I gathered on February 18, 2026 with nearly 3000 people at an outdoor Mass presided by Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich, along with a number of my Dominicans friars, dozens of priests, sisters, elected officials, and faithful at the Ash Wednesday evening outdoor mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Melrose Park, Illinois, a neighborhood near the Broadview Detention Center. The Cardinal’s message delivered in both English and Spanish was deeply moving. The prayerful spirit in this very large crowd offered us the encouragement needed among us resisting the U.S.Government’s illegal policy on minorities, be they citizens or not.
— Joseph Kilikevice, OP
My cat vanished for three days and came back wearing a handwritten bill like he’d opened a secret tab across the neighborhood. Muffin was sitting on my porch like nothing had happened.
Three days gone. No note. No shame. No apology. Just my big orange cat, licking one paw like he’d spent the weekend at a spa, with a folded piece of paper tied to his collar using blue ribbon. I thought maybe he was hurt.
Then I untied the note.
Shem Center friends,
Neil Douglas-Klotz, a friend and colleague of mine for many years offers us an opportunity to experience his research and wisdom regarding the words of Jesus in his own Aarmaic language. His words found in ancient texts offer us new understanding of his teachings familiar to us from Greek and Latin scriptural texts. Please join us by registering for the dates it is offered. This free opportunity is his gift to us, the followers of the teachings of Jesus.
— Joseph Kilikevice, OP, Shem Center Founding Director
A Free Video Event With Teacher and Scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz, PhD
Christmas is a time of wonder and delight for our children, unless you are those we see in bombed war zones we see on the news. We search for a place to ignore the heaviness of heart that invades our adult lives as we juxtapose the scene onto the relative safety of our own lives. How do we celebrate the holidays this year when viewing heartbreaking scenes of two children holding hands sitting in the rubble of their bombed out neighborhood. It strikes me that they were doing what any of us must do to live in a world of violence and destruction. Do what children do, simply hold onto each other.
Author: Kevin Kuhn
On November 14, 2025, myself and 20 other non-violent civil disobedience protesters were arrested outside the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Broadview, IL. Our 6 hours in a local Cook County Jail cell were minor compared to the trauma of our Chicagoland neighbors inside the ICE facility. Our neighbors and friends have had their lives disrupted forever after being abducted by ICE officers off our US streets.
Pope Leo XIV, in his Christmas message, called for an end to global wars, highlighted humanitarian crises, and pleaded for sympathy for immigrants worldwide.
Why it matters: The Christmas Day message was a call for peace and the first for the U.S.-born Pope, who was elected in May.
He cited suffering in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, Africa, Haiti, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and more.
Pilgrims are seekers drawn to make pilgrimages. Pilgrimages are journeys to special and holy places, places that draw forth from within us a deeper sense of connection and belonging to something greater than ourselves. These places can be as far away as we wish, or as close as our backyards, as in my case, the acres of prairie land and woods known as Jubilee Farm. This ecology and spirituality center is sponsored by my congregation and located west of Springfield, Illinois. These spaces and the journeys themselves often inspire personal transformation, leaving us in a different place than we were before.
Last Sunday night, here in Italy, a great number of Catholic churches, from cities to the smallest villages, rung their bells at 10pm — an unusual time —to signify solidarity with the Palestinians who are being killed by an engineered famine. As a friend put it, “At least we feel we are a portion of a hurting whole.”
People may stop caring for the world when they feel that their caring goes nowhere. The good news is that the mounting of international pressure on the Israeli government has obtained some results, such as the allowing of humanitarian aid into Gaza. But what happens when our actions are not met with success and remain — as some would say — “merely symbolic”?
by Gianluigi Bugliermetto
Dear brother Leo, welcome!
You are one of us, a man in flesh and blood so you are entitled to a warm welcome. Just as on the day your mother gave you to the world, and today again because of the task to you entrusted. It must be indeed like a second or third birth to you.
Taking a new name is not a light choice to make and a person can only do that a few times in life. Most of us don’t even do it, although we hope you know that some do, for very good reasons, when entering a completely new life. Nuns do it (not all), monks do it (not all), transgender people do it (not all). Today, you are in deep communion with them all.
Friends, here are some thoughtful words written by a friend of mine to read and reflect upon.
Br. Joseph Kilikevice, OP
BREAKING: Pope Francis unleashes a historic attack on the Trump administration over its cruel treatment of migrants — and takes specific aim at remarks made by J.D. Vance, a Catholic convert. So-called Christians in the MAGA movement are melting down over this…
The Pope, head of the Catholic Church, issued a rebuke of Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, stating that it removes the migrants of their inherent dignity as people and “will end badly.”
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