Editor’s Note: “Sent to Serve: Profiles of religious life in Atlanta” is a regular series of The Georgia Bulletin and looks at the charisms and work of the religious order priests, brothers and sisters serving in the archdiocese.

CONYERS—In late March of 1944, a group of 21 monks left Gethsemani Abbey in the hills of Kentucky to establish a new monastery in rural Georgia. Their destination was a farm in Conyers, a relatively unknown location with few Catholics, but with all the natural beauty and solitude essential for a monastery.  

The monks first settled in a barn on the property as they began to plan for a more permanent home, which would become the Monastery of the Holy Spirit. Father Luke Kot, the last surviving monk of the original 21, before he passed away, described the joyful perspective he and his brother monks had in the early days. “If Our Lord was born in a stable, how could we complain about living in a barn?” 

Brother Methodius Telnack, who joined the original monks in 1949, was 21 years old when he entered the monastery and has been living there for more than 75 years. When he first arrived, the monks were living in a pine board building they had built, which was meant to be a temporary home while they built the present-day monastery. At that time, only the foundation had been poured for the permanent monastery—a building that was thoughtfully designed to allow all those who enter to experience the presence of God. Brother Methodius worked on the architecture of the present-day monastery.  

“One of the ways to God is beauty, and we tried very hard to keep that in mind while we were building,” he recalls.  

The monastery’s design is simple, with clean lines and plenty of natural light flooding through the stained-glass windows. Each day the church welcomes around twenty to thirty visitors seeking a quiet place to pray. The retreat house allows those who want a longer visit to attend weekend silent retreats. The retreatants enter into the life and schedule of the monks; some even attend Vigils at four in the morning. 

The monks of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit are Cistercians of the Strict Observance, a monastic order focused on contemplation and imitation of Christ. The monks live a hidden life ordered to the worship of God under the Rule of St. Benedict. They meet seven times a day to pray the Divine Office as a community. Throughout the day the monks alternate between prayer and work, living out St. Benedict’s maxim of Ora et Labora. 

At 7 a.m. the monks pray Lauds, or morning prayer, and they attend daily Mass. After this, they begin their morning work. The Cistercian Constitutions call for each monastery to be self-sufficient, so each of the monks has a specific job that contributes to the monastery’s operations. One of the monks is the head baker, with several assisting him to make the delicious cookies, fruit cake and biscotti the monastery has become known for.  

Several monks create stained glass in the studio on the monastery grounds, while others distribute food to those in need at the food bank. A novice master guides the newest members of the community, and one of the monks welcomes participants and facilitates the popular weekend silent retreats. One plans the liturgy, another handles buying and public relations, and all the monks assist their brothers who are in the infirmary.  

Brother Callistus Crichlow stands outside the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers in the shade of the church. Daily the church welcomes around 20 to 30 visitors seeking a quiet place to pray. The property is also home to a retreat house which allows visitors to attend weekend silent retreats. Photo by Julianna Leopold

After their morning work, the monks eat their main meal together in silence as a selected text is read aloud. After a period of rest, the monks return to their tasks until Vespers at 5:20 p.m., followed by a last meal of the day, and then Compline at 7:30 p.m. After Compline, the monks observe a Grand Silence until four o’clock Vigils the following morning.  

Brother Mark Dohle, the prior of the monastery, explains the freedom that comes from following such a strict schedule.  

“We have a highly disciplined life, which can be very freeing. It takes a lot of discipline to keep it up day after day,” he said. “You can only do that if you have time to ponder, to meditate, and to pray.” 

A tradition of hospitality 

According to the Cistercian Constitutions, “every monastery is to continue the tradition of welcoming guests and the needy as Christ.” In keeping with this tradition of hospitality, the gates of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit are open to the public between 4 a.m. and 8 p.m., and all are welcome to find in the church a quiet place for prayer and reflection.  

As Father Augustine Myslinski, OCSO, the abbot of the monastery, explains, “People trickle in all day long, not in droves, but we get 20 to 30 people during the course of a day. They love to sit here and pray. Most of them have heavy burdens on their minds and hearts and they find a place where they can be in touch with God and find peace.” 

The monks have a strong connection to the community in which they live, and to the land itself, reflected in their vow of stability. When they make their final vows, each monk promises to stay in one specific monastery for the rest of their lives. Promising a life-long commitment to one monastery in one geographical location, the vow of stability makes it possible for the monks to become a mainstay of support in the community in which they live, pray and work.  

The Cistercians’ connection to the land is further reflected in their burial traditions. When a monk dies, he is buried in a simple shroud, with no casket.  

“That’s probably the most significant moment in our community life, when we bury one of our brothers and send him off to eternity. The beauty of the burial here is that it’s simple … there’s not a lot of tapestry around it. We send him directly into the ground, into the earth, but of course, always with the belief that he’s going to rise and be with all of our other brothers who have gone before us here at the monastery,” Father Augustine explains. 

The remains of each of the original monks who founded the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, along with all who have lived and died there over the past 82 years, rest in the monastery cemetery. The cemetery, which lies within the cloister, reflects the simplicity of the monks’ lives. The lawn is well cared for, and each grave is marked by an unassuming white cross, with the monk’s name, date of birth and date of death.  

Each cross is a visual testimony to a hidden life of solitude, prayer, work and charity that led to intimacy with God in this life, and union with

About the Monastery 

To plan a visit to the monastery or to learn about the retreats offered there, visit https://trappist.net/. 

The monastery is located at 2625 Highway 212 SW in Conyers. 

I’m writing it in the excitement of the World Cup, not only its wonderful return to North America after 32 years, but also with the shared joy and anticipation of what might become of our national team. 

I’m writing in awe that a good portion of this World Cup is happening here in Atlanta, the city where I first learned to love the global game. 

Adults of my generation who grew up in Metro Atlanta during the 1960s and 1970s will know how much soccer meant to the suburban children of Generation X. Following the phenomenon of the Atlanta Chiefs—who beat the great Manchester City in 1968, and who later became our city’s first true champions as winners of the North American Soccer League—the YMCA of Metro Atlanta founded a youth soccer program that endures to this day as a fixture of weekend life across the archdiocese. 

I played in the YMCA system for more than 10 years, from ages 6 to 16, and I loved every bit of it. My career ended with a red card on a dirt packed sod field in East Cobb County, but I have followed the game ever since. 

Soccer is deeply ingrained in Atlanta now. Never mind the eight World Cup games we’re hosting this summer; we are home and headquarters of United States Soccer. Our MLS Atlanta United plays around the corner from my home. An international women’s tournament is coming here next year. A local pub, the Brewhouse Café, is honored as the best soccer bar in America. 

Still, many locals shrug and complain. “There’s no scoring;” “What’s stoppage time?;” “Why the water breaks?;” “A tie?” 

Folarin Balogun of the U.S. and Belgium’s Brandon Mechele compete in the FIFA World Cup at Seattle Stadium July 6. The United States men’s national soccer team was eliminated from the tournament following a 4-1 defeat in the teams’ round of 16 game. OSV News photo/Albert Gea, Reuters

Impatience and ignorance about soccer continue to aggravate me. I’ve spent much of my life as an apologist for the game, and I’ll try once more to defend the sport here. 

Soccer, to me and to the millions of others who love it, is a metaphor for life. How often do you score in real life? Seriously, how often do you get the promotion, hit the number, get the date you wanted? Yet how much do you long for success? You work for it, you maneuver for it, you even pray for it. Yet you can toil for years and not seem to get a break. You can work years and not get a raise. You can scheme and dream and come up with nothing. Then one day…it happens. You get the promotion, the raise, the date. 

Happiness in soccer is a lot like happiness and good fortune in life. Sometimes it comes from hard work, sometimes from luck, and sometimes from faith. 

In the case of the greatest USA soccer World Cup victory of all time, it came from a combination of them all. 

In 1950, the fledgling United States soccer team beat the great and heavily favored English side 1-0 in a match that shocked both England and the world. 

