life, and employment.”

“Awake encourages Church leaders throughout the United States to continue building upon the progress already made by extending safeguarding efforts to adults, implementing trauma-informed practices, and engaging survivors as valued partners in the Church’s ongoing work of reform and healing,” she said.

While the scope of the charter’s revision did not address adults, and stayed within its mandate to focus exclusively on protecting minors, Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, told OSV News in an interview that they anticipate possible related developments in this area coming from the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

“The U.S. Catholic Church stands ready once those documents do come forward,” he said.

But the revised charter saw animated debate — not so much around the proposed changes, but rather over the process of consultation. Following the June 10 presentation, Archbishop W. Shawn McKnight of Kansas City, Kansas, asked if it would be possible to suspend the vote on the revisions pending further consultation among presbyteral councils and diocesan review boards. He cited several factors and also argued further consultation was more in line with the synodal style of consultation envisioned for the Church.

Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, acknowledged that the charter is “not a perfect document,” but he noted that consultation on the revision has been “occurring for about five years,” with “input received on multiple occasions from bishops.”

On June 11, ahead of the vote, Archbishop McKnight reiterated his call to postpone the vote, with Bishop Earl K. Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio, seconding the motion. But after balloting, the motion failed, and a two-thirds majority voted to approve the revised text.

Auxiliary Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt of Hartford, Connecticut, then spoke on behalf of a USCCB task force on the ongoing implementation of synodality in the life of the Church. He provided the bishops June 11 with an update on recent consultations among the bishops, but also invited them to hear directly from Pope Leo himself.

The bishop played a video of the pope addressing some of the U.S. concerns about synodality at a Jubilee 2025 gathering, where Pope Leo emphasized the importance of a patient and proper formation “on every level” about what it means to be a “Church which is synodal.” But Pope Leo also affirmed the Church in the U.S. already has many existing structures that “have great potential for being synodal” and encouraged them “to find ways of continuing to transform them into more inclusive kinds of experiences” for the laity, the clergy, and women and men religious, in order that all might feel “a co-responsible sense of belonging, and of leadership and accountability in the life of the Church.”

The bishops also heard a presentation on the Catholic Prison Ministry Coalition, where Bishop William A. Wack of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, gave his own personal testimony of serving in prison ministry, and how a prisoner’s letter convinced him to “go regularly.”

“I invite you to visit, too. You know how important it is for the prisoners to have a visit from a priest, deacon, religious, but especially a bishop?” he said. “Like that prisoner wrote to me, the bishop is their shepherd. They are part of your flock.”

Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Jose, California, chairman of the bishops’ Subcommittee on Hispanic/Latino Affairs, addressed his fellow bishops June 11 about preparations for the 500th anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin in five years, and dioceses’ participation in the Intercontinental Guadalupan Novena.

Before the bishops headed out to consecrate the U.S. to the Sacred Heart, they heard reflections on the Sacred Heart of Jesus from three of their brother bishops.

The final day of the conference, June 12, was spent in executive session. The remaining bishops then returned home to their own dioceses to carry out the consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus from their own cathedrals.

Peter Jesserer Smith is the national news editor for OSV News. Contributing to this report were Julie Asher, Gina Christian, Michael Heinlein, Jean Gonzalez and Tony Gutiérrez.