The Marriage and Family Life Office works to promote healthy, happy, and holy family life. We support parishes in the areas of marriage preparation, marriage enrichment; natural family planning; grief support for all ages; troubled marriage support and more. The office also assists lay Catholic organizations and apostolates in their work related to families and parishes. This is a member office of the Office of the Domestic Church and Discipleship.
The Domestic Church is a movement of married couples who wish to live out their sacrament to the full with the help of God and a small group of other couples along with their parish priest. Would you like to grow together in your marriage and your faith?
The Domestic Church Movement provides formation, using the Church's spiritual tradition and official teachings, for how to pray, how to use Scripture in prayer, and how to grow in a real relationship with God, our spouses, and our children in light of our Baptism. It began under the leadership of Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki a close collaborator with Pope St. John Paul II who was the Archbishop who oversee the founding of this movement in Poland in 1973.
During the Light-Life married couples retreat, couples are invited to dedicate their faith life and marriage more fully to God and His good plan for their marriage and they are introduced to the basics of the 7 Commitments that make up the "method" for the Domestic Church movement.
Learn more about the Domestic Church Movement and Light-Life married couples retreat
Upcoming Events
Unbound
My House Workshop for Men
Keeping the Lord’s Day: Pastoral Letter on the Importance of Sunday in the Life of Every Christian Disciple
As we begin to return to our public celebrations of Mass, I wish to invite all in our diocese to reflect more deeply on the value of Sunday, why God made it and what it means in the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Read more . . .
Study Guides Available
In support of His Excellency, Bishop Johnston's, recent pastoral letter, Keeping the Lord’s Day, the Office of Domestic Church & Discipleship has published a 3-lesson guided study for use by families or small groups. Parishioners should contact their parish office to request copies.
Resources for Healing and Recovery
activateyourbaptism.com
A new website created by our diocese – with a free charisms survey –is now available. One of the Goals of our mutually Shared Diocesan Vision ‘One Family: Restored in Christ, Equipped for Mission’ involved the creation of this website resource. The Goal: “Implement gift and charism programs throughout the diocese to activate Catholics for service and mission by Pentecost 2020.” Full funding for this website was provided by the Missouri State Council of the Knights of Columbus, R.I.B. fund.
Charisms are extraordinary graces given to individual Christians for the good of others, through service or mission. