June 2017 Issue

One day in 2010 when Deacon LeRoy Gill was visiting Holy Angels Catholic School in Chicago’s violence-prone Bronzeville neighborhood, he noticed a student wearing a small urn around his neck.

Family life is experiencing stress around the world. Because Pope Francis has made families a priority in his papal ministry, the 2014 and 2015 sessions of the World Synod of Bishops, representing all the world’s bishops, focused on a single topic: marriage and family life. 

Driving up the long, steep hill from Danville, California—escaping the congestion of the town and the roar of I-680—one who sees the first sign for San Damiano retreat center breathes a sigh of relief. What a far more welcoming sight the friary, with its graceful Spanish architecture, must be to a refugee who hasn’t had a permanent home in 17 years!