By Justin McLellan VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Living out the missionary dimension of the faith never means trying to forcefully convert people to Catholicism, Pope Francis said.
“The Christian mission is not transmitting some abstract truth or religious conviction, much less proselytizing – still less,” he told the national directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies May 25.
Rather, “it is first and foremost enabling those we meet to be able to have the fundamental experience of God’s love, and they will be able to find it in our lives and in the life of the church if we are shining witnesses to it, reflecting a ray of the Trinitarian mystery,” the pope said.
Participants gathered at the Vatican from more than 120 countries across five continents for the general assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
To illustrate the perils of proselytism, the pope recalled an experience he had at a World Youth Day in which a woman belonging to what he described as an “ultra” Catholic group gloated to him about converting the two young people she was with.
“I looked at her in the eyes and I said, ‘And who will convert you?’” the pope said.
Regarding “this mission of conversion, there are religious groups that carry around a list of conversions; this is terrible,” he said.
Pope Francis greets participants in the general assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies during a meeting at the Vatican May 25, 2024. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
In addition to giving money to support the church’s missions, Pope Francis said Catholics must find new ways of engaging with and promoting the church’s missionary projects.
“All missionary activity is creative” since it is rooted in Christ’s charity, he said. “With inexhaustible imagination, such charity inspires new ways of evangelizing and serving others, especially the poorest, and include the customary collections taken for the universal funds of solidarity with the missions.”
While Catholics should promote those collections, they must also “explore new ways of encouraging the participation of individuals, groups and institutions who wish to support the church’s missionary endeavors as an expression of their gratitude for the graces received from the Lord,” the pope said. The pope said a spirituality of missionary communion “is the foundation of the church’s current synodal journey.”
“The call to communion implies a synodal style: walking together, listening to each other, engaging in dialogue,” he said. “This expands our hearts and fosters that universal outlook emphasized at the founding of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith,” a branch of the Pontifical Mission Societies which promotes missionary spirituality and universal solidarity with missions through prayer and the distribution of funds.
IN EXILE By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI Our own complexity can be befuddling. We are better than we think and worse than we imagine, too hard and too easy on ourselves all at the same time. We are a curious mix.
On the one hand, we are good. All of us are made in the image and likeness of God and are, as Aristotle and Aquinas affirm, metaphysically good. That’s true, but our goodness is also less abstract. We are good too, at least most of the time, in our everyday lives.
Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Generally, we are generous, often to a fault. Despite appearances sometimes, mostly we are warm and hospitable. The same is true in terms of the basic intent in both our minds and our hearts. We have big hearts. Inside everyone, easily triggered by the slightest touch of love or affirmation, lies a big heart, a grand soul, a magna anima, that’s itching to be altruistic. Mostly the problem isn’t with our goodness, but with our frustration in trying to live that out in the world. Too often we appear cold and self-centered when we’re only frustrated, hurt and wounded. We don’t always appear to be good, but mostly we are; though often we are frustrated because we cannot (for reasons of circumstance, wound and sensitivity) pour out our goodness as we would like, nor embrace the world and those around us with the warmth that’s in us. We go through life looking for a warm place to show who we are and often don’t find it. We’re not so much bad as frustrated. We’re more loving than we imagine.
But that’s half of it, there’s another side: we’re also sinners, more so than we think. An old Protestant dictum about human nature, based on St. Paul, puts it accurately: “It’s not a question of are you a sinner? It’s only a question of what is your sin?” We’re all sinners, and just as we possess a big heart and a grand soul, we also possess a petty one (a pusilla anima). At the very roots of our instinctual make-up, there’s selfishness, jealousy, and pettiness of heart and mind.
Moreover, we are often blind to our real faults. As Jesus says, we easily see the speck on our neighbor’s eye and miss the plank in our own. And that generally makes for a strange irony, that is, where we think we are sinners is usually not the place where others struggle the most with us or where our real faults lie. Conversely, it’s in those areas where we think we are virtuous and righteous that often our real sin lies and where others struggle with us.
