We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

CNA Staff, Jun 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

At 8 years old, Minnesota native Joe Masek was exposed to pornography for the first time and went on to struggle with an addiction to it for 23 years. Through a series of actions he finally gained freedom and after experiencing a calling to help other men, he founded a ministry called The Freedom Group in 2023.

About 100 men have gone through the ministry’s program each year since then. The group uses  a 12-month training system as well as additional courses and retreats to help men break free from porn addiction.

The Porn Free training system includes weekly coaching calls with a Freedom Coach, group coaching calls, performance and mindset coaching, simple daily habits to build discipline and rhythm, access to an app to connect and track progress, and more. There are also several courses that help individuals understand the neurological aspect of addiction and how to rewire the brain.

Based in the Twin Cities, The Freedom Group also offers individuals the opportunity to attend nature retreats, where they are encouraged to encounter God and themselves in a deeper way. Through guided reflections, group sessions, time alone, and physical adventure, participants learn how to live free from their addiction and become grounded in their true purpose. 

Masek, now 32, said he was first exposed to porn while using Limewire, an audio file downloading program used during the early 2000s. Believing he was downloading a music file, he ended up downloading a video file that contained pornographic images.

Around the same time, Masek was also sexually abused by an older peer. 

“​As a young 7-, 8-year-old kid, I experienced all the symptoms [that] now that I understand and we understand as adults trying to help other people in that same sort of way — a lot of sort of disconnection in my own experience of who am I and feeling dirty and worthless, but also looking for it and starting to have seeking behavior,” he told CNA in an interview.

He shared that the rest of his upbringing was “really good.” He grew up in a middle-class family who attended church every Sunday and he was very involved in youth group. But as he got older, he began to experience an “ever-increasing sort of dichotomy through faith life and this hidden life.”

It wasn’t until college that Masek found himself in a men’s group that was addressing sexual issues and was able to share his story in depth, releasing the “10,000-pound gorilla off my back.”

“So this was my first introduction to shame flowing out the front door of the house of my heart and it was massive for me,” he recalled. 

Soon afterward he went on a retreat and had his first confession in years, which he said was “a powerful experience.”

However, Masek continued to struggle — experiencing periods of sobriety and then turning back to his addiction. After years of trying everything he could, he started to piece together everything he was learning and experiencing into what is now the approach used in The Freedom Group. 

“In a three-month span, I went from basically a two- to three-week cycle where I felt like I hit a wall and couldn’t keep going to the point where I didn’t even have an inclination to use anymore when familiar triggers would come,” he said.

He then began leading a national marriage and family ministry and the more time he spent with young husbands and fathers, the more he saw this as a “core issue” and decided to leave that ministry to start The Freedom Group.

Masek shared that roughly 85% of the men his group works with are believers — either Catholic or evangelical. Therefore, faith does play a role in the program but “is really lived out in the experience.”

He explained that “any addiction is an intimacy disorder.” So The Freedom Group talks about intimacy in four dimensions: me and God, me and myself, me and others, and me and nature, or creation. These connections of intimacy then begin to shift as the brain begins to shift.

Masek gave the example of one man that he worked with who “had lived the model Christian life.” He worked in campus ministry, got married young, and had a family. However, he was suffering from anxiety, was disconnected from himself, and was not experiencing connections in any of the four dimensions of intimacy. Three months into the process, this man shared with Masek that he had gone for a walk and sat down for 30 minutes in total stillness and felt God’s presence.

“To me, that’s like the greatest testimony I could ever get because I know the difference between ‘I’m trying to do the right thing, go to church, or participate in the life of the church, and try to pray,’ and to just be frazzled and out of control, and anxious, and avoidant through all of it. And then I know what it feels like to know how to slow down and to calm myself, to center myself, and connect to the living God. And I know how much that can change the way you show up then to your family, to others, the way that you see yourself then out of that connection.”

A motto of The Freedom Group is “Pain is the path. Discomfort is your teacher.” Masek explained how this highlights that life is hard but we are called to pick up our crosses.

“We only experience the Resurrection on the other end of our embrace of the suffering that’s handed to us uniquely, and that’s the invitation of our life — to be able to,” he said. 

He added that true healing and transformation begins to be made visible when the individual also embraces the suffering he has been given and sees the good in it.