The young men who comprised the team that accomplished this feat were overwhelmingly immigrant, most from St. Louis, and most of them Catholic. Their community and their faith were as crucial to their victory as their athleticism and determination. They deserve to be celebrated, 76 years later, not only as ambassadors of the game but as proof that if soccer is truly the global game, then an American team can win. 

A story of the ‘quietest glory’ 

The story of this remarkable team of immigrants is beautifully told in Geoffrey Douglas’ book “The Game of Their Lives,” published in 1996 and made into a fine film in 2004 by the same creators who produced the films “Rudy” and “Hoosiers.” 

As the game’s generally accepted birthplace, England is so closely associated with soccer that many readers may be surprised to learn the 1950 tournament was the country’s World Cup debut. Yet England was also regarded as the world’s greatest national team. It was favored to win the tournament, while the United States was given only a 500-1 chance. 

In their first group match, England defeated Chile 2-0, while the United States—as expected—lost 3-1 to Spain. But on June 29, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the Americans achieved the unimaginable and beat England on the Haitian-born Jean Gaetjens’ goal in the 37th minute. While the nearly 13,000 fans in attendance were rapturous in their acclaim, the game had almost no consequence in the United States. Only one American journalist had been at the game, and he had paid his own way. Unfair and xenophobic criticism of the American team as a collection of illegal immigrants served to further stereotype soccer as a foreign working-class game. 

Ironically, soccer was probably more rooted in the American aristocracy and Ivy League schools than anywhere else, but there is no doubt that it was also an immigrant game most often played in inner city communities that were centered around Catholic parishes. 

The Hill neighborhood in St. Louis was closely associated with St. Ambrose Parish, and four of the American players, all of them Catholic, were chosen from that area. Frank Borghi was the American goalkeeper, unique in that he cleared the ball from the goal not by kicking but by throwing it in great heaves that often cleared the center line. Gino Pariani, Charlie Colombo, and Frank Wallace were the other three chosen from the Hill. From the southside of St. Louis, defenseman Harry Keough was chosen from the Carondelet neighborhood. 

Of the team, then, five Catholic men came from St. Louis; the rest were chosen from the Northeast. Of the 18 players on the team, almost half were Catholic. Of the starting 11, eight were American citizens and the other three were awaiting citizenship. 

Perhaps the surge in popularity of soccer and the recent American successes in international play by both the men’s and women’s national teams will result in greater appreciation for the American upset of 1950. While the game is remembered by the soccer community, and while it remains a source of great pride in St. Louis (Anthonino’s Taverna in St. Louis commissioned a mural in 2025 for the 75th anniversary of the game), the “Miracle on Grass” has not captured the country’s imagination like the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.” 

Neither England nor the United States had further success in the 1950 World Cup. England lost to Spain 1-0 in their final group match, while the Americans were dispatched by Chile 5-2. The 1950 tournament was ultimately won by Uruguay.  

One of the great achievements of Douglas’ book is to portray the American players as ordinary people who lived ordinary lives, but as Douglas writes “those lives were wonderfully well lived.” They were, he writes, “a team of young men who once played a game brilliantly but obscurely—asking nothing of it but joy, and whatever wins might come along—then went on to live and die in exactly the same way. It is a story of lives of the quietest sort of glory.” 

Consider goalkeeper Frank Borghi, for example, who made a living as a funeral home hearse driver. Or Harry Keough, who worked 35 years for the U.S. Postal Service and retired on a $17,000 pension. Other players were teachers or restaurant workers, or worked odd jobs. The cast of characters is almost like a Little Golden Book, yet Douglas renders them all as memorable and unique individuals who came together for one great victory.   

Much like other great sports narratives such as Roger Kahn’s “The Boys of Summer” and William Gildea’s “When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore,” “The Game of Their Lives” depicts the players beyond the game. They have careers, they raise families, they experience birth and death and all the other rites of passage we associate with ordinary life. And they do it with gratitude and humility. 

A Belfast reporter described the American team as “A band of no-hopers drawn from many lands.” Pity that writer, for his words echo down the decades with wonderful irony. If 250 years of American history and the American Catholic experience have taught us anything, it is that our greatest strength comes from our unity in diversity, and with that gift springs a full and lasting hope in both our soccer and our shared destiny, no matter what might happen.

Bishop John N. Tran

I have often thought that I would have preferred Thomas Jefferson’s earlier phrasing—“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” And yet, whether expressed in that form or in the final adopted wording, the Declaration continues to shape the moral imagination of our nation. It has influenced our laws, our political institutions and our shared aspirations, even as we have struggled across generations to interpret and live out its meaning faithfully. 

For us as Catholics, these words find a deeper resonance because they echo a truth that predates the founding of the United States: the inviolable dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God. Human rights do not originate with governments or constitutions; they flow from the Creator. This conviction stands at the heart of our Catholic belief and social teaching and calls us to defend the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death, to protect authentic freedom, to seek justice and to uphold the common good. 

In this light, the ideals of the Declaration are not only historical principles to be remembered but enduring challenges that continue to shape our moral responsibility. They invite us, as both citizens and disciples of Jesus Christ, to measure our public life and personal conduct against the vision they express—while also acknowledging honestly the distance that often remains between that vision and our lived reality. 

As I reflect on these words, I am grateful for the wisdom of those who drafted the Declaration—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston—and the faith and courage of the 56 delegates who ultimately signed it. In pledging to one another “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” they accepted profound personal risk in witness to a belief that freedom carries both privilege and responsibility. 

My own reflection is also deeply personal. After the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, it was this Declaration’s conviction—that legitimate government exists to secure the rights of persons—which helped shape policies such as the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act. Through that providence, I was able to come to this country, to be resettled and to live in safety. In the United States, I was given religious freedom, educational opportunity and the chance to rebuild life. For all of this, I remain profoundly grateful, and I strive each day to give back to a nation that has saved me and given me so much. 

As we mark this 250th anniversary, it is fitting that our celebration remains not only an act of remembrance but also becomes a moment of prayer and examination of conscience. Perhaps we may reflect on these questions: In what ways have I shown appreciation for the gifts afforded to me by the Declaration of Independence? How have I witnessed to the God-given dignity of every person? How have I defended the gift of life, protected authentic liberty, served the poor and vulnerable and worked for justice and peace? And how is the Holy Spirit inviting me to renewed fidelity to these ideals in our own time? 

May we inherit the wisdom and courage of those who gave us the Declaration of Independence, so that we may continue to serve the good of our nation.  

May God continue to bless the United States of America.

Father Curran was born Jan. 24, 1942, in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, to Agnes Loretta (Sebeskie) and Joseph Arthur Curran. The youngest of six children, he attended Catholic schools in Shamokin before entering the seminary at Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, where he completed high school, college and theological studies. He also earned a master’s degree in liturgy from the University of Notre Dame.

Father Anthony Curran

Father Curran was the last priest to be ordained in Atlanta by Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan. He was ordained on May 20, 1967, at the Cathedral of Christ the King.

After a year at St. Thomas More Church in Decatur, he served in the religion department at St. Pius X High School, Atlanta. In 1970, he was assigned to St. John the Evangelist Church, Hapeville. In 1971, he was assigned as a parochial vicar at the Cathedral of Christ the King. Father Curran’s first pastorate was at St. Anna Church, Monroe, where he ministered to 100 families at the church and its Winder and Madison missions. He then went to St. Mary’s Church in Rome from 1973 to 1976 to lead the parish community as its pastor.

Father Curran returned to the Pontifical College Josephinum, where he was a member of the formation team. He spent four years there and worked one-on-one with seminarians, helping them to discern what was happening in their prayer journeys. In a Georgia Bulletin story on his 25th jubilee Father Curran called returning to his alma mater a “rich but humbling experience.”

After coming back to Atlanta in 1980, he served at St. Thomas More Church and then as pastor of St. Joseph Church, Dalton.

Other parishes served by Father Curran include St. Jude the Apostle Church, Atlanta; Corpus Christi Church, Stone Mountain; and Queen of Angels Church, Thomson. From 1995 to 2003, Father Curran was pastor of St. Lawrence Church, Lawrenceville.

