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.

By Simone Orendain

CHICAGO (OSV News) – Easter Triduum visits ended the Lenten season for a small group of Chicago-area religious and clergy who ministered to people in the U.S. without legal authorization that are detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

The same group started the 40-day period of preparation for the Lord Jesus Christ’s passion, death and resurrection with an Ash Wednesday visit to the processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, to bring holy Communion, give ashes and pray with those Catholics being held there.

The visits during the Church’s most sacred period of the year were a result of court orders that compelled the Department of Homeland Security to allow access to members of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership. Last year, the Chicago-based Catholic social justice organization tried several times to enter the ICE processing unit but it was turned away each time.

Jesuit Father David Inczauskis was part of the CSPL team of three priests and a religious sister who went inside the Broadview facility on Holy Thursday, April 2.

On April 6, Easter Monday, he told OSV News he was struck when the group first saw those being brought for processing in handcuffs and ankle shackles.

It was the first time Father Inczauskis had encountered detainees in shackles. He has done prison and jail ministry in Peru and Honduras, and also ministered to minors in the U.S. who had been separated from their parents.

“I think to see this was unique, and particularly devastating and dehumanizing,” he said.

Father Inczauskis and another priest who spoke with OSV News described the setting for the pastoral visits. They said the small delegation prayed, read Scripture and gave Communion through a half door in what they described as an “intersection between two long hallways” separated by the door that opened in two halves. They said the 14 people they ministered to on Holy Thursday were brought to the door in two sets of five, and then four.

On the other days of the Triduum, there were far fewer detainees to minister to, sometimes just one or two, they added.

One priest was allowed to wash the shackled feet of the detainees after Father Inczauskis read the Holy Thursday Gospel on the Last Supper. In the reading, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples before going to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, where he was then arrested.

The superior of the Claretians’ USA-Canada province, Father Paul Keller, led prayers and the opening and closing blessings. Also on Easter Monday, he described the same look of “shock and disorientation” on the detainees’ faces that he recognized when he was last inside the facility on Ash Wednesday. He noted they were within the very first minutes and hours of being brought in.

“Some people really broke down,” he said. “It was a moment in which they perhaps let out the sadness and frustration that they had been feeling.”

“But then also I got the sense that some of them took the foot washing as a sign of care and humanity in a situation of such dehumanization that this allowed them to experience those emotions of being cared for in this time of great distress,” he told OSV News.

The processing facility is located in Broadview, a suburb about 12.5 miles west of Chicago’s downtown. It was a flashpoint for heated clashes between protesters and ICE personnel at the height of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

CSPL sued for access to the facility in November last year, citing violations of their rights to freely exercise their religion under the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

OSV News requested comments from DHS on the recent visits and has not yet received a response.

Among migrants most at risk of arrest and deportation by ICE about 80% are Christian — the majority of them (61%) are Catholic — according to a joint Catholic-evangelical report published by World Relief and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman of the Northern District of Illinois ordered a preliminary injunction to allow members of CSPL to give ashes and Communion on Ash Wednesday. He also ordered both sides to work out a schedule for future visits and allow religious and lay ministers to once again pray outside the Broadview facility, like they did for years until the immigration crackdown intensified.

In the partial injunction issued March 31 that forced the Triduum visits, Gettleman wrote, “The court finds that the government has substantially burdened plaintiffs’ exercise of religion.”

He noted, “The court also agrees with plaintiffs that the injunction is in public interest. Allowing plaintiffs to provide pastoral care to migrants and detainees will improve the condition of those detained at Broadview.”

Gettleman reiterated the need for both sides to schedule further, regular visits and prayer just outside Broadview facility, within view of the detainees. A status hearing was scheduled for April 7.

Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, CSPL’s executive director, told OSV News the Triduum and Easter visits were a “profoundly moving and stirring experience … for not only our ministers who entered, but the communities that surrounded those ministers with prayer.”

“And for our siblings, who are detained and their families,” he said, “it brought some comfort and consolation in a period of profound darkness.”

(Simone Orendain is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Chicago.)