“That’s our desire for this whole process is for men to, at the end of their journey with us, however long that they spend time with us, is to get to that point in their own lives. It goes from attraction or desire for something disordered to the point where they want to choose the good in good times and in bad,” he said.

“I always tell guys, this is the worst possible year — if you’re in our coaching process — to have the best year of your life because you won’t learn very much,” Masek added. “The goal is to have hard things happen to you and to stay in them and to welcome them as purposeful and see what happens because Jesus said, ‘Pick up your cross and follow me.’ And he promised that it would change us and even that it would bring us to freedom.”

Feast date: Jun 15

June 15 is the feast day of St. Germaine Cousin, a simple and pious young girl who lived in Pibrac, France in the late 1500s. Germaine was born in 1579 to poor parents. Her father was a farmer, and her mother died when she was still an infant. She was born with a deformed right arm and hand, as well as the disease of scrofula, a tubercular condition.

Her father remarried soon after the death of her mother, but his new wife was filled with disgust by Germaine's condition. She tormented and neglected Germaine, and taught her siblings to do so as well.

Starving and sick, Germaine was eventually kicked out of the house and forced to sleep under the stairway in the barn, on a pile of leaves and twigs, because of her stepmother’s dislike of her and disgust of her condition. She tended to the family's flock of sheep everyday.

Despite her hardships, she lived each day full of thanksgiving and joy, and spent much of her time praying the Rosary and teaching the village children about the love of God. She was barely fed and had an emaciated figure, yet despite this she shared the little bread that she had with the poor of the village.

From her simple faith grew a deep holiness and profound trust in God. She went to Mass everyday, leaving her sheep in the care of her guardian angel, who never failed her. Germaine’s deep piety was looked upon with ridicule by the villagers, but not by the children, who were drawn to her holiness.

God protected Germaine and showered his favor upon her. It was reported that on days when the river was high, the waters would part so that she could pass through them on her way to Mass. One day in winter, when she was being chased by her stepmother who accused her of stealing bread, she opened her apron and fresh summer flowers fell out. She offered the flowers to her stepmother as a sign of forgiveness.

Eventually, the adults of the village began to realize the special holiness of this poor, crippled shepherdess. Germaine's parents eventually offered her a place back in their house, but she chose to remain in her humble place outside.

Just as the villagers were realizing the beauty of her life, God called her to Himself. Her father found her body on her bed of leaves one morning in her 22nd year of life.

Forty-three years later, when a relative of hers was being buried, Germaine’s casket was opened and her body was found incorrupt. People in the surrounding area began praying for her intercession and obtaining miraculous cures for illnesses.

St. Germaine was canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1867 and inscribed into the canon of virgins.

CNA Staff, Jun 15, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The last four popes of the Catholic Church — John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and our new pope, Leo XIV — had hardworking fathers who instilled in each of their sons important traits and values, many of which can be seen in the way they lived out their priesthoods and carried out their papacies.

Here’s a look at the dads behind the last four Holy Fathers:

Pope Leo XIV’s father: Louis Marius Prevost

Louis Marius Prevost was born in Chicago on July 28, 1920, and was of Italian and French descent. Soon after graduating from college, he served in the Navy during World War II and in November 1943 became the executive officer of a tank landing ship. Prevost also participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Overlord. He spent 15 months overseas and attained the rank of lieutenant junior grade before the war finally ended. 

After coming home, Prevost became the superintendent of Brookwood School District 167, an elementary school district in Glenwood, Illinois. In 1949 he married Mildred Agnes Martinez, another Chicagoan and a school librarian. Prevost died on Nov. 8, 1997, at the age of 77 from colon cancer and atherosclerotic heart disease.  

According to the New York Times, in a 2024 interview on Italian television, the future pope recalled a time where he confided in his father about leaving the junior seminary he was attending to get married and have a family. 

“Maybe it would be better I leave this life and get married; I want to have children, a normal life,” then-Cardinal Prevost recalled saying to his father at the time.

His father responded by telling him that “the intimacy between him and my mom” was important, but so was the intimacy between a priest and the love of God.

“There’s something to listen to here,” the future pope recalled thinking.

