By Kimberley Heatherington
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Artificial intelligence is quickly bringing about the end of the world as people know it – but Pope Leo XIV has an urgent message for everyone: Don’t run from the change AI brings; instead, engage it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still, the Catholic Church is not without answers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And finally, Cooney advised prayer.

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

(OSV News correspondent Kimberley Heatherington reported from Washington.)

By Kurt Jensen
WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Independence Day is a reminder that Americans’ “inalienable rights” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – are gifts from God, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said July 4 in the nation’s capital.

Cardinal Wuerl, the retired archbishop of Washington, delivered the homily at a Mass of Thanksgiving for America’s 250th anniversary held at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The quietly dignified service was a cool reprise from the 100-degree heat and high humidity outside.

“We can claim to be free because we have been created free and equal by God,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

And that, he said, can be traced, in American history, all the way back to the Mayflower Compact in New England in 1620. The compact, he reminded the congregation, only had two elements: “The law of God and the need of the common good.”

In addition, American identity “doesn’t rest on blood ties, ethnic origin or national heritage.”

“Our beginnings as a nation celebrate our freedom,” the cardinal observed, calling on the congregation to “do our part now to honor that promise for everyone.”

In 1776, “We as a people collectively started down the pathway that eventually resulted in our national independence. We claimed our freedom as a nation and our civil liberties as a people,” he said.

This event, he added, “calls for our reflection, our celebration and our prayers of thanksgiving as we renew today our appreciation of our historic heritage and focus on the present effort today to live up to all those ideals that have so identified us as a nation and as a people.”

Thomas Jefferson, when he authored the declaration, told others that it did not contain ideas original to himself, but rather expressed “the common beliefs of people of his day,” Cardinal Wuerl said.

Jefferson would call the Declaration “an expression of the American mind and spirit, deeply rooted in the thoughts and faith of the American people,” he said.

As a result, the cardinal added, the many references of “our faith in God” should not come as a surprise to anyone.

“Even in this quintessentially civil declaration, we should not be surprised to find so many references to our faith in God,” he said.

So on the Fourth of July, “We renew our identity as a people who claim a God-given right: To life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our beginnings as a nation have religious roots, deep in the convictions of the people in those original 13 states and those who we refer to as our founders,” he said.

Cardinal Wuerl, a native of Pittsburgh, was archbishop of Washington from 2006 to 2018.

One of the principal concelebrants was Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the new Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.

Delivering a message from Pope Leo IV, Archbishop Caccia said July 4, 1776, was “the defining moment in the history of the United States of America, and giving voice to the ideas of liberty, equality, pursuit of happiness, justice, and democratic types of government.”

Religious freedom, and the ability to practice one’s faith openly without fear, has long been central to the American promise, Archbishop Caccia said.

By Jean Gonzalez
ORLANDO, Fla. (OSV News) – A sea of white robes and zucchettos of pink and magenta in the pews. A statue of Jesus welcoming the faithful with his exposed Sacred Heart upon the foot of the altar.

A setting fit for a June 11 Mass that united U.S. bishops gathered for their spring plenary June 10-12. They left the second of two days of public sessions at Omni Resort in ChampionsGate for a half-hour drive up Interstate 4 for the spiritual refuge that is the Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe in Orlando.

And the Mass was a momentous one as it served to formally consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City incensed the altar after processing in from the thick humidity and cloudy skies of a typical Orlando afternoon outside the shrine. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was joined on the altar by bishops and deacons of the Orlando Diocese.

“Clothe us, Lord God, with the virtues of the heart of your son, and set us aflame with his love,” the archbishop prayed in opening the Mass.

More than 200 bishops present, along with about 150 observers, mostly benefactors and staff of the Diocese of Orlando. The monstrance used ahead of Mass for Eucharistic adoration was from the Servants of the Pierced Hearts, a Miami-based religious institute.

The relics of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque – the French Visitation sister who experienced visions of Jesus revealing his Sacred Heart – were also present at the Mass, on loan for the consecration from the Knights of Columbus.

In his homily, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore described the Sacred Heart of Jesus not as an “abstract devotion,” but as a “visible sign of love.”

