Highlights from 2024 in the Archdiocese of Chicago

January

• Archdiocese shifts to renewable energy

The archdiocese announced that it would move to purchasing 100 percent renewable energy starting in 2024. The announcement, made Dec. 17, 2023, to coincide with Pope Francis’ 87th birthday, said the renewable energy purchase is the equivalent of removing 15,000 cars from the road annually, or the carbon emissions generated by 8,500 homes per year.

• Patriarch visits Arab Catholic community

On Jan. 26-27, 2024, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, visited the recently established Our Lady of the Holy Land Arab Catholic Community of Chicago.

The community, a ministry of Our Lady of the Ridge-St. Linus Parish, had been gathering at the church for more than a year with the Latin Patriarchate of the Holy Land sending priests for short periods. In December 2023, Father Wissam Mansour of Jordan arrived from the Holy Land to serve at the parish for five years.

February

• Parish celebrates 1,500th anniversary of feast of St. Brigid

Old St. Patrick’s Parish celebrated the 1,500th anniversary of St. Brigid of Kildare on and around her Feb. 1, 2024, feast day. Events included a lecture, pause for peace and Mass on her Feb. 1 feast day, and a tour the Brigid-themed art in the church and “festival of service.”

• Parishes, others help migrants

More than 100 migrants who had been staying at the Carleton of Oak Park Hotel and West Cook YMCA moved into a temporary transitional family shelter in the former St. Edmund School building in Oak Park at the end of February 2024.

The migrants were housed three families to a classroom, with each family having bunk beds and a table and chairs and dividers around their space, according to Jack Crowe, the volunteer who called himself the “reluctant and unpaid CEO of the Oak Park Family Transitional Shelter.”

The effort was one of many undertaken by Catholic Charities, parishes and other Catholic institutions to help migrants who began arriving in the Chicago area in 2022, including Catherine’s Caring Cause, an effort started by the Chicago Mercy Justice Committee; ongoing outreach by parishes such as St. Mary of the Lake and Our Lady of Lourdes; and the housing of migrants in the former St. Bartholomew School.

March

• Youth group fosters vocations

Parishes across the archdiocese sponsored youth groups to help foster healthy spiritual and social lives among their young people, and, in many cases, to encourage young people to consider whether they are called to a priestly or religious vocation. One, at Mother of the Americas Parish in Little Village, is specifically for boys and young men thinking about the priesthood.

• Parish prays for end to gun violence

Working against violence, especially gun violence, is a common commitment of parishes and other groups. On March 25, 2024, just days before the Easter Triduum, Father Michael Pfleger and St. Sabina Parish unveiled a bronze statue of Jesus weeping over the body of a man with bullet holes in his back.

Titled “Thou Shall Not Kill,” the statue faces Racine Avenue at West 78th Place and sits below a memorial wall of people killed by gun violence in the community. It is lit up at night.

April    

• Lilly grants support spiritual renewal

Three organizations in the Archdiocese of Chicago have received grants from the Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative to support projects aimed at helping parishes engage in ongoing spiritual renewal.

The $1.25 million grants, announced April 4, 2024, went to St. Clement Parish, the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein and the archdiocese itself.

Betsy Bohlen, chief operating officer of the Archdiocese of Chicago, said all three grants support the transformation of parishes into vibrant and thriving communities of missionary disciples.

May

• Four priests, 12 permanent deacons ordained

The Archdiocese of Chicago welcomed four new priests on May 18, 2024. Most are from Chicago, and one is from Pennsylvania. The men, who took up their new assignments July 1, have walked varied paths toward ordination.

A week earlier, 12 permanent deacons and two transitional deacons were ordained May 11 at Holy Name Cathedral. Cardinal Cupich celebrated the ordination Mass.

The newly ordained deacons are assigned to parishes in Arlington Heights, Burbank, Chicago, Orland Park, Summit and Waukegan.

June

• National Eucharistic Pilgrimage stops in Archdiocese of Chicago

Catholics from all over the Archdiocese of Chicago and surrounding areas participated in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage as it made its way to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

The pilgrimage was in Chicago from June 26 through June 30, 2024, with a variety of liturgies and devotions, including a Mass for youth at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, a Mass for young adults, a morning of service and a Mass on June 30 celebrated by Cardinal Cupich at Holy Name Cathedral.

It was part of the three-year National Eucharistic Revival, which began on the feast of Corpus Christi in 2022 and culminated with the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

July

• Local pilgrims participate in National Eucharistic Congress

Pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Chicago were among the 50,000 Catholics who gathered in Indianapolis July 17-21, 2024, for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress. The congress was part of the National Eucharistic Revival, which began June 19, 2022, on the feast of Corpus Christi, in order to increase Catholics’ understanding of the Eucharist.

It included four pilgrimages across the country that culminated in Indianapolis the day before the congress began.

Most congress events took place in the Indiana Convention Center, with participants attending large sessions in the mornings and breakout sessions in the afternoons. Each evening, participants gathered at Lucas Oil Stadium to hear speakers and take part in eucharistic adoration.