For example, we’ve have forever put a lot of emphasis on the sixth commandment and haven’t been nearly as self-scrutinizing in regard to the fifth commandment (which deals with bitterness, judgments, anger and hatred) or with the ninth and tenth commandments (that have to do with jealousy). It’s not that sexual ethics are unimportant, but our failures here are harder to rationalize. The same isn’t true for bitterness, anger, especially righteous anger, nor for jealousy. We can more easily rationalize these and not notice that jealousy is the only sin for which God felt it necessary to write two commandments. We are worse than we imagine and mostly blind to our real faults.
So where does that leave us? In better and worse shape than we think. If we could recognize that we’re more lovely than we imagine and more sinful than we suppose, that could be helpful both for our self-understanding and for how we understand God’s love and grace in our lives.
Aristotle says, “two contraries cannot co-exist within the same subject.” He’s right metaphysically, but two contraries can (and do) exist inside of us morally. We’re both good and bad, generous and selfish, big-hearted and petty, gracious and bitter, forgiving and resentful, hospitable and cold, full of grace and full of sin, all at the same time. Moreover, we’re generally too blind to both, too unaware of our loveliness as well as of our nastiness.
To recognize this can be humbling and freeing. We are loved sinners. Both goodness and sin make up our identity. Not to recognize this truth leaves us either unhealthily depressed or dangerously inflated, too hard or too easy on ourselves. The truth will set us free, and the truth about ourselves is that we’re both better and worse than we picture ourselves to be.
Robert Funk once formulated three dictums on grace which speak to this. He writes:
Grace always wounds from behind, at the point where we think we are least vulnerable.
Grace is harder than we think: we moralize judgment in order to take the edge off it.
Grace is more indulgent than we think: but it is never indulgent at the point where we think it might be indulgent. We need to be both easier and harder on ourselves – and open to the way grace works.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)
Back on Memorial Day I took a trip down the Pearl River in a kayak with Will Foggo and Joe Pearson. It was a very memorable trip for several reasons: 1) There was absolutely no current going downriver, so it basically became a 10.4-mile trip across a big lake! 2) We almost had enough equipment. We had three kayaks, but only two kayak paddles, the third paddle we had was really for a canoe; and 3) we got a bit of a late start, and ended up getting to our exit-point well after dark.
Father Nick Adam
Going into the trek we knew that we were in for some unexpected turbulence, that’s just the way it goes when you are in a group, and you are dealing with mother nature. The journey through seminary is comparable in some ways to that trip down the Pearl: both demand that you remain aware of your surroundings, rely on other people for help and support, and have a great attitude so you can truly ‘enjoy the ride,’ even when it’s a little unpleasant for various reasons.
I remember the first time I walked onto the campus of a seminary I was blown away by the number of chapels there were. It seemed that no matter where I might live on campus, a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament reposed in a a tabernacle was just a short walk away. Everything also seemed so ‘ordered.’ The seminarians would walk dutifully in packs from class to class, to the church for Mass, or to the refectory for meals. The structure in seminary helps men to form good habits of prayer, study, fraternity and service, but that structure is not meant to be an end in itself.
I always tell our seminarians that if they are being called to be a priest in the Diocese of Jackson, then they are called to be malleable. They should be willing to step up and make adjustments to their schedule according to the needs of God’s people. When Will and Joe and I started down the river: it seemed like we were just going along with the flow. Everything was in order. But then we realized how slow the current was, and how much trash was in the river (truly, a disturbing amount), and that we might not be getting in until after dark. We had to be willing to re-frame our expectations and make the best of it, to have a great attitude and ‘enjoy the ride.’
I read recently that one should pray about the challenges, doubts and trials that are coming in our life, rather than to only pray about the ones that we currently have or the aftermath of a certain situation. I think that is a very wise posture of prayer for a seminarian. A seminarian studying for the Diocese of Jackson, or for the diocesan priesthood in general, should pray for the grace to remain calm in the midst of great change or challenge. That way, when faced with this during his priesthood, he won’t be dismayed or think something is ‘wrong,’ rather, he’ll expect that the Lord will give him the grace he needs to keep going, and ‘enjoy the ride.’
Father Nick Adam, vocation director
(Father Nick Adam can be contacted at nick.adam@jacksondiocese.org.)
By Joanna Puddister King JACKSON – Just shy of sixty-six years a priest, Father Noel Prendergast entered eternal life on May 26, 2024.
He was born Jan. 1, 1934, the youngest of John and Mary Prendergast’s seven children. He was born at Christmastime, so that’s where Noel came from, Father Prendergast once told Mississippi Catholic.
He studied six years at St. Patrick’s College and Seminary in Carlow, Ireland; and was ordained in that city’s Catholic cathedral on June 7, 1958. It was Prendergast’s choice to spend his entire priesthood in Mississippi, giving up cold, wet winters and springs for the occasional snow and frequent hot temperatures native to the Deep South.
Father Prendergast and three other priests arrived in Mississippi in September 1958. His first assignment was to Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Biloxi as an associate pastor.
Four years later, he was moved to St. Mary’s Church in Jackson, where he served for two years as associate pastor. Father Prendergast once remarked that he “saw it more of an adventure,” since the parish also had a school.
From there, he was transferred to Mercy Hospital in Vicksburg, where he was chaplain. He left after three years for his first pastorate at Assumption Church in Natchez in 1967.
Father Prendergast became a U.S. citizen in the mid-1960s. “I figured if I was going to live here, I needed to be a citizen and take part in voting,” Prendergast recalled in 2018 for his sixtieth anniversary celebration.
CLINTON – Father Noel Prendergast stands in the sanctuary of Holy Savior Clinton in this file photo. He passed away at age 90 on Sunday, May 26. (Photo from archives)
Just two years after arriving in Natchez, Bishop Joseph Brunini assigned him as pastor of Gulf Coast Missions in Gulfport. He enjoyed returning to the coast, as he missed the sea, as he was only about 30 minutes from the ocean in his native Ireland.
Another two short years later, he was on his way to Annunciation parish in Columbus, where he served as pastor for 10 years. “You really got to know the people and appreciate them, and they appreciated what you did for them,” Father Prendergast once said.
His next stop was St. Michael’s Church in Vicksburg in September 1980, where he remained for 12 years. During his tenure, Father Prendergast helped oversee the construction of a new church structure, while the old church building became the parish hall.
His next assignment, in 1991, was Holy Savior in Clinton and Immaculate Conception in Raymond, where he remained 12 years.
In 2003, he found himself at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Yazoo City, where he remained until he requested retirement at age 75 in 2008.
Father Prendergast chose to come to Mississippi, and he chose to stay in Mississippi. At his 60th ordination anniversary celebration in 2018, Father Prendergast said that he came back to Clinton because he couldn’t “stand the weather over there” in Ireland and that he knew more people in Mississippi than he did in Ireland. Mississippi had become his home.
He enjoyed the life of a retiree, taking annual trips back to his homeland in Ireland to visit family; and also spending time on the golf course with his fellow priests and filling in occasionally at his home parish of Holy Savior Clinton. Father PJ Curley played golf with him nearly every Monday and Friday for 40 years, developing a deep friendship as fellow golfers and Irish priests.
“Imagine the eternal hug from God to Noel, who is in his image and in his likeness,” said Father Curley during the funeral Mass for Father Prendergast. “What a beautiful thought what a beautiful image. Going home to God.”
“Father Noel Prendergast is home, safe and sound.”
JACKSON – Father Tristan Stovall was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Jackson on Saturday, May 18. He is assigned to St. Joseph Starkville. Photos from the event are available for viewing on Facebook @jacksondiocese. (Photo by Joanna Puddister King)
By Mary Gorski HOUSTON – On June 1, in the sacristy of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Houston, Texas, Paul Phong Hoang, SCJ, was vested as a deacon for the last time. An hour later, surrounded by family, friends, and fellow Dehonians, his parents would help to vest him as a priest.
Bishop Joseph Kopacz of the Diocese of Jackson, was the ordaining bishop. During Father Paul’s words of thanks at the end of the ordination, we learned that he and the bishop first met over a bowl of cereal in the kitchen of the Dehonian community house in Nesbit, Mississippi.
“Who was this guy eating in our kitchen?” thought Father Paul when he saw the bishop. The ministries of Sacred Heart Southern Missions fall within the Diocese of Jackson. When the bishop travels to the northern portion of that diocese, he often stays with the Sacred Heart community, where he regularly starts his day with a bowl of cereal.
When he met the bishop, Father Paul was in Mississippi as a student. Years later he would return to serve as a deacon and now as a priest in the Diocese of Jackson.
The man in the kitchen would one day travel to Houston to ordain Father Paul.
“I am so happy that Father Paul will continue to serve in our diocese,” said Bishop Kopacz.
When asked if he has advice for someone discerning a call to the priesthood or religious life, Father Paul talked about his religious community, but also about God’s call to each of us:
“Our community – the Dehonians – makes space for people from all different walks of life. Let us not be discouraged by a person, an incident, a thing that hurt or bothered us. The love of Christ and our charism are what unite us. There are still people in the world searching for the Truth, hungry for Christ, and wanting to be loved. Despite our personal human weaknesses, God continues to call us to serve His church and people.”
By Laura Grisham WALLS – Like many other non-profits, Sacred Heart Southern Missions (SHSM) in north Mississippi relies on volunteers to achieve its mission. They play key roles in the organizations outreach programs. Last year, nearly 3,800 people came from near and far to help Sacred Heart Southern Missions. These generous individuals donated close to 23,000 hours of service. The time worked equating to approximately 11 full-time employees.
More than 1,200 people have come to volunteer since the beginning of 2024. The organization has a number of regulars who help out daily at their food pantries and social service offices. Many local businesses, churches and schools support SHSM by working in mobile food pantries, prepping meals at the Garden Cafe, assisting at the thrift store and making deliveries.
High schools, college and church groups from across the country travel to Mississippi to help out as well. They come for days or weeks at a time to help with one of SHSM’s bigger areas of service: home rehab. There is never a shortage of projects that need attention. There are so many people who have no means to make repairs or are too frail to maintain their homes. Without the time and talent of our volunteers, these needs would remain unmet.
WALLS – Students from St. Matthew in Virginia work to construct a wheelchair ramp for Benjamin, who became disabled after a large limb fell on him. (Photo courtesy of Laura Grisham)
From ramps, roofs and rafters to doors, floors, tubs and tile, and everything in between, many critical home repair projects have been checked off the proverbial to-do list through the hard work of volunteers. But often, they leave with greater gifts than the ones they gave.
A number of families and individuals have been blessed by the arrival of volunteers over the past months. Benjamin is one of those individuals. He worked in the tree trimming and removal business until a gigantic limb fell, striking him on the head, breaking his neck and back and cracking his skull.
In March, students from St. Matthew in Virginia were tasked with the construction of a wheelchair ramp so that Benjamin could enter and exit his home easily in his electric wheelchair. Working alongside their skilled chaperone, the young people raised the level of the front porch to the front door and built out a ramp with a gentle incline. The project helped restore some of the mobility Benjamin lost a little more than a year ago.
Critical repairs are always on the horizon and new groups are being signed up regularly to help out. Recently, Valero Refinery sent several skilled workers who joined a student from the University of Memphis to tackle a roof for Wayne, an elderly client in Nesbit. The group made quick work of the project, completing it in three days. “You have no idea what gratitude is,” said Wayne as he patted his chest. With tears in his eyes, he said, “Thank you so-so much.”
Program staffers have been busy assessing client homes and preparing for the next wave of large volunteer groups, and parishes in Northwest Mississippi are also teaming up for a Summer Immersion week of service.
More groups are welcome, visit https://bit.ly/VolunteerSHSM for more information about volunteer projects, lodging facilities available for volunteers or to donate to help with projects.
NATION WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Catholic bishops’ latest annual report on child and youth protection shows abuse allegations are down, while safe environment protocols have taken root in the church – but guarding against complacency about abuse prevention is critical, as is providing ongoing support for survivors. On May 28, the bishops released their “2023 Annual Report – Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.” For the period from July 1, 2022-June 30, 2023, the report found a more than 51% drop in historical allegations from those reported in the same period last year, from 2,704 in 2022 to 1,308 in 2023. The decrease was partly due to the resolution of allegations received as a result of lawsuits, said the report. Another milestone was the full participation of all 196 dioceses and eparchies in the Charter audit, a 100% response rate that was unprecedented. But the report found that over the past 10 years, the Catholic dioceses and eparchies in the U.S. alone have paid more than $2 billion in costs regarding abuse allegations. Total abuse allegation-related costs in fiscal year 2023 were up 99% over the previous year at more than $260.5 million. Suzanne Healy, chairwoman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Review Board, emphasized in the report that as the church moves forward, it cannot risk “fatigue or complacency. We must remain vigilant.”
VICTORIA, Texas (OSV News) – The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s perpetual pilgrims’ second week included already iconic events – such as when Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York blessed the city with the Eucharist from a boat near the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor May 27 – and hidden moments – like when a man got out of a truck in the middle of Oregon, far away from any towns, and genuflected as the Eucharistic caravan passed. On a May 29 media call, the pilgrims shared other stories of encounter and conversion: On the California side of Lake Tahoe, a photographer for a secular news outlet – amazed by the masses of people turning out for processions – told the perpetual pilgrims that he was inspired to learn more about the Eucharist and plans to begin the process for becoming Catholic. Meanwhile, a woman who isn’t able to walk with the pilgrims has been joining each procession along the St. Juan Diego Route since Brownsville, Texas, on a retrofitted tricycle. Also in Texas, some perpetual pilgrims helped bandage a woman’s wounded leg at a homeless shelter, and then the woman – whose name is Hope – asked the pilgrims to pray with her. On the May 29 media call, the perpetual pilgrims acknowledged that their packed days can sap their energy, but explained each “amazing encounter” along their routes also reveals to them the impact that the pilgrimage is having.
VATICAN VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis announced that he is preparing a document on the Sacred Heart of Jesus to “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal, but also to say something significant to a world that seems to have lost its heart.” The document is expected to be released in September, he said. The pope made the announcement during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square June 5. The Catholic Church traditionally dedicates the month of June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The document will include reflections from “previous magisterial texts” and it will aim to “re-propose to the whole church this devotion laden with spiritual beauty. I believe it will do us much good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love,” the pope said. Meanwhile, in his main audience talk, Pope Francis continued a new series on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the church. He said the freedom Jesus offers with his Spirit has nothing to do with the selfishness of being free to do what one wants, but it is “the freedom to freely do what God wants! Not freedom to do good or evil, but freedom to do good and do it freely.”
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Although Pope Francis usually takes the month of July off – except for leading the recitation of the Angelus on Sundays – he will hold a consistory with cardinals in Rome July 1 for the final approval of the canonization of several sainthood candidates, according to the master of papal liturgical ceremonies. In late May, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints said Pope Francis would be convoking the meeting of cardinals to vote on approving the canonizations of Blessed Carlo Acutis, an Italian teen and computer whiz; Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, founder of the Consolata Missionaries; eight Franciscan friars and three Maronite laymen who were martyred in Syria in 1860; Canada-born Blessed Marie-Léonie Paradis, founder of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family; and Blessed Elena Guerra, an Italian nun who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit. The date or dates for the canonizations could be announced during the ceremony.
WORLD LOURDES, France (OSV News) – Surrounded by almost 15,000 military personnel from around the world, Airman 1st Class Quenton Cooper felt a deep sense of fraternity during a May 24-26 pilgrimage to Lourdes, France. Cooper was one of 183 American pilgrims who journeyed to Lourdes for the annual International Military Pilgrimage. Every year since 1958, the French army has invited soldiers from across the world to come together for three days of festivities, prayer, and fraternity in Lourdes, the frequented pilgrimage site where Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858. “This trip has bolstered my spiritual life because it has reminded me that I’m not alone in my prayer life and that the church is not just located in one country, but it’s a community that extends all over the world,” Cooper said. “It is this reminder that no matter who we are, we need to thrive, and God will put us in.” For over 20 years, the Knights of Columbus and the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services have co-sponsored the Warriors to Lourdes pilgrimage, bringing both active-duty service members and veterans from across the world to seek healing through the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage also provides participants from a military background the opportunity to experience fraternity with the global church, said military chaplain Father Philip O’Neill.
SAN SALVADOR (OSV News) – A recent decision by officials in El Salvador to remove a painting of St. Óscar Romero from a prominent location in the nation’s main airport and move it to a secluded area, generated backlash from Catholics and opinion leaders, who have been critical of how the nation’s government is treating national symbols while trying to rebrand the country as a safe, tourist-friendly destination. The 18-foot-wide painting depicts scenes of St. Romero’s life, including a meeting that he had with people whose relatives had been abducted by the military. The painting was commissioned in 2010 to mark the 30th anniversary of St. Romero’s murder and it had been placed in a hallway of the airport’s departure hall, where it could be easily seen by passengers as they headed to their gates. It was passengers at the airport who noted that the painting was no longer at its original location and had been replaced with a poster that welcomes tourists to El Salvador, “the land of surfing, volcanoes and coffee.” Officials initially provided no explanation for the painting’s removal, sparking criticism from some Catholic leaders. Carlos Colorado, a Salvadoran-American lawyer who runs a blog about St. Romero, said that he was concerned that El Salvador’s current government was being dismissive of the bishop’s contribution to the nation’s history. St. Romero was the archbishop of San Salvador in the late 1970s, a turbulent period that led to a full-fledged civil war, in which more than 75,000 people were killed.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (OSV News) — This Juneteenth holiday a group of Glenmary Home Missioners will have a deeper appreciation for the historic struggle of African Americans for freedom and equality in the United States. The federal holiday June 19 is a commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S. at the conclusion of the Civil War.
The Glenmary group recently completed a mid-May pilgrimage through Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, stopping and praying at significant sites in the slavery era and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, and to meet with contemporary community workers.
Thirteen of the 31-member pilgrimage group were Kenyan and Ugandan students in Glenmary formation; others were priests, brothers and lay co-workers primarily from the U.S.
“The point was to have an encounter, an opportunity for them to gain a better understanding of the Southerners they’ll be working with,” Father Dan Dorsey, president of Glenmary, told OSV News. “But the most important thing for me was that the participants had a profoundly spiritual experience, where people see Christ in the experience of others, whether that’s in a museum or in the people who continue to struggle for justice.”
Trip coordinator Polly Duncan Collum, Glenmary’s director of justice, peace and integrity of creation, echoed that sentiment. “It was a tour, and a time of reflection. But also, it was a connection between the past and the present in the meeting community organizers and leaders working for racial and economic justice,” she said.
She offered the example of a meeting with Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz and a multiracial coalition in Jackson, Mississippi, of which the Diocese of Jackson is a member.
In Birmingham, Alabama, pilgrims visited sites commemorating the 1955-56 bus boycott, a key moment in civil rights history. The yearlong boycott, started by the act of defiance by civil rights activist Rosa Parks, brought newly minted preacher the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., into a leadership position that would persist until his murder in 1968. (Parks met with St. John Paul II during his 1999 pastoral visit to St. Louis.)
Participants in a Glenmary Civil Rights Pilgrimage take photos in Canton, Mississippi, of the bed where Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman spent her final days in 1990. Sister Thea, the first African American to be a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, lived in her childhood home with a fellow Franciscan sister at the end of her life. She died of cancer March 30, 1990, at age 52. (OSV News photo/John Feister, Glenmary)
The pilgrims also visited Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, where a 1963 Ku Klux Klan bombing caused the death of four child congregants. Across the street was Kelly Ingram Park, where months later police, seen on national television, viciously attacked child protesters with police dogs, fire hoses and water cannons. Today, sculptures and a civil rights museum commemorate those events. Interpreters helped the pilgrims to see the strategy of Civil Rights activists to engage law enforcement in the public eye. Repeatedly, though, the racist reaction was more violent than the activists had anticipated.
Pilgrimage participants later walked across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where marchers were viciously attacked by law enforcement in 1965 as the nation looked on. These were key events that eventually led to the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, championed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In Mississippi, the group also stopped to pray at the Canton home of Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman, whose cause for canonization is underway. Sister Thea (1937-1990), a key leader in the Black Catholic movement, worked for intercultural understanding in churches across the United States. She was the first African American to be a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
Moses Ngund’u, a Glenmary seminarian from Nakuru, Kenya, said what struck him most was listening to the stories of Parks and Rev. King, “especially the way he advocated for a peaceful resolution.”
Seminarian Evarist Mukama was moved by being in the 16th St. Baptist Church, “where the four little girls were killed, innocent as they were, and the scene for their parents and friends. I asked myself, ‘Will there be any point where there will be equality for all?'”
When he saw a museum display of KKK robes, seminarian Philip Langford, a Texan from a multiethnic family, was brought back to a childhood experience.
“I actually have a memory of encountering the KKK,” he said, recalling a 2004 cross-country family car trip from Texas to Florida, with a gas stop in Mississippi. “Coming down the road a group of Klansmen were carrying a cross. I remember my mother immediately told me to lie on the floorboard. I was just reminded of all of that today. I can imagine how somebody who went through the Civll Rights Era, with all of the lynchings, would have responded to that cross.”
Langford added, “The most jarring thing for me was all of the hatred, and I would argue that it’s still there today. And I don’t know if I would say quieter, because it’s getting louder and louder.”
“Very much!” was Deacon Joseph Maundu’s response when asked whether he thought this pilgrimage might have an impact on his ministry. The deacon spoke of prejudice today: “When you know the history of a place, and then experience things there, you know it’s not about you. It’s about the issue, about what happened there. And you stop your own prejudices. We can sympathize with other people. I think this (pilgrimage) experience will give us a positive approach.”
The Glenmary Civil Rights Pilgrimage stops in Money, Miss., May 18, 2024, at the site of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, where in 1995 Emmett Louis Till, a Black teenager visiting from out of town, was falsely accused of flirting with the white woman proprietor of the store. He was kidnapped, tortured and killed. His mother, Mamie Till Bradley, brought his body home to Chicago for an open-casket funeral, which gained attention worldwide. (OSV News photo/John Feister, Glenmary)
Another stop in Mississippi was the Jackson home, now National Historic Landmark, of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evars. He was targeted and killed in his driveway by an assassin, his wife and young children close at hand. Another stop, outside of Greenwood, Mississippi, was the site of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, where Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old, was falsely accused of flirting with and touching a white woman. He was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by her relatives.
One evening the pilgrimage group was hosted by Resurrectionist Father Manuel Willams at the Resurrection Catholic Missions of the South. The 81-year-old ministry has included a variety of educational and health care services to the local community and recently hosted volunteers from various Catholic universities.
Father Willams told the pilgrims, “The root of all ‘isms’ is the lack of proximity.”
Then he invited those gathered, which included a group of student volunteers from Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, to be closer to the Montgomery experience by listening to veteran civil rights activists. He introduced a small panel, including former Carter White House staffer Doris Crenshaw, who has a history in civil rights from the time in the 1950s when she was vice president of the NAACP Youth Council, under the advice of Rosa Parks. She was 12 at the time.
“Our lives are in your hands,” she told the young women from Misericordia. All of the rights movements in the world were compelled by the women and the youth.” It was the only time the pilgrims were joined by an outside group.
The Civil Rights Pilgrimage ended in Memphis, Tennessee, where the group attended Mass at Christian Brothers University. Earlier in the day the pilgrims had been at the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the Lorraine Motel, where Rev. King was assassinated.
Father Dorsey implored those at Mass, “Listen to our pain. Listen to our hope. Listen to who we are. And just be present.” It was a church-driven fight for rights, he had said earlier. He echoed that at the end: “We must always have a vision of hope. We must never give in to fear. Let’s always be those people, our heroes, who in the midst of it all, stood up to incredible violence. Fear did not give way.”
On the road back across Alabama to homeward-bound travel from Birmingham, Mukama looked back on the weeklong pilgrimage and said, “What stood out to me was the struggle for freedom. That first was started by the Blacks who came here as slaves, and who have been slaves in most other continents. One of the quotes that really comes out clear for me is, ‘No one is free until everyone is free.'”
“The slavery, or segregation, or whatever else happened to Blacks is not just limited to the Blacks, but to the wider community of humanity,” Mukama added. “I’ve walked all the steps on this pilgrimage from first up until the last and that’s what stands out for me: Humanity needs to be free.”
John Feister, editor of Glenmary Challenge magazine, writes for OSV News from Cincinnati.
