Dear Friends, 

On September 12, less than a month away, Illinois’ medical aid-in-dying law (commonly referred to as assisted suicide) will be in force.  

While Governor JB Pritzker signed the “End of Life Options” Act into law on December 12, the delay until September was built-in to give the Illinois Department of Public Health and health care providers time to establish the required processes and safeguards. 

Just a few days ago, Bishop Paprocki, the Lutheran Care Center, and four Illinois physicians sued the State of Illinois over this unjust law. The Thomas More Society filed the complaint on their behalf, asking a federal court to block the law before it takes effect on September 12.  

As you you know, this law is frought with problems. Not only does the law violate the natural and moral law when it allows and promotes suicide, it also requires faithful medical professionals to help facilitate patient suicides in violation of the Hippocratic Oath, centuries of legal and medical tradition, and their deeply held religious convictions.   

Dr. Mary Keen, one of the four doctors in the suit, explains the impossible situation the State has put her and many other doctors in: “The State’s demand that physicians begin helping patients accomplish assisted suicide violates everything I know as a health care professional, as well as my deeply held Catholic convictions on the dignity of every human life. As a doctor, I have a responsibility to meet my patients’ existential pain with loving accompaniment, not with abandonment.” 

Not only does this travesty strike at the vocation of the physician, it attacks the foundation of Catholic and religiously based healthcare. 

“At the heart of the Catholic Church’s healthcare ministry is the healing work of Christ—to stand with the suffering, to comfort the dying, and to affirm the God-given dignity of every human life,” said Bishop Paprocki. “Illinois’s assisted suicide law undermines that mission by forcing Catholic hospitals and those who serve in them to push death onto their most vulnerable patients. We must be free to serve the sick and the dying according to our faith, not according to the state’s mandate.” 

While not a pleasant subject to discuss, in the coming weeks I will devote the pastor’s column to the topic of assisted suicide and why the Catholic Church opposes it. 

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead! 

Fr. Seth 

Dear Friends, 

This Saturday the Church celebrated the great Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, meaning we believe God assumed Mary body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life. 

It might sound strange, but I think we can learn a little about the Assumption from St. Catherine of Siena’s experience of levitation. 

St. Catherine of Siena, a great Dominican mystic and Doctor of the Church, was widely reported by many different witnesses to have experienced levitation on multiple occasions.  

In her crowning spiritual work, The Dialogue, St. Catherine explains the inner spiritual realities that result in levitation. The explanation comes during the Heavenly Father’s concluding remarks to St. Catherine about the stages a soul must rise through to attain perfect love. 
 
God the Father, speaking of St. Catherine, says, “Though she is mortal she tastes the reward of the immortals, and weighed down still with the body she receives the lightness of the spirit. Often, therefore, the body is lifted up from the ground because of the perfect union of the soul with me, as if the heavy body had become light.”  

Thus, what draws her body up from the ground is the loving union of her soul with God. In short, the soul is drawn up in love so powerfully that the body can’t help but follow. 

Our Heavenly Father continues, “It is not because its heaviness has been taken away, but because the union of the soul with me is more perfect than the union between the soul and the body. And for this reason the strength of the spirit united with me lifts the body’s weight off the ground.”  

So perhaps we could say that Mary’s union with God was so perfect that it led to her Assumption. 
 
It will be a great marvel at the end of time when all our bodies are resurrected by the Love of God, and an even greater marvel to see the soul drawing the body towards God in the loving union, prefigured for us today in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary who has joined in perfect loving union of body and soul her Resurrected Son in Heaven. 

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead! 

Fr. Seth 

Dear Friends, 

This past Thursday, August 6^th, we celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. 

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. There, before their eyes, He is transfigured: His face shines like the sun, and His clothes become dazzling white. Many see this great mystery as a foretaste of the Resurrected Jesus, an illuminating display of his divinity to His inner circle of disciples.  

But it’s not only that. Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appear and speak with the Lord to reveal that all Scripture finds its fulfillment in Him. Then a bright cloud overshadows them, and the voice of the Father is heard: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 

That raises the question: listen to what? Jesus hadn’t said anything coming up the mount. Previously, the last thing He’d said was to predict His Passion after Peter had professed his faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Then, after they’d made their way down the mount, Jesus must step in to heal a boy the disciples could not. Jesus then repeats the prediction of His passion. The glory revealed on the mountain does not remove the necessity of suffering; it makes the coming suffering meaningful. 

Taken together, the before-and-after framing shows that the Transfiguration is not an isolated moment of glory. It is a revelation given in the shadow of the Cross. 

• Before: the cost of discipleship is announced. 

• On the mountain: the glory that awaits is revealed. 

• After: the disciples are sent back into the ordinary struggles of faith and mission, carrying both the memory of glory and the call to follow the Lord. 

In Matthew’s Gospel, the Transfiguration stands as a hinge: it confirms who Jesus is, clarifies the path He must walk, and gives the disciples (and us) a reason to hope while walking that same path. 

Pope St. John Paul II helps us to better meditate on this great mystery when he made it the Fourth Luminous Mystery of the Rosary.   

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead! 

Fr. Seth 

Dear Friends, 

The saints remind of us our destiny—that we strive by the grace of God and their good prayers to be in the future where they now are. 

But the saints also remind us of our past. The saints we celebrate in August remind us of our local past, our diocesan history. 

August Fourth we remember St. John Vianney, a French priest of humble birth who, after ordination was sent to the little town of Ars. For the next 41 years he served as the parish priest: celebrating mass, hearing confessions, and teaching the Catholic Faith. He had the gift of reading hearts, of being able to tell penitents their sins before they could confess them. He would often spend 8-12 hours a day hearing confessions.  

Pope Pius XI named St. John Vianney the patron saint of parish priests, so this month please do pray for the Cathedral clergy, or your own parish priest. 

August 8^th is the Feast of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans. We are fortunate in this diocese to have all three expressions of the Dominican life—the friars, the nuns, and the religious sisters. Some of you may have been taught by the Springfield Dominicans. The nuns pray for us in their monastery near Girard, and the friars are their chaplains. We thank God for the many years of blessings, preaching, and teaching the Dominicans have provided for our diocese. 

August 11^th is the Feast of St. Claire of Assisi, and the 14^th is St. Maximilian Kolbe, both Franciscans. We give thanks for the Franciscan Friars, Sisters, and Brothers who have served in our diocese in parishes, schools, homes for the disabled, and by providing excellent healthcare and care for the poor. May God continue to bless their ministries. 

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead! 

Fr. Seth 

PS—for those looking ahead: August 15^th is the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, and normally it is obligatory to attend Mass on that day. But as it falls on a Saturday this year, it is not obligatory to attend Mass for that Solemnity (though I certainly encourage you to do so!). 

Dear Friends, 

This weekend we welcome to the Cathedral Monsignor Peter Vaccari, President of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), for our annual Mission Appeal. 

Pope Pius XI founded the CNEWA in 1926 as an instrument of love and a sign of hope for those in need scattered throughout the historic but unstable lands of the ancient Eastern churches — the Middle East, Northeast Africa, India, and Eastern Europe.  

They pray for and with those who suffer in these lands, and they relieve suffering by rushing emergency relief to places of crisis, responding to human need, and working to develop local leadership in difficult places and situations. 

Monsignor Vaccari became the president of CNEWA six years ago. But God had prepared him for such a responsibility by blessing him with varied ministries throughout his life. Ordained a priest of Brooklyn in 1977, he has served as a parish priest, seminary professor, chaplain with the Air Force Reserve, rector of the seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, Long Island, and as rector of St. Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York. 

Monsignor will preach each of the masses, and we will take up a collection for CNEWA this weekend. 

We thank Monsignor for being with us, and for his very important work. Please keep him and CNEWA in your good prayers. 

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead! 

Fr. Seth 

Dear Friends, 

Some things change; some things stay the same. 

As for change, I’m modifying slightly our OCIA process. OCIA (formerly RCIA) stands for Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. It’s the formation process the Church provides to prepare the unbaptized for baptism and to live the Catholic Faith after the Easter Vigil. 

Starting September 10^th, this year’s OCIA will meet weekly instead of biweekly. This means every Thursday evening from 6 to 7:30pm we will gather for a meal and then make a pilgrimage into the holy places of what Catholics believe, how we worship, how we live, and how we pray. The Bible and the Catechism will be our guides, and I will be inviting guests in to share their love for God and His Church as well as their expertise in certain areas.  

