Good News!

During autumn, parish life often feels like the start of a new year, as people return from summer vacations, leadership groups resume, and we look ahead to the new liturgical year, begin new programs, and enjoy time together in community. 

In the coming months, Families of Parishes will share progress toward greater vitality in their annual Family Pathway Report, highlighting their common vision and plans for the future. Share your Family Pathway Report so that others may be inspired by all you're doing to live Christ's mission in your Family of Parishes.

An Afternoon with Archbishop Casey

Pastors, priests, and Family Leadership Teams throughout the archdiocese appreciated time with Archbishop Casey in recent deanery gatherings. Archbishop answered questions, shared some of his personal story and ministerial career, led participants in Evening Prayer, and had dinner with the priests of each deanery.

New Ritual Book:

Order of the Anointing of the Sick and of their Pastoral Care

The new English translation of the Order of the Anointing of the Sick and of their Pastoral Care and the Spanish translation of the Ritual de la Unción de los enfermos y de su atención pastoral may be used from February 11, 2026 (memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick) and must be used as of April 5, 2026 (Easter Sunday).

You can learn more here and purchase copies at a discount through the online shop of the Office for Divine Worship and Sacraments.

Pope Leo on Synodality

In a recent interview with a Crux correspondent, Pope Leo discussed many timely topics for our world and the Church, including Ukraine, synodality, polarization, and the World Cup. He shared the ways in which he is becoming comfortable with the many aspects of the role of the papacy and addressed the ways synodality can be an antidote to polarization. 

Leo said, "I think that synodality is a way of describing how we can come together and be a community and seek communion as a church, so that it’s a church whose primary focus is not on an institutional hierarchy, but rather on a sense of ‘we together’, ‘our church’. Each person with his or her own vocation, priests, or laity, or bishops, missionaries, families. Everyone with a specific vocation that they’ve been given has a role to play and something to contribute, and together we look for the way to grow and walk together as church."

"Synodality is an attitude, an openness, a willingness to understand. Speaking of the Church now, this means each and every member of the church has a voice and a role to play through prayer, reflection… through a process. There are many ways that that could happen, but of dialogue and respect of one another. To bring people together and to understand that relationship, that interaction, that creating opportunities of encounter, is an important dimension of how we live our life as church."