A priest who was removed as an Archdiocese of Washington exorcist is relaunching his nonprofit deliverance ministry, while remaining a priest in good standing in his home diocese.

Msgr. Stephen Rossetti announced July 13 that his St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal will resume its activities with a Sept. 28 online deliverance prayer session.

He shared the news across several social media platforms, including Facebook and YouTube, and reiterated the message in an Aug. 3 email sent by the center — which is based within the Archdiocese of Washington — to subscribers.

In June, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy had removed Msgr. Rossetti as an exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, citing concerns over a May 29 Facebook video in which the cleric had mused as to whether aliens are real or demons, stating he personally believed the latter.

The Catholic Church has no defined position on the possible existence of extraterrestrial life, which has been a subject of theological speculation and debate over time.

Cardinal McElroy subsequently told Catholic News Service Rome that his decision “wasn’t touching on the question of UFOs,” but instead reflected the cardinal’s view that “the traditional role of an exorcist is a very private one. … a sacred one.”

In a June 3 Facebook message following Cardinal McElroy’s move, Msgr. Rossetti said, “I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium.”

In a July 13 YouTube video, Msgr. Rossetti again stressed the need to “stay in the boat” of the Church, saying obedience to its teachings is “critical.”

He remains a priest in good standing in his home Diocese of Syracuse, New York, according to that diocese’s vicar for clergy Father John D. Manno.

Msgr. Rossetti said in his July 13 YouTube video that he has “faculties as a priest” in “several dioceses,” as well as “faculties as an exorcist in a couple of dioceses.”

“My own bishop” — an apparent reference to Bishop Douglas J. Lucia of Syracuse — “has encouraged me and supported me in continuing this ministry,” said Msgr. Rossetti in the video.

OSV News is awaiting clarification from the Diocese of Syracuse as to whether Msgr. Rossetti possesses exorcism faculties there.

The Archdiocese of Washington declined to answer OSV News’ questions regarding the status of Msgr. Rossetti and the St. Michael Center. A spokesperson pointed to Cardinal McElroy’s June 3 statement and advised that “if there is any additional information to share,” such details would be passed along.

OSV News has so far been unable to contact the center directly for comment. A phone number included in the organization’s 2024 Form 990, the last tax filing publicly available, is no longer in service. The center’s website does not provide contact information beyond an email signup form.

According to its website, the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal “prays with people who are spiritually suffering and in need of healing and deliverance,” while also conducting “spiritual education workshops” and training clergy, religious and laypeople.

The Catholic Church specifies that major exorcisms — as distinct from the simple exorcism that is part of the sacrament of baptism — can only be performed by a priest explicitly designated by the local bishop, and with the bishop’s “special and express permission.”

A thorough physical and psychological or psychiatric evaluation is required before a major exorcism can be performed.

A 2026 journal article published by the Catholic Psychotherapy Association noted that deliverance “is a broad term that refers to being freed from a difficulty, usually including the assumption that the problem is caused by some influence of an evil spirit.”

“Forms of deliverance ministry and exorcism are also practiced among those who are not Catholic,” with similar terminology, but varying approaches, that reflect theological differences, said the article.

The authors — a group of Catholic scholars mental health professionals — added that “several models of inner healing or deliverance prayer are known to be practiced and offered within Catholic parishes in the United States,” with deliverance typically taking “the form of prayers to God requesting that God free a person from a problem or heal them in some way.”

Such prayer “can be done by a priest or deacon but can also be facilitated by trained prayer teams of lay people,” said the article, which also observed that “the challenge is to differentiate the demonic/spiritual from the psychological/medical, understanding that they may coincide.”

Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News.

Pope Leo XIV traveled to Assisi Aug. 6 to celebrate the Jubilee Year of St. Francis with 2,500 young people, urging them to become the “new saints” the world needs today.

The pope celebrated Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord for participants in the “Go! Franciscan Youth Meeting,” a four-day gathering of young people ages 18 to 33 from across Europe. The basilica was built on the site where St. Francis founded the Franciscan order.

“Dear young people, today Europe and the whole world are looking to you to be new saints. Dare to believe in the word of the Gospel; become fully human with the freedom of Jesus Christ,” Pope Leo said in his homily in the basilica that encompasses the small chapel where St. Francis founded the Franciscan order.

“Unite the best energies of your magnificent humanity: your studies, skills, work, friendships, love and prayer, so that you can bring Saint Francis’ vision to life in many different ways,” he added.

The pope’s visit is part of the Church’s celebration of the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ death and coincides with the annual August celebration in which pilgrims flock to the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels to receive a plenary indulgence linked to a mystical experience of St. Francis.

The pope flew from Vatican City to Assisi by helicopter in the morning. Before Mass, he met young people gathered in the piazza in front of the basilica and answered some of their questions, offering advice about vocations and discernment.

He told them that “the deepest vocation, written in every human heart, is a call to communion,” a truth he said sin can obscure. Thankfully, he added, every vocation is also a journey toward redemption and healing.

“Jesus’ invitation to follow him reveals our own dignity and teaches us to honor the dignity of others by placing our trust in them and proving ourselves worthy of their trust,” Pope Leo said. “This dynamic is so liberating that it deserves the wholehearted commitment of our lives.”

Pope Leo also reflected on the instability of modern life, saying “the stability that once characterized traditional societies is disappearing” and that a confused sense of freedom can leave people feeling nothing is ever truly settled. In that environment, the pope said, “the courage to make a definitive choice may well be the most revolutionary act of all.”

“Faith unmasks the illusion that our problems can be solved by running away, or abandoning our commitments, or taking a few steps along ever-changing roads without ever truly arriving anywhere,” he said. “We may multiply our experiences, our acquaintances and our possessions, yet remain in exactly the same place. The human cost is immense, and the inner emptiness that follows is profound.”

Saying “yes” to forever, the pope added, “is a grace which God himself enables us to respond to through our own fidelity, so that we may attain the fullness of life.”

Reflecting on his own personal vocation, Pope Leo said, “Looking back on my own life, I can say that the Lord has never left me alone. He has always accompanied me, often by placing people beside me with whom I could share the journey.”

“As a priest, as a member of the Augustinian community and as a missionary, I found a light that has guided me to this very day.”

After speaking with young people in the piazza, the pope greeted representatives of the Franciscan orders in the basilica’s cloister before celebrating Mass. The opening procession began outside, where the pope blessed young people who followed the Mass from the piazza under the summer sun.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, were among the concelebrants.

The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, built in the 16th century, encloses the Porziuncola, a small chapel considered the birthplace of the Franciscan order, which St. Francis founded in 1209.

The Porziuncola is one of the old chapels St. Francis worked to rebuild after a mystical vision in which Christ, speaking from the crucifix at San Damiano, told him to repair his Church. It was given to St. Francis to be the motherhouse of the new order in 1211.

Each year during the first week of August, pilgrims to the basilica can receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions linked to a mystical experience St. Francis reported there in 1216, when he asked Christ to grant full remission of sins to those who repented, confessed and prayed in the church. Pope Honorius III granted that indulgence at St. Francis’ request, and Pope Sixtus IV extended it to all Franciscan churches in 1480.

Pope Leo lauds St. Francis’ “revolutionary” choice to follow Jesus

During his homily, Pope Leo recited the well-known prayer “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” noting that although it is often attributed to St. Francis, it actually dates only to the last century.

He said St. Francis continues to draw people to him eight centuries after his death because of the courage he showed in leaving familiar ways behind to follow a path more consistent with that of Jesus, a choice that seemed “revolutionary” even in a city that had been Christian for centuries.

“This is the energy of Christianity — the energy of its beginnings and of its many new beginnings,” the pope said.

At the end of the Mass, Pope Leo entered the small Porziuncola chapel for a moment of silent prayer before processing out of the basilica. He then returned to Vatican City by helicopter.

Before departing, the pope told the young people he hoped their days in Assisi would stay with them, and that their return home to their countries across Europe would be marked by reflection and renewed commitment to Christ.

Assisi’s Bishop Felice Accrocca reflected, “We experienced an extraordinary day thanks to the Holy Father’s visit.”

The pope’s invitation,” the bishop added, “urges us to reach out to others, to become an ever more ‘outgoing Church,’ especially toward young people, seeking them out in their own places, at their own times, and in their own language, so that together we may discover the power of Jesus and the Gospel and help them understand that Christ is the only true hope.”