Following ministry at St. Anthony of Padua Church, Atlanta, and St. Brigid Church, Johns Creek, Father Curran retired for a time to Pennsylvania to care for family. He then returned to Roswell.

During his time at Queen of Angels, Father Curran was known as an ambassador for Catholics in the Thomson area. He served as president of the McDuffie County Ministerial Association to meet with other Christian ministers and to hold ecumenical services.

Father Curran preferred to cook at home and would invite others to join him to combat the loneliness that often affects priests. One of his traditions was to have a special meal on March 4, the feast day of St. Casimir, patron saint of Poland. Using his Polish mother’s recipes, he served up specialties including savory galumpkis. He invited fellow priests with Polish connections and other friends to the meals. He also regularly attended symphony concerts.

His friend, the late Father Joseph Fahy, CP, acknowledged Father Curran’s gift of friendships, encouragement of the ministry of others and his talent for the liturgy.

“Wherever he’s gone, he has tried to make the house of God an inviting place for prayer and worship,” said Father Fahy in a 1992 interview about his brother priest.

In addition to his parish ministry, Father Curran was also a chaplain for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home in Atlanta

He was preceded in death by his parents; his siblings Rose Marie Latsha of Shamokin, Pennsylvania; Kathleen Ellen Berran of Shamokin; James A. Curran of Milltown, New Jersey, and Gerald F. Curran of Pequea, Pennsylvania; and paternal aunts Kathleen Curran, Anna Curran and Helen Curran, all of Shamokin.

Father Curran is survived by his brother, Joseph P. Curran of New Haven, Connecticut, as well as numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews. He remained connected throughout his life to many of his maternal cousins.

A funeral Mass will be Tuesday, July 7, at 10 a.m. at the Cathedral of Christ the King, 2699 Peachtree Rd NE in Atlanta. Bishop Joel M. Konzen, SM, will celebrate the Mass. The burial will immediately follow Mass at Arlington Memorial Park in Sandy Springs.

The Department of Justice has moved to become a co-plaintiff in the suit. A 2024 New York law, known as the Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and People Living with HIV, requires long-term care facilities to use preferred pronouns and assign rooms based on gender identity.

The sisters’ facility, Rosary Hill, serves cancer patients. The sisters also operate Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home in Atlanta.

The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York  A hearing date has not been set, and the state is expected to ask the court to dismiss the suit. In a June 18 statement, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dillon said that states should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of gender ideology.

The Georgia bishops statement, provided on July 1, follows:

“We, the bishops of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, write with gratitude and solidarity to express our wholehearted support for the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who are currently engaged in legal proceedings in the State of New York to defend their right to conduct their sacred apostolate in fidelity to the Catholic faith. We do so not as a matter of political partisanship, but as shepherds of the Church bearing witness to the enduring truth of the sacred dignity of every human person as created by God.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne-formally the Congregation of Saint Rose of Lima-were founded on December 8, 1900, by the Venerable Servant of God Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, a daughter of the American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and a convert to the Catholic faith. Moved by compassion for the poorest of the dying, Mother Mary Alphonsa, OP, as she came to be known, gave her life to the care of those suffering from incurable cancer who had no means to pay for their treatment. In so doing, she embodied the Dominican charism in its most tender expression: to contemplate the truth of the Gospel and to share its fruits with those in greatest need. For more than 125 years, the Sisters have continued her work without accepting payment from any patient, relying entirely upon the generosity of benefactors and the providence of God.

The Sisters have been a beloved presence in the Archdiocese of Atlanta since 1939, when they came to our city and founded Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home, caring for the dying poor with incomparable tenderness and charity. For nearly nine decades, they have served women and men of all backgrounds and beliefs, seeing in each patient the face of Christ. The home stands today as a witness to what the Church teaches and what the culture often forgets: that every human life, however diminished by illness or poverty, is of infinite worth.

It is in this context that we must speak concretely about the current litigation. The State of New York has threatened the Sisters with fines, the loss of their nursing home license, and even imprisonment unless they comply with a law requiring them to assign patient rooms, use pronouns, and conduct intimate personal care according to gender identity rather than biological sex. The State of New York has now demanded that they abandon the Church’s teaching that biological sex is God-given and immutable-a teaching rooted not in animus toward any person, but in a profound reverence for the human body as created by God. We are grateful that the Department of Justice of the United States has recognized the gravity of this threat to religious freedom and has joined the Sisters in their legal action.

This is, at its heart, a question of religious liberty. A government that compels religious women to choose between their faith and their license to serve the dying has transgressed the fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment and has placed an intolerable burden upon the Church’s ministry to the most vulnerable. We stand with our Sisters in the conviction that the freedom to live and to serve in accordance with the teaching of the Church is not a privilege to be granted by the State, but a right that belongs to every person and every religious community.

We ask the faithful of our province to keep the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne in their prayers, to give thanks for their extraordinary witness to the Gospel of Life, and to stand in solidarity with them as they continue-as they have for well over a century-to see the face of Christ in the dying poor and to honor the sacred dignity of every human person.”

Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv.

Bishop Joel M. Konzen, SM; Bishop Bernard E. Shlesinger III;  Bishop John Nhan Tran, auxiliary bishops

A 2024 New York law, known as the Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and People Living with HIV, requires long-term care facilities to use preferred pronouns and assign rooms based on gender identity.

The sisters’ facility, Rosary Hill, serves cancer patients. The sisters also operate Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home, Atlanta.

The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains by the Idaho-based law firm of First & Fourteenth. Named as defendants are New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and four administrators in the New York State Department of Health.

A hearing date has not been set, and the state is expected to ask the court to dismiss the suit.

In a June 18 statement, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dillon said, “States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology.”

The intervention is being handled by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, headed by Dillon.

The Justice Department focus “will be on New York’s violation of the (14th Amendment’s) Equal Protection Clause (of religious groups) by discriminating against religion and discriminating between religions,” L. Martin Nussbaum, a senior partner in First & Fourteen, told OSV News. “By devoting its resources to help correct New York’s burden on the sisters’ religious exercise, the United States is saying that this case is one (included under federal law) of ‘general public importance.'”

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne operate “in accordance” with the U.S. Catholic bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” and “the teachings of the Catholic Church,” the lawsuit states. “They cannot comply with the mandate without violating these sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The state law mandates that nursing homes use a resident’s chosen name/pronouns and honor rooming requests based on gender identity. It took effect May 28, 2024.

“‘Transgender medicine’ can change surface appearance but never sex. And Scripture forbids lying to another about reality,” the lawsuit says. “Requiring a person to identify another by a sex other than his or her God-gifted sex would therefore require such a person to act against central, unchangeable and architectural teachings of the Catholic faith. It would contradict the teachings of the Bible concerning God’s creative sovereignty, contradict reason and truth, and betray our sacred obligation not to knowingly harm other persons, particularly the most vulnerable.”

Additionally, it said, “the implications are so much greater than whether to utter the words ‘he’ or ‘she.’ Indeed, to demand that a Catholic deny another’s sex is to require him or her to affirm another religious worldview.”

Guidance from the state Department of Health just before the law took effect told nursing homes they were required to “ensure that at least once every two years, each facility staff member who works directly with residents receives training on cultural competency focusing on residents who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and/or residents living with HIV.”

The lawsuit notes that the mandate “discriminates between religious groups by exempting the Church of Christ, Scientist and its affiliates while denying any exemption to Catholic organizations.” It says that “If the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne and Rosary Hill Home do not comply, they face fines, injunctions, potential loss of licensing, and imprisonment.”

Doug Wilson, CEO of the Catholic Benefits Association, said, in a June 22 statement, “We’re glad to have the DOJ support our arguments. If religious freedom does not protect the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who does it protect?

“These are real people serving dying patients. They accept no government or insurance funds. Shouldn’t they be allowed to conduct their ministry consistent with the Catholic values that inspired them to undertake this holy work in the first place?”

Mother Marie Edward Deutsch, the Hawthorne Dominicans’ superior general, said in a statement the order was “grateful the Department of Justice sees the injustice in this matter. This gives us hope that the country’s founding principles are still strong after 250 years.”