We will engage our minds, hearts, souls, and yes, have some fun along the way. Jesus wants us to enjoy loving Him and our neighbors! 

If you’re not baptized, or if you are a non-Catholic Christian, and interested in the Catholic Faith, I invite you to consider OCIA here at the Cathedral. There’s no obligation, just an invitation to learn more about Jesus, to consider becoming his disciple, and to encounter the ancient Tradition of the Catholic Church. 

If you are interested, please contact the Cathedral office. 

As for things staying the same, our Families of Faith program will forge ahead from where we left off. For those unfamiliar, Families of Faith is our formation program for families with school-aged children. It’s purpose is to help parents be the first and best teachers of the Faith to their children.  

While the children are being taught by our excellent catechists, the parents will continue with me or another presenter the topic we didn’t finish last year: the Catholic Church and Science.  

Topics will include Jesus’ self-offering, the purpose and benefit of the Church, the four kinds of happiness, and how we transform suffering through faith and prayer. If your family would like to join us for this, please call the Cathedral office. We meet the first and third Sundays after the 5pm Mass starting with a potluck on September 6^th. 

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead! 

Fr. Seth 

I’m back!

Whether it will be like General MacArthur or a bad penny, the bishop has asked me to return to the Cathedral and follow Fr. Alford as the next rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. 

I’m deeply honored.

Fr. Brian has done a fine job in his tenure and I hope I can continue in the goodness he and the Cathedral staff have maintained. I thank him for his excellent pastoral care as well as the fraternal charity he’s shown me over the years. We’ve known each other for almost twenty years, beginning in the Altiplano of Peru through the prairies of our diocese. He’s been a good friend, and his willingness to make my transition to the Cathedral as smooth as possible has been a godsend.

I say I’m back because, as some will recall, I was here from 2014-2016 as the parochial vicar. After ordination, the Cathedral was my first assignment under one of my people: Fr. Chris House. I have many wonderful memories from my first time here with him, Fr. Marty Smith, Deacon Larry, Bill Vogt, and all the rest. I know there are many more good memories to come with old friends and new. 

I thank the Bishop for his trust in me, the Cathedral staff for their generosity of spirit, and you, the parishioners and visitors of our mother church for your faith and support.

I’d also like to thank my former parishioners in Vandalia and Ramsey, and also my friends in New Berlin, Waverly, Franklin, and Alexander. 

In the Gospel of John, Chapter 17 verse 24, as Jesus finishes his Last Supper Discourse, He prays to His Father and says of his disciples (current and future), “Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me.” 

Considering all the good souls I have met in all of my assignments, I know a little of the gift of which He speaks and how He feels. 

Please pray for me.

With gratitude and joy for the days ahead!

Fr. Seth

When I became a pastor for the first time in 2016, the thought of having to write a weekly bulletin article seemed a bit daunting.  How would I be able to write something new every week and not get bored of the process, or run out of things to say?  Thankfully, more than 500 bulletin articles later over these past ten years (six of which have been here at Cathedral), I have found the experience to be anything but daunting.  Rather, it has been an opportunity to speak to you, my parish family, about a variety of topics, sharing from my heart and mind to yours, hopefully helping you in feeling more loved by the Good Shepherd through my ministry as your shepherd.

In this final article, I take up the third recommendation of recent popes to embrace the future with hope.  Last year, as you may recall, I offered a full year’s worth of reflections on Pope Benedict’s encyclical on Christian hope, Spe salvi, to coincide with the Jubilee Year of Hope proclaimed by Pope Francis.  I can see the providence in the timing of this exercise, not just in my helping all of you to better understand this important virtue, but in letting it be more firmly rooted in my heart as well.  When I consider looking to the future through the lens of hope, those words of St. Paul in His letter to the Romans always help me to stay grounded in peace: “Hope does not disappoint.” (Rom 5:5)

As we have reflected in the past, the hope of which St. Paul writes is related ultimately to what awaits us in eternal life.  Whatever the journey in this life might present, good or bad, all can be borne when we fix our gaze on that final hope which we believe with firm faith will have no sadness or disappointment.  At the same time, I have been consoled with how these words connect with another line from this same letter from St. Paul, where he writes: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Rom 8:28) Though we may not always see it or understand it, whatever God is doing in our lives, and whatever He allows to happen in our lives, is working for our good.

