By John Knebels , OSV News

(OSV News) — She prayed with college basketball players before games, counseled them after losses, and reminded them that faith, not fame, was the real victory.

Now, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the spirited chaplain who became a national symbol of joy, devotion and perseverance, has completed her earthly journey.

Sister Jean, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and longtime chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago men’s basketball team, died Oct. 9. She was 106.

For many Americans, Sister Jean became a household name during Loyola’s stunning run to the 2018 NCAA Final Four, when she was 98 years old. Sitting courtside in her maroon-and-gold scarf, she offered pregame prayers, postgame analysis and the occasional strategic suggestion — earning the affection of fans, players, and coaches nationwide.

Yet long before “March Madness” made her famous, she had already spent decades forming minds, shaping hearts and witnessing to Christ’s love through education and service.

“While we feel grief and a sense of loss, there is great joy in her legacy,” said Loyola President Mark C. Reed. “Her presence was a profound blessing for our entire community, and her spirit abides in thousands of lives.”

A month prior to her death, Loyola had confirmed Sister Jean had officially retired from on-campus work amid growing health concerns, according to The Loyola Phoenix, the student newspaper.

Born Dolores Bertha Schmidt in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 1919, she entered the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1937 and took the name Sister Jean Dolores. She began teaching at Catholic schools in California and Chicago before arriving at Mundelein College in 1961, which later affiliated with Loyola. By 1994, she had joined Loyola’s men’s basketball program as an academic adviser and later team chaplain — a position she held for three decades.

Her spiritual encouragement often blended faith with practical wisdom. During her 106th birthday in August, she urged Loyola students to “make new friends, talk to your old friends,” and to “become the people that God has decided you will be.” Her signature message — “Worship, Work, Win” — became both her personal motto and the slogan that adorns a banner inside Loyola’s Gentile Arena.

“Sister Jean Dolores was a woman of prayer, a dedicated educator, and a bearer of hope,” said Sister LaDonna Manternach, president of her religious order. “She saw God present in all that surrounded her and trusted in His goodness.”

Beyond basketball, Sister Jean led weekly student prayer groups and founded SMILE (Students Moving Into the Lives of the Elderly), pairing Loyola students with residents of The Clare, the assisted-living community she called home. Her influence reached far beyond campus, touching thousands who encountered her through interviews, speaking events, and her bestselling memoir, “Wake Up With Purpose!: What I’ve Learned in My First Hundred Years” (2023).

Over the years, she received numerous honors: induction into the Loyola Athletics Hall of Fame in 2017, the Sword of Loyola in 2018, proclamations from Illinois Gov.J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and even an apostolic blessing from Pope Francis on her 100th birthday. On her 105th birthday, President Joe Biden recognized her for a lifetime of faith-filled service.

When the news of her passing spread, tributes poured in across social media.

“Sister Jean, our beloved friend and inspiration, went home to the Lord today,” Cardinal Blase J. Cupich said in a statement posted on X. “She nurtured the mind and spirit of her students and all who came to know her with dedication, a firm belief in our faith, and a sharp sense of humor. May she rest in the peace she so richly deserves.”

For Loyola fans, her memory will forever be entwined with that magical 2018 season — when the underdog Ramblers captured the nation’s imagination and, in the eyes of many, proved that prayer and perseverance could move mountains.

But for Sister Jean, the real victory was always deeper.

“Don’t let anybody stop you,” she told students on her last birthday. “You are the future leaders of our churches, our schools, our country and our world.”

A celebration of her life and ministry will be held at Loyola University Chicago at a date to be announced.

John Knebels writes for OSV News from suburban Philadelphia.

By Steven Schwankert / The Good Newsroom , OSV News

NEW YORK (OSV News) – A new 25-foot-high mural that covers the walls of the entrance to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and was officially dedicated before Mass Sept. 21 celebrates New York’s sacred and secular history.

The largest permanent artwork commissioned in the 146-year history of “America’s Parish Church,” the painting depicts the apparition at Knock in Ireland, along with New York saints, servants of God, immigrants and first responders.

