CNA Staff, Aug 31, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- The Knights of Columbus have pledged to donate $150,000 to a Louisiana diocese badly hit by Hurricane Laura.
On Friday, the Catholic fraternal organization announced they would send assistance to the Diocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana, which suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Laura last week. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall in western Louisiana on early Wednesday morning, resulting in ten deaths and up to $12 billion in damage in Louisiana and Texas.
“This donation is only the first step in our efforts to help with recovery,” Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, stated on Friday.
Bishop Glen John Provost of Lake Charles stated his gratitude for the Knights’ assistance, noting that the devastation wrought by the storm was “enormous.”
“The task ahead for us is most challenging, but we know, as in the past, the Knights have always been there for us. God bless them!” he said.
The Diocese of Lake Charles reported last week that nearly one-third of priests in active ministry were displaced by the storm, with at least six churches destroyed and at least a dozen suffering serious damage. All of the diocese’s 39 parishes and 7 mission churches suffered damage to some extent.
Bishop Provost said on Saturday that the city of Lake Charles is a “disaster,” while the diocesan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception sustained roof damage and the chancery is currently uninhabitable.
“No house, no business is left untouched,” he said in a statement posted on the diocesan Facebook page. Downed electric lines are everywhere. We have no internet or website access.”
In addition, several religious community residences were ruled uninhabitable and only one in six schools will open on time for the fall semester. The local Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana has reported a current need for food, water, tarps, and hotel vouchers.
"Our prayers are with the people of the Diocese of Lake Charles and with everyone impacted by this destructive storm,” Anderson said on Friday.
Members of the Knights in the state have already begun their recovery efforts, while the Supreme Council is sending food, water, and cleaning and repair supplies to the affected areas.
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Ryan and Sara Huelsing, parishoners at St. Joseph parish in Cottleville, Missouri, at a preview event put on by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students in St. Louis on Oct. 1, 2022. Ryan leads a men’s group at his parish and both hope to get involved with FOCUS’ Making Missionary Disciples track. / Jonah McKeown/CNA
St. Louis, Mo., Nov 25, 2022 / 09:00 am (CNA).
The upcoming Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) national conference is expected to draw 20,000 people to St. Louis for talks, workshops, entertainment, prayer, and worship, with the goal of encouraging and equipping Catholics to live and share their faith. The Jan. 2–6, 2023, gathering, SEEK23, will be the first in-person national conference for FOCUS since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eileen Piper, FOCUS’ vice president of lifelong mission, told CNA recently that a new conference track called Making Missionary Disciples aims to help adult attendees become equipped to better share their faith.
While most of FOCUS’ programming is geared toward students, the Making Missionary Disciples track is designed for priests, bishops, diocesan and parish staff, FOCUS alumni, parishioners, and benefactors who “long to see their parish, diocese, family, or community experience deep transformation in Jesus Christ and who desire to be a part of the solution,” the organization says.
“This really is a unique opportunity, and you’re going to get hands-on experience,” Piper told CNA.
“This is practical training. It’s made for you to take into your state of life — so if you are a leader in a parish, you are going to be equipped to be able to step into your work in the parish in a brand-new way.”
Eileen Piper, FOCUS’ vice president of lifelong mission. FOCUS
Piper said she, like many Catholics, has friends and family members in her life who are no longer practicing their faith. The Making Missionary Disciples track is designed for those who want to do a better job of sharing their faith, she said, not on “street corners” but primarily with people they already know and love.
“It starts to practically equip you so that you’re feeling more confident and more comfortable entering into faith conversations with those that you are already in relationship with,” she explained.
The track will feature speeches and workshops put on by nationally recognized Catholic speakers such as Father Josh Johnson, Sister Bethany Madonna, and sEdward Sri. Conference attendees will also be given time for prayer and fellowship, daily Mass, and networking opportunities, FOCUS says.
Through the workshops, “you’ll be working on your personal testimony, so you can just in a very comfortable way share your own story of how you like what Jesus means to you, and why it matters.”
Piper said as part of the conference they also hope to create opportunities for parish priests to connect “brother to brother” and discuss with one another what is working well in their parishes. She also said FOCUS will be offering a Lenten Bible study in 2023 for anyone who wants to participate, and they will be especially suggesting that SEEK23 attendees join in on it and invite others to join as well.