Courtney Mares is Vatican editor for OSV News.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signaled on a call with a predominantly Protestant Christian ministry that the Trump administration would be “putting practices and policies in place” to stop shipment of mifepristone by mail.

During a private call in late July, hosted by the White House Faith Office, Blanche told the group Intercessors for America that the Justice Department was “working hand in hand” with federal agencies and the White House “so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state.” He referred to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision finding abortion a constitutionally-protected right, and returned the matter of restricting or regulating abortion to the legislative branch. A recording of the Blanche call, which appears to have since been removed from YouTube, was first reported by Politico.

“If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that,” Blanche said on the call. “They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs.”

A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from OSV News.

But a Justice Department statement provided to The Hill claimed Blanche’s “comments have been mischaracterized and need to be understood in their full context, which was with respect to mail order abortion drugs, not a broader expansion of federal control over states.”

The Trump administration asked multiple judges to pause state lawsuits seeking to roll back Biden administration-era eased restrictions on mifepristone, a drug commonly used for first trimester abortion, but which is also used in some miscarriage care protocols. The Trump administration has thus far left that regulation in effect while seeking to block challenges to it pending a promised FDA safety review, prompting frustration from pro-life advocates.

The state lawsuits — notably from Louisiana, Missouri and Florida — seek to end the FDA policy implemented during the Biden administration permitting mifepristone to be distributed by mail. The states have argued the policy undermines their own state laws, among other objections.

In April, a federal judge agreed to the Justice Department’s request and paused Louisiana’s lawsuit, but indicated the state could potentially continue its challenge after the FDA concludes its safety review. However, the status and timeline of the FDA review are unclear.

Blanche’s recent comments came as he sought Senate confirmation as attorney general.

His nomination was advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee Aug. 4. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement acknowledging the committee vote that during Blanche’s hearing, “a majority of GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee pressed him on abortion drugs, uncomfortable with the continuation of Biden’s illegal mail-order abortion drug regime and the Department of Justice’s opposition in court to pro-life states challenging the scheme.”

Blanche, she said, “was right when he said, ‘We very much believe the Biden rules were wrong.’ We thank pro-life senators for questioning Acting AG Blanche, and urge the Acting AG to swiftly settle the case with Louisiana and abortion drug coercion survivor Rosalie Markezich to immediately get abortion drugs out of the mail while the FDA’s safety study continues.”

Blanche’s path to confirmation by the full Senate is narrow. Of three senators seen as key swing votes, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is seeking reelection in a swing state in November, said Aug. 4 she will not support Blanche’s nomination. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Aug. 7 said she would not support Blanche, while Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said the same day he would.

Senate GOP leadership can afford to lose just two Republicans if Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remains absent from the upper chamber and if all 47 Senate Democrats vote “no.”

The U.S. Catholic bishops will launch a nationwide call to prayer and action on Aug. 18, in what they called an effort to mobilize Catholics to address the rising abortion rate and the increased availability of mifepristone for abortion via mail.

According to an estimate from Guttmacher Institute, a research firm that supports legal abortion access, 1.12 million abortions took place in the U.S. in 2025, marking a 21% increase from 2020, “the last year of comprehensive national estimates” before Dobbs. It found 2025 figures were largely unchanged from the prior year, but suggested they might be low due to the ability to acquire abortion pills by means other than U.S. abortion clinic providers.

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

A monstrance holds the consecrated host, Jesus Christ, and one crafted at senior living facility St. Therese in Corcoran holds additional meaning for its residents, said Deacon John Wallin.

“It affects every person in this building,” he said, more than a year after starting the project.

Deacon Wallin and his wife, Rose, were among the first residents to move into the St. Therese building when it opened in March 2025. Though there was a chapel, Catholic services were limited. There wasn’t Mass, but Deacon Wallin conducted a Communion service twice a week.

One day he noticed that the chapel didn’t have a monstrance. He also noticed that more men moving into the facility appeared to be looking for a meaningful and productive way to spend their time.

“They didn’t know what in the world they were doing here,” he said. “The question was, well, what did you do for hobbies before? There were a number of guys who said, ‘I used to have a woodshop. I used to work with wood.’”

Fortunately for them, the facility had a functioning woodshop, though the machines and tools were disorganized. Deacon Wallin called two meetings with residents to decide how to set up the woodshop, but both meetings failed to reach a compromise, and many people gave up on the idea of ever using it.

“I was trying to figure out how (to) get these guys to join,” Deacon Wallin said. He woke up one morning with an idea: “They need a project,” he said.

“I want you to build something,” Deacon Wallin told the interested residents. “I would like a monstrance. They didn’t even know how to spell it. They said, ‘A what?’”

Confusion continued when the residents learned a monstrance is a sacred vessel typically made out of gold or other metals. Deacon Wallin asked for one made of wood from different countries to represent the world “and their cultures, yet it would support Jesus Christ, it would hold Jesus up,” he said.

“I know we were called to do it,” Deacon Wallin said.

Guido Leutem drew a monstrance that matched what Deacon Wallin imagined. Together, they started the project in 2025.

Delays

Immediately, Deacon Wallin and Leutem encountered the first roadblock: The woodshop lacked some of the equipment needed to properly carve the wood.

“The woods we used were very hard. I was sharpening tools about every five minutes,” Deacon Wallin said. “I said, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ And as it progressed … we had delays because of machinery. We didn’t have the right stuff, the right tools. We had to work at all of that.”

Leutem said the project came to a stop because they didn’t have a wood lathe to shape the wood. To keep the project going, Leutem suggested to Deacon Wallin that they whittle the wood by hand just to get it cut down.

“We got it finally cut down to where it was a little bit more workable, but we still didn’t have a wood lathe,” Leutem said.

The wood lathe eventually came from Leutem’s neighbor across the hall, Ken Schoenfelder.

“It seemed like every time we went forward, then we had to take two or three steps back and we had to go into a waiting protocol,” Deacon Wallin said. “These are old guys. I’m one of the youngest guys in this building, and I’m going to be 76. These are old guys, (ages) 92, 87, 86. You don’t do it in a day.”

Finding the right tools wasn’t the only project delay. For four months, Leutem battled a severe illness, accumulating so much moisture in his lungs that he could barely breathe. In the woodshop, the men had to wear masks because of the fine wood shavings in the air. But that only worsened Leutem’s ability to breathe.

Sharon Leutem said her husband lost 11 pounds of fluids in a couple of days.

At one point, Guido Leutem didn’t believe he was going to see the end of the project. He gave Deacon Wallin detailed instructions on how to finish the monstrance without him.

Deacon Wallin promised Guido Leutem that they would not continue the project without him.

“I wanted to give him a reason to live,” Deacon Wallin said.

One year later

Patience was a virtue for Guido Leutem and Deacon Wallin who over time collected the proper equipment. Guido Leutem’s health improved after a heart bypass and a pacemaker. He could be in the woodshop for longer periods of time.

Sharon Leutem supported her husband through the project.

“We’ve been married for 66 years, and he values my opinion, which is very wonderful,” she said. “In every step of the way, he’d ask my opinion. … I helped him pick out the wood. We ran around this building … I don’t know how many hours, running around picking up pieces of wood, and I’m 85, he’s 89, and we don’t do a lot of running.”

Several woods used in the monstrance came from Central and South America, including wenge wood, leopard wood, yellow heart, purple heart, and mahogany from Honduras. The monstrance also included wenge wood from Central Africa.

“Some of the woods were very expensive … and only used for exotic furniture, that kind of thing,” Sharon Leutem said. “We wanted the best for (the monstrance). Then we wanted the (wood) to go together and so they looked good together on the different pieces.”

Sharon Leutem said she would keep an eye on Guido to make sure he didn’t overwork himself.

Another resident, Les Oare, cut some of the custom glass in the monstrance. Tony Ouellete, a former resident, worked on the decorative metal that with the glass houses the consecrated host.

“It was a team effort, really,” Guido Leutem said.

“These guys (are) very gifted woodworkers,” Deacon Wallin said.

After cutting the wood, Guido Leutem glued the pieces together, and Deacon Wallin sanded them down. They used a chainsaw to cut the circumference for the host. The men gave the monstrance a satin finish because “it shows the wood grain and the beauty of itself,” Guido Leutem said.