Pope Francis’ father: Mario Jose Bergoglio

Mario Jose Bergoglio was born on April 2, 1908, in Turin, Italy. In 1929, he and his family emigrated from Italy to Argentina to flee from the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini. In Argentina, he worked as an accountant and was employed by the Argentine railways, a stable and respected position at the time. He married Regina María Sívori in 1935 and they had five children — the eldest being the future Pope Francis. Mario Jose Bergoglio died at the age of 51 in 1959. 

The Bergoglio family lived in a working-class area of Buenos Aires where the senior Bergoglio’s line of work undoubtedly shaped his own view of fatherhood and family life. Although the late pope did not say much publicly about his relationship with his own father, he often spoke about the importance of fathers and the need for them to be present in their children’s lives, exhorting them to be patient and forgiving and to correct their children without humiliating them. Francis often cited St. Joseph as a role model for all fathers.

Pope Benedict XVI’s father: Joseph Ratzinger Sr. 

Joseph Ratzinger Sr. was born on March 6, 1877, in Winzer, Germany. Beginning in 1902, he worked as a policeman. In 1920, at the age of 43, he married Maria Peintner. Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who grew up to become Pope Benedict XVI, was the third and youngest child in the family.

Ratzinger Sr. was a devout Catholic and strongly opposed the Nazi regime. He often refused to obey their orders to persecute opponents and as a result was harassed by the Nazi hierarchy. In order to avoid sanctions, he frequently had to change posts. On Aug. 25, 1959, he died at the age of 82.

During the World Meeting of Families in 2012, Pope Benedict spoke about memories he had of his father and his family growing up.

“The most important moment for our family was always Sunday, but Sunday really began on Saturday afternoon,” he recalled. “My father would read out the Sunday readings from a book that was very popular in Germany at that time, which also included explanations of the texts. That is how we began our Sunday, entering into the liturgy in an atmosphere of joy.” 

Pope John Paul II’s father: Karol Wojtyla Sr. 

Karol Wojtyla Sr. was born on July 18, 1879, in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. He was a tailor by trade but in 1900 was called up for the Astro-Hungarian Army in which he spent a total of 28 years. After Poland regained its independence, he was admitted to the Polish Army where he served as a lieutenant until he retired in 1928. 

Wojtyla Sr. married Emilia Kaczorowska and together they had three children — Edmund, Olga (who died in infancy), and Karol, who would later become Pope John Paul II. In 1929, Emilia died due to heart and kidney problems and three years later Edmund died from scarlet fever. This left Wojtyla Sr. to care for his son Karol on his own. In 1938, he and Karol moved to Kraków so that the boy could attend Jagiellonian University. Wojtyla Sr. died on Feb. 18, 1941, at the age of 61.

Pope John Paul II frequently spoke about his father’s faith and how it inspired his vocation to the priesthood. 

The Polish pope once said of his father: “Day after day I was able to observe the austere way in which he lived. By profession he was a soldier and, after my mother’s death, his life became one of constant prayer. Sometimes I would wake up during the night and find my father on his knees, just as I would always see him kneeling in the parish church. We never spoke about a vocation to the priesthood, but his example was in a way my first seminary, a kind of domestic seminary.”

Marking Britain and Ireland’s “Day for Life”, Pope Leo XIV called everyone in society to “defend rather than undermine a civilization founded on authentic love and genuine compassion.”

At the Sunday Angelus, Pope Leo prays for victims of conflicts in Nigeria, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Middle East.

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Three expats, part of the Rome Hibernia Gaelic Athletic Association, present the Pope with a special Jubilee jersey during the audience for the Jubilee of Sport.

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On the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the Pope closes the Jubilee of Sport with a Mass, reminding everyone that sports can be a “means of reconciliation and encounter.”

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In a telegram for the Day of Life observed by the Church in England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, Pope Leo calls on Catholics to continue to bear witness to the God-given dignity of every person without exception.

Read all

 

Vatican City, Jun 14, 2025 / 19:35 pm (CNA).

The following is the full text of Pope Leo XIV's address to Catholics during the “Chicago Celebrates Pope Leo XIV” event at Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox baseball team, on Saturday, June 14.

My dear friends,

It’s a pleasure for me to greet all of you gathered together at White Sox Park on this great celebration as a community of faith in the Archdiocese of Chicago. A special greeting to Cardinal Cupich, to the auxiliary bishops, to all my friends who are gathered today on this: the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.