By Katie Yoder

(OSV News) – Drawing inspiration from St. Carlo Acutis, a national shrine in Wisconsin is inviting Catholics to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States this summer by joining in prayer and learning about the holy men and women of America.

“They founded schools, cared for the sick, served the poor, and witnessed to the Gospel through lives of sacrifice, service and unwavering love for Jesus Christ,” said Father of Mercy Anthony Stephens, rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. “Their example shows us what it truly means to be a faithful Catholic and to be American.”

Scheduled for July 1-9, “Catholic Saints of America” will feature a special novena, an exhibit honoring Americans who are saints or on the path to sainthood, and an opportunity to venerate their relics. The relics or remains of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Blessed Solanas Casey and Blessed Stanley Rother will be among those on display.

All this is taking place on the site of the only Church-approved Marian apparition site in the United States.

“First, through this novena and exhibit, we hope people will come to learn about the canonization process,” Father Stephens told OSV News. “Next, we want to help people discover those who may one day be declared saints. Finally, we can help introduce people to a new devotion that inspires them to grow closer to Christ.”

The novena prayer, which Father Stephens is writing, will seek Mary’s intercession for unity, holiness and renewal nationwide. Alongside the novena, the exhibit will feature the stories of holy men and women of America. It will highlight their lives, virtues and legacy, organizers said.

Its format was inspired by a traveling Eucharistic miracles exhibit, which was based on a website created by St. Carlo Acutis, an Italian teenager canonized last year.

“There are fewer than 15 American saints, and only a little more than 70 people whose causes (for sainthood) have been opened” in the U.S., Father Stephens said. “Each of these holy men and women has a beautiful story and powerful example, yet so few people know about them.”

“We do not have saints from 2,000 years ago; we have saints of today,” he added. “This shows that God is still at work, calling people to himself.”

Americans who have been canonized are Sts. Elizabeth Ann Seton, John Neumann, Marianne Cope, Katharine Drexel, Damien de Veuster of Molokai, Junípero Serra, Kateri Tekakwitha, Théodore Guérin, Frances Xavier Cabrini and Rose Philippine Duchesne. St. Teresa of Kolkata was given honorary American citizenship in 1996, the year before she died.

Beatified Americans include Blesseds Miriam Teresa Demjanovich, Stanley Rother, Solanus Casey, Michael J. McGivney, Francis Xavier Seelos and Carlos Manuel Cecilio Rodríguez Santiago of Puerto Rico. Five Franciscan friars known as the Georgia martyrs will join them Oct. 31, and the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen is also expected soon.

The shrine is in the process of inviting promoters of all U.S. causes to participate. So far, the promoters of more than 35 causes have confirmed they will collaborate in some way. Some will help create their respective exhibit displays, and many will attend in person, Father Stephens said.

While the novena and exhibit take place July 1-9, many of the promoters and representatives of these causes will be present July 3-5. For those days, guest speakers will also “engage with pilgrims, share the stories of these holy men and women, and provide opportunities to learn more about the path to sainthood in America,” said Kim May, the shrine’s event and volunteer coordinator.

Organizers expect that more than 15,000 pilgrims could attend, which would make this the largest event hosted by the shrine.

The exhibit will recognize in a special way the cause of Servant of God Adele Brice, a Belgian immigrant who reported seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary three times in 1859. She is buried at the shrine, which marks the site where they met. The cause for her sainthood opened in January.

Mary, as she appeared to Brice (sometimes also spelled “Brise”), is honored under the title of “Our Lady of Champion” for the nearby town of Champion, 15 miles northeast of Green Bay.

Father Stephens, who as the shrine’s rector serves as the actor or promoter of Brice’s cause, said the upcoming event will mark the 130th anniversary of the catechist’s death July 5.

The shrine plans to celebrate Mass that day at 11:30 a.m. local time to pray for Brice’s cause for canonization and for her continued intercession, he said.

“The afternoon will include guest speakers representing sainthood causes and catechetical presentations, continuing the mission Our Lady entrusted to Adele to teach the faith and lead souls to salvation,” he said.

The shrine will also host a picnic that day. In addition to Mass and speakers, videos and educational presentations will highlight America’s holy women and men.