When the monstrance was finished nearly a year after the project started, Guido Leutem said it was a great relief.

“(Deacon Wallin and I) were both very elated that we finally got it done,” he said. “I was looking forward to seeing John carrying the monstrance in for adoration.”

“The good part about all of that is when people here heard that this was … taking place, it was very young in its stage,” Deacon Wallin said. “This whole community, they were all excited that we were doing this thing for our faith, for this community.”

This was more than a hobby, Deacon Wallin explained. This was an opportunity for the first residents of St. Therese of Corcoran to leave a legacy.

“I think the more we get people to buy into that, this community is much more faithful, much more loving towards one another, accepting of one another,” Deacon Wallin said.

On April 4, Holy Saturday, Deacon Wallin held adoration for the residents of St. Therese of Corcoran. He brought the monstrance into the chapel for the first time. Many people who aren’t Catholic came to see the project completed.

“We christened it by having a Holy Saturday,” Deacon Wallin said. “That’s what I wanted. … This is the community of believers. I thought it was very appropriate for Holy Week to be able to sit with Mary and the apostles and being in that quiet space of the gift that Jesus is to us.”

“I wanted to produce this so it could display our Lord,” Guido Leutem said. “That was actually my goal with that, in doing that … so people can see our Lord in person.”

“When I saw John walking down the aisle, we both got tears in our eyes,” Guido Leutem said. “With the monstrance displaying our Lord for people to see. … I finally reached a goal. That’s what I wanted to do.”

Deacon Wallin said he believes it was the Holy Spirit leading the residents in building the monstrance.

“It’s a godsend,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t go out and try to get (a monstrance). … I’m glad we had the struggle. I’m glad we had the men here who said yes. And I’m glad we had the persistence to hold to it.”

ARCHBISHOP HEBDA VISIT

Archbishop Bernard Hebda visited St. Joseph the Worker for the parish’s 150th anniversary June 14. Deacon Wallin planned to be at the altar with the archbishop, but he didn’t plan to bring the monstrance to St. Joseph.

But word among residents of St. Therese of Corcoran spread that Archbishop Hebda would see the monstrance.

“Word spreads around here like crazy,” Deacon Wallin said. “All of a sudden there are people saying, ‘I understand that the archbishop is going to see the monstrance.’ The telephone game, you know? So, I said, ‘Okay, I can bring it over.’”

Deacon Wallin brought the monstrance and put it in the sacristy. Archbishop Hebda walked in, greeted the other ministers, then saw the monstrance.

“I have the monstrance just sitting on a counter,” Deacon Wallin said. “He started walking slowly towards it. And he said to me, ‘Is this what I think it is?’”

“The archbishop was so impressed,” Sharon Leutem said. “He actually was able to hold it and everything, and he was just really impressed with it. … I’ve had people that just saw a picture of it, but then when they got to hold it, it was a whole different story.”

Deacon Wallin told the archbishop how the monstrance was made.

“He walked over to it, and he took his phone out and he took a picture of it,” Deacon Wallin said. “And then he said to me, ‘Why don’t you hold it, and I’ll take a picture of you with it?’ … Then he said to me, ‘This is a really, really good thing.’ He said we need this kind of stuff. We need to show people this.”

“Nobody was killed. In all that destruction, that’s an absolute miracle — that no one died.”

These are words Father Matt Settle keeps repeating. The pastor of the linked parishes of St. John and St. Mary in Menasha was not in town when an EF-3, 1-mile-wide tornado hit at midday on July 27.

“I rushed back,” he told OSV News, “and all my usual highway exits are completely blocked off. I drove around, drove around. Finally, about an hour and a half later, I parked at the hospital and then walked out to the church.”

What he found was “beyond any description. … I have been through some tornadoes, and I’ve never seen a populated area destroyed like this one.”

The tornado, with winds of 146 mph, traveled on the ground for 20 minutes, cutting a swath of 12.5 miles, over three cities and one village. Menasha, population 18,000, was hardest hit.

Houses and businesses were destroyed, lifted off foundations and tossed into other buildings. Few trees remain and those are damaged. Cars were flipped, sometimes with people inside. Snowplows were needed to clear some streets.

Yet only 68 people were reported injured.

Jennifer Lee, a member of St. John, rushed home from work. She remembers “walking/running the last half-mile to my house like a character in some post-apocalyptic movie to see for myself. … I lost almost every tree that my grandma had planted, years before I was even born. Magnolia, maple, cedar, pear, lilac … I burst into tears when it came into view. And then… some relative of a neighbor — a total stranger — walked up and gave me a hug.”

Her house and her mother’s still stand.

Deacon Don Schultz of the linked parishes has lived in Menasha for 30 years. He and volunteers have been walking the streets, praying with people. He found one woman in his Doty Island neighborhood bringing garbage out from her relatively undamaged home. Those around hers, though, are not, and many bear red “unoccupiable” signs.

“And she just started crying when she saw us with our rosaries in the hand,” the deacon said. “We gave her a hug and she said, ‘I’m just going to be so lonely. I’m going to be living on the edge of a ghost town.'”

It took four days for power to be restored to the parish offices. Other places remained dark as of Aug. 6. The water plant was all but destroyed and water mains had to be linked to the neighboring city of Neenah.

On Aug. 1, weekend Mass was celebrated at St. Patrick Church, the only one of Menasha’s three churches still usable. The parish has offered the use of its church for as long as needed. “It was the least we could do,” said Father Tom Reynebeau, pastor.

After Mass, Father Settle and business manager, Steve Siegel, updated parish members.

St. John’s 1890 Romanesque Revival-style church sustained structural damage to its towers, a hole over the sanctuary and cracks along the nave. An outside brick wall was torn off.

“If you would walk into St. John’s Church (closed for now),” Father Settle said, “what you would see is a mess all over the floor. You look up and think, ‘Oh, it doesn’t look so bad from here.’ There’s a tarp so you don’t see the sunshine shining through the roof. But there’s plaster from the ceiling all the way down the church, into the choir loft, from front to back. So that ceiling was doing this” — he made a shimmying hand motion — “in the storm. And we don’t know the structure of the ceiling now.”

St. Mary’s Church sustained rectory damage and its steeple, an area landmark, has brickwork damage. Danger tape surrounds its base now and its bells are silenced so reverberations don’t send bricks to the street nearly 200 feet below. The entire 1883 German Gothic-style church needs structural evaluation. For now, a small chapel near the altar is accessible and will be used for daily Mass.

The school’s roof is broken through, and classrooms are water damaged. But Siegel said the hope is that the school will be ready for the scheduled first day of classes on Aug. 25.

In the meantime, people have stepped up. A temporary emergency volunteer coordination center had 2,000 on each of its first two days sign up to go into the damaged areas.

Father Settle remarked often on “the openness and generosity of people. All of a sudden they’re talking to people, to neighbors they never knew before.”

Aid is pouring in from not only the area, but around the country.

“Our Facebook followers have grown,” said Deacon Schultz. “We’ve gained 600 followers because of this. I got an email from a lady who lived in Colorado, who wanted to have protein stuff delivered from the local Walmart to us. So, she was buying it from Colorado to send it to us here.”

Around the city and its outskirts, tables sit on street corners offering free snacks, food and water. People take what they need or give what they can.

Deacon Schultz said this spirit impressed an emergency response team from Samaritan’s Purse, a North Carolina-based group that helps in natural disasters. One of them took down a damaged tree for the Schultzes. “And he said to me,” the deacon recalled, “you know, we respond to a lot of disasters. And never have I seen a community that has pulled together like Menasha.”

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Green Bay has an emergency team at the parish, to coordinate offers of aid. These range from homes, campers and duplexes, even Air BNBs to stay in and grocery and hardware store cards. Collections from parishes and non-Catholic churches pour in.

St. Mary/St. John is setting up a long-term parish response team for the weeks and months ahead for its people. How many people?

“Did you know that St. John the Baptist, St. Mary’s has 18,000 parishioners?” Siegel asked those who were ready to volunteer Aug. 1. “18,000. Most of them don’t know they’re parishioners.”

“Yes,” Father Settle added. “18,000 (the population of Menasha.) What it means to be a parishioner of a Catholic parish is that you live in that area. So, they’re our mission. And that’s where we need to be. Those are the ones we need to reach.”