He explained why the Church consecrates. He described it as an act of faith and acknowledgment of the need for God’s mercy, wisdom and guidance. It is also an act of hope. It is “a heart that has known joy and sorrow, friendship and betrayal, suffering and sacrifice,” he said.

The act of consecration is an act of faith and hope, the archbishop said, but it is also an acknowledgment of God’s faithful work and love in the world and how we as people and as a Church have not always “clearly reflected that love.”

“Indeed, it is sometimes obscured almost beyond recognition,” the archbishop added. “To be sure, there have been moments of extraordinary witness and holiness. But there have also been moments of failure, division and sin. Consecration requires the humility to acknowledge both.”

And why the Sacred Heart? Because it reveals a savior who “desires not merely our obedience, but our friendship; not simply our service, but our communion with Him,” he said.

“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 act of consecration does not just happen among the shepherds, but also the sheep. In speaking to the laity both in the pews at the shrine and watching on the livestream, Archbishop Lori said the act of consecration is one the faithful and leaders do together.

“This consecration is not something the bishops do for you. It is something we do together,” he said. “The renewal of the Church and our nation will not come through declarations alone. It will come through disciples who remain in Christ’s love and bear the good fruit of holiness in families, parishes, communities and in their daily lives.”

The Sacred Heart reconciles divisions and transforms hardened hearts, the archbishop said.

“It means building communities – ecclesial and civil – where truth is proclaimed clearly and charity is practiced generously. It means resisting the temptation to define ourselves by division, ideology or resentment,” Archbishop Lori said. “We consecrate our nation, not because it is perfect, but because it is beloved by God. We entrust to the Heart of Christ our achievements and failures, our hopes and anxiety, our present challenges and our future aspirations.”

(Jean Gonzalez, editor with Florida Catholic Media, is helping cover the bishops’ spring plenary for OSV News.)

By George P. Matysek, Jr.
BALTIMORE (OSV News) – Carrying a golden monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament, Father Michael DeAscanis paced his 227-step climb up downtown Baltimore’s Washington Monument June 10, repeatedly praying one complete “Glory Be” for every 10 steps until he reached the top.

The steady spiral ascent brought the priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore more than 120 feet above the city to a lookout inside the historic monument. There, framed by windows facing in every direction, he raised the monstrance and traced the Sign of the Cross – blessing Baltimore from north, south, east and west.

Below, more than 200 people gathered outside the monument, designed in 1815 by American architect Robert Mills, who later designed the Washington Monument in Washington.

As Father DeAscanis offered a prayer for Baltimore and the nation, the crowd – wet from morning showers – sang religious and patriotic hymns, including “God Bless America.”

The poignant moment was part of the June 9-11 Baltimore leg of the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which began May 24 in St. Augustine, Florida, and is making its way up the East Coast to Maine and then back down to Philadelphia as part of celebrations surrounding America’s 250th anniversary. Nine young adults, known as “perpetual pilgrims,” are on the route and plan to travel every mile.

Held under the theme “One Nation Under God,” the pilgrimage arrived in the Baltimore Archdiocese June 9. The June 10 events in Baltimore began with morning Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the United States’ first Catholic cathedral.

Kathy Bentz, a parishioner of Our Lady of Hope in Dundalk, Maryland, took a day off from work to attend the pilgrimage. Faith is needed more than ever, she said, because people are “looking for hope.”

“I need to be around people who get me and I get them,” she said. “And that’s why I’m here. I feel like I’m in the presence of good and it makes me want to do better.”

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage began its journey through the Baltimore archdiocese with a June 9 procession at the site of the nation’s first monument to George Washington – a stoic stone tower in Boonsboro, just off the Appalachian Trail in Washington Monument State Park.

As the nine perpetual pilgrims followed the Eucharist under a baldacchino to the monument, they were joined by 130 others from all over the archdiocese and beyond to watch Father Jeffery Dufresne of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis take the holy Eucharist to the top of the monument and down, before presenting it on the altar.

“It was extremely beautiful to see Jesus overlooking the valley that he created,” said Zachary Robinson, a Catholic from Westminster, Maryland, as he hiked back. He called it “an experience of God just delighting in the beauty of his creation.”