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1851-1926), a daughter of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, Congregation of St. Rose of Lima, in 1900. She took the name Mother Mary Alphonsa. The order’s apostolate is the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer.

Mother Mary Alphonsa is a candidate for sainthood, and on March 19, 2024, the Vatican issued a decree declaring her “Venerable.”

On June 29, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, two men whose lives remind us that God does not wait until we are perfect before calling us. Peter was a fisherman, impulsive and very human. Paul was once a persecutor of Christians. Yet both were transformed by the grace of Christ and became great witnesses to the Gospel. That gives me great hope.

In my own journey of faith and formation, I have often reflected on how God calls ordinary people, with all their weaknesses, fears and limitations, into something deeper. This became especially meaningful to me during a discussion in our Prayer Forms class in the diaconate formation program. We reflected on the words Jesus spoke to Simon Peter in Luke’s Gospel: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

There is great meaning in that little line. In Latin, the phrase is often expressed as Duc in Altum—cast into the deep. These words are not simply about fishing. They are about trust. They are about obedience. They are about leaving the safety of the shoreline and allowing Christ to lead us into places we may not have chosen for ourselves.

Peter knew the water. He knew fishing. He and the others had worked all night and caught nothing. They were tired, discouraged and probably ready to be done. Yet when Jesus asked him to try again, Peter answered, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.”

That response has stayed with me: “At your command.”

So much of the Christian life begins there. Not because we understand everything. Not because the timing is convenient. Not because we feel fully prepared. But because Christ has spoken, and we are invited to trust him.

For many of us, the “deep water” may not be dramatic. It may be the quiet place in our heart where God is asking for more trust. It may be a difficult conversation we have been avoiding. It may be the need to forgive someone who has hurt us. It may be returning to prayer after a season of discouragement. It may be coming back to Mass, going to confession, serving someone in need, or inviting someone we love to rediscover the faith.

Sometimes the deep water is simply the place where we stop relying only on ourselves and begin to say, “Lord, if you say so, I will try again.”

Peter’s reaction to the miraculous catch is also very moving. When he realizes what has happened, he falls to his knees and says, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Many of us can understand that feeling. We know our sins. We know our failures. We know the ways we fall short. At times, we may wonder whether we are worthy to pray, to serve, or to be used by God.

But Jesus does not move away from Peter. He does not shame him. He does not say, “Come back when you are stronger.” Instead, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Then he gives Peter a mission: “From now on you will be catching men.”

This is one of the most beautiful truths of the Gospel. God’s mercy is greater than our unworthiness. His call is greater than our fear. His grace can work even through our weakness.

Saints Peter and Paul both knew this. Peter denied the Lord and was restored by love. Paul persecuted the Church and was transformed into a tireless apostle. Their lives show us that holiness is not the absence of weakness. Holiness begins when we allow Christ to take our weakness and lead us deeper into his mercy and mission.

That is why the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul is such a fitting time to hear again the invitation of Christ: cast into the deep.

Perhaps this is what the Church needs from each of us today: a willingness to go deeper—deeper in prayer, deeper in Scripture, deeper in the Eucharist, deeper in mercy and deeper in mission. Evangelization is not only something that happens from a pulpit or in a formal program. It happens in families, parishes, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods and quiet conversations. It happens when one person has the courage to witness to Christ with humility and love.

To cast into the deep is to be “all in” for the mission of Christ. It is to stop standing safely on the shore and to allow the Lord to use our lives for the building up of his Kingdom. It is not always easy. The waters may be unfamiliar. We may feel tired, inadequate or afraid. But the Gospel reminds us that we do not go alone.

The same Christ who stepped into Peter’s boat is with the Church today. He is with families carrying heavy burdens. He is with young people searching for meaning. He is with those grieving a loss. He is with the elderly who feel forgotten. He is with those who have drifted from the Church and wonder whether there is a way back. He is with every person who quietly asks, “Lord, where are you leading me?”

On this Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, perhaps the invitation for each of us is simple: listen again to the voice of Christ. Trust him beyond the shoreline. Lower the nets one more time.

May we have the faith of Peter to say, “At your command,” and the courage of Paul to proclaim Christ wherever we are sent.

And may we never forget the words Jesus speaks to every disciple who is afraid to go deeper: “Do not be afraid.”

Speaking to pilgrims gathered outside St. Peter’s Square June 28 after praying the Angelus prayer, the pope expressed his solidarity with the people of Venezuela and prayed for the dead and wounded.

“Praying to the Lord for the eternal rest of the deceased, I renew my spiritual solidarity with their families, the injured, and all who have been shaken by this tragedy,” he said. “I also wish to express my gratitude and encouragement to those generously working on search and rescue efforts and providing assistance.”

The twin earthquakes, which struck the northern Venezuelan state of La Guaira in the evening June 24, measured 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude and were the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century.

According to The Associated Press, Venezuelan government officials reported June 28 that the death toll reached 1,450 and thousands more were injured. Rescuers from around the world have arrived in the country to assist in rescue efforts.

The United Nations said more than 2,200 rescuers and 140 search dogs from 27 countries were working to locate trapped survivors. In a statement published June 25, Tom Fletcher, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the coming days would “require a massive collective effort to support the Government-led response and help communities.”

“Even before these earthquakes, nearly 8 million people in Venezuela were in need of humanitarian support. This disaster risks deepening existing vulnerabilities,” Fletcher said.

Hours after the back-to-back earthquakes struck the country, Pope Leo sent an initial emergency donation of 100,000 euros (US$115,000) through the Dicastery for the Service of Charity, Vatican News reported.

The pope and the College of Cardinals also remembered the people of Venezuela during the two-day consistory at the Vatican. In his concluding address June 27, the pope expressed his closeness and that of the cardinals, and assured “prayers for the victims, their families, and all those suffering the consequences of this tragedy.”

“We also entrust to the Lord all those engaged in relief efforts and ask that the international community continue to show solidarity with that beloved nation,” he said.

Bishops’ conferences also mobilized relief efforts across Latin America, organizing fundraisers and solidarity campaigns to assist the people of Venezuela.

The Peruvian bishops’ conference and Caritas Peru announced June 27 the launch of the “Solidarity with Venezuela” campaign, urging the faithful to make donations “for the purchase of essential food items, hygiene products, medicines, and other vital supplies for the affected families.”

“Every contribution, no matter the amount, represents a concrete gesture of fraternity and hope for our Venezuelan brothers and sisters,” Caritas said. “In times of sorrow, solidarity unites people and demonstrates that no one is alone when charity becomes action.”

In Colombia, the bishops said they were also coordinating donations with its local Caritas and called on the “Catholic faithful, ecclesial communities, and all people of good will to demonstrate their solidarity through a generous, organized, and timely response that helps to address the needs of those who have been affected by this emergency.”

Expressing its “closeness and solidarity” with the people of Venezuela, the Ecuadorian bishops’ conference announced a collection July 5 in parishes across the country.

“We ask that this collection be encouraged during liturgical celebrations, in educational spaces, in parish communities, and in various pastoral works, encouraging the faithful and people of good will to collaborate generously, according to their means,” the bishops said in a statement published June 25.

“Each contribution will be a concrete sign of closeness to those who today need to feel accompanied and supported,” the statement read.

The monthlong celebration is called “We the People: One Faith, Many Cultures, One Parish Family.” 

The observance begins July 4-5 with a patriotic flag display in the church and concludes in August with an “International Night and Dinner.”  

The parish is partnering with the Gwinnett Historical Society to mark the semiquincentennial with a historical reenactment. 

Among the events planned is a “Holy Hours for America” on Sunday, July 12, in the parish adoration chapel. Organizers hope parishioners will help reach 250 hours of eucharistic adoration in a single day. Participants are asked to sign up in advance.  

The parish also will honor military veterans on July 19 and 26. Parishioners are invited to submit the names of living or deceased veteran family members through the parish’s “We The People” page on its website for the commemorative display. On July 19, parishioners will be invited to write appreciation cards for active-duty military members. 