At a morning press event Sept. 18, New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan and Brooklyn artist Adam Cvijanovic unveiled the mural, and the cardinal discussed how his initial vision for a representation of the Knock apparition evolved.

“This became not only an ode to Jesus and Mary and Joseph and St. John and the faith of the Irish people who were so instrumental in this archdiocese, it also became an ode to those who followed them and found in this city, this country, and yes, in this Holy Mother Church, an embrace of welcome,” Cardinal Dolan said.

“I thought when I started making this painting, that the important thing to do was to make it about people and portraits,” Cvijanovic said of his work, which is titled, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding.”

“So, everybody in this painting is an actual person. They’re all portraits. Even the angels,” he said. “And that seemed to me to be a really, really important thing to do, to talk about the people of the city, all of them, and to have it in some place that people could go in New York and feel themselves recognized in the context of respect and hope.”

Father Enrique Salvo, himself an immigrant from Nicaragua, said that the story told on the panels was particularly meaningful for him.

“If you would have told me that I was going to be the rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, when I came to this country, I would have never believed it,” he said. “But with God, all things are possible, and hopefully it’s an inspiration for everyone that walks in, that we’re not only welcome, but we’re also invited to make a difference and to let God shine through us.”

Cardinal Dolan noted that he originally wanted the mural as part of the last major renovation of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 2012, but the cathedral’s trustees advised that he wait. He thanked them for their wise advice.

“I’m kind of glad now, because it matured – it was like a crock pot,” he said.

Cardinal Dolan said that major benefactors covered the cost of the mural, and expressed his gratitude that no further funds needed to be raised to complete the project.

“My wife and I support a lot of causes that are more direct, such as education, feeding the hungry, healthcare, social services, and things like that,” said Kevin Conway, who with his wife, Dee, were major benefactors of the mural. “But this struck me as a project that we could honor a good friend, His Eminence (Cardinal Dolan), but more importantly, you could make an impact and tell a story to the millions of people who come through these doors, and tell an important story.”

Each panel tells a different part of the New York story, along with the apparition at Knock — an 1879 vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, angels and the Lamb of God – witnessed by more than a dozen townspeople in County Mayo, Ireland, the same year St. Patrick’s Cathedral was consecrated.

One panel depicts early immigrants to New York and features a likeness of a young girl – for whom an image of Cardinal Dolan’s late mother, Shirley, served as the model.

“I am thrilled that she is here among those,” he said, pointing out that his mother herself was not an immigrant.

Another panel features New Yorkers of consequence to the church, including Archbishop John Hughes, the first archbishop of New York; St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American and the church’s first Indigenous from North America; former New York Gov. Al Smith; Servant of God Dorothy Day; and Venerable Pierre Toussaint.

(Steven Schwankert is senior editor of The Good Newsroom, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of New York. This story was originally published by The Good Newsroom and is distributed through a partnership with OSV News.)

By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – The U.S. Catholic bishops have deepened their commitment to combating racism, by making permanent a subcommittee dedicated to working for racial justice and reconciliation in society.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Sept. 10 that its Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism – established in 2017 under then-USCCB president, and now retired, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo Galveston-Houston, Texas – has been made a permanent USCCB body.

The move, approved by the USCCB’s administrative committee Sept. 9, will place the committee, now named the Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation, under the conference’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

That committee’s mandate “includes Catholic social teaching on issues of domestic concern such as poverty, housing, the environment, criminal justice, and other challenges that often have a disproportionate impact on communities of color,” said the USCCB in its Sept. 10 media release.
USCCB president Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, said the subcommittee “continues the important work of the temporary ad hoc committee.”

The bishops had formed the racism ad hoc committee just days after the violent Aug. 11-12, 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which white supremacists protested the planned removal of Confederate statues there, following two city council votes. Amid clashes between rally participants and counterprotestors, James Fields drove his vehicle through a crowd of the latter, killing paralegal Heather Heyer and injuring dozens. Fields is now serving two life sentences.