From Boonsboro, the pilgrimage traveled to Hagerstown, where close to 450 people attended Mass at St. Mary June 9 before joining a procession on the streets around the church.

From Hagerstown, the pilgrimage went to Baltimore for the June 10 morning procession and then continued to Severna Park for an afternoon retreat focused on the Sacred Heart. The pilgrims ended the day in Annapolis, Maryland’s capital and home to the U.S. Naval Academy, with a procession beginning at the city’s historic St. Mary’s Church, followed by sunset Eucharist adoration.

St. Mary’s campus includes the birthplace of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Carroll was the cousin of Archbishop John Carroll, the first bishop of Baltimore.

While a thunderstorm greeted everyone as they arrived at St. Mary, only a few raindrops were falling when the Eucharistic procession to the State House began. Singing songs and saying prayers in both English and Spanish, participants waved white flags, carried signs saying “Jesus, I Love You” and smiled at those gathered to watch the procession.

As they walked, the nine perpetual pilgrims reached out to those lining the parade route asking if they knew what the procession was about and sharing information about the Eucharist.

“It’s part of our ministry,” said pilgrim Raymond Martinez II of the personal encounters, noting that along the way he has met both non-Catholics and Catholics who have lapsed in their faith.

The pilgrimage continued from the Archdiocese of Baltimore into the Diocese of Wilmington, which encompasses the state of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore, June 11-12.

Pilgrims then plan to spend the June 12-14 weekend in the Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, with a stop in Gloucester City to commemorate Fort Nassau, the state’s first European settlement.

Since its Pentecost Sunday launch, the pilgrimage has traveled through the dioceses of St. Augustine, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; and Arlington, Virginia; and the Archdiocese of Washington.

(George P. Matysek Jr. is the managing editor for Catholic Review, the newspaper of the Baltimore Archdiocese. Contributing to this story was Catholic Review Media news correspondent Katie V. Jones and OSV News.)

By Mark Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – While flashy events are planned in the U.S. capital for the Independence Day weekend, a prayerful commemoration of the United States’ 250th anniversary unfolded June 5-6 as the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage came to Washington to renew and deepen faith in Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

The pilgrimage included a special blessing of America near the Washington Monument on the evening of June 5, a Eucharistic procession through downtown Washington the next day, followed by a Vigil Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for the solemnity of Corpus Christi.

“Today we walk with Jesus Christ our Redeemer, our Savior. We walk with him in the streets of our nation’s capital,” Father Charles Trullols, the director of the Catholic Information Center, said in his homily during a June 6 Mass outside the center before leading its fourth annual Eucharistic procession through the city.

This year’s procession was held in conjunction with the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s arrival in Washington. An estimated crowd of 1,000 people attended the Mass and then prayerfully processed through the city, following Father Trullols and other priests who held the Eucharist aloft in a monstrance beneath a canopy, passing the city’s office buildings, public squares and landmarks, including within sight of the White House. Hundreds of people knelt reverently on the sidewalk and on closed-off sections of streets.

The 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage — with the theme “One Nation Under God” — began May 24 in St. Augustine, Florida, and will wind through most of the 13 original colonies, traveling about 2,200 miles before arriving in Philadelphia July 4 to commemorate with prayer and Eucharistic devotion the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The pilgrimage’s St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Route is placed under the patronage of the religious sister and Italian immigrant who in 1946 became the first U.S. citizen to be canonized.

In his homily at the Mass, Father Trullols said the phrase “one nation under God” should be more than a patriotic slogan.

“A nation remains ‘under God’ only if its people place God first,” said Father Trullols, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei.

The priest said that ways Catholics can put God first include through daily prayer, attending Mass, receiving the sacrament of confession, caring for the poor, remaining faithful in marriage and pursuing holiness in everyday life.

“Today’s procession is not a parade,” he said, emphasizing that it would offer a public witness to the Catholic belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist.

Father Trullols said early Christians understood that the Eucharist is not just a symbol — it is Jesus, the Bread of Life who transforms people’s lives. He noted how Mother Cabrini worked tirelessly to minister to poor immigrants, drawing her strength from praying before the Eucharist in the tabernacle, and he also pointed out how Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, who evangelized millions through his radio shows and TV programs, prayed before the Eucharist in a daily Holy Hour, no matter how busy he was.

