QUINCY — St. Francis Solanus School fourth-graders recently had the opportunity to meet and talk with Olympic legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee, whom Sports Illustrated for Women recently named “Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century.” During her Olympic career, she won three gold, one silver and two bronze medals in the heptathlon and long jump events.

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki blessed St. John’s Hospital’s new Outpatient Surgery Center (OSC) in Springfield on March 19. Over a dozen Franciscan Hospital Sisters joined hospital administrators, staff, board members and St. John’s supporters at the blessing service, held in the OSC Pavilion Atrium.

OBLONG — Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Oblong is celebrating 60 years. In March 1954, Bishop William A. O’Connor established the parish, which covers western Crawford County and eastern Jasper County.

DECATUR —  Decatur Catholic Radio, 88.9 WDCR, scored a hit when organizers brought Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Orange, Calif. here as speaker for the station’s third annual fund-raising banquet Feb. 18 at the Decatur Conference Center. He drew a crowd of over 350 people to the $50 a plate dinner.

This year, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki has invited parishes to consider participating in deanery celebrations of the sacrament of confirmation at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield.

Springfield cardiologist Dr. Charles Lucore is the new president and CEO of St. John’s Hospital in Springfield. The announcement was made Feb. 13 at a news conference at St. John’s Hospital, the largest hospital in the Hospital Sisters System.

On Jan. 27, arctic weather conditions and school closings forced officials in Quincy to cancel the traditional city-wide Catholic Schools Week Mass with Bishop Thomas John Paprocki at Quincy Notre Dame High School. By the next day, however, conditions improved and Bishop Thomas Paprocki was on the road.

Seven busloads of young people and adults from the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois journeyed to Washington, D.C., to participate in the March for Life on Wednesday, Jan. 22.

CHARLESTON — Things at St. Hedwig Haus of Hospitality, the Catholic Worker House that opened in the fall of 2011 in Charleston, have been going well, according to Father John Titus, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Charleston.

With 20 seminarians from the Springfield diocese in all levels of formation, and several young men in the diocese interested in learning more about the priesthood, the diocese's director of the Office for Vocations, Father Brian Alford, is optimistic about the future.