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On February 15, 2024, the Maryland Catholic Conference picked six issues for their virtual Catholic Advocacy Day. I am presenting three of these items today as presented on the Maryland Catholic Conference Website

During February we celebrate Black History month in the United States. In honor of this month-long celebration, I thought that I would make use of some publications from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who developed some resources for responding to the Sin of Racism. Specifically, I want to talk about three U.S. Catholics who responded to Racism with Holiness.

During this Black History Month, I want to present three leaders of African descent who are on their way to sainthood. My source for this material can be located on the website for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (ww.usccb.org). The three individuals we are looking at today have been declared Venerable. This means that they have been declared by a proclamation, approved by the pope, to have lived a life that was “heroic in virtue”—specifically the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

On January 21, 2022, the Vatican released a decree stating that Pope Francis ordered that St. Irenaeus of Lyon be given the title “doctor of unity.” Pope Francis stated that the life and teaching of Saint Irenaeus served as a “spiritual and theological bridge between Eastern and Western Christians.” St. Irenaeus is actually the second Doctor of the Church named by Pope Francis. St. Gregory of Narek whom Pope Francis proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 2015 was the first. With the addition of St. Irenaeus to this list, the number of Doctors of the Church is now thirty-seven. Thirty-three are men and four are women.

I want to continue listing some advice on parish etiquette, which I think is a good thing to do at the beginning of the year. These reflections were first presented by Barbara Budde in a pamphlet (which is no longer in print) for the National Pastoral Life Center. Today I want to make some suggestions about our children at Mass.