Noting the importance of such Eucharistic devotion, Father Trullols said, “There is where saints are made.”

The evening before, Father Trullols had received the Blessed Sacrament at the Basilica of St. Mary in Alexandria, Virginia. Then he joined the nine young adult “perpetual pilgrims” accompanying the Eucharist in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, as their Ford Transit Van crossed the Arlington Memorial Bridge to Washington.

A press statement from the pilgrimage’s organizers noted that bridge, “long recognized as a symbol of national unity and reconciliation between North and South, serves as a fitting gateway for bringing Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, into the heart of the nation’s capital.”

After the pilgrimage vehicle arrived on the National Mall on the evening of June 5, Father Trullols led a Eucharistic procession toward the grounds near the base of the Washington Monument, and he offered a symbolic blessing for the nation within sight of that illuminated monument and the U.S. Capitol in the distance.

Later that day, the perpetual pilgrims visited the St. John Paul II National Shrine in northeast Washington before attending Mass at the adjacent basilica, where Bishop-elect designate Gary R. Studniewski was principal celebrant and homilist.

By instituting the Eucharist, Jesus “wanted for us to know, to see and to even feel that He is still among us not just a symbol, not just half a locket with the promise we will get the other half when we get to heaven, but his real body and blood right here,” said Bishop-elect designated Studniewski, whose episcopal ordination as an auxiliary bishop of Washington is scheduled for July 7.

“And we do more than just see and touch his body and blood: We take Jesus into ourselves as food for our perilous journey,” the bishop-elect said.

Speaking at the shrine prior to that Mass, perpetual pilgrim John Paul Flynn said, “accompanying Jesus is a one-of-a-kind experience, a really beautiful experience.”

“We are having Jesus in the very center of our nation’s capital,” said Flynn, a native of the Washington area and a student at The Catholic University of America. “We are bringing Jesus to where all the decisions are made.”

Saying he was blessed to “travel with Jesus every single day,” Flynn called it very special to “see Jesus walking our streets, walking the same steps I have walked.”

(Mark Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of Washington. Richard Szczepanowski, the Catholic Standard’s managing editor, contributed to this story. This story was originally published by the Catholic Standard and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.)

By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – Several U.S. bishops recently traveled on pilgrimage to key sites commemorating the nation’s Civil Rights Movement and the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination – with two bishops telling OSV News the journey showed the need to face the past, before seeking to change the future.
“It’s important to learn about the past, as odious as this is, as evil as the sin of racism and slavery is,” said Bishop William A. Wack of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida. “We have to admit it, that it was part of our history, part of our nation, really a part of our culture. … It’s hard to move on if we have not confronted it together.”

Bishop Wack was among six prelates who traveled to Alabama for a March 18-20 “Lenten Experience in Montgomery and Selma.”

Joining Bishop Wack were Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California; Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville, Tennessee; Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz of Jackson, Mississippi; Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala of Washington; and Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Pulido of San Diego.

The second such event coordinated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation and the Catholic Mobilizing Network, the trip saw the bishops – along with USCCB and network staff, and USCCB subcommittee consultant Gloria Purvis – visit multiple locations in just two and a half days.

During the pilgrimage, the bishops celebrated Mass at local parishes, and met with civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, as well as Dianne Thelma Harris, a foot soldier in the peaceful 1965 Voting Rights March.

The itinerary featured stops at Montgomery’s three Legacy Sites: the Legacy Museum, which surveys the nation’s 400-year span of enslavement, racial terrorism, codified segregationism and mass incarceration; the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which memorializes more than 4,400 Black people lynched between 1877 and 1950; and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, which provides an immersive view into the lives of enslaved persons.

Other Montgomery sites in the tour were City of St. Jude, which was the final stop for Civil Rights marchers from Selma before their arrival at the state capitol on March 24, 1965, and the Dexter Parsonage Museum, where Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his family lived during his 1954-1960 tenure as pastor of the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church.

Bishop Wack told OSV News the parsonage – which had been bombed several times during Rev. King’s pastorate – left a deep impression, as he recalled a pivotal moment when Rev. King, sitting at his kitchen table after an attack, prayerfully discerned a call to persist in the Civil Rights Movement.

