More than 400 laypeople, clergy and men and women in consecrated life participated in the Archdiocesan Synod 2025: You Will Be My Witnesses Assembly June 7 at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul. Archbishop Bernard Hebda and assembly organizers extend their gratitude to participants for the many hours spent in preparation and discernment. Organizers compiled participants’ names, parishes and affiliations to publish in the following list:
Claire Bischoff was first inspired to become a religion teacher as a student at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul. Now, three decades later, she’s teaching religion there. The 47-year-old mom of three belongs to Lumen Christi in St. Paul. This season, she’s finding ways to slow down and soak up Advent.
As an undergraduate at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Winona in the mid-2000s, Pro Ecclesia Sancta (PES) Sister Laura Holupchinski was intrigued by how devoutly her friends lived their Catholic faith. When several of them pursued priesthood and consecrated life, she wondered about her own vocation.
When Dan and Nancy Frederick — 60 and 67, respectively — attended the June 2022 Archdiocesan Synod Assembly at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul, neither were looking for love.
Ellie Roscher’s work as a writer and teacher has been deeply influenced by her education at Holy Spirit Catholic School and Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul. Now 42, the Minneapolis mom of two focuses on wellness, helping people make space for what matters most. “If I have too much stuff, there’s a psychological weight,” Roscher said. “There’s a tie, especially in women, between clutter and depression.”
People who took part in eucharistic adoration at the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly June 3-5 got a chance to view artwork created by Father Jim Perkl, pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville. Reproductions of two icons he has done in the last two years adorned one wall of the Blessed James Miller Chapel at Cretin-Derham Hall high school in St. Paul during the three days of the Assembly.
About 500 delegates to the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly June 3-5 brought their perspectives, experiences and faith to advancing the local Church’s effort to evangelize, Archbishop Bernard Hebda told “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Partrick Conley for an episode debuting 9 p.m. June 17.
It was “no accident” that the Synod Assembly began with Mass and a eucharistic procession, Archbishop Hebda said. “All of the work that we will be doing this weekend is to build up the unity of this local Church. For us as Catholic Christians, the Eucharist is a sign that we are all united in Jesus in the Eucharist. … The Holy Spirit makes us one.”
Marilynn Neuville, a parishioner of St. Dominic in Northfield, has been saying the Synod prayer since 2019. “It's truly the most beautiful prayer,” she said. “Open our eyes, open our ears, open our minds, open our hearts and open our hands,” she recited from memory.