The first time I was asked to move, I initially struggled.  I loved the parishes where I was serving, and I loved teaching in the Catholic high school each day.  People told me that it was going to be a “waste” for me to leave and to serve in a rather hidden role in my work with the bishop.  I was tempted to believe those things, but when I began that new assignment, I saw how the Lord was using those circumstances to make me a better priest, stretching me in ways that I would have not chosen, but in exactly the ways that I needed to be stretched, and I learned to find great joy and peace in where the Lord had placed me.  Every change since then has followed a similar pattern, but the same thing has happened every time – the Lord has used those changes for my good, and I believe ultimately for the good of those whom I had served, and to whom I was called to serve in the new assignment.  It is with that peace that I accept this next instance of God’s providence in my life, and it is my prayer for all of you to embrace the future of this parish, and your relationship with your new shepherd with that virtue of hope, trusting that we who love the Lord will not be disappointed.

Let my final words to you be from the very depths of my heart, having had the privilege of serving you these past six years:  I love you, and I am so thankful for the love you have given to me.  At the end of our journey when we are all gathered together in His Kingdom, we will be reunited once again in the love of God, rejoicing without ceasing as we enjoy the fulfillment of the hope we held throughout life, and which will be our peace together for eternity.

On June 22, 2026, just this past Monday, I finished a real project of a book: the classic The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Not that my judgment in this regard matters in the grand scheme of literary criticism, but I would rate it as an excellent book. The characters came to life, the philosophical questions and musings made me think, and I was drawn into the drama of the story. I might even say I was too much drawn in, based on how I felt when I finished the book.

As I finished that last page, I felt the emotion that I assume most people who read this book feel: Utter disappointment, as though something is unfinished. That might sound alarming or surprising, based on my “excellent” rating of this great work of literature. And truly, I am not disappointed in the book itself, I am disappointed in the fact that Dostoyevsky was not. actually. finished. with the story! He planned to write another, even better, book based on the future life of the main character, and all the indications of an imminent great adventure are present there at the end of the book.

Unfortunately, however, Dostoyevsky died very soon after finishing only the first installment, which we know as the great novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Now, I know death is never convenient, or timely, or in any way in accord with our hopeful expectations. A case such as this unfinished story only brings out the pain of death even more. Anyone could think of a future life for that main character, but no one can think of precisely the future life that Dostoyevsky would have written. No one has his mind, his experiences, his personality, his insight into the human condition!

I wonder if, more than anything, I and those other readers of this novel feel “robbed” – robbed by death. Maybe that’s a silly feeling, but I think it is the truth. 

And this experience, I believe, points to a reality that we hold dearly as Christians: we live for another world. Yes, we love this world and the gifts God has given us in it, but we hold it lightly. It is temporary, and we await a future life that is not temporary. Through hope, we hold tightly even now to a future life that will last for all eternity, in joy and peace and an utter lack of that disappointing feeling of robbery. Nothing will be robbed from us in that life; in fact, everything will be given and received in joy, with a sense of fullness that only grows and grows. 

I am still very grateful I read the book and peered into the mind of Fyodor Dostoyevsky for a time. If I still care by the time I reach my heavenly goal, I’ll ask him about that next novel!

With all this in mind, I have to also share that I’m signing off of writing bulletin articles for now. Fortunately, this is by my choice, not by death (God-willing!). Although I remain living at the Cathedral for the next two months, my assignment here is ending and I want to devote more of my time to studying Italian and finishing up other loose ends before I leave the country.  I hope you don’t feel “robbed” or disappointed that I am leaving my series unfinished. I assume even St. Francis would say, “Good, focus less on me, more on Jesus!” 🙂

Before I take off in September, I’ll write an actual “Goodbye” article here. 

I do still encourage you to read the Life of St. Francis by St. Bonaventure. It contains some wonderfully rich spiritual fruit, perfect for this year of St. Francis. And, if you happen to be disappointed, let this transition too be a reminder of the deep desire for Heaven that rests at the core of your heart. We await a future life where there will be no more death, decay, or disappointment. May we always seek to follow the will of the Father, to enter into his rest forever!