The shrine, May said, is entrusting the event to the patronage of Mary under her titles of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas; the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States; and Our Lady of Champion.

The all-age event will include interactive activities for families. The shrine will offer history scavenger hunts, children’s activity pages and more.

“Our hope,” May said, “is that families will come together to celebrate this historic moment, learn about the holy men and women who shaped our nation, and be inspired to grow in faith.”

(Katie Yoder is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Maryland.)

NOTES: More information about the event is at https://championshrine.org/americansaints.

By Father Anthony D. Andreassi

In this continuing series on the origins of Catholicism in the 50 states, the story of New England begins in a region that was, from the start, among the least welcoming places in early America for Catholics.

The English settlements of Plymouth (1620) and Massachusetts Bay (1630) were founded by deeply committed Protestants, shaped by a Calvinist worldview that defined itself in sharp opposition to Catholicism. Their religious imagination was nourished not only by the Bible but also by John Foxe’s “Book of Martyrs,” a widely read and fiercely anti-Catholic account of Protestant suffering under Queen Mary I.

That memory of persecution was reinforced by the dramatic tale of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, in which a small group of Catholics attempted to blow up Parliament and assassinate the Protestant king, James I. With such stories shaping the culture, it is no surprise that New England became the most inhospitable region of the 13 colonies for Catholics.

In such an atmosphere, Catholics in colonial New England kept a low profile, and for long stretches there was effectively no public Catholic life at all. Laws passed in 1647 and again in 1700 barred Catholics from settling in Massachusetts, and any priest who entered the colony could, in theory, face death as “an enemy of the true Christian religion.”

The Revolutionary era brought some measure of relief, and small numbers of Catholics began settling more openly in the New England colonies, which had by then become states. Legal barriers gradually softened, and public worship, once unthinkable, slowly emerged. In Boston, the first public Mass was celebrated in 1788 (nearly a century after the first Mass had been offered in New York City) marking a tentative but historic step toward an established Catholic presence in the region.

Progress, however, remained limited. The Massachusetts state constitution of 1780 imposed a religious test that effectively barred Catholics from holding public office and required citizens to pay taxes supporting Protestant ministers, though both provisions were eventually repealed.

Even as legal conditions slowly improved, Catholics remained a tiny minority. When the Diocese of Boston was created in 1808 (encompassing all of New England), the Catholic population of the state was still small; by 1820 still fewer than 4,000 Catholics lived among a general population of more than half a million.

This began to change dramatically with the arrival of large numbers of Irish immigrants in the decades before the Civil War, followed later by French Canadians and then by Catholics from Southern and Eastern Europe. Today, roughly one-third (about 2.5 million) of the state’s population is Catholic, served by four dioceses, a remarkable transformation from the tiny, legally restricted community of the early republic.

Maine

Before English control took hold in northern New England, Catholic missionary life had already emerged in what is now Maine through French Jesuits working among the Abenaki. François de Laval (who was eventually named the first bishop of Quebec in 1674 and later beatified in 1980) reported some 200 baptisms near present-day Augusta between 1660 and 1663. This mission endured amid growing conflict between France and England until 1724, when English forces destroyed the village of Norridgewock, killing many residents along with their longtime missionary, Jesuit Father Sebastian Rale.

Catholic life reemerged after the Revolution when Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, whose diocese then encompassed all of the fledgling republic, sent the French émigré priest Jean Lefebvre de Cheverus to minister at Indian Island and establish what would become St. Patrick Parish in Newcastle.

When Maine entered the Union in 1820, Catholicism remained sparse and missionary. Hostility flared again in the mid-19th century, most notably in 1854 with the tarring and feathering of the Swiss Jesuit John Bapst. Resistance ran so deep that the priest appointed as Portland’s first bishop in 1853 declined the position.

When Father David Bacon from Brooklyn arrived two years later (quietly and without clerical dress) to take up this role, the diocese (which then included both Maine and New Hampshire) counted only six priests and eight churches. Today the Diocese of Portland serves just the state of Maine, ministering to roughly 275,000 Catholics in 48 parishes.