The staff and volunteers are out in the streets, including the youth, praying the rosary with people, handing out water, talking with anyone who needs a shoulder to cry on. And bringing food.

Deacon Schultz, seminarian Kyle Rohan and altar server Zach Beyer spent two days carrying food bags filled with the bratwurst the deacon had grilled and offering them to anyone. The first time, when they had given out all their food, they were stopped by a woman driving by. “Do you want any pizza?” She asked, pulling boxes from her trunk. When they returned to the deacon’s home, an ice cream truck stopped, and its driver gave them ice cream bars.

The deacon, in his Aug. 1 homily, compared these events to that weekend’s Gospel from Matthew about the multiplication of five loaves and two fish (14:13-21).

“That, you see, is how compassion is multiplied,” Deacon Schultz said. “One act of kindness inspired another. That, my friends, is how the kingdom of God works. Jesus takes ordinary people, ordinary gifts, ordinary acts of kindness, and multiplies them into extraordinary grace.”

Patricia Kasten writes for OSV News from Wisconsin.

Artificial intelligence is quickly bringing about the end of the world as people know it — but Pope Leo XIV has an urgent message for everyone: Don’t run from the change AI brings; instead, engage it.

That was just one of the take-aways from an Aug. 1 conference at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington exploring the pope’s recent encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.”

Peter Cooney, co-founder of the website platform Acutis AI — named in honor of St. Carlo Acutis and designed as a Catholic alternative to mainstream AI systems by offering responses rooted in Church teaching — walked attendees through Pope Leo’s lengthy document.

“He opens up on a strong note: Humanity is facing a pivotal choice. He gets straight to it. If you look at other encyclicals, they usually open on a much softer note,” said Cooney, 21, an incoming senior and Economics major at the University of Dallas. “So I think what Pope Leo is telling us is: This is important — listen up; pay attention.”

And there’s good reason to — given the speed with which AI is spreading into all corners of everyday life.

Cooney noted that on Nov. 30, 2022, the launch of ChatGPT, a generative AI chatbot, was announced on the social media platform Twitter, now known as X. Within five days, it had over a million users — now, less than four years later, there are over a billion monthly active users.

“This is the fastest growing technology we’ve ever seen in the world,” Cooney said. “And I think there are a few things to note about this technology that makes it different than in the past.”

Among those differences, he said, is the diversity of AI users (everyone from kids to the military); concentrated AI ownership (Cooney estimated less than 10 companies own 95% of the current market); and the competitive AI race between the U.S. and China (with the goal of weaponizing the powerful technology).

“So what you have is a few companies in two of the most powerful nations of the world competing to create the smartest AI models; to have a military advantage,” Cooney emphasized. “And that same technology is on kids’ Chromebooks in their classrooms. This is the world that the Holy Father is addressing.”

Still, the Catholic Church is not without answers.

With this encyclical, Pope Leo has “established the Church as a moral authority on this topic,” Cooney said. “Which gives tech leaders good reason to read the rest of what he has to say.”

The pontiff, Cooney said, notes three particular AI dangers: the ease of obtaining results; its impression of objectivity where it doesn’t actually exist; and its ability to simulate human communication.

While AI can be genuinely helpful, “If we’re never thinking through things anymore and just outsourcing all of that to AI, then we’ll lose the ability to think,” suggested Cooney, “which is a huge part of what makes us human.”

He also confirmed that for AI, “every answer is based on probability. It’s basically doing math and finding the highest probability of the next word being correct,” Cooney said. “AI is not neutral.”

As to human communication, Cooney added, “If we’re not careful, we can allow AI to slowly take away our human relationships … it can deteriorate human relationships.”

Cooney observed that Pope Leo says these threats place truth, work and freedom in jeopardy.

Truth, because AI amplifies the problem of misinformation through the ability to manipulate images or videos; work, because using AI to replace employees compromises their human dignity; and freedom, because it’s easy to feel like you’re choosing while your choices are actually heavily influenced by AI.

And yet, Cooney confirmed, Pope Leo is ultimately hopeful.

“He doesn’t say to hide from AI or run away from it. He acknowledges all the dangers and the confused and afraid state of the world,” Cooney said. “But he calls us to build. He says, despite this downward spiral, we can also glimpse a great part of humanity that is striving … to build the holy city.”

Pope Leo’s “Magnifica Humanitas” commissioning of people to take up their role as disciples of Jesus Christ in an “era of digital transformation” is indeed evocative.

“Let us not be afraid to get our hands dirty on the ‘construction site’ of our time,” Pope Leo writes in the encyclical. He urged people “not to be passive spectators of social and cultural fractures, nor mere commentators on what is crumbling, but men and women prepared to enter the construction sites of history — research laboratories, technology companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities — in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened.”

Pope Leo’s call to men and women today, Cooney said, “is to build without fear, to protect our children, and to trust everything to Mary.”

In order to live out Pope Leo’s summons, Cooney noted three personal suggestions.

“We can’t be afraid of AI. We have to learn how to use it — and learn how to use it well,” he said.

He also urged parents “to have conversations with kids — and have a conversation with their schools, to find out how is AI being used. Because it’s being used in pretty much every school … it’s important that they have an understanding of how it works, and how it has problems sometimes.”

And finally, Cooney advised prayer.

“I would say try to pray a few Hail Marys every day for world peace,” he said, “and that the world can figure this out together.”

OSV News correspondent Kimberley Heatherington reported from Washington.

A new report by the University of Notre Dame offers 12 key recommendations to improve seminarian formation, focusing on the more effective use of psychological services, while better addressing “special needs” and supporting chastity and celibacy.

The university’s McGrath Institute for Church Life announced the July 17 release of “Do You Know Them to be Worthy? Twelve Proposals for Bishops, Rectors, Seminary Formation Teams, and Mental Health Professionals in Assessing the Suitability of Men for Holy Orders.”

The report was written by Father Thomas Berg, visiting professor of practice at the institute, and Timothy G. Lock, director of psychological services at St. Joseph’s Seminary as well as founder and director of the Goretti Center for Healing and Forgiveness.

Both authors have long experience in the intersection of psychology, formation and Christian anthropology.

The publication is part of McGrath’s Seminary Renewal Project, which draws on both sociological research and theological formation to ensure “healthy seminary culture and the holistic formation of future priests,” according to the project’s website.

Previously, the project has issued reports on sexual harassment of seminarians and on training for ministry to abuse survivors.

For the institute’s latest report, Father Berg and Lock synthesized data from a study the institute had commissioned from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, along with extensive input from seminary rectors, bishops, psychologists and formators the institute had assembled for discussion.

Psychological services in seminary formation

Half of the report’s 12 proposals stressed the need to more fully embed psychological services throughout the formation process.

“We’ve been doing that, I think, quite well,” Father Berg told OSV News. “But the data suggests that we could do better. The proposals break down a number of ways that we could make even better use of this (psychological services).”

Father Berg also noted the opportunity to “make better use” of “so many solid persons in the psychological sciences” and in clinical practice, who are “fully committed Catholics” embracing “Catholic anthropology.”

“We’re just in such a good position to have real team players who can assist men in some of these areas of growth,” said Father Berg.

While U.S. seminaries have used psychological criteria to assess candidates since at least the 1970s, the new report stressed as its first proposal that the initial evaluation should be followed by a second one “before or during the early part of the Configuration Stage,” since “most psychologists will agree that the shelf life of a psychological evaluation is, at maximum, three years.”

According to the report, the second psychological evaluation is even more needed since the length of seminary formation has been extended through the introduction of the propaedeutic year. It is a time of prayer, discernment and communal living that precedes formal theological studies.

The report’s second proposal called for making the initial psychological evaluation available to the seminarian’s formation advisor, noting it is increasingly viewed “not merely as a screening instrument, but as a tool for growth and ongoing formation.”

As a third step, said the report, seminaries “should appoint a full-time in-house director of psychological services.”

Such a professional should provide counseling services to seminarians, while reviewing the initial evaluation with each one, the report said.

A fourth proposal in the report urged clarification of “the meaning and appropriate use of therapy in the context of seminary admissions and formation.” In this respect, said the report, seminaries should “distinguish ordinary, periodic psychotherapy” from “more intensive treatment needs” that could preclude or pause seminary formation in order to pursue care.

