We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

CNA Staff, Jul 15, 2025 / 14:10 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Green Bay can close down a historic parish in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the Vatican has ruled, bringing an end to efforts by a small group of parishioners to prevent the permanent shuttering of the church.

The Apostolic Signatura, the highest court at the Holy See, ruled against parishioner efforts to save St. Boniface Church from closure. The ruling affirms Bishop David Ricken’s 2023 order relegating the parish building to “profane but not sordid use.”

“Planning for the disposition of the church, contents, and property is underway,” the diocese said in a statement announcing the Vatican’s decision.

“Please continue to pray for the parish and community,” the diocese added.

 

The order brings an end to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar effort to save St. Boniface from closure. The parish itself dates to the 1850s while the current building was constructed in 1886. 

Parishioners raised around $2 million to help bankroll a restoration of the parish. And last year advocates launched a GoFundMe to fund $8,000 worth of attorney’s fees for a canon lawyer to argue their case before the Holy See. 

John Maurer, a Manitowoc resident who helped lead the effort, told CNA last year that advocates had exhausted several avenues of appeal before seeking the ruling from the signatura. 

“We went to the Court of the Dicastery for the Clergy. They ruled in favor of Bishop Ricken’s decree,” he said at the time. “We then went to the Supreme Tribunal. They sided with the lower court.”

Reached on Tuesday, Maurer told CNA that the decision to abandon the parish’s “rich history and architectural grandeur” is “a huge mistake that will be regretted for decades to come.”

“There has been a huge outpouring of support for St. Boniface as many do recognize its significance and the importance of protecting our Catholic patrimony [and] reverencing God,” he said.

The only way to stop the church’s demise, he said, would be for Ricken to “realize the gravity of this long-lasting decision and to bring it to a stop and instead give it to an oratory to take care of.”

The parish church was originally built by German immigrants. Wisconsin welcomed tens of thousands of immigrants from Germany throughout the 19th century. 

Declining attendance saw the church merged with other parishes in 2005, though it was still used for some special observances and occasions. 

The last regularly scheduled Mass took place in the building in 2005, while the most recent Mass overall was held in 2013.

CNA Staff, Jul 15, 2025 / 13:23 pm (CNA).

A priest in the Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee, will serve seven years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of sex abuse.

Father Juan Carlos Garcia-Mendoza was indicted last year on several counts of sexual battery and other crimes, some of which involved children and some adults. The priest was charged with eight crimes in February 2024 and two more in June of that year.

The Diocese of Nashville said in the Nashville Catholic this week that Garcia had pleaded guilty to the February charges. Those crimes include “continuous sexual abuse of a child,” aggravated sexual battery, and “sexual battery by an authority figure.” 

In addition to the prison sentence, the priest will be listed in the state sex offender registry.

The diocese also indicated that he would be removed from the priesthood. Garcia “agreed not to contest laicization from the priesthood,” the statement said.

The Nashville Diocese said last year that it first learned of accusations against Garcia in November 2023 when “a teen in the parish had made a report of improper touching” involving the priest.

The diocese made a report to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services; it also contracted with a former FBI agent to oversee the diocesan investigation into the claims.

The Vatican, meanwhile, was “informed and involved from the outset of this matter, directing the appropriate canonical processes,” the diocese said this week.

The Franklin Police Department on Monday confirmed the report of the guilty plea via a post on X.

“Thanks to our detectives and the District AG’s Office for their hard work on this case,” the police department said.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 15, 2025 / 12:53 pm (CNA).

With the Trump administration having “effectively achieved control of the border,” Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski is now urging the president and Congress to turn to expanding legal pathways for unlawfully present migrants who have committed no other crimes to obtain citizenship.

In a statement and interview with archdiocesan media, Wenski argued that the U.S. “faces labor shortages in many industries, including health care, service, and agriculture. Removing immigrant workers will only exacerbate these shortages.”

“Rather than spending billions to deport people who are already contributing positively to our nation’s well-being, it would be more financially sensible and more morally acceptable for Congress, working with the administration, to expand legal pathways for noncriminal migrants to adjust to a permanent legal status,” Wenski affirmed.

In an interview with La Voz Catolica, Wenski said that “what makes it cruel right now is the arbitrariness of this push to deport people who have already made a stake here — people who have put in sweat and effort to stay.”

“If the United States government has allowed them to remain for 10 or 20 years, you can imagine many have children who are American citizens, own homes, or have established businesses,” Wenski noted. “To simply tell them to ‘go back home’ — when there is no home back there, and their home is here — that’s what makes it cruel.”

Wenski also echoed Bishop Frank Dewane’s concerns about the new detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which sits in Dewane’s neighboring Diocese of Venice, Florida.