New Hampshire

Since the Diocese of Portland initially encompassed both Maine and New Hampshire, the Catholic story of the Granite State began in close connection with Maine’s. Its roots, however, stretch back to the mid-1600s, when small numbers of Sokwaki and Pennacook converts instructed by French missionaries became the first Catholics in what is now New Hampshire. Their presence remained minimal if not miniscule for decades.

By 1741, the Anglican rector of Queen’s Chapel in Portsmouth could claim that no “papist” was known among the population. After the Revolutionary War, Catholics were still exceedingly rare. Of the roughly 25,000 Catholics in the United States at the time (about 1% of the population), New Hampshire — then home to some 100,000 people — officially counted none, though a few likely lived quietly among French traders or Irish immigrants.

A more visible Catholic presence began to emerge only in the early 19th century. The first Catholic church in the state, St. Mary’s in Claremont, was built in 1823 by a father and son (both Episcopal priests) who converted to Catholicism. The first parish followed in 1830 with the establishment of St. Aloysius in Dover. Even then the numbers remained modest. In 1835, New Hampshire counted just under 400 Catholics, served by two churches and two priests.

Catholic growth in New Hampshire accelerated dramatically in the second half of the 19th century. The first of several French-Canadian parishes was founded in 1873 to serve the rapidly expanding population of immigrants from Quebec.

When Pope Leo XIII erected the Diocese of Manchester in 1884, separating New Hampshire from the Diocese of Portland and appointing Father Denis Bradley as its first bishop, the Church had already assumed a substantial presence. The new diocese counted 31 parishes, six parish schools, 10 chapels, one orphanage, 37 priests required to minister in both French and English, and five convents with 89 religious sisters from three congregations.

Among Bishop Bradley’s most important early decisions was inviting Benedictine monks from Newark to establish a college and preparatory school. The monks who came to Manchester and founded St. Anselm Abbey were largely of German descent, a deliberate choice in a city where tensions between Irish and French Canadians could easily flare.

By the turn of the 20th century, Manchester’s Catholic population was roughly 40% French Canadian and 60% Irish, reflecting the immigrant streams that had reshaped the Granite State’s religious life.

Today, nearly 190,000 Catholics worship in 88 parishes across New Hampshire, served by about 175 priests — a striking growth from the handful of believers who once struggled to establish even a single church in the Granite State.

Vermont

Turning westward, the Catholic story in Vermont unfolded along a different frontier. The Diocese of Burlington today encompasses the entire state, but its Catholic roots reach back to July 1609, when the Catholic explorer Samuel de Champlain first entered the region and gave it the name that would become Vermont, drawn from its green mountains. Champlain was not merely an explorer but a man of evident religious conviction, often remarking that the salvation of one soul was worth more than the conquest of an empire.

Jesuit missionaries were active throughout much of the 17th century. The first Catholic structure within the present boundaries of Vermont was built at Fort St. Anne in 1666, where Mass was celebrated for the first time in the region. Two years later, in 1668, Bishop Laval of Quebec administered confirmation there, likely the first celebration of that sacrament in New England.

When the Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm traveled along Lake Champlain in 1749, he noted Jesuit missionaries present in nearly every Indian village, serving both converted and unconverted communities. Although the territory later came under English control and, after independence, formally fell within the Diocese of Baltimore, the Bishop of Quebec continued to oversee the spiritual care of early Catholic settlers and Native Americans until Vermont was incorporated into the newly erected Diocese of Boston in 1808.

A permanent Catholic presence took firmer shape in 1830, when Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston sent the energetic Jeremiah O’Callaghan as Vermont’s first resident priest. Under his leadership, the Church grew steadily, so that by 1853, when the Holy See established the Diocese of Burlington, Vermont counted five priests, 10 churches, and approximately 20,000 Catholics. Today, though Vermont remains the second smallest state by population, the Diocese of Burlington serves about 110,000 Catholics through 36 active priests, 44 permanent deacons, and 15 religious ministering in 68 parishes.

Rhode Island

Turning now to southern New England, the Catholic story in Rhode Island unfolded within a colony known for its commitment to liberty of conscience. In Rhode Island, anti-Catholic sentiment tended to express itself more in politics and legislation than in the mob violence seen elsewhere in New England.