The report’s fifth proposal stated that one goal of seminary counseling and spiritual direction should be to help seminarians “bring into the external forum” — that is, into discussions with seminary formators — personal issues from the “internal forum” (known to the seminarian and his spiritual director) that impact his formation and suitability for holy orders.

In its sixth proposal, the report urged bishops and vocations directors to work with seminaries nationally in developing a “uniform quality of psychological evaluations” — echoing a call made by other professionals over the past few decades. The proposal specifically highlighted the need for seminarians’ psychosexual history assessment, while recommending that the U.S. Catholic bishops “collaborate with psychology experts in revising” the bishops’ 2015 “Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in Seminary Admissions.”

Seminary ‘candidates with special needs’

The report’s second section offered three proposals regarding what it described as “candidates with special needs.”

Noting that “the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder” has increased from 1 in 2,000 children during the 1960s-1970s to 1 in 31 children as of 2022, the report encouraged in its seventh proposal “the ongoing exploration and development of resources to support seminarians” with ASD and related disorders, “including those diagnosed with a clinically significant deficit in cognitive empathy.”

The report authors emphasized that traits such as “reduced empathy, difficulty with social cues, cognitive and emotional rigidity and impairments in executive functioning among others” can also manifest themselves “in any given candidate, not just those on the ASD spectrums.”

Pointing to an “urgent need” for research — as well as for resources to support candidacy assessment and accompaniment of seminarians and priests with ASD — the report noted the McGrath Institute has convened a task force to investigate and address the issue.

In its eighth proposal, the report clarified that medications proven to help ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) and OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) “can coexist with priestly ministry,” even if seminarians must take such medication on a lifelong basis.

The report’s ninth proposal said seminaries “must prioritize securing the resources necessary to address significant formative deficits in admitted candidates.”

Citing CARA data, the report warned of the risks of advancing quantity over quality in seminary candidates.

“Institutional pressure to maintain high numbers of seminarians may at times overshadow the necessary attention to the quality and readiness of candidates for priestly formation,” said the report. “Experience has shown that the majority of applicants have significant deficits in human formation and require a specialized response.”

Among the examples of such deficits included were “significant deficits in cognitive empathy” and “persistent struggles involving pornography use or masturbation.”

Chastity and celibacy among seminarians

The report’s final three recommendations addressed the need to ensure chastity and celibacy among seminarians.

In its 10th proposal, the report held that men first entering the seminary’s configuration stage — the third phase of formation — should have been “sexually continent,” or without “sexual indulgence or activity,” for a “at least several months” without a lapse, “whether deliberate, semi-deliberate, or by compulsion.”

Prior to their ordination to diaconate, that period should be 12 months or more without a lapse, the report said.

“Seminarians are preparing themselves to observe life-long continence,” said the report. “That life commitment means abstaining permanently from genital sexual activity and pleasure for the sake of the Kingdom of God.”

Yet the task, particularly in developing freedom from tendencies to seek out gratification, “particularly by pornography and masturbation,” requires “formation in virtue, not merely in willpower, as well as human formation in healthy emotions and coping skills,” the report stressed.

In addition, the report noted a “startling” and “alarming” disconnect between Church officials and psychological professionals regarding seminaries’ ability to sufficiently form seminarians for sexual maturity.

While CARA found that bishops (85%), rectors (84%), formators/spiritual directors (81%) and vocation directors (72%) all expressed high levels of confidence on this point, just 35% of mental health professionals affirmed seminaries’ capacity to the same extent, with only 14% of mental health professionals stating they were “very confident” in this regard.

Bishops and those forming seminarians must “embrace the reality that pornography addiction and other semi-compulsive addictive behaviors are an everyday challenge” for those in formation, said the report.

Helping seminarians “achieve interior freedom” from pornography and masturbation “needs to be given paramount importance,” since “habitual struggles here can undermine” every other aspect of formation, the report warned.

Along with instilling “a proper psychological and theological understanding of chastity,” the report advised specific resources such as internet safeguards, peer support and 12-step programs.

More broadly, said the report, “the goal is not merely to stop the behavior, but to help the seminarian achieve deeper sexual integration,” thereby preparing him as well for future challenges in priestly ministry.

The report said its 11th proposal, which focused on the issue of admitting candidates with same-sex attraction, was borne of “frank and admittedly difficult conversation on this issue.”

The report said it did not “call into question the legitimacy of the priestly ministry of clergy who experience SSA,” but noted “the clarity presented in the Vatican’s 2005 document” on the issue “that explicitly excludes individuals with SSA” from holy orders.

The report authors urged bishops “to foster and actively engage in the necessary conversations,” both “theologically and pastorally,” on the subject.

“These are challenging questions that demand to be openly addressed by bishops, theologians and seasoned seminary formators and spiritual directors,” it noted. “Further, the opinions of the lay faithful must also be heard.”

The goal of such conversations, led by the bishops, said the report, is to “move the Church toward a more unified discernment of how the Holy Spirit is guiding us on this question.”

The final proposal offered in the report called for “a more meaningful way” of defining same-sex attraction as either “transitory” or “deep-seated” in seminary formation programs. It noted the terms were developed in ecclesial documents and “do not emerge from the mental health profession.”

Father Berg told OSV News that “serenity” and “integration” mark priests who have successfully been formed in chastity and celibacy.

“He understands the goodness and beauty of the human body, but also has discovered the beauty of being able to love others with the non-possessive love of a celibate who’s living a genuine expression of fatherhood,” said Father Berg.

The report authors added two final recommendations — specifically, “due respect for the informed judgment” of those who form seminarians, and the ongoing need to form seminary formators themselves.

Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News.

Gabi Brounstein still can’t believe that, at 23, she landed her dream job, one that combines her love of Catholicism and nature. The Blaine native, a member of St. Paul in Ham Lake, serves as the faith and science coordinator for Trinity Woods Catholic Retreat Center in Trego, Wisconsin.

“Isn’t it crazy?” she said. “God spoils me!”

As a girl, Brounstein planned to become a teacher. Now her classroom is the Wisconsin woods. “That would’ve been beautiful,” she said of her original plan. “But this is such an adventure!”

Q) What first fostered your love of nature?

A) My mom’s side of the family would go camping together every year. It was one of the highlights of my childhood. My grandma, Mary, taught sixth-grade science for many years. She encouraged me to explore and learn. On one camping trip, she helped me plant a bunch of seeds, and then we wrote a letter to the DNR (Department of Natural Resources). They sent me a package with pocket field guides and binoculars.

What I love about camping is the simplicity. It strips away all the craziness and worries of life. All you worry about is basic survival: you get your food and water and set up your shelter. That allows for peace and reflection. We’re meant to be outside. It restores the soul.

Q) You attended Franciscan University of Steubenville, where you earned degrees in theology and science, for middle-school education. You’re perfectly trained for your job!

A) I’m so blessed that God really put together my skills as well as my passions and allowed me to do both at the same time. It’s kind of unreal. Essentially, I get to traipse through the woods with kiddos and teach them about everything from moss and mushrooms to skiing and survival skills. It’s the best job ever! Jesus led me to a place that fulfills my dream of exploring and marveling in the cathedral of the outdoors.

Q) In the summer, Trinity Woods hosts Extreme Faith Camp, which many of our local parishes attend. During the school year, do you operate like an Eagle Bluff, an overnight nature center welcoming in school groups?

A) Yes, we’re a retreat option for Catholic schools. We’re aiming to be like a Catholic Eagle Bluff or Wolf Ridge. They’ve been around longer, but we have all the enthusiasm. We’re also hoping to open up to more to homeschool groups or co-ops.

Q) What’s a highlight of your school-year offerings?

A) My favorite class we teach is Night Sky. We typically start indoors, and we talk about how the stars are formed, and then we go outside to the highest point on campus and we lie on the hill and we watch the stars in complete silence. We talk about how God made these stars for you. He knew for all time that you’d be lying on this hill watching these stars. You are worth more to him than the entirety of the universe.

One kid said: “I’ve never watched the stars, and I didn’t know they were meant for me! I thought the rest of the world mattered more than me.” No, I told him — God said to St. Teresa of Ávila that he would make it all again just to hear her say, “I love you.”

That’s been the case for many kids. It’s their first time realizing that nature is not just something that exists out there. Nature is a love letter from God to them. It’s so beautiful to watch them come to that realization.

Q) What kind of activities do you lead?

