From June 30 to July 26, nine priests (six from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, three from the Diocese of Winona-Rochester) attended the Alverna Priestly Renewal in Christ, a pilot, month-long program at the Alverna Center in Winona.
Nine months into her pregnancy, Alison Duffy lost her son to stillbirth. “I felt like I was the only person I knew who had a full-term stillbirth,” she said. And she experienced many mixed emotions, including guilt.
Father Kevin Clinton, a retired priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and one of 17 members of the archdiocese’s Care for Creation leadership team, hosted a daylong retreat Oct. 2 for the team and others who were interested.
The coronavirus pandemic has created the conditions for a spiritual crisis, but a traditional retreat at a house run by women religious isn't necessarily COVID-19 friendly.
The first religious sisters Sal and Beth Di Leo invited to their new retreat center on a northern Minnesota lake in 2003 enjoyed a somewhat rustic getaway.
Although the weeklong retreat for U.S. Catholic bishops emphasized quiet reflection, several bishops spoke out on social media during the retreat and after it wrapped up Jan. 8 with positive reaction about it and to give shoutouts to the retreat leader, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, who has preached to popes and top officials of the Roman Curia for nearly 40 years.
The clerical abuse crisis and the “crisis of credibility” it created for the U.S. bishops have led to serious divisions within the U.S. Church and to a temptation to look for administrative solutions to problems that go much deeper, Pope Francis told the U.S. bishops.
The U.S. Catholic bishops are taking part in a closed-door retreat Jan. 2-8 at Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake near Chicago to prayerfully consider ways to rebuild trust over the clergy sex abuse crisis.
Speakers encouraged attendees to pray and reflect on where God is asking them to be “wild” — to throw off constraints in order to better love God and follow his will.
