In fall 2010, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki appointed a team of three priests, whose names are to be kept confidential, to investigate reports of demonic possession within the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. The bishop, as chair of the Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, organized a national meeting of bishops and priests to study the revised rite of exorcism of a person, place or thing.

November Is Black Catholic History Month

Is race real?

Race is a way of categorizing persons based on skin color and other observable external features. For instance, Father Augustine Tolton (also known as Augustus), a former slave who served parishes in Quincy and Chicago, is called the first black priest in America. But was he?

19th century Springfield diocesan priest proposed for sainthood

In 1889, Father Augustine Tolton (also known as Augustus) addressed the First Black Catholic Congress in Washington, D.C. On that occasion he said, “The Catholic Church deplores double slavery — that of the mind and that of the body. She endeavors to free us from both.”

What would you say about Jesus to a group of Christians made up of 50 percent ethnic Jews and 50 percent non-Jews? That was only one of the major questions facing Matthew when he wrote the Gospel account which bears his name. I begin teaching a five-week course on Matthew on Jan. 24 and the public is invited. I suspect we will have at least as diverse a group as Matthew had in Antioch and the questions may be at least as vexing. I hope if you read any further you will be enticed to come.