A) One of our classes focuses on raptors. We do these experiments, including an eye test to learn what kids can make out at 100 feet away, the distance an eagle can see perfectly … . We do another activity where they practice their reaction time because raptors can respond in five hundredths of a second and grab up prey quickly.

Q) Do you help design these lessons?

A) Yes. I got to write the curriculum, which is such a blessing and a cool responsibility. It’s been fun to be creative. I want to help the program grow and do it justice.

Q) Tell me about the survival skills you teach.

A) The most popular has got to be fire building. We teach: What are the ingredients for building a fire that is going to last for a long time? If your fire is dying, you’re missing one of three aspects of the fire triangle: the fuel, the oxygen or the spark. We also teach shelter building and how to keep your body safe. We have a knot-tying class and a first-aid class. They check in on their partners and make them a sling.

My favorite part of the class is we talk about what humans need to survive. It’s important to me that every class incorporates some theology. We talk about how you need oxygen and food and water and then we talk about the role of hope in survival, that hope is saying everything will be fine and God will be with me regardless of the circumstance, and I am good regardless of the circumstances. It elicits beautiful discussion. Kids talk about the role of hope and how it plays out in their daily lives.

Q) Are campers fascinated by the survival skills?

A) It’s a confidence booster for them. They realize, “I can do hard things.” We have that thirst to be pushed to do something brave, to become something more. It’s my hope that when kids stretch themselves in the different physical activities like rock climbing that that helps them to know that those skills are transferable, that they can be brave.

Q) What does being a good steward mean to you?

A) We have a camping skills class, and we talk about leave-no-trace policies, and we connect that to Genesis, when God gives humanity the command to till and keep. It’s our responsibility to protect the land that has been given to us.

Q) Camp has a no-cellphone policy for campers, right?

A) Yes. Most of the youth ministers and teachers take care of enforcing it. There’s been less pushback than I expected. The kids are having too much fun to care that much.

Q) Do parents ever thank you for that policy?

A) They do. Sometimes at the beginning there’s some anxiety or withdrawal. Can I detach? But then there’s this freedom: Wow, I got to explore and invest in real life, these things and people right in front of me, which is the most fulfilling thing.

Q) Does the need for nature as an antidote to screens feel greater than ever?

A) Absolutely. God made us body and soul, so we need to be fully grounded in the present, and there’s nothing like being outside for that. You’re outside, you’re feeling the wind on your skin and you’re seeing the color of the trees and flowers. It brings you back to yourself and gives you the ability to hear yourself think — and that, in turn, gives you the space to talk to God. We need to view beauty as just as essential as oxygen. We need it for our souls, and we need to be present to experience it.

Q) How does it feel to introduce indoors-y teens to nature?

A) It’s so much fun. One thing I really want to try to do as an outdoor educator is model a sense of wonder. That might be my chief goal in this program: to teach them how to be amazed. Life isn’t boring, but sometimes we act like it is. If I’m crouched on the ground looking at the worms, if I’m showing the kids lichen and explaining how it’s an indicator of air quality, they’re going to get into it.

It’s so cool to see from their first day here to their last how their sense of wonder expands. “Oh my gosh, did you see that porcupine?” Or, “I think I saw evidence of a bug chewing on this leaf!” Even the small things become amazing if we learn to see them.

Q) Is the effect of nature almost immediate on campers?

A) Yes. It affects everything about their behavior and their peace. It calms kids who are stressed and a little chaotic. The kids who may have behavioral issues feel more free than the confinement of a traditional classroom. It helps with relationships and bonding the group as a team. And because it’s a new environment, the kids are able to see each other in a new light and recognize the gifts of their classmates that might not shine in another setting.

Q) What do you bring on your hikes in the woods?

A) I always bring my prayer journal. I bring drawing supplies — colored pencils and a sketchbook — and all my field guides. I have some Petersons, and then Stan Tekiela has a bunch of great easy-to-use field guides for the Midwest specifically. Binoculars, always bug spray, a camera and a rain jacket.

Q) Do you have a go-to prayer in the woods?

A) I like to do two things. First, I pray that, with all of the beauty I behold, that I remember who it’s from. I pray: “Lord, let me see how this reflects you and what you’re telling me through this beauty and how you’re loving me through it.” And I also like to pray by reflecting on the body and the soul: “Thank you, Lord, that my feet are able to carry me up this trail and that I’m able to touch these trunks. None of it had to exist — there didn’t have to be textures and the color orange and music — but it does, and it’s a gift.”

Q) What a powerful expression of gratitude.

A) You have to soak up every season. It slows time because you’re taking the time to pause and really look at everything.

A former coworker once said something that I think about at least twice a week. We were walking outside on this amazing October day. The trees were just glowing. And he turned to me and said: “I have experienced 34 falls and I’ll probably get 50 more, but it’s just not enough.” And I thought: “You’re right! We’re made for infinite beauty. We’re meant to bask in it forever.”

When I’m outside, especially alone, I sort of think in poetry. I think about ways to describe, in our limited language, the things I’m seeing.

Q) What do you know for sure?

A) There’s this quote by (Fyodor) Dostoevsky that beauty will save the world, and I am positive that is true. It pierces the heart. It reminds us who we are and who God is. Beauty’s already saving me, and he’s going to save you.

For the first time in more than 20 years, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has embarked on a major capital campaign that Archbishop Bernard Hebda trusts is building community as it strengthens the financial and evangelical position of parishes, assists families as they seek a Catholic education for their children, and renovates and restores the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul and the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.

The campaign is also investing in the welfare of the archdiocese’s current and future priests, providing funds to assist people in need through the corporal works of mercy and assisting with faith formation initiatives.

Seeds for renewal

In one sense, the effort began as Archbishop Hebda arrived in the archdiocese in 2015 as apostolic administrator and held prayer and listening sessions, seeking input on what qualities the faithful might seek in a new archbishop. The next year, Pope Francis appointed him archbishop, and he was installed May 13, 2016.

“At that time, I had the opportunity to hear people speak about what was in their heart, and what I heard so often was a call for renewal in our local Church, a renewal that would bring unity, a renewal that would respond to the desire in people’s hearts for the Gospel to be preached, and especially for our young people and our children,” the archbishop said in a recent interview with The Catholic Spirit.

“I’ve always been thinking about what we can do to bring renewal,” he continued. “And part of this is reflected in the work that we did in the synod, our two synods (Archdiocesan Synods in 2022 and 2025). But then part of that is what we’re doing now, in Lord, Renew Your Church. I was really happy to have this opportunity to help our parishes and the archdiocese to raise funds to be able to finance that renewal, and to help people to dream about what are those things that are necessary for that kind of renewal and unity to take place.”

Groundwork for the capital campaign began in the fall of 2023 with a feasibility study responding to needs discerned through the June 2022 Archdiocesan Synod: The call to form parishes at the service of evangelization, form missionary disciples, and form youth and young adults in the faith.

The feasibility study included interviews with more than 7,000 Catholics across the archdiocese and a confidential online survey issued to more than 60,000. The overwhelmingly positive response to the call for a campaign led to a pilot wave of 16 parishes in 2025, followed by wave one of 26 parishes, wave two of 39 parishes that ended in July, and a July 14-16 kickoff of 40 parishes for wave three, said officials with the Office of Mission Advancement. Two more waves are planned, with the campaign for pledges slated to end in June 2027.

The pilot wave achieved its goal by 143% and wave one achieved its goal by 135%.

Lord, Renew Your Church involves the participation of all 185 parishes throughout the archdiocese.

MAKING THE CASE

Archbishop Bernard Hebda recently expanded on the impact the Lord, Renew Your Church campaign is intended to have on two of its five priorities: Catholic education and the repair and renovation of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis and the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. His comments have been edited for clarity and length:

Q) Please share ways the money slotted for education will bring renewal.

A) We are called to pass on the faith to our young people, and so we’re dreaming about raising $57.5 million for that purpose. A good portion of that is for an endowment to support the Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education (which involves five areas of strategic importance for Catholic schools: Talent management; curriculum and assessments; access and sustainability; mission schools; and governance). We had great experts come from around the country to help us plot a future for our schools, where they’re going to be places of encounter with Jesus. That’s very clearly related to renewal. And so, the largest portion of the funds that we’re raising for education are for the implementation of that Roadmap, looking at how it is that we develop leadership in our Catholic schools; how we make sure that our curriculum reflects our mission; how it is that we support those schools that we would call our Drexel Mission Schools (schools determined to have the highest concentration of children and families in need). That’s a very clear focus on mission and renewal.