A patriotic night of music and a presentation by the Gwinnett Historical Society will be held Wednesday, July 29, at 7 p.m. in the church. Jason West, the historical society president, will portray Button Gwinnett, one of Georgia’s three signers of the Declaration of Independence, by sharing stories, perspectives, and leadership lessons from the Revolutionary era. 

Additional details and registration information are available through the parish at https://www.saintlaw.org/we-the-people. The church is located at 319 Grayson Hwy, Lawrenceville.

Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., kneels in prayer at the consecration Mass June 12 at Atlanta’s basilica. Photo by Julianna Leopold

ATLANTA–Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., consecrated Atlanta to the Sacred Heart of Jesus during an evening Mass June 12. The archbishop celebrated Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, praying for and blessing those who attended.

The U.S. bishops formally consecrated the nation to Jesus’ Sacred Heart at their spring assembly, June 11, ahead of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Many bishops, including Archbishop Hartmayer, returned to their home dioceses to lead local consecrations.

“Love is the language of every consecration,” the archbishop said in his homily. “It is not the offering of something earned but the reception of something freely given.”

The archbishop recalled some of the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …”

Archbishop Hartmayer said the words reflect that the dignity of every human person is a “gift from a source no human authority can finally revoke.”

He called it “fitting” to be holding the consecration in the basilica, a church built as a temple to the heart of Jesus.

At the national consecration, Archbishop William E. Lori, homilist at the Mass, said that the Sacred Heart reconciles divisions and transforms hardened hearts. He described consecration as an act of faith and acknowledgment of the need for God’s mercy, wisdom and guidance, and also an act of hope.

“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 Lori 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 devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus grew from the revelations of the Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 17th century. During the second revelation, he instructed Margaret Mary to receive Communion on every first Friday for nine consecutive months, as well as to prostrate herself before the Blessed Sacrament for one hour during the night between Thursday and Friday each week. Upon the third revelation, the Lord proclaimed his desire for the institution of a feast to his Most Sacred Heart, which would bring the devotion into the Church’s common and universal practice.

Nearly two centuries later, Pope Pius IX instituted the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1865, to be observed on the second Friday after Trinity Sunday (which is also the Friday immediately following the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus in the United States).

The meeting provides the bishops of the province the opportunity to discuss topics relating to the region. Attending the gathering were Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., of Atlanta; Bishop Michael Martin, OFM Conv., of Charlotte; Bishop Luis Zarama of Raleigh; Bishop Jacques Fabre-Jeune, CS, of Charleston; Bishop Stephen Parkes of Savannah; and Atlanta’s three auxiliary bishops: Bishop Joel Konzen, SM, Bishop Bernard Shlesinger III and Bishop John Nhan Tran.

Bishop Stephen Parkes of Savannah greets a member of the congregation following the province Mass on June 25 at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta. Photo by Julianna Leopold

Archbishop Hartmayer, OFM Conv., celebrated a midday provincial Mass at the cathedral June 25. His homily focused on the parable of the two builders in Matthew 7, from the day’s Gospel reading.

The archbishop highlighted Jesus’ challenging words that not everyone who says, “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Jesus warns that not even prophesying, driving out demons or doing mighty deeds in his name is enough, shared the archbishop. Jesus doesn’t dispute their activities but rather questions their foundation, said Archbishop Hartmayer.

“‘I never knew you,’ he said. You never opened your heart to me. You did all those things that look good, but there was not relationship between us,” said the archbishop in summarizing Jesus’ words.

In the parable, the wise man built his house on a rock to withstand the rain, floods and wind. The foolish man built his house on sand, and it collapsed in ruin.

Mass is celebrated communally as an act of faith in the “foundation on which we should build our house,” said Archbishop Hartmayer.

When bishops pray, govern, teach or sit with others in crisis, “we do this work on (the) rock, or not at all,” he said.

“The question is not whether we have been busy in the Lord’s name. The question is whether the Word of God has reached the foundation of our lives,” said Archbishop Hartmayer.

The Eucharist serves to strengthen this foundation, he emphasized.

“That is why you are here. We are not here to inspect a building, but to shore up our foundation, to continue to add another layer of solid rock,” he said.

Following Mass, the bishops chatted with parishioners outside the cathedral. During their meetings, the bishops listened to presentations from Atlanta’s synod leaders to talk about next steps that the Vatican is asking dioceses to take in the synodal process. They also discussed issues related to growth and how to support clergy, religious and the faithful.

The award presentations are an annual program of the Catholic Media Association. The program accepts and judges work completed by the association’s members in the United States and Canada from the previous year. The awards presented to The Georgia Bulletin and Office of Communications were: 

• A first-place award in the Hot Topic Pope Francis category for a package on the pontiff’s life and death. The submitted pieces were “Atlantans remember Pope Francis for mercy, bold initiatives and art of encounter” by Andrew Nelson; “A Lenten journey of hope,” a column by Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., and “Atlanta’s Jesuit community highlighting a papacy ‘grounded in joy,’” by Nichole Golden. 
• A first-place award for Best Regular Column, Spiritual Life for contributing columnist Lauretta Hannon. Submitted columns included “The case of the accidental retreatant.” Hannon is a parishioner of St. Mary’s Church, Rome.  
• First place Best Spanish Podcast for “Hablemos de Fe,” hosted by Tatiana Villa and Natalia Duron.  
• First place in the Best Advertising Campaign category for the Stories that Unite Us, a project coordinated by Samantha Smith of the Office of Communications.
• A second-place win for Best Photo Story, Feature for “Fall Fellowship at Holy Vietnamese Martyrs,” by photographer Julianna Leopold. The vivid and colorful photo essay captured the sights of the annual fall festival at the Norcross church. 
• Second place for Best News Coverage, Immigration for “Read to Succeed, spring fling support refugee children in Clarkston,” “Catholic Charities Atlanta marks 50 years of refugee resettlement service,” and “Faithful participate in national advocacy for immigrants,” by Natalia Duron, and “Living Matthew 25: When I was a stranger, you welcomed me” by Andrew Nelson.  
• Second place recognition for Best Initiative or Campaign package for the Office of Communications for the Stories that Unite Us. 
• Second place for Best Podcast, Social Justice Issues for “Faith and Sustainability,” an award for Kat Doyle and the late Leonard Robinson, hosts; and Allen Kinzly of the Office of Communications. 
• Third place for Best Photograph, Immigration/Migration for “Read to Succeed,” for Julianna Leopold’s photo of a young refugee girl selecting a book at a Catholic Charities’ event. 
• Third place for Best Reporting on a Special Age Group, Young Adults for “The art of Vietnamese lion dancing strengthens parish community” by Andrew Nelson. 
• A third-place honor for Best Website, Newspaper for www.georgiabulletin.org, the website of The Georgia Bulletin. 
• Honorable mention for Best Regular Columns in Art, Leisure, Culture and Food for Dr. David King’s columns “Culture and the Church” including “A Catholic approach to the death of a pet.” 
• Honorable mention for Best Feature Writing, Non Weekly for “Departing Sisters were ‘the heart of this neighborhood’” by Andrew Nelson. 
• Honorable mention for Best Reporting of Social Justice Issues- Option for the Poor and Vulnerable for “Read to Succeed, spring fling support refugee children in Clarkston” by Natalia Duron. 
• Honorable mention for Best Photograph, Priesthood, Religious Life or Diaconate for a photo by Julianna Leopold from the 2025 diaconate ordination of a joyful embrace.
• Honorable mention for Best Photograph, Immigration/Migration for “We are the Body of Christ” a photo of Father Michael Lamanna, SJ, leading a rosary walk. 
• Honorable mention for Best Use of Video on Social Media (liturgical season) for an explainer video by Allen Kinzly. 

Judges for the 2026 Catholic Media Awards presented an honorable mention to Georgia Bulletin photographer Julianna Leopold for this photo of Father Michael Lamanna, SJ, immigration counselor and staff attorney at Catholic Charities Atlanta. He led others in prayer in front of the Atlanta Immigration Court on Nov. 13, 2025, as part of the initiative “One Church, One Family: Catholic Public Witness for Immigrants.”

The Chicago-based Catholic Media Association organizes the conference which fosters development and networking among Catholic media professionals throughout North America as well as abroad. 

