The Office for Vocations recently hosted 21 high school students from throughout the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois at Villa Maria Catholic Life Conference and Retreat Center on Lake Springfield for Called and Sent.  The Office for Vocations recently hosted 21 high school students from throughout the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois at Villa Maria Catholic Life Conference and Retreat Center on Lake Springfield for Called and Sent. Read More

In 2018, Totus Tuus celebrated its 10th summer catechizing young people in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and beyond, says Kyle Holtgrave, director of the Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry. “This year we held 22 sessions,” he says. “There were 16 in this diocese, and others held at Scott Air Force Base, in the Belleville diocese and also in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.”  Totus Tuus is a parish-based catechetical program for children grade school through high school. The week-long Catholic summer parish missions are dedicated to sharing the Gospel and promoting the Catholic faith through catechetical instruction,… Read More

DECATUR — Julie Moore Wolfe has recently assumed the executive directorship of philanthropy, advocacy and community relations at HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur. Her main responsibility is leading fundraising efforts through the foundation. Additionally, she joins the HSHS Central Illinois Division’s advocacy team, working with other local elected officials on various efforts pertaining to the Catholic health system. Moore Wolfe also assists with community and media relations. Read More

ST. LOUIS — Father Martin Whealen, SJ, died July 19 in St. Louis. He was 87 years old, a Jesuit for 68 years and a priest for 56 years.  He was born in St. Louis on April 13, 1931 to Martin J. and Lucille Haggenjos Whealen. Following his graduation from St. Louis University High School, he entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Mo., on Sept. 1, 1949. After pronouncing first vows and philosophy studies at the seminary, he studied at Saint Louis University, graduating with both a bachelor’s and a master’s in Latin. He… Read More

Official Appointments from the Office of the Bishop Read More

All the fathers, doctors, saints and spiritual writers indicate essentially the same thing: their desire to belong totally to Mary as the means to belong totally to Jesus, and to place oneself into the hands of Mary that she may lead us to a more perfect union and likeness with Christ. Devotion to Mary is to live in imitation of Jesus’ relationship with Mary that we may become more like him. In the Gospel of Luke at the Annunciation, Jesus entrusted himself entirely to Mary as an embryo in her womb and as a little child in her care. Mary… Read More

Bishop Paprocki's public schedule for the weeks of August 5 and 12.  Read More

July 25 was the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Blessed Paul VI’s encyclical on the integrity of love and the appropriate means of family planning. Issued during the cultural meltdown of the 1960s, and in a year when irrationality stalked the entire Western world, Humanae Vitae instantly became the most vilified act of the papal magisterium in history. And to what should have been their shame, entire national episcopates distanced themselves from Pope Paul’s teaching by a variety of stratagems, many of which exhibited some degree of theological confusion and some of which were downright cowardly. Read More

Daily events occuring throughout the Diocese. Read More

Daily Scripture readings for the weeks of August 5 and 12. Read More