We have to help parents afford Catholic education. We’re trying to raise $20 million just to support parents, and we’re doing that in collaboration with Aim Higher Foundation, which has as their task (via scholarships) supporting families with students in our Catholic elementary schools. And we recognize that about half of our young people aren’t in our Catholic schools. They’re in our public schools. So, there’s an endowment being created to support faith formation programs, especially for our middle school youth and high school youth. To bring them things like Y Disciple, which is an amazing program for young people. Finally, we’re trying to raise $3 million to support Catholic (college) campus ministry.

Q) How is renewal reflected in renovation of the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul and the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis?

A) We know that cathedrals play a central role in the life of the local Church. In our case, we have two cathedrals that are world-class but they also have great needs. So often, they’re the places where we gather as a whole Church to pray for renewal. Whether it be at ordination, whether it be at the Chrism Mass, our two cathedrals are the spot for us to be able to do that. And we know that we have to be responsible in taking care of the great gifts that we’ve received in those two beautiful, beautiful churches.

For us to have that renewal in our Church, we need that symbol of a Church that is healthy and that is connected to our history and that gives us that opportunity for continuing ministry into the future.

Archbishop Hebda identified the largest beneficiary of the campaign to be local parishes, where 60% of funds raised are retained; 40% supports Catholic education, archdiocesan priests, the Cathedral and the Basilica renovations, corporal works of mercy and faith formation.

Jean Houghton, director of Mission Advancement, said the campaign is about much more than raising funds.

“It is about strengthening our relationships, uniting our parishes in a common goal, and ultimately, renewing our Church,” Houghton said. “The gifts of prayer, service and financial gifts from the many volunteers, campaign leaders, clergy and community partners have been one of the most inspiring things I have ever witnessed. The renewal is palpable.”

Budding projects

Money has begun flowing into projects that parishioners with their pastors helped determine were important. For example, St. John Neumann has begun renovating its sanctuary and Guardian Angels in Oakdale has entered the design phase of a sanctuary remodel.

St. Albert the Great in Minneapolis replaced roofs on the church, school and priory buildings, renovation work that was completed July 27, said Dominican Father Joseph Gillespie, parochial administrator. Next up: solar panels on the school’s roof as an investment in renewable energy and a way to reduce costs, he said.

“We’re repairing what needs to be done,” Father Gillespie said. “It’s been 20 or 30 years since the roof has been touched.”

In addition to infrastructure, many parishes are talking about ways to bolster youth and young adult ministry, do more to support Catholic schools and reach out to students and families with exceptional needs, Archbishop Hebda said. “Those kinds of things, parishes are putting in their case studies,” he said.

“Even the very process of bringing people together in the parish to dream about what they need to do for renewal, that in itself is really beneficial to parish communities, and that’s already bringing about the renewal,” the archbishop said.

The July 14-16 kickoff for 40 parishes in wave three drew a total of more than 800 people to St. Vincent de Paul in Brooklyn Park, Pax Christi in Eden Prairie, and St. Michael and St. Mary in Stillwater. About 250 people attended the event in Stillwater, said Erin Lisle, parish director of operations.

“Our parishioners were excited,” Lisle said. “It was great to hear from the archbishop. It was a nice reminder that we’re all in this together, 180-plus parishes. It is unifying.”

Father John Ubel, pastor of St. Agnes in St. Paul, said his parish is using the funds it raised to help renovate the lower level of the church, which includes a social hall and meeting rooms.

Part of the pilot wave, St. Agnes had conducted multimillion dollar campaigns in 2013 for the parish and school and 2018 for a convent renovation. Father Ubel said he was concerned about donor fatigue, but parishioners raised more than $1.8 million or 122% of their goal, with more than 30% of parishioners participating.

“When all is said and done, the archbishop did a masterful job of outlining a vision and choosing initiatives that could be embraced by so many,” Father Ubel said.

Unity is a theme many people are ready to embrace, Father Ubel said.

“I think this is a great example of an archdiocese that is coming together,” he said. “I have been a priest for 37 years. This is the most unified I’ve seen the archdiocese, the priests and the laypeople.”

Crediting Archbishop Hebda with being present to everyone he meets — and recalling the archbishop declaring at his installation that he was “all in” for a more transparent and engaged Church, Father Ubel said, “He’s everywhere, visiting people, parishes, schools. It’s very obvious he is ‘all in.’”

VOLUNTEER VIDEO

Generous parishioners, a well-run campaign, responsibility for the common good and growing community were highlights cited by more than a dozen volunteers in the $250 million Lord, Renew Your Church campaign in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Their comments were captured in a video for the campaign.

“My great-grandmother from Madelia, Minnesota, was saving money for a new winter coat,” said Carol Rusinko of Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale, making a point about past generations doing their part for the Church.

“She knew they were raising money for the church bell,” Rusinko said. “She had already given. He said, ‘Well, we need this much more.’ So, she took her money for her winter coat and she gave it for the church bell. And then she went home and put shoe polish on her winter coat so she could wear it another year.”

Nancy Alvarado of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Minneapolis said she and others were nervous about asking fellow parishioners for campaign pledges, but campaign staffers guiding their efforts were reassuring.

“He was correct all along,” Alvarado said. “You know, just go and do it because you never know if it’s going to work until you do. So, we went out and did it. And we didn’t only reach our goal; we doubled our goal.”

In an interview, Alvarado told The Catholic Spirit the process was fulfilling in part because volunteers got to know each other and the families they visited. Some parishioners have faced great hardship, she said.

“We got to learn people’s stories,” she said. “The little they had, they still contributed. The faith they had in God was amazing. They truly believed that everything comes from God.”

Supporting Catholic education was a big draw for Wayne Beierman, a member of St. John Neumann in Eagan. The importance of his Catholic education was driven home when he joined the Air Force as a high school graduate and was assigned to a squadron that worked on the technical side of maintaining missile systems.

“I’m with college graduates,” Beierman said, recalling his concern. He went to see the sergeant, who didn’t even look up from his desk.

“You went to a Catholic school?” the sergeant asked. “You’re going to do fine.”

In the campaign video, Beierman noted the universal flavor of Lord, Renew Your Church. “I see it as much bigger than just our parish,” Beierman said. “It’s archdiocese-wide, is what I see.”

Kris and Peter Bauer of St. Odilia in Shoreview also appeared in the video.

“I think it was important to know that this is the first campaign in 20 years for the archdiocese,” Kris Bauer said. “And that the pots of money were very thoughtfully done. And these are big projects. How many cities have a cathedral and a basilica to maintain? So, they’re not small. They’re big. So, the ask is big.”

“What’s really made a difference to me is meeting the people in the parish,” Peter Bauer said in the video. “I just really feel like I’m more involved in it. There’s a bigger association with people around me.”

Reached by The Catholic Spirit, Peter Bauer said he and his wife decided one evening to learn more about the campaign as it was getting underway at St. Odilia.

“We kind of stumbled into this,” he said. “We came home with like 10 (campaign) packets and said, ‘Oh, I guess we’re committed. Our church is a great place.’”

BY THE NUMBERS

Lord, Renew Your Church Priorities:

Strengthening Our Parishes | $125 million (50%) *

• Supporting local parish needs

Educating Children and Young People for Discipleship | $57.5 million (23%)

• $21.5 million endowment for the pursuit of Catholic educational excellence aligned with the Roadmap for Excellence in Catholic Education
• $20 million to grow financial assistance and scholarships
• $13 million endowment for Catholic faith formation initiatives
• $3 million toward bolstering campus ministry

Sustaining the Cathedral of St. Paul and Basilica of St. Mary | $30 million (12%)

• $15 million investment in the Cathedral of St. Paul
• $15 million investment in the Basilica of St. Mary

Caring for Our Clergy and Future Clergy | $25 million (10%)

• $10 million investment in the priest pension plan
• $15 million endowment assisting retired priests with special needs, clergy wellness and training, and support for future clergy

Providing for Those in Need: The Corporal Works of Mercy | $12.5 million (5%)

• $12.5 million endowment to extend resources to those in need

* The campaign’s goal is to raise $250 million, with parishes raising $200 million and Archbishop Bernard Hebda raising $50 million. Of parish-raised funds, 60% will remain with the parish and 40% will support archdiocesan initiatives. The archbishop’s fundraising effort will provide additional support for archdiocesan initiatives, resulting in an overall 50/50 split between parish needs and archdiocesan priorities.