Founded in 1643 by the Baptist minister Roger Williams, the colony was built on a broad principle of religious toleration (even allowing Jews to establish their own congregation in 1658), a sharp contrast to the more restrictive policies of neighboring colonies. Yet this toleration had limits. By 1719, the Rhode Island General Assembly had enacted a law disenfranchising Catholics in an effort to discourage their settlement.

The first Catholic Mass in Rhode Island is generally believed to have been celebrated in July 1780, when the French forces arrived in Newport during the Revolutionary War. A more permanent Catholic presence emerged only in the 19th century.

As Irish immigrants began arriving in Newport in significant numbers, tensions deepened. Many came to work on the construction of Fort Adams, to labor in the growing number of grand mansions, or to escape the devastation of the Irish potato famine. Anti-immigrant sentiment was often rooted in anti-Catholic prejudice. St. Mary’s Parish, the first Catholic parish in Newport, was founded in 1828.

In 1843, Pope Gregory XVI established the Diocese of Hartford, encompassing both Connecticut and Rhode Island, and appointed Msgr. William Tyler of Boston as its first bishop.

At the time, Providence counted about 2,000 Catholics, compared to only 600 in Hartford, prompting Tyler to petition Rome to relocate the diocesan see. A generation later, on February 16, 1872, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Providence, separating Rhode Island from Hartford and adding nearby territories from Massachusetts, including Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Cape Cod and the Fall River area. Thomas Hendricken was named the first bishop of Providence.

The new diocese began with 125,000 Catholics, 43 churches, nine parish schools and one orphanage. Today the diocese serves almost 600,000 Catholics across 119 parishes.

Connecticut

In contrast to repressive laws and outright violence found at times elsewhere in much of New England, Catholic life in Connecticut unfolded within a stable but firmly Protestant culture that proved cautious rather than openly hostile.

Although the Dutch erected a fort in 1633 near what is now Hartford, Connecticut developed primarily from two independent English settlements founded by Puritans with Congregationalism (which was the way the descendants of the Puritans began to refer to their church) remaining as the established church until 1818.

The earliest Catholics were likely Irish immigrants and French-speaking Acadians who were driven from Nova Scotia and settled in small numbers in the region during the mid-18th century.

By the 1820s, the Catholic population in Connecticut had grown large enough to warrant a resident priest. In 1829, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, the second bishop of Boston, sent Father Bernard O’Cavanagh as the state’s first resident priest. The following year, Bishop Fenwick returned to dedicate Connecticut’s first Catholic church, a converted Episcopal frame building.

Connecticut’s Catholic population expanded rapidly in the decades after the Civil War, driven by immigration and industrial growth in cities such as Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. That expansion found strong leadership under Lawrence McMahon, a distinguished Civil War chaplain, who was appointed Hartford’s fifth bishop in 1879.

During his 14-year episcopate, the diocese experienced remarkable growth, with 48 new parishes and 16 parish schools established. It was also during this period, in 1882, that a young diocesan priest from Waterbury, Michael J. McGivney, organized a small group of Catholic men in the basement of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven.

What began as a small gathering soon grew into the Knights of Columbus, a lasting expression of Catholic charity, fraternity and faith, one of the most influential Catholic organizations in American history. McGivney was beatified at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Hartford in 2020.

Catholic life in Connecticut continued to expand through the 20th century, especially during the prosperity of the postwar era. As population shifted outward from the cities, new parishes were established across the growing suburbs, reflecting both demographic growth and rising Catholic confidence in public life.

That expansion was formally recognized in 1953, when Pope Pius XII created the dioceses of Bridgeport and Norwich and elevated Hartford to the rank of an archdiocese, marking Connecticut’s full maturation into a major center of Catholic life in New England.

Taken together, the Catholic story of New England is one of endurance and gradual transformation. From the early missionary encounters with Native peoples along rivers and lakes, through centuries of exclusion, suspicion and legal restriction, Catholic life survived largely at the margins. What began as a scattered and often hidden faith was reshaped in the 19th and early 20th centuries by immigration and industrialization as parishes, schools and charitable works took root across the region.