August

• Christian Family Movement celebrates 75 years

The Christian Family Movement celebrated its 75th anniversary Aug. 3-4 at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago, where it got its start. Member families gather to build the bonds of friendship and community, to deepen their faith and to make the world a better place as part of the Christian Family Movement.

Coming to Mundelein was a nod to the movement’s roots, said retired Auxiliary Bishop George Rassas. The movement grew out of the Catholic action movement promoted by Monsignor Reynold Hillenbrand, then rector of Mundelein.

September

• Catholic cemeteries offers natural burials

Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago now offers a natural burial option at the Meadows of St. Kateri, a new section at St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery in Palatine. Cemetery officials celebrated the development during an outdoor Mass and blessing of the burial site on Sept. 8, 2024.

The Archdiocese of Chicago is the first Catholic diocese in Illinois to offer natural burial, according to Ted Ratajczyk, executive director of Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association 2023 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Report, 60% of people said they would be interested in exploring “green” funeral options because of their potential environmental benefits and cost savings, up from 55.7% in 2021.

“Over the last 12 or 15 years, we’ve been getting more and more requests every year from families about natural burial,” Ratajczyk said.

• Two schools win Blue Ribbons

St. Josaphat School and St. Viator High School both received their third National Blue Ribbon awards, it was announced Sept. 23, 2024.

St. Josaphat School, 2245 N. Southport Ave., previously won the award in 2010 and 2017. St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights won it in 2008 and 2014.

October

• Synod on synodality closes

October 2024 saw the final, four-weeklong assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, the culmination of a process of listening and prayer that Pope Francis launched in the fall of 2021.

In his homily at the synod’s opening Mass, Pope Francis said it was not a “parliamentary assembly,” but an effort to understand the history, dreams and hopes of “our brothers and sisters scattered around the world inspired by our same faith, moved by the same desire for holiness.”

The assembly ended with the members approving a final document, and the pope ordering its publication as his own. A month later, Pope Francis published a note telling bishops the final document “participates in the ordinary magisterium of the successor of Peter, and as such, I ask that it be accepted” and implemented.

The final document outlined key priorities for the church, including increased participation of the laity through new ministries and adjusted governing structures like pastoral councils, greater transparency and accountability among church leadership and creating space for previously marginalized groups.

• Parishes, deacons help hurricane victims

On the breezy afternoon of Oct. 13, 2024, a caravan of about a dozen cars pulled up to the garages at St. Mary Monastery in Lemont and volunteers piled out and dropped off boxes of diapers, packages of baby wipes and cases of water for the victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

The donations came from Godsend youth ministry, which includes St. Elizabeth Seton Parish in Orland Hills and St. George and St. Stephen Deacon and Martyr parishes in Tinley Park. They would be included in a shipment of 450 buckets filled with cleaning supplies provided by Buckets of Hope, an outreach effort of the deacon-led ministry Hope’s on the Way.

Later in the month, parishioners at St. Francis de Sales Parish in Lake Zurich collected donations for victims of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in Tampa, Florida.

November

• Cardinal Cupich celebrates 10 years as archbishop of Chicago

On Nov. 18, 2014, Cardinal Cupich was installed as archbishop of Chicago, the first since Chicago became an archdiocese to take over for a surviving ordinary. Since then, he has worked to keep the church in Chicago vital and united during a time of deep division in the nation.

• Bishop Grob appointed archbishop of Milwaukee

When Archbishop-designate Jeffrey Grob is installed as Archbishop of Milwaukee on Jan. 14, it will be a homecoming of sorts for the Wisconsin farm boy. But it will also mean a farewell to the Archdiocese of Chicago, where Archbishop-designate Grob has served since he started at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in 1989, three years before he was ordained a priest.

He was ordained an auxiliary bishop on Nov. 13, 2020, and has served as the episcopal vicar of Vicariate I, which includes some of northern Cook County and all of Lake County, directly adjacent to his new archdiocese. His appointment was announced Nov. 4, 2024.

December

• Pope Francis opens Holy Door for Jubilee of Hope

In the quiet of Christmas Eve, Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, launching what he called a “Jubilee of Hope.”

As the doors opened, the bells of the basilica began to peal.

After the reading of a brief passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus describes himself as “the door,” Pope Francis briefly left the atrium of the basilica.

Three minutes later, the pope returned. He was pushed in his wheelchair up the ramp to the Holy Door. In silence, he raised himself from the chair to knock five times, and aides inside slowly opened the door, which had been framed in a garland of green pine branches, decorated with red roses and gold pine cones.

Opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica has been a fixture of the Catholic Church’s celebration of jubilee years since the Holy Year 1450, the Vatican said.

Pope Francis chose “Pilgrims of Hope” as the theme for the Holy Year 2025, which began Dec. 24, 2024, and will run through Jan. 6, 2026.

• Five auxiliary bishops named

The Archdiocese of Chicago will receive five new auxiliary bishops in early 2025, the Vatican announced Dec. 20, 2024.

Pope Francis has named Bishops-elect Timothy J. O’Malley, Lawrence J. Sullivan, José María Garcia-Maldonado, Robert M. Fedek and John S. Siemianowski, all archdiocesan priests, to assist Cardinal Cupich in the administration and pastoral care of the archdiocese.