And I begin with that because the Trinity is a model of God’s love for us. God: Father, Son and Spirit. Three persons in one God live united in the depth of love, in community, sharing that communion with all of us.

So, as you gather today in this great celebration, I want to both express my gratitude to you and also [give] an encouragement to continue to build up community, friendship, as brothers and sisters in your daily lives, in your families, in your parishes, in the Archdiocese and throughout our world.

I’d like to send a special word of greeting to all the young people — those of you gathered together today, and many of you who are perhaps watching this greeting through technological means, on the Internet. As you grow up together, you may realize, especially having lived through the time of the pandemic — times of isolation, great difficulty, sometimes even difficulties in your families, or in our world today — sometimes it may be that the context of your life has not given you the opportunity to live the faith, to live as participants in a faith community, and I’d like to take this opportunity to invite each one of you to look into your own hearts, to recognize that God is present and that, perhaps in many different ways, God is reaching out to you, calling you, inviting you to know his Son Jesus Christ, through the Scriptures, perhaps through a friend or a relative, a grandparent, who might be a person of faith. But to discover how important it is for each one of us to pay attention to the presence of God in our own hearts, to that longing for love in our lives, for searching, a true searching, for finding the ways that we may be able to do something with our own lives to serve others.

And in that service to others we may find that coming together in friendship, building up community, we too can find true meaning in our lives. Moments of anxiety, of loneliness. So many people who suffer from different experiences of depression or sadness — they can discover that the love of God is truly healing, that it brings hope, and that actually, coming together as friends, as brothers and sisters, in community, in a parish, in an experience of living our faith together, we can find that the Lord’s grace, that the love of God can truly heal us, can give us the strength that we need, can be the source of that hope that we all need in our lives.

To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us, and is a sign of hope for the whole world.

To, once again, the young people who are gathered here, I’d like to say that you are the promise of hope for so many of us. The world looks to you as you look around yourselves and say: We need you, we want you to come together to share with us in this common mission, as Church and in society, of announcing a message of true hope and of promoting peace, promoting harmony, among all peoples.

We have to look beyond our own — if you will — egotistical ways. We have to look for ways of coming together and promoting a message of hope. Saint Augustine says to us that if we want the world to be a better place, we have to begin with ourselves, we have to begin with our own lives, our own hearts (cf Speech 311; Comment on St John’s Gospel, Homily 77).

And so, in this sense, as you gather together as a faith community, as you celebrate in the Archdiocese of Chicago, as you offer your own experience of joy and of hope, you can find out, you can discover that you, too, are indeed beacons of hope. That light, that perhaps on the horizon is not very easy to see, and yet, as we grow in our unity, as we come together in communion, we can discover that that light will grow brighter and brighter. That light which is indeed our faith in Jesus Christ. And we can become that message of hope, to promote peace and unity throughout our world.

We all live with many questions in our hearts. Saint Augustine speaks so often of our “restless” hearts and says: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God” (Confessions 1,1,1). That restlessness is not a bad thing, and we shouldn’t look for ways to put out the fire, to eliminate or even numb ourselves to the tensions that we feel, the difficulties that we experience. We should rather get in touch with our own hearts and recognise that God can work in our lives, through our lives, and through us reach out to other people.

And so I’d like to conclude this brief message to all of you with an invitation to be, indeed, that light of hope. “Hope does not disappoint,” Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans (5,5). When I see each and every one of you, when I see how people gather together to celebrate their faith, I discover myself how much hope there is in the world.

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, Christ, who is our hope, indeed calls all of us to come together, that we might be that true living example: the light of hope in the world today.

So I would like to invite all of you to take a moment, to open up your own hearts to God, to God’s love, to that peace which only the Lord can give us. To feel how deeply beautiful, how strong, how meaningful the love of God is in our lives. And to recognise that while we do nothing to earn God’s love, God in his own generosity continues to pour out his love upon us. And as he gives us his love, he only asks us to be generous and to share what he has given us with others.

May you indeed be blessed as you gather together for this celebration. May the Lord’s love and peace come upon each and every one of you, upon your families, and may God bless all of you, so that you might always be beacons of hope, a sign of hope and peace throughout our world.