Today, Catholicism is woven deeply into New England’s religious and cultural fabric — a long way from the days when Mass was forbidden, bishops arrived in their new diocese in disguise and Catholics struggled simply to be counted.

(Father Anthony D. Andreassi, a priest of the Brooklyn Oratory of St. Philip Neri, holds a doctorate in history from Georgetown University. His research and writing have focused on the American Catholic community. After spending many years in Catholic secondary education, he is on the staff of the Oratory parishes of Assumption and St. Boniface in Brooklyn, New York.)

(OSV News) — Nine young adults have been selected as “perpetual pilgrims” to travel with the Eucharist along the East Coast this summer in the third National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. The pilgrims — five men and four women — will participate in the pilgrimage’s full route, which begins May 24 in Florida and reaches Maine before ending in Philadelphia July 5 for U.S. semiquincentennial celebrations.

The pilgrims include Zachary Dotson, a parish employee in Indiana; Marcel Ferrer, a sophomore at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio; John Paul Flynn, sophomore at The Catholic University of America in Washington; Eduardo Gutierrez, an accountant in Phoenix; Cheyenne Johnson, a missionary in New Jersey; Angelina Marconi, a college athletic trainer in Kentucky; Raymond Martinez II, a seminarian for the Diocese of San Angelo, Texas; Sharon Phillips, a high school youth minister in the Archdiocese of Seattle; and Mary Carmen Zakrajsek, a youth faith formation director in Indiana.

With four routes that met in Indianapolis, the 2024 pilgrimage included 30 pilgrims. Last year’s pilgrimage included eight. Johnson was among the 2025 perpetual pilgrims, and she is returning this year as the team lead. Last year’s pilgrimage also included a returning pilgrim who had traveled one of the 2024 routes to serve as team lead.

With the theme “One Nation Under God,” the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage route celebrates key Catholic landmarks and events in American Catholic history as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary. The pilgrimage’s route includes public events in 18 dioceses and archdioceses in 13 states and the District of Columbia.

Registration for public events such as Masses, Eucharistic processions, adoration and Holy Hours opens March 18 at eucharisticpilgrimage.org.

The pilgrimage will launch Memorial Day weekend with Mass at Our Lady of La Leche Shrine at Mission Nombre De Dios in St. Augustine, Florida, the site of the first Mass celebrated on American soil in 1565. It will also include commemorations of the Georgia Martyrs, five Franciscan missionaries who were killed for their faith in 1597, whose beatification is expected Oct. 31; the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia; and stops in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the nation’s first Catholic diocese.

The route is dedicated to St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-American religious sister who cared for the immigrants and poor in New York during the turn of the 20th century.

The National Eucharistic Congress nonprofit organizes the pilgrimage, which first took place in 2024 ahead of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis as part of the National Eucharistic Revival, and which returned last summer with a route from Indianapolis to Los Angeles.

This year’s pilgrimage will take place in solidarity with the U.S. bishops’ call to consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It also aims to broadly involve the Church in the U.S. through a campaign to offer 250,000 Holy Hours “for the renewal and blessing of America,” according to its website.

Dioceses and archdioceses with stops along the route are St. Augustine; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; Arlington, Virginia; Washington; Baltimore; Wilmington, Delaware; Camden, New Jersey; Paterson, New Jersey; Springfield, Massachusetts; Manchester, New Hampshire; Portland, Maine; Boston; Fall River, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Philadelphia.

By Mike Latona / Catholic Courier , OSV News

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (OSV News) — The Olympic gold medal hanging from Haley Winn’s neck was a crowning touch on her rapid rise to ice hockey’s mountaintop.

Winn — a graduate of Bishop Kearney High School in the Rochester suburb of Irondequoit — and her United States women’s team struck gold Feb. 19, thanks to a 2-1 overtime win over Canada in the Olympic final in Milan, Italy. Winn played stellar defense throughout the 2026 Winter Games, helping her team score 33 goals in seven games while allowing just two goals.

“It’s crazy to think about. It’s so hard to put into words,” Winn, 22, told the Catholic Courier, newspaper of the Diocese of Rochester, in a Feb. 22 telephone interview from Milan. “Just to be a part of something so much bigger than myself, it’s so special. There’s been so many emotions — a lot of tears of joy, disbelief.”