In his Sept. 10 statement, Archbishop Broglio – who referenced the USCCB’s 2018 pastoral letter against racism, “Open Wide Our Hearts” – said, “As we call for a genuine conversion of heart that will compel change at both individual and institutional levels, I invite all Catholics to join us as we carry forward this work to recognize and uphold the inherent dignity of every person made in the image and likeness of God.”

“I speak on behalf of the bishop members, staff and consultants of the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism in expressing gratitude for the transition of our committee to a standing subcommittee so that the important work of evangelization of the faithful and the community at large may continue in the spirit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” said retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, who has been serving as chair of the committee.

With the new subcommittee set to begin work after the USCCB’s November plenary assembly, members will have plenty to do.

According to a Gallup poll released Aug. 20, 64% of U.S. adults believe racism against Black people is widespread, with 83% of Black adults and 61% of white adults expressing this view.

Police interactions are seen as the “most racially inequitable” among six possible scenarios, said respondents.

At the same time, Gallup found that “68% of U.S. adults think civil rights have improved in their lifetime.”
Human Rights Watch said that “racial justice remained a pressing human rights concern in the United States in 2024.”

While the U.S. “ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination nearly 60 years ago,” the nation “has done far too little to implement its provisions,” said HRW, adding that “living legacies of slavery and the slaughter and dispossession of Native peoples remain largely unaddressed.”

(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.)

By Gina Christian
(OSV News) – The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina marks a call to “renew our commitment to racial equity and justice in every sector of public life,” said two U.S. Catholic bishops.

Auxiliary Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr. of Washington, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on African American Affairs, and retired Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry of Chicago, chairman of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, issued a joint statement Aug. 26 reflecting on the tragedy.

The hurricane, one of the five deadliest in U.S. history, struck the nation’s Gulf Coast Aug. 29, 2005, as a Category 3 storm, with 120-140 mph winds and stretching 400 miles across the coast. At one point, the storm became a Category 5, but weakened before striking land.

Katrina made multiple landfalls, inflicting what the National Weather Service called “staggering” damage and loss of life, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi. A total of 1,833 were killed by the storm, which at the time caused some $108 billion dollars in damage, according to NWS.

New Orleans was ravaged by the storm, with at least 80% of the city flooded by Aug. 31, 2005, NWS noted on its website, adding that the impact was “heightened by breaks in the levees that separate New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain.”

Compounding the damage were key failures in governmental response, and in their statement, Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry said that “despite the scale of devastation, it took days before the federal government responded with aid.”

More broadly, they observed, Hurricane Katrina “threw into stark focus the deep racial and socio-economic disparities across various sectors, including environmental justice, systemic housing inequality, and disaster response.”

The bishops pointed out that “some of the most catastrophic damage occurred in neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black neighborhood, which was under so much water that many of the residents had to take refuge in their attics and on their rooftops to avoid the rising tides.

“Today, we pray with those who still suffer from the loss of family and friends and whose very identities were affected,” said the bishops.

They also noted that the storm resulted in “the loss of irreplaceable items handed down through generations such as photos, videos, diaries, genealogical records, documents, and other mementos that are an essential means of sharing a person’s existence, history, and culture.”

In addition, said the bishops, “many residents were unable to return home because gentrification caused their former neighborhoods to become unaffordable.

“Disparities, rooted in historical and structural racism, intensified the suffering of many Black residents,” they said.

The hurricane and the response missteps “revealed the fragility of our cities to natural disasters and the reality of poverty among the most vulnerable in our country,” the bishops noted.

Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry extolled the “powerful witness of the Catholic Church” that countered the “inadequate governmental response” to Katrina, citing the work of Catholic Charities USA and its local agencies, the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Home Missions Appeal, the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Knights of Columbus.

The two bishops stressed the “dire need for equitable investments in climate resilience and preparedness,” amid storms intensified by climate change.

“Katrina revealed how quickly entire communities can be overlooked, their cultures erased as neighborhoods vanished – taking with it cherished cultural spaces and historic landmarks,” said Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry.

