Gusts of wind flapped the altar cloth and rippled the clergy's vestments during Mass on the farm and the blessing of the seeds in the Pieper family's cavernous hoop barn April 15.
In a legislative development that has drawn concern from both Catholic and labor leaders, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, R-Ark., signed into law March 8 the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, which eliminates state age verification for children younger than 16 seeking a job.
Parishioners and supporters braved hot and humid weather with a heat index close to 100-plus degrees to participate in an almost 100-mile pilgrimage to recognize the sacrifice made by previous congregations.
As Alicia Nava flipped through family photographs the morning of July 25, she said solemnly from behind a floral print mask, "We were taking precautions."
Dial back to the fall of 1979. A new pope, John Paul II, set out to embark on a nine-day apostolic journey to the United States that included a special visit to Des Moines, Iowa, only 230 miles from the Twin Cities.
John and Natalie Sonnen have seen many Catholic shrines, but when the St. Paul couple visited the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption in northern Iowa on their way home from a convention last September, they were particularly impressed.
The chairman of the U.S. bishops' domestic policy committee late March 19 expressed grief over the lives and livelihoods lost and threatened by the historic flooding in the Midwest and offered prayers for recovery.
They arrived outside St. Mary Parish rectory practically incognito: 13 smiling clergy and laypeople wearing sun glasses and bike helmets and ready for the Bishop's Bike Ride.