The gold-medal win came in Winn’s first Olympics and followed three world titles with other U.S. national teams on which she played. She asserted that her hockey success was only made possible through two mainstays in her life — her family and her Catholic faith.

“I wouldn’t be (an Olympic champion) without them,” Winn said of her parents, Janet and Mike, and older brothers Casey, Ryan and Tommy — all five of whom were on hand in Milan to cheer her on. “It’s their medal as much as mine.”

Winn said she also drew inspiration from praying together with several U.S. teammates before each Olympic game.

“Christ is my identity, my foundation,” she said. “I think it’s the thing that keeps me grounded.”

Staying grounded was no easy task in the gold-medal contest, as Winn’s U.S. team faced a 1-0 deficit until Hilary Knight’s goal tied the score with just over two minutes left in regulation. Megan Keller followed with the game-winner 4:07 into sudden-death overtime, setting off a wild U.S. celebration.

“I just had a sense of belief and confidence that as soon as we got that tying goal, it was over,” Winn said, lauding the ability and cohesiveness of her U.S. teammates: “It’s the best team I could have played on, a great group of girls. Everyone just has so much trust in each other and gives you the confidence to play your own game.”

Winn, a 5-foot-5-inch defenseman wearing uniform No. 8, logged substantial ice time in every Olympic game. Offensively, she netted her first Olympic goal — in a 5-0 win over Switzerland Feb. 9 — and three assists during the Games.

En route to her Olympic success, Winn spent her high school career with the BK Selects Hockey Academy for boys and girls, playing in elite youth events across the U.S. and Canada.

Winn, as well as BK Selects players from other states and countries, resided in dormitories on Bishop Kearney’s top floor while attending the school, where Winn’s mother is on the board of directors. She was one of eight BK Selects alumnae to play in the Olympics — five for the U.S. squad — yet was the only Rochester-area resident among those eight.

Upon graduating from Bishop Kearney in 2021, Winn played Division I hockey at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. In her senior season, she served as co-captain and was named ECAC Player of the Year as well as first team All-American. She graduated in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Winn also has won International Ice Hockey Federation women’s world championships in 2023 and 2025 and was on the U.S. under-18 national team that earned the world title in 2020. In June 2025, she was selected second overall by the Boston Fleet in the Professional Women’s Hockey League draft. Through late February, she had helped the Fleet to a first-place showing in the eight-team PWHL.

Despite the time demands of playing top-level hockey, Winn makes ample time for her Catholic faith and is adamant about sharing it with others. While attending Clarkson, she joined a team Bible study group as a sophomore, and by her senior year, she was overseeing it.

Winn noted that her faith kicked into another gear while still at Bishop Kearney. Through attending Masses at Rochester’s St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish with other team members, Winn developed a friendship with Father Robert Werth, a Diocese of Rochester priest who assists in the parish. Winn’s parents eventually became good friends with Father Werth as well.

“Father Bob and Haley have really helped Mike and I become strong in our faith through the years,” Janet Winn said, noting that they often attend Sunday Masses that Father Werth celebrates when they’re not traveling for their daughter’s hockey games.

“He is amazing. I don’t have enough good things to say about him,” Winn remarked about Father Werth. The priest, in turn, lauded the star hockey athlete: “She is the best — the most humble person, maybe even a little shy.”

The same cannot easily be said about Winn’s brothers. Casey, Ryan and Tommy became viral sensations during the Olympics with their zany outfits and videos; their supportive antics even led the four siblings to being featured on NBC’s “Today” show.

Meanwhile, Winn was part of a U.S. squad that, according to published reports, attracted a television viewing average of 5.3 million people — peaking at 7.7 million during overtime — in the final against Canada, making it the most-watched women’s ice hockey game on record.

As she continues to gain popularity around the world, Winn said she will utilize that attention not for personal gain, but to continue voicing her religious beliefs.

“I am so blessed that God is using me to glorify him on this platform,” she stated.

(Mike Latona is senior staff writer at the Catholic Courier, newspaper of the Diocese of Rochester. This story was originally published by the Catholic Courier and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.)