“He became a real person to me sitting right here – there’s the sink, here’s where he made the coffee. And then he sat down and he had this moment of deep, intense prayer with God,” Bishop Wack recalled. “As a bishop, I’ve had moments like that: ‘God, what do you want me to do? Where should I go?’”

In Selma, the group crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where in 1965 some 600 Civil Rights marchers for voting rights were brutally attacked by law enforcement, with the violence filmed by local television and later broadcast. While in Selma, the pilgrims dined at the Edmundite Missions, a Catholic social services agency through which the Society of St. Edmund has offered support for 90 years.

Bishop Kopacz told OSV News that the pilgrimage revealed “incredible truth and reconciliation opportunities.”

He pointed to the need to document the historical sweep of slavery, racism and injustice in the nation’s history, and to see its ongoing effects.

“What Alabama has done is really brought forward the history that goes back to the onset, to the the transatlantic passage and the beginnings of slavery,” he said.
The slave trade saw some 12 million to 20 million Africans enslaved in various Western nations, including the U.S., over a period of four centuries. The United Nations recently condemned the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity,” and passed a resolution also calling for reparations by member states to affected nations.

Recalling his visit, Bishop Kopacz traced how the legacy of slavery continued through “the years of Jim Crow,” the codified racial caste system that prevailed in southern and border states from 1877 to the mid-1960s; racial lynchings; and through capital punishment, which Stevenson and others argue disproportionately impacts people of color.

Bishop Kopacz said that capital punishment – which the Catholic Church condemns – is “dragging forward this chapter of our life here in America” marked by the violent history of slavery and racism.

Slavery “wasn’t just ended with the Emancipation Proclamation,” said Bishop Wack, referencing the 1863 presidential decree that declared slaves in some U.S. states free.

Rather, said Bishop Wack, slavery “perhaps took different forms,” as “there was a lot of discrimination that continued.”

Both Bishop Kopacz and Bishop Wack told OSV News they planned to bring their pilgrimage experiences back to their respective flocks, encouraging prayer, reflection and – as Bishop Wack said – “courageous conversations” to help counter the sin of racism.

“In order to have reconciliation and change toward greater justice, we need that deepening awareness,” said Bishop Kopacz.

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News.)

By Staff Reports
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Women who are discerning a call to religious life as Dominican Sisters are invited to Mr. Lincoln’s Hometown in June for a national event hosted by the Springfield Dominican Sisters.

Applications are being received now, and up to fifteen women will be selected for participation in the event, scheduled for June 16-20. The group will live at Sacred Heart Convent and experience the rhythms of apostolic religious life, which includes community life, prayer, active service, and theological reflection.
Any single Catholic woman age 20-45 who would like to participate is encouraged to apply at springfieldop.org/events.

Local non-profit organizations will provide sites for service activities.

Three additional congregations of Dominican Sisters are also participating: The Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich., the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, Wis., and the Dominican Sisters of Peace, Columbus, Ohio, are co-sponsoring the project. Vocation ministers from each congregation will be present to the participants and animate group activities. Vocation ministers are those who accompany women discerning God’s call to religious life.

“Springfield is a perfect place to give women a taste of the foundations of Dominican life: community life, prayer, study, and preaching, or service.” said Sister Denise Glazik, OP, minister of vocation accompaniment for the Springfield Dominican Sisters. “Our senior sisters at the motherhouse are gracious and welcoming, and the city is home to some stellar nonprofit organizations that will provide a wonderful immersion experience for participants.

“All single Catholic women, 20-45 are welcome to apply – but do it soon!” Sister Denise added. There is a limit to the number of participants who can come.

The $50 participation fee should not be a barrier for any applicant. Scholarships will be available for those who need them.

Why Dominican Life?
The Dominican Sisters hosting the 2026 Summer Immersion Experience are part of a worldwide Dominican family, the Order of Preachers. For more than 800 years, Dominicans have preached the Gospel in word and deed. Today, thousands of Dominican sisters, nuns, priests, brothers, associates and laity minister in more than 100 countries around the world. To learn more about the U.S. Dominicans visit dominicansistersconference.org.