“He didn’t go back to Guatemala to die. He went back to Guatemala to live.”

Msgr. Don Wolf, rector of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine and a cousin of Blessed Rother, shared these words in a documentary “American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story.”

This scene still makes Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City choke up every time he sees it.

“He knew that death awaited him, but he knew that not going back would mean a different kind of death, and only by going back there would he live life to the full, the life that the Lord had called him to, even though that meant laying down his life,” Archbishop Coakley said during a panel discussion. It followed the documentary’s world premiere at the Regal Warren Moore Theater in Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, on July 28, the feast day of Blessed Stanley Rother.

More than 600 people filled three theaters to watch the documentary — one for the English version narrated by award-winning actor Martin Sheen, and two for the Spanish version.

Sheen narrated the documentary for free, said Maria Scaperlanda, one of the executive producers of the documentary and promoter for the cause. Sheen “fell in love with Father Stan,” she told OSV News.

“I want to help you get Blessed Stanley across the line, have him become a saint. And this is my way of helping,” she recalled Sheen — himself a devout Catholic — telling her.

“We showed up at his house, finished all the audio with him. It’s his gift to the cause,” she said.

Scaperlanda, who also wrote the definitive biography on Blessed Rother, “The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run: Father Stanley Rother, Martyr from Oklahoma,” said that people often ask her when a movie will be made.

“There’s a lot of people, very excited, who have been waiting for something visual. God is putting me where he wants me,” she said. “I hope that more and more people will be able to hear the story.”

“American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story” is scheduled to be released in theaters nationwide Aug. 25-27.

Archbishop Coakley told OSV News that he hopes by spreading the word about Blessed Rother, more people will turn to him in prayer.

“The Church needs saints, and we have a Catholic priest missionary martyr who’s on the threshold of being declared a saint. But in order for people to have the confidence to turn to him — to seek his intercession — they have to know his story,” he said. “My primary interest and concern is to introduce people to the life of this heroic missionary priest, so that they might imitate his faith in turning to the Lord in seeking what they need.”

Bishop Edward J. Burns of Dallas hadn’t planned on attending the premiere a month ago. Archbishop Coakley’s classmate from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the same seminary Blessed Rother graduated from, Bishop Burns told the archbishop he planned to visit the shrine on July 28, not knowing it was Blessed Rother’s feast day. The archbishop, in turn, invited him to concelebrate the Mass at the shrine that day.

“Then, I later learned that there was the premiere of this wonderful documentary. I said, ‘Wow, what a coincidence,’ but in actuality, it’s just a little gift from Blessed Stanley Rother,” Bishop Burns told OSVNews.

Like Archbishop Coakley, Bishop Burns was completing his final year at Mount St. Mary’s when the students learned of their alumnus’ martyrdom. As a leader of the student body, he took the responsibility of welcoming Blessed Rother’s parents and sister, Sister Marita Rother, an Adorer of the Blood of Christ, to the campus.

“In those moments, for me to sit and speak to the parents of a martyr moved me in such a powerful way, to speak to a mom of a martyr and the anguish that she went through, it touched my heart,” Bishop Burns recalled.

He described Blessed Rother as a “model of what it is to give everything for the Gospel” and said that he hopes to spread devotion in his own diocese.

“The opportunity to grow closer to Christ is exactly what Stanley did. You look at his life on the farm, through school, in the seminary, and then into his priesthood. He just grew closer and closer to our Lord Jesus Christ. And that same Lord Jesus Christ is the one who welcomed him into the community of saints, angels and martyrs,” he said.

Among the attendees at the premiere were 27 members of Blessed Rother’s family who were recognized during the panel.

“It’s very stirring to see his family with both simple memory of just a man but with deep devotion that now their brother is beatified because he’s martyred,” said the Rev. Nathan Carr, vicar of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City and missioner for strategic development for the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma.

Rev. Carr, who also serves as the headmaster of the Academy of Classical Christian Studies — a K-12 school with a 17% Catholic enrollment — said his school’s Schola Cantorum choir has led music at the shrine every year since its opening. He said Blessed Rother provides inspiration for everybody and plans to encourage his parishioners to see the documentary.

“We are dying on the vine in a dearth of local exemplars — and suddenly, out of God’s perfect grace, we are given an exemplar of the holy life, the life of virtue, and the life of holiness, a life being poured out for others,” Rev. Carr said. “Every kind of Christian — and every kind of person, for that matter — will be able to experience what sacrificial love truly and finally and forever is in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

For Blessed Rother to be canonized, there must be a verified miracle attributed to his intercession before God.

The Rome-based postulator for Rother’s cause, Cristiana Marinelli, said that while she can’t provide details, there are active investigations.

“I can say that what I experienced today is that the devotion, the veneration, is still alive, is still growing. And this is something that’s very important, because only through prayer will we be able to get a sign of God,” she said.

Marinelli, who has served as postulator for three years, said she views her work as a vocation.

“Having the possibility to study the life of this candidate has given me the opportunity also to not only to increase my intellectual, professional knowledge but also my spiritual life,” she said.

Deacon Jan Latta from St. Eugene Parish in North Oklahoma City and his wife, Mary, were excited to see the beatification Mass from 2017 featured in the documentary, because they had both volunteered as ushers before he had entered deacon formation. Deacon Latta said he found inspiration from the fact that Blessed Rother had initially failed his courses in a Texas seminary, Latin in particular, and transferred to the Emmitsburg seminary.

“I grew up on a farm in Iowa, and I’m not that intellectual. I had trouble even in deacon formation with some of the classes,” reflected Deacon Latta. “Even if somebody tells you you’re not intelligent enough or smart enough to be a priest, he didn’t settle for that, and he followed his heart, and he was able to become a priest and go to Guatemala, and he followed his heart down there.”

The documentary features several scenes dramatizing Blessed Rother’s life. Actor Ryan Francis hadn’t heard of Blessed Rother but happened to check his email — something he doesn’t normally do — when he noticed a call for someone to perform historical reenactments.

At the time, Francis had a full beard with some gray for another role he’d done. After sending in a headshot, he was invited to participate in the project.

“When this chance came up, as I was going through it, and then I got to a picture of Father Apla’s, and I go, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can do this,'” he said. “I never even click on these emails, but I happened to click on this one and see it, and it just, it all just happened. Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Guatemala.”

Although he doesn’t consider himself religious, Francis said he found inspiration from Blessed Rother’s life.

“It was quite interesting to visit the places and reenact these actual photos at the actual place where these photos were taken and actually get a crash course on the history on Father Apla’s,” Francis said, noting the similarity between his last name and Blessed Rother’s middle name, for which “Apla’s” is the Tz’utujil translation. “His whole story — especially, just his selflessness, his sacrifice, his commitments — those things just really resonated with me on a level that was very impactful.”

During the panel discussion, Archbishop Coakley said that the message Blessed Rother offers is that there’s “nothing really extraordinary about him at all. He was just an ordinary guy from Okarche, a farmer who became a priest, who became a missionary, who became a martyr, who has become a saint. God calls us all to holiness, and he calls us right where we are.”

He said he hopes the documentary will inspire people to live a life of holiness and to share their gifts in a way that they, too, can become everyday saints.

“We don’t have to go out of our way looking for it. We don’t have to travel across the world. It’s right here at home. It’s in our homes, in our families, in our parishes, in our places of work. That’s where we’re called to flourish and to become saints,” he said.

Blessed Rother baptized Felipe Coche Pablo in Santiago Atítlan, Guatemala, who was only 2 when the martyrdom occurred. Watching the documentary helped him understand what life was like during that time period.

During the panel, Coche — who is also involved in the cause in Guatemala — said through a translator that the people of Santiago Atítlan love Blessed Rother, even today.

“For my people, Father Apla’s is already a saint. He has been loved before and now even more. It’s a blessing for my people Tz’utujil,” he said.

Tony Gutiérrez writes for OSV News from Texas.

Archbishop Harry Flynn reflects on his friendship with Father Stanley Rother, Sep 15, 2017: