Local News

Ecumenical award

Niall Gannon has received a prestigious national Community Leadership Award from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney for his volunteer efforts with the Annual Catholic Appeal.

Gannon was general chairman of the 2007 Appeal and has served the ACA in various other roles, including on the ACA Council. The appeal is held each spring in parishes throughout the archdiocese. It provides support for Catholic education, parish emergencies, youth programs, social service programs serving those in need and much more.

Noting that “time is running out,” Archbishop Robert J. Carlson announced May 21 that the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Catholic Charities of St. Louis has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the United States government, challenging the legality of its health care mandate to be enforced beginning this August.

Accompanied by Catholic Charities president Brian O’Malley, archdiocesan chancellor Nancy Werner, legal counsel Tom Buckley and others, the Archbishop made the announcement at an afternoon press conference held at the Cardinal Rigali Center in Shrewsbury.

Aquinas Institute of Theology conferred graduate degrees and graduate certificates on 42 men and women at a commencement at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church in Midtown St. Louis on May 11.

On Sunday, May 27, the Church will celebrate the feast of Pentecost, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Mother and Jesus' disciples, as they awaited in fear in the days after His Resurrection and Ascension.

Pentecost is a birthday, of sorts, for the Church, when the Holy Spirit initiated the Church's mission, marked on the 50th day following Easter.

The archdiocesan Catholic Renewal Center is organizing several events to celebrate the feast.

They ate falafels and shawarma. Swam in the Dead Sea. Rode a camel. Browsed shops. Checked out karaoke in a hotel ballroom. Recited Christian prayers along the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem. Quietly walked by the Garden of Gethsemane. Attended Mass on Palm Sunday in the same city where Jesus was condemned, crucified and rose from the dead.

A trip to Israel by a group of students from Villa Duchesne High School had a profound affect on them.