St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Chicago has received a $1 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to help establish a center inspired by Fr. Augustus Tolton, the first U.S. Catholic priest recognized as Black.
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Edward K. Braxton of Belleville, Illinois, and has appointed Fr. Michael G. McGovern, a pastor in the Archdiocese of Chicago, as his successor.
As the star of the play "Tolton: From Slave to Priest," actor Jim Coleman was portraying the life of the Rev. Augustus Tolton, the first known African American to serve as a Catholic priest in the United States.
Talking about debates, differences and discernment, Pope Francis told a group of U.S. bishops that people focused on the possibility of ordaining some married men and women deacons for service in the Amazon will be disappointed in his apostolic exhortation.
Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Alberto Rojas, who has been an auxiliary bishop of the Chicago Archdiocese since 2011, as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California.
A new "pastoral framework for marriage and family life" should be ready for a vote by the U.S. bishops by next November at the latest, according to Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia.
Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki issued a decree June 6 stating that Catholic lawmakers in the Illinois Legislature "who promoted or voted for extreme abortion legislation" cannot receive Communion in churches in his diocese.