A June 18 panel discussion on “Communicating the Vision of Pope Leo XIV: Truth, Technology and Evangelization” took place as part of the conference. Panelists included Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication; Carol Glatz, editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service in Rome; and Augustinian Father Arthur Purcaro, assistant vice president for mission and ministry at Villanova University, and a longtime friend of the pope. Moderating the discussion was Kerry Weber, executive editor at America Media and president of the Catholic Media Association. 

In his final general audience until Aug. 5, Pope Leo also encouraged young people to use the downtime of summer vacation to attend Mass, go to confession frequently, reflect on Scripture, go on spiritual retreats and pilgrimages and spend time with loved ones.

“Vacation is a time for rest and to seek signs of God in the beauty of creation,” he said in his remarks to Polish-speaking visitors. He also asked people to pray for students so that they may “choose wisely” the schools and universities they will attend and “discern with prudence their vocation.”

Continuing his series on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the pope focused on “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, explaining how the Eucharist draws the faithful into deeper communion with God and one another.

Receiving Christ in the Eucharist transforms believers into the Body of Christ, whose head is the risen Lord seated at the right hand of the Father, the pope said.

“Thus, the Eucharist is the sacrament of the Kingdom that is to come,” Pope Leo said.

The Eucharist teaches Catholics to adopt Christ’s way of self-giving love and to be “drawn day by day into ever more perfect union with God and with each other,” he said.

“This gift draws us into the dynamic of unity, offering a powerful antidote to the forces of division that undermine our world, our communities, our families, and our hearts,” he said.

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy teaches that the faithful are called to “offer themselves in union with Jesus Christ” to the Father “through the hands of the priest and together with him,” the pope said. Participation in the Eucharist also means being formed by God’s word and “nourished at the table of the Lord’s body.”

The Eucharist cannot be separated from the Word of God, the pope said, noting that the liturgy and the Eucharist form “one single act of worship.” Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he said Scripture illuminates and explains the mystery of the Eucharist, while the Eucharist opens believers to a deeper understanding of Scripture.

“This Word nourishes and sustains us together with the Eucharistic bread and leads us from the decay of sin to new life in Christ,” Pope Leo said.

Referring to the Second Vatican Council’s focus on giving Catholics greater access to Scripture, the pope pointed to the Lectionary–the book containing the biblical readings proclaimed at Mass–as a result of the council’s liturgical reform. The expanded collection of readings used in the Church’s liturgies today, he said, reflects the richness of the Church’s living tradition, combining “fidelity to tradition with openness to legitimate progress.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, let us draw with faith from this source of divine life and allow ourselves to be transformed by the mystery we celebrate,” he said.

It was a still, humid afternoon, much like the weather we’ve had recently, when the mugginess of any given day can erupt into a thunderstorm. It was the perfect Southern afternoon to listen to R.E.M.’s record, which brims with references to Southern folklore, religion and mythology. It’s one of the most mystical albums this very special Georgia band ever made. 

Much of the record’s allure owes to its sense of storytelling and character development. Many of the songs are about real people in and around Athens, Georgia, including characters such as Old Man Kensey and Wendell Gee. One of the most fascinating characters on Fables, as fans refer to the album, isn’t named, but the song about him is one of the band’s best. 

Brivs Mekis was an eccentric Athens man, rumored to be schizophrenic, who lived a solitary life on Meigs Street in a house that he divided completely in two. Each side was furnished differently, decorated differently, and arranged as though two different people lived on either side. Each side was rumored to have its own pets. Mekis lived in whatever side of the house that suited him at any given time. When he died, and his house was being emptied on both sides, cleaners found a trove of books Mekis had published through the vanity press. The title of the book was “Life: How to Live.”  In the song about Mekis, “Life and How to Live It,” R.E.M. doesn’t gape or poke fun. Instead, in that uniquely Southern way, the band seems to respect Mekis’ eccentricity. 

The core of The Rule 

When the Trappist Monks of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery first arrived in Georgia after leaving their mother house in Kentucky, many people did gape. Catholics in Georgia were a rarity, let alone monks. Though locals eventually welcomed the monks, and even assisted in building their beautiful church, there was an initial skepticism, even suspicion. 

Fittingly, the monks arrived in Georgia on March 21, 1944, St. Benedict’s Day. Benedict had also written a book about how life might be lived, though his text became a cornerstone of Western Monasticism and—one might argue—Western civilization. 

St. Benedict of Nursia’s Rule dates to the early sixth century, a time when the composition of similar guidebooks about living in community was common. Both St. Basil and St. Augustine had written Rules. Yet no guide for monastic life has endured quite like Benedict’s.  

At its core, the Rule is a key to living life in communion with God and with others while also nurturing a sense of personal vocation. The Rule depends upon some simple principles: live a life of peace, live a life with empathy and understanding for others, and live a life in which prayer and work—Ora et Labora—are constantly in union. 

A statue of St. Benedict is seen outside the Haverty Center at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. The saint’s Rule dates to the early sixth century, a time when the composition of similar guidebooks about living in community was common.

The Rule contains 73 short chapters, some only a paragraph or two, devoted to both practical matters and ideals. That the book is grounded in human reality is one reason that the Rule flourished in the Middle Ages. The Medieval mind was fascinated with the concept of community and social order, and it’s in the Middle Ages that we really begin to see the roots of human fellowship and relationships as we understand them today. The two great Western traditions of Medieval Europe—the University and the Monastery—are still thriving today. 

Like most human endeavors, however, Monasticism needed reform in the Middle Ages. While many different monastic communities use the Benedictine Rule as a guide, the founding of the Cistercian order in 1098 intended to return to a strict observance of the Rule. In doing so, the Cistercians also broadened the Rule’s valuation of silence, so that community life was balanced by a greater commitment to solitary life. This approach underscored the fundamental role God plays in the life of both the individual and the self among others. It encouraged a greater understanding of one’s most authentic self in communion with God, both in solitude and in action with the community. 

By 1664, the Cistercian Order itself was reformed at the Abbey of La Trappe in France. The monks began calling themselves “Trappists,” and by 1902 they adopted the formal name Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. The first American Trappist Monastery was founded in Kentucky in 1849. From this monastery came the monks who founded the monastery outside of Conyers, which remains a historical, cultural and religious treasure for the Archdiocese of Atlanta and all who come to visit. 

Hospitality and self-reliance are additional values Benedict affirms in the Rule. Monasteries support themselves through their work. Trappist monasteries all over the world bake bread, make cheese, craft fruitcakes and chocolate and brew beer—all with the dual aim of supporting their communities and nurturing others through simple yet special goods. Their emphasis upon quality and value remains unchanged. 

As a child in Atlanta in the 1970s, I will never forget the Monastery bread that was a staple at my grandparents’ house, as much a fixture of their kitchen as Coca-Cola, Stuckey’s Coconut Butter and cookies from the Nabisco plant where my grandfather worked. Though my grandparents were not Catholic, they loved to visit the Monastery on day trips, and on at least a few occasions they took me along. Neither they nor I could know how important the Monastery would one day become to me. 

As a graduate student at Georgia State University in 1990, I met my dear friend and mentor, the late professor Dr. Victor A. Kramer. Dr. Kramer was a specialist in Monasticism and the work of Thomas Merton, and he hired me as his graduate research assistant. I worked with Kramer on “The Merton Annual” and his oral histories of the monasteries in Kentucky and Conyers, and through this work I experienced a profound conversion experience that led me into the Catholic Church in 1992. He and his wife Dr. Dewey Weiss Kramer were great advocates for the Monastery, and Dewey’s book Open to the Spirit has grown through multiple editions as the essential history of the Monastery. 

I visited the Monastery many times during the early 90s as I was becoming Catholic, and it remains very special to me. Not long ago we celebrated Victor’s funeral Mass there and buried his ashes in the Honey Creek Woodlands natural cemetery that the monks maintain. For me it was a perfect circle illustrating how Benedict’s vision continues to impact life upon life through the fundamental value of Tradere—“handing one another along.” 