They added that two decades later, “many still struggle to rebuild intangible bonds,” with “ongoing mental and physical injuries” still evident today, while the “gap between the wealthy and poor continues to grow.”

Concluding their statement, Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry said, “Let us join together, as one community, responding to the call to be leaven for the world. As church, let us be a lifeboat in the flood waters of injustice.”

By Joe Ruff and Josh McGovern
MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) – For the first time since the Aug. 27 attack by a shooter who killed two children and wounded at least 21 more victims at an all-school Mass where he was presiding at Annunciation Catholic Church, Father Dennis Zehren publicly described his attempt to save the children.
“If I could have got between those bullets and the kids,” Father Zehren said, his voice breaking with emotion at an Aug. 30 news conference outside Annunciation elementary school.

“That’s what I was hoping to do. … the doors were barred, shut on the outside by the gunman,” said Father Zehren, Annunciation’s pastor. “We tried to get out. I think some of the fathers would have gone out there and gang-rushed him if they could have, and I would have been right there with them.
“But I think by that time, the damage was done,” and the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Father Zehren said.

“It’s a difficult memory,” Father Zehren said. “It just was loud (the gunshots). It just kept coming, and my first instinct was to just rush toward where the bullets were coming from. There were some fathers who were heading in the same direction, and I was on the phone with 911 just hoping to peek out the window to see which direction (the shooter) might be going in. So I could give them some help. But it was a flurry, and like I said, it seemed to keep coming.”

The news conference took place before the first parish Mass – held at the Annunciation Catholic School’s auditorium instead of the now-desecrated church – since the shooting. The school is steps away from the church.
Identified as Robin Westman, the suspected shooter was a former Annunciation student, then known as Robert Westman, whose mother had been previously employed by the school. Westman fired from three guns through Annunciation’s stained-glass windows around 8:30 a.m. during the first all-school Mass of the PreK-to-eighth-grade school’s academic year. Westman died by suicide in the parking lot.

Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis joined Father Zehren at the news conference, at one point placing his hand on the priest’s shoulder in support. The archbishop concelebrated the Mass that followed.

The archbishop and Father Zehren opened the news conference describing the importance of the Mass to the Catholic faith. The fact that Annunciation parish would hold a public Mass so soon after the church shooting might surprise some, the archbishop said.

“And yet it’s so important for us in our Catholic tradition for Masses, where we most experience God’s presence and God’s love,” Archbishop Hebda said. “And it’s the place where we come together to be a community.”

Father Zehren said the Mass is what the parish community needs.

“This is why we’re here,” he said. “They just want to be together. They want to pray. They want to help and do anything they can.

“Mass is the heart of what we do,” Father Zehren said. “The Mass is not just a worship service. Because we recognize that as Catholics … we enter into the paschal mystery of Jesus.”

That mystery is presented to the community each time a Mass is celebrated, the priest said.

“Whenever we gather at Mass, we are re-presented with Jesus … at the Last Supper. We are presented with his suffering … with his dying, and … with his rising from the dead,” Father Zehren said.

Asked about the impact of the church attack occurring during a Mass, Father Zehren said he would be “reflecting on that for the rest of my life.”

“I will never be able to unsee,” Father Zehren said. “But in addition to the sorrow and the terror, we know that Jesus was there with us. … Jesus comes to the depths of what we are going through. That’s where he brings the healing and the salvation for whatever we go through.”

Attending the Mass with his family was Sean O’Brien, an Annunciation alumnus and parent who said he was at the Aug. 27 Mass in the back of the church with his 2-year-old daughter, Molly, when shots rang out. His son Emmett, an Annunciation preschooler, was in the basement. His other children, fourth-grader Conor and first-grader Finley, were sitting with their classmates.

“I saw a shaft of light going through the window and that’s when I knew we were being attacked,” O’Brien said.

“I grabbed my daughter, and we went behind a pillar. … When the shooting stopped, we said, ‘OK, who needs help?’ And we did what we could.’”