Since its founding in the 1990s, FOCUS has sent missionaries to college campuses across the United States and abroad to share the Catholic faith primarily through Bible studies and small groups, practicing what it calls “The Little Way of Evangelization” — winning small numbers of people to the Catholic faith at a time through authentic friendships and forming others to go out and do the same.
FOCUS has since 2015 been in the process of expanding beyond college campuses by creating a track designed to bring their relationship-based evangelization model to parishes. Almost two dozen parishes across the country, including one in the St. Louis Archdiocese, have FOCUS missionaries living and working there.
SEEK23 will be FOCUS’ first in-person conference since Indianapolis in 2019 and a smaller student leadership summit in Phoenix in the earliest days of 2020. Conferences for 2021 and 2022 were held online due to the pandemic.
Brian Miller, director of evangelization and discipleship for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, told CNA that St. Louis was chosen for SEEK in part because it is centrally located and convention-friendly, but also because the city is ripe for the kind of renewal that FOCUS aims to provide.
Beyond the young people and students who will attend SEEK, Miller said they hope to use FOCUS’ Making Missionary Disciples track as a launch pad for getting more mature Catholics excited about sharing their faith as well. He also said his office plans to host follow-up events for St. Louis Catholics to build upon what people will learn at SEEK about evangelization as well as provide them with resources to help them start Bible studies and small discipleship groups.
He said he hopes that as parishes in St. Louis “come together in their new parish realities” after an ongoing major merging and closing process, that “they have some common footing, some common training, and they have a common mission.”
SEEK23 registration is now open and costs $399 total for the full five days, regardless of whether you are a college or high school student or an adult. General passes for St. Louis residents cost $350. All registration options can be found here.
Parma, Ohio, Oct 23, 2018 / 02:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Ruthenian Eparchy of Parma has announced that a priest who was reportedly attacked in August has been placed on administrative leave due to a credible accusation of sexual misconduct with a minor.
Fr. Basil Hutsko is accused of misconduct alleged to have occurred 35 years ago (or in 1983), the eparchy stated.
“Though Father Basil Hutsko denies the accusation, Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, having heard from the priest, the Review Board, and the Promotor [sic] of Justice, has found the accusation to be credible,” the eparchy said. “A finding that the accusation is credible is not a finding of guilt,” it added.
In August, Hutsko had been reported to have been attacked at his parish. The eparchy’s statement said that attack did not take take place.
The eparchy “has recently verified with a member of Father Basil Hutsko’s immediate family that the incident Father Basil Hutsko reported on Aug. 20, 2018, did not occur,” the statement said.
An August statement attributed to the eparchial chancery which was widely shared on Facebook said Fr. Hutsko “was attacked and knocked unconscious” in the altar server’s sacristy at his parish after celebrating the Divine Liturgy.
That statement said the priest was choked and his head slammed to the ground, making him lose consciousness. According to the statement, the attacker said, “This is for all the kids.”
Fr. Hutsko, 64, was serving as pastor of St. Michael parish in Merrillville, Ind., immediately south of Gary.
The August statement was signed by Fr. Thomas J. Loya, who is pastor of Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church in Homer Glen, Ill.
A source close to Fr. Hutsko confirmed that the priest was hospitalized in August, but did not have additional knowledge about the incident.
Jeff Rice, spokesman for the Merrillville police, told the Chicago Tribune Fr. Hutsko had been “definitely bruised and banged up.”
The police department alerted the FBI about the supposed incident.
Later in August, the eparchy said that an abuse complaint had been made against Fr. Hutsko in 2004, but it was not deemed credible. The complaint was made by a woman who said the priest had abused her as a child between 1979 and 1983.
Fr. Hutsko has also served at parishes in Cleveland, Dayton, and Marblehead, Ohio, and Sterling Heights, Michigan.
The Parma eparchy has also placed on administrative leave Fr. Stephen Muth, in response to a recent credible accusation of sexual misconduct involving a vulnerable adult.
“The Eparchy of Parma is committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse,” the chancery stated. “We are deeply sorry for the pain suffered by survivors of abuse due to actions of some members of the clergy.”
San Diego, Calif., Feb 7, 2020 / 05:15 pm (CNA).- Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego made a speech Thursday that attempted to explain his criticism of the elevation of abortion over other political issues.
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