The Benedictine Rule encourages us to do just that, to let our lives be an instrument through which other lives are bettered. The Rule instructs us to “listen with the ear of our heart,” as God calls us to understand what others want and need. 

An understanding of Ora et Labora 

When I mention the Rule of St. Benedict to people in my OCIA class, they are often wary. How could a 1500-year-old text for monks have any relevance to their lives now? How could the ideal of Ora et Labora be applied to their own work?  

I will never forget an OCIA participant I once taught who worked as a project manager for a construction company that specialized in building hospitals and other medical facilities. He traveled a great deal for his job, and when we met on Sunday evenings, he was often headed for the airport right after class. He had an innate understanding of what the Benedictine Rule implies. Though he knew he was not a doctor, that he would never use the spaces he built to diagnose or operate, his work in building those spaces had a direct impact upon the patients who would one day experience profound transformation in them. They might be born in them; they might die. They might face mortality, or a miracle. One way or another, they would be changed. 

What a beautiful understanding that student had. He saw himself as not a bit different from those who built the great cathedrals who never saw their completion, or as a monk in Conyers in a barn monastery who could barely imagine what the place would become. 

The Rule of St. Benedict is a simple yet beautiful “vade mecum,” a companion that offers brilliant insights into life and how to live it. 

I often wonder if Michael Stipe has read Benedict’s Rule. Besides the song lyric that captures so well the essence of community—“Two doors, two names to call, your other and your own”—it’s interesting to remember that in 1985, during the Fables of the Reconstruction tour, Stipe shaved his head into a monk’s tonsure. 

Antonio and Liliana Borges put on the team shirts of their rivals Brazil at a World Cup watch party at St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Church, Douglasville. The gathering drew parishioners supporting Haiti, Bolivia, the Netherlands and others, while the party focused on Morocco’s World Cup match against Brazil, favored by their Brazilian-born pastor. The Borges’ hearts are with Argentina, Liliana’s native country. Photo by Andrew Nelson

DOUGLASVILLE—Antonio Borges and his wife Liliana wore the colors of their South American soccer rival Brazil for the day, but their hearts remained with Argentina, Liliana’s native country 

A Haitian parishioner waved a Brazilian flag while holding on to her loyalty to Team Haiti. 

That’s the spirit that filled the gym at St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Church, Douglasville, where some 300 men, women and kids brought their chairs from home to watch an opening game of the World Cup June 13. 

The gathering drew parishioners supporting Haiti, Bolivia, the Netherlands and others, while the party focused on Morocco’s World Cup match against Brazil, favored by their Brazilian-born pastor.  

The game connects parishioners from 29 countries and cultural backgrounds who worship at English and Spanish Masses who might not otherwise interact, helping them realize they are “one big family,” said Borges, who holds season tickets to the Atlanta United soccer team and is a parish catechist leading a men’s Bible study.  

“Sports allow us to bring different cultures, different thoughts, ways of thinking, different behaviors, and allow it to bring them all together,” he said.  

For parish pastor Father Leandro Nunes Teixeira, the hours spent in the gym go beyond winning and losing. He said while some homes have more TVs than residents, parishioners chose the church for the “magic” of time together. 

“It’s an amazing feel. It’s a magic because we have an opportunity to get together, to share, you know, talents, to share time,” said Father Leandro, wearing a fedora and blowing noise makers every time his beloved team threatened a goal against Morocco.  

Brazil and Morocco faced off in the first round of the 48-nation World Cup tournament. The parish gym erupted in joy when the Brazil evened the score to a 1-1 tie. 

The watch party organizers had to shut down the registration form due to its popularity. The parish capped the attendance at 280 people.  

Veronic Vasquez and Marco Antonio Eguez, natives of Bolivia, support the Brazil national team at the parish World Cup party on June 13. Photo by Andrew Nelson

The parish plan was a simple one. Gather the community in the gym. Cheer for the teams. Enjoy a BBQ meal, provided by the Catholic Metro Sports League, a regional sports league. 

Rob Aldrich, who supports the team from the Netherlands, said the league was excited to be there, interacting with the fans. There is an enthusiasm for sports among adults, and the goal is to recruit some to become coaches to lead youth programs, said Aldrich, the managing director.  

Organizers Evelyn Ortega, the parish communications director, and Dianna Paz, the director of religious education, inflated noise makers and handed out flags of Brazil and Morocco to incoming fans as they streamed into the gym following Saturday Mass.  

“We want them to remember the feeling of being together in fellowship. We are all one family even though we may be cheering for different teams,” said Ortega. “We are in the same church family.”  

The pastor’s national team country has won the World Cup trophy in victory five times. And he is full of memories of the global competition. During his seminarian days, he shadowed a pastor during the 2002 tournament in Japan. One of Brazil’s matches with the time change coincided with Sunday Mass. Laughing at the memory, Father Leandro said the priest decided to reschedule the liturgies for later in the afternoon so people could gather to watch the match. The priest humorously told the parishioners, “Jesus is also watching the game.” 

Speaking like a true believer, Father Leandro compared faith to the game of soccer.  

“Soccer evangelizes because soccer reminds us of something. That life, I would say, is not about a competition to shine alone,” he said.  

Even the most faithful person or player will fail if they do not care for others or allow others to play their own part, he said. Without concern for others, “even if they have talent, they still have not understood, I would say the game of life.” 

“Life and faith is like, we have to pass the ball. For everybody matters. We are a team,” said the priest. 

(OSV News)–Before the great wave of Hispanic immigration that swept the U.S. in the last several decades, historians spoke of four main periods of Catholic immigration linked to four ethnic groups: the Irish (peaking in the 1850s), the Germans (1880s), the Italians (early 1900s) and the Poles and other Slavs (1920s). The immigrant experience, including entry into the Catholic Church as they found it in the new country, was in some ways different for each.

And for none more difficult than for the Italians.

Between 1880 and 1920, as many as 4 million of them came to America, mostly from poverty-ridden southern Italy. Many were temporary workers–“builders of bridges, tunnels and subways, longshoremen and factory workers,” as one writer said–who came to earn money and, that done, hastened home. But many stayed and made new homes in America. Or tried.

Early in those years, Frances Cabrini had met with Pope Leo XIII and told him of her dream to go to China as a missionary. “No,” Pope Leo answered, “not to the East but to the West.” He wanted her and her new Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to go to America and do pastoral work among the Italian immigrants.

What happened after that is a bright page in the sometimes tumultuous story of Italian-American Catholicism. The heroic love of God and neighbor that motivated her was formally recognized in 1946 when Frances Cabrini was declared a saint. That made her the first U.S. citizen to be canonized–even though she remained, in the words of a historian, “Italian … to the very marrow of her bones.”

Francesca Cabrini was born July 15, 1850, in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, a town in Lombardy, youngest of 13 children in a well-off farming family. A pious child–the “little saint,” neighbors called her–she longed to be a missionary and played at sailing paper boats filled with violets representing the sisters she meant to send all over the world.

But her father had other ideas, and after studying to be a teacher, Francesca taught school. On two occasions, she sought admission to religious orders but was turned down–ostensibly for poor health, but in fact because a local monsignor had other ideas: He wanted her to take over direction of a troubled orphanage.

After she had run the orphanage for six years, the bishop of the diocese asked her and her companions to form a religious community. The Missionary Sisters were born, with the foundress taking Frances Xavier as her religious name–“Xavier” for the 16th-century Jesuit missionary to the Far East, Francis Xavier.

Although the new order was at first only a diocesan institution, Mother Cabrini had larger plans from the start. After establishing new convents in Cremona and Milan, she went to Rome to seek papal approval and, she hoped, open a convent there. At first the cardinal in charge of such matters said “no”–Rome had enough convents already–but this determined woman of great charm persisted, and the cardinal ended by allowing her to open not just one convent but two.

It was around then that she had the interview with Leo XIII that sent her on her way to the United States. Already in 1884, the American bishops at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore had discussed the desperate pastoral situation of the Italian immigrants. Little came of it, except that “the Italian problem” was by now recognized as a problem for the church at large.