And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

Chicago, Ill., Jun 14, 2025 / 18:30 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV delivered a video message June 14 to thousands of Catholics gathered in his hometown of Chicago, making a special appeal to young people to be “beacons” of Christ’s hope for others.

“You are the promise of hope for so many of us,” the pope told young people attending the “Chicago Celebrates Pope Leo XIV” event at Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox baseball team.

“The world looks to you as you look around yourselves and say: We need you, we need you to come together to share with us in this common mission, as Church and in society, of announcing a message of true hope and of promoting peace, promoting harmony, among all peoples.”

The pope acknowledged some of the difficulties facing youth today, from isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic to dwindling communities of faith. He invited young people gathered to look into their own hearts to see that God is present and “is reaching out to you, calling you, inviting you to know his Son, Jesus Christ.”

In turn, the pope said this discovery of Christ’s love can inspire young people to serve others.

“And in that service to others we find that coming together in friendship, building up community, we too can find true meaning in our lives,” the pope said. “To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us and is a sign of hope for the whole world.”

The eight-minute video message from Pope Leo XIV, who was seated and clad in white, was the first time the Chicago native has directly addressed the people of his hometown and home nation as pope.

And although he wasn’t in person to deliver it, the pope’s message made an impact on young people in attendance.

Michael Wyss, an 11-year-old student at Queen of Angels School in Chicago, said he was encouraged by the pope’s message to “stay faithful” and be a witness of Christian love to those going through hard times.

“You’ll be sharing hope with them and that hope could go on and be shared with everyone else,” said Wyss, who was in attendance with his father, Joe.

Matthew Gamboa, a 15-year-old who attends St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, said he was inspired by the pope’s encouragement to be “a beacon of light,” even though he might be only a high schooler.

“I too should be a part of that and continue to spread God’s message throughout our communities,” said Gamboa, who said he felt inspired to engage in more service projects and possibly lector at Mass after hearing the pope’s message.

Pope Leo XIV’s unprecedented address was also the highlight of pre-Mass programming at the afternoon celebration.

Emceed by Chicago Bulls play-by-play announcer Chuck Swirksy, the program also included musical performances by a local parish and Catholic school as well as an original piano ballad in honor of Pope Leo called “One of Us,” written and performed by the pope’s fellow Augustinian Brother David Marshall.

Sister Dianne Bergant, Pope Leo XIV’s former teacher, and Father John Merkelis, a fellow Augustinian and high school classmate of the pope, also shared insights into their friend during a panel discussion.

Outside the stadium, Chicago-area members of the Neocatechumenal Way celebrated the new pope with songs and dances of praise, while others tailgated in the baseball stadium parking lot. White Sox jerseys with “Da Pope” and “Pope Leo” emblazoned on the back were spotted throughout the crowds.

At the start of Mass, Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich said that Pope Leo was aware of and grateful for the celebration taking place at Rate Field.

A fan of the White Sox, the pope attended a World Series game at the stadium in 2005 when he was prior general of the Augustinian order and recently donned the ball club’s trademark black hat for a photo op outside of St. Peter’s Basilica. White Sox Senior Vice President Brooks Boyer, a Catholic and former Notre Dame basketball player, also took the opportunity at the Chicago event to publicly invite the South Side native to come back to Rate Field and throw out a ceremonial first pitch.

The Vatican has not indicated that Pope Leo has any plans to visit the United States. When Lester Holt of NBC News asked Leo at a May 12 Vatican audience if he would come to the U.S. soon, the pope responded: “I don’t think so.”

Nonethless, the pope’s sports fan credentials may help him connect with young people in his homeland and beyond.

During his video message the pope also encouraged the youth of Chicago and the whole world to grapple with the “restlessness” they might experience, just like St. Augustine did.

“That restlessness is not a bad thing, and we shouldn’t look for ways to put out the fire, to eliminate or even numb ourselves to the tensions that we feel, the difficulties that we experience,” he said. “We should rather get in touch with our own hearts and recognize that God can work in our lives, through our lives, and through us reach out to other people.”

Before concluding by imparting his apostolic blessing via video, the pope invited those gathered to “take a moment” and open their own hearts to God’s love, “to that peace which only the Lord can give us.”

“To recognize that while we do nothing to earn God’s love, God in his own generosity continues to pour out his love upon us. And as he gives us his love, he only asks us to be generous and to share what he has given with us to others.”