O’Brien, 37, said he rushed to an injured student and remained there until the police came.

“There were people taking action that were motivated by the love they felt for the people around them, from the very moment things started,” he said. “And that’s only going to continue and get stronger.”

Sean’s wife, Mallory, said she learned that Finley was with her eighth-grade buddy, in a school tradition where older students accompany younger students to school Masses.

“They held hands all the way to the school” as students were evacuated, Mallory O’Brien said.

The O’Briens expressed gratitude that no one in their family was injured. And with service and community in mind, they are helping others where they can.

“We’ve really been getting together all week ever since Wednesday (Aug. 27),” Sean O’Brien said after the Mass. “The best thing for us has been to be together with the people that we love in this parish and in this community. … To be here, to be together again, really means a lot. There’s no place we’d rather be.”

At Mass in the school’s auditorium the following day, Father Zehren talked about the immense help parishioners and neighbors, community responders and others have provided one another. He compared it to the book of Exodus passage in which Moses lifted his arms and hands in prayer, and when he wearied, the Israelites fell back in battle. When Moses held up his arms, they prospered in the fight.

“That’s what we’ve been experiencing in so many ways around here. All of you. All of our neighbors, all of our community, police, first responders, they’ve been a rock underneath us,” he said Aug. 31. “And they will continue to be a rock for us. There (are) so many people who will be continuing to hold up our hands in prayer.”

(Joe Ruff is editor-in-chief and Josh McGovern is a reporter for The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.)

By Maria Wiering
ST. PAUL (OSV News) – Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis will be reconsecrated before it again holds Mass after an Aug. 27 shooting during a Mass for schoolchildren left two children dead and 18 other victims wounded.

“The church does make provision” for reconsecrating a church building after a desecration, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda told OSV News Aug. 28. “I’ve never had to do that, but I think it will be an important time. Here, where the church is still a crime scene and where there’s been substantial destruction, I think it’s probably going to be a while before we’re able to do that.”

While there are other places on the campus of Annunciation Catholic Church and Annunciation Catholic School that could hold Mass in the interim, “my understanding is that the church’s tradition is that no Mass or sacrament would be celebrated in there until there is that rite of reconsecration,” Archbishop Hebda said.

Canon No. 1211 in the church’s law states, “Sacred places are violated by gravely injurious actions done in them with scandal to the faithful, actions which, in the judgment of the local ordinary, are so grave and contrary to the holiness of the place that it is not permitted to carry on worship in them until the damage is repaired by a penitential rite according to the norm of the liturgical books.”

“I’m grateful that I will have that privilege of doing that at some point,” Archbishop Hebda said, speaking at the archdiocesan headquarters in St. Paul. “The church has such wisdom even about human nature and the human person, and even to have a ritual that would help people in that time of need, I think, is very significant.

“You hope that it will be an opportunity, whenever that occurs, for some healing,” he added, noting that he will work with Annunciation’s pastor, Father Dennis Zehren, on appropriate timing for the ritual. “It would be a priority for me, as I know it is for him.”

A former student at the school whose mother also previously worked there, the shooter, identified as Robin Westman, fired from three guns through Annunciation’s stained-glass windows around 8:30 a.m. during Annunciation Catholic School’s first all-school Mass of the PreK-to-eighth-grade school’s academic year. Westman died by suicide in the parking lot.

Investigators are working through a hate-riddled online manifesto posted by the shooter and other evidence to determine a clear motive for the violence and why Annunciation was targeted.

Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, were killed in their pews. Other victims, including 15 children and three adults in their 80s, were taken to nearby hospitals, including Hennepin County Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma center.

An extensive, spontaneous memorial of flowers, gifts and messages outside of the church includes tributes to Merkel and Moyski, as well as prayers for those injured and the school’s families.

Archbishop Hebda visited the school Aug. 27 and has since presided at several prayer services for the victims and the mourning community.

Annunciation Catholic Church was founded in 1922. Its parish school was founded by Dominican sisters the following year. The present church building was completed in 1962.