New York already had some 50,000 Italians, but only a handful ever went to church. The newcomers’ situation included poverty, a critical shortage of Italian-speaking priests, habits of anticlericalism and spotty religious practice that accompanied them from the old country. There was also pervasive anti-Italian feelings, not only outside, but within the American Catholic community.

Over time, a pastoral strategy began to take shape, bolstered by the arrival of new Italian religious communities like the Scalabrinian Fathers and the Pallottines as well as by training American priests to work with the Italians. The first parish in the U.S. specifically for them had been founded in Philadelphia in 1852, and now these spiritual enclaves retaining the language and devotional traditions of Italy multiplied. Mother Cabrini and her sisters were part of the increasingly effective response to a situation of obvious need.

Mother Cabrini arrived in New York March 31, 1889, and, after a short-lived period of tension with the local archbishop over where to set up shop, she and her companions got to work. Within a month, they were running an orphanage. In less than three years, they had a hospital as well. (Mother Cabrini called all her hospitals–two in New York, two in Chicago–Columbus Hospital.)

The spread of the order’s work

There’s not enough room here to list here all the orphanages, schools, hospitals and clinics these women were responsible for establishing and operating. But numbers at least suggest the magnitude of what they achieved. By the time Mother Cabrini died 34 years after her arrival, the 2,300 Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart working in the United States and throughout the Western Hemisphere had launched 67 institutions devoted to the physical, moral and spiritual welfare of people in need. Italians were not the only ones they served, but Italians remained the special focus of the sisters’ efforts.

As early as September 1891, Mother Cabrini took 14 sisters to Nicaragua to start an academy. Returning to the United States by way of New Orleans, she discovered that a year earlier a mob there had lynched a number of Italians accused of crimes. Her response was to summon several sisters from New York to begin work among the Italians of the Crescent City.

Like the little girl who years before had dreamed of dispatching missionaries all over the world, Mother Cabrini carried on a ministry of expansive horizons. Argentina and Chile, France, Spain, England–Missionary Sisters went to all these places to work. In the U.S., the order spread west across the United States–to Chicago, to the mining camps of Colorado and Sing Sing prison in New York, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington state.

In 1909, Mother Cabrini became a naturalized citizen. The following year, knowing her strength was failing, she announced her intention to resign as superior general of her order and devote herself exclusively to prayer. But the houses of the Missionary Sisters voted unanimously in favor of her staying on. Observing those results, the cardinal-prefect of the Vatican’s congregation for religious told her, jokingly, “Mother Cabrini, though up to now you have governed your institute badly, I have decided to give you another chance. You are to remain superior general.” The foundress wasn’t fazed. “Well, I warn you that I shall be just as severe as in the past,” she replied.

She died Dec. 22, 1917, at Columbus Hospital in Chicago. After the unusually brief interval of 21 years, Pope Pius XI declared her blessed. Pius XII canonized her in 1946 and in 1950 designated her “Patroness of the Immigrants.”

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.”

Atlanta Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer attends a June 10 session of the annual spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Orlando, Fla. OSV News photo/Bob Roller

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

ROME—Between railroad tracks and a shopping center, several people streamed in from all directions to find three Catholic sisters praying and distributing food from the trunk of their van. Some people rode their bikes into the parking lot, and others walked on foot to retrieve bags of sandwiches, a hot meal and snacks—the food that would sustain them for a few days. 

Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ, a community of three sisters living in the nearby small town of Cedartown, deliver food every Monday to the parking lot as part of their charism to serve the poor. Homeless and low-income residents of Rome have found the sisters’ street ministry mostly through word of mouth. 

“Our mission is based on Matthew 25—I was hungry and you gave me food; I was naked and you clothed me,” said Sister Myrian of the Crucified. “If we do this for those in need, then we do it for him (Christ).”  

On a recent evening as the sun was setting, the sisters greeted some familiar faces with hugs. They invited the individuals who were receiving food into conversation if they wanted to talk. Some stayed to share their lives with the sisters, and others retreated into nearby woods with food bags hanging on their bicycle handlebars. 

“Being here and serving the people that God entrusted to us is meaningful because Jesus calls us to bring hope to the people who maybe don’t have hope and light right now,” said Sister Dalva of the Risen Jesus. “Our founder says it’s about being family to the poor. It’s more than just food.” 

Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ was formed in Brazil in 2001 by Father Gilson Sobreiro who felt a calling to serve youth who were suffering from poverty, addiction, violence, unemployment and broken families. A decade later, the first North American mission was established in Kansas. 

Now, the congregation has 80 missions in 16 countries. In the United States, there are four mission houses—Kansas, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Cedartown. 

The Cedartown mission, called Fraternitas St. Katharine Drexel, began in early 2022 at the invitation of Father Tim Gallagher, then pastor of St. Bernadette Catholic Church. The old parish building was converted into a simple convent where three sisters live and pray. 

The sisters keep a daily schedule of personal prayer, communal prayer and worshiping at Mass. They eat together, do chores and have free time for reading or planning retreats. 

In addition to their food ministry, the sisters also serve the St. Bernadette’s parish community that is largely Hispanic and Spanish speaking. They have accompanied grieving families and helped married couples who are struggling. Additionally, they lead formation activities such as eucharistic minister training, confirmation retreats and retreats for catechists. 

The sisters are searching and praying for another outreach to expand their service in the area, Sister Myrian said. 

Sister Dalva of the Risen Jesus,PJC, sorts through piles of donated clothes. She separates them into men’s and women’s to give to the poor and homeless community of Rome. Photo by Julianna Leopold

Spiritual fruits 

Sister Mary of the Obedient Jesus has found that living in Cedartown pushes her to recognize that poverty can take many forms in addition to material poverty. People may be lonely, depressed, or anxious and need the community that the sisters bring to Cedartown and Rome, she said. 

“We come here to create a community with them, to pray with them, and to feed them,” said Sister Mary. “We know the importance of the physical fruit but also the spiritual fruit and recognizing that Christ is with us. Here in Cedartown and Rome, I’ve learned to see the poor in all of us.” 

Sister Mary was living at a mission house in Ontario, Canada, prior to professing vows in January and moving to Cedartown. The poor and homeless were more numerous and visible in Ontario than Cedartown, she said. 

Likewise, Sister Dalva said they don’t see as many homeless as she did at her prior mission in Baltimore, but the poor have similar needs wherever she goes. 

“We see him (Christ) in every culture, every language,” she said. “God is present and we have to be open to that calling as a missionary.” 

On a typical Monday evening, the sisters and volunteers serve food to about 25 to 30 people in Rome. Some weeks, they also have clothing available.  

Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ profess vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. They also profess a fourth vow called availability, which means being open to God’s call like Mary was when she quickly went to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. 

Sister Dalva said she started to feel God’s calling to her vocation when she was 13 years old and preparing for her first communion. She’s inspired by St. Teresa of Kolkata who said Christians are “called to be poor with the poor.” Living a life of simplicity and poverty is her way to holiness, she said.  

Marlen Baldizon is a volunteer from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Carrollton who cooks a hot meal once a month to distribute alongside the sisters. The sisters have helped her be courageous in her service to the poor, she said. 

“They are my little angels. They are the bridge to reach people I never thought I would,” said Baldizon, who met the sisters during a retreat. “I love to serve. To serve is to be alive.” 

Bishop Joel M. Konzen, SM, left, and Bishop John N. Tran walk together during eucharistic procession starting from the Church of the Purification to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi. Photo by Julianna Leopold

CRAWFORDVILLE—Catholics gathered on June 6 to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi in the place where the faith began in Georgia. 

Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., and Atlanta’s auxiliary bishops celebrated an outdoor Mass in a meadow on the property of the Retreat at Heritage. A eucharistic procession—two and a half miles in length—preceded the Mass. The procession began at the Church of the Purification, the first Catholic Church in Georgia.

The weekend celebration also included a display of eucharistic miracles at the Retreat at Heritage. The archdiocese offered transportation for those wanting to travel to the event from the Atlanta area.

Corpus Christi—the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ—celebrates the Catholic belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. More than 100 pilgrims participated in the procession including laypeople, priests and the Missionaries of Charity.