Saint John Church is a place of prayer and peace in the midst of our busy Center City. During the course of a week, we offer 22 public Masses. Each Mass requires one or more lay volunteers, readers, extraordinary ministers […]

Three Capuchin friars from Bavaria arrived in Pittsburgh in 1873: Father Hyacinth Epp, Brother Eleutherius Guggenbichler, and Father Matthew Hau. Two years later a group of Westphalian (Germany) friars, headed by Father Anthony Schuermann, set up another foundation of Capuchin […]

Father Benjamin F. Madden, OFM Cap, died at St. Augustine Friary in Pittsburgh, PA, on Friday, 14 July 2023. He was 90. He was born on March 10, 1933 in Cumberland, Maryland. At his baptism at SS. Peter & Paul […]

Do you have a daily prayer routine? I often ask people who come to confession if they pray each day. Most people tell me that they have a daily prayer routine. For many, it is the rosary. The rosary is […]

When I was a boy attending Mass at Saint Monica Church in Wampum, Pennsylvania, our pastor would tell us at the beginning of summer to enjoy vacation, but don’t take a vacation from God. He had two points: if you […]

We celebrate Independence Day this week. On July 4, 1776, 56 Americans risked their lives and signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Not only were these patriots declaring their independence from a colonial power in Europe, they were making […]

June 30 is the end of the fiscal year at Saint John’s. We don’t yet have our final report. I think that we will end the year slightly in the black, but it will be close. There are a lot […]

Last week Archbishop Perez issued a pastoral letter on racial healing entitled, “We are one Body”. I recommend reading it at here. You can access it by going to the Archdiocese website archphila.org In his letter the Archbishop states that […]

Today is the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, traditionally called Corpus Christi. The Catholic Church in the United States begins today a “Year of Eucharistic Revival”. Sadly, many Catholics do not understand the amazing truth that the […]

Today is Trinity Sunday. Priests often complain that Trinity Sunday is a difficult day to preach because the doctrine of the Trinity can seem like an obscure and essentially irrelevant dogma. It can be hard to explain. In fact, the […]