Miami’s archbishop indicated that “from the moment this detention center opened, the archdiocese has requested access to provide religious services.” 

He said Deacon Edgardo Farías, director of the archdiocesan prison ministry, visited the site to inquire about when they could celebrate Mass but was told the mosquito situation was very bad and to come back later.

“We wish to ensure that chaplains and pastoral ministers can serve those in custody, to their benefit and that of the staff,” Wenski indicated. “We also raise concerns about the isolation of the detention facility, which is far from medical care centers, and the precariousness of the temporary ‘tent’ structures.”

In the interview, Wenski said if the Trump administration’s deportations are enforcement of current laws, then “the laws must be changed” by Congress, which has the authority to “rewrite, adjust, or fix the law.”

“The vast majority of those here without permanent status are honest, hardworking people who simply want a future of hope for their children and their families,” Wenski added.

Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and current fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told CNA that Wenski’s call for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally is a form of “amnesty,” which he noted “is one of those things the Trump administration said is off the table.”

Arthur, who is Catholic, said that current law already affords the types of accommodations for which the archbishop is advocating. For example, he said people can appeal a removal order on the basis that their deportation would cause “extremely unusual hardship” to members of their family who are American citizens.

He also argued that a pathway to citizenship would not address the labor shortage issues that Wenski raised. “There are both immigrant and non-immigrant visas that are available in order to accommodate those labor needs, but allowing individuals to remain in the United States unlawfully is unlikely to accommodate those labor needs,” Arthur contended.

Arthur also noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement follows the Performance-Based National Detention Standards. In his experience as an immigration judge, he said immigration authorities have always “provided for pastoral care.”

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ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Friar Francesco Patton, the outgoing Franciscan custos of the Holy Land, reflected on his nine years in office and proposed a path to achieving peace in the face of war in the region. He also noted that being a Christian in the holy places, as a minority, is a special vocation and mission.

Patton, 61, is leaving the position entrusted to him in 2016. Friar Francesco Ielpo has now been appointed to the position, confirmed as the new custos of the Holy Land by Pope Leo XIV on June 24.

In an interview published July 11 on the website of the Custody of the Holy Land, the Italian Franciscan explained that, in the face of the war between Israel and Hamas, “peace requires mutual acceptance between the two peoples who have been in conflict for decades, and the overcoming of ideological readings of history, geography, and even of the Bible.”

“It would be necessary to teach coexistence in schools instead of an ideology that only generates fear, anger, and resentment. Neither of the two peoples must leave, and both must be able to live together in peace,” he added.

“If both were able to overcome mutual separateness, the next generations could finally grow up in peace, without fear and without anger,” the Franciscan priest emphasized.

Being a Christian in the Holy Land

Patton shared that “I have always said, especially to young people, to cultivate their identity as Christians of the Holy Land. They must not focus on ethno-political identities but on a deeper identity: being custodians, with us, of the holy places.”

“The holy places are an essential part of their identity. I have suggested to parish priests to bring the young people there, to tell the Gospel in the places of the Gospel. The holy places belong to them,” the Franciscan continued.

The Italian priest emphasized that “being a Christian in the Holy Land is a vocation and a mission. If God lets you be born here, he is calling you to be light and salt, precisely because you are a minority and the context is difficult. And Jesus reminds us that salt which loses its flavor is useless.”

“I was deeply moved by the faithfulness of the two friars who remained in the Orontes Valley when ISIS and Al-Qaeda were present. They stayed because they knew they were shepherds, and not hired hands, using the words from Chapter 10 of St. John. Their availability to give their lives was not hypothetical but concrete in a very risky context,” he recalled.

“I was also struck by how important the holy places are to Christians who may only be able to visit once in their lives. In Brazil, I saw people who saved a little money each month for 10 or 15 years just to visit Nazareth, Bethlehem, and the Holy Sepulchre. Or a Christian from Syria visiting the Sepulchre and bursting into tears from the emotion,” the friar recounted.

After highlighting the great value of schools in the Holy Land, the outgoing custos said he was dismayed by “the growth of intolerance, extremism, and the ideological manipulation of religion for political purposes. That made, and still makes, me suffer.”

The holy places: An antidote to religious rationalism

The Italian friar emphasized that holy places, being physical, “bring faith back into a concrete, existential realm. They are a great help in avoiding a disembodied, intellectualized Christianity. They are an antidote against religious rationalism and intellectualism.”

“They also help us to understand the religiosity of the people,” the friar explained. “Intellectuals love reasoning, but people love to touch. They love to kiss a stone, smell the perfume of myrrh, see the olive trees in Gethsemane, the grotto of Bethlehem, Calvary, and the empty tomb.”

“Popular religiosity,” he noted, “is much closer to the mystery of the Incarnation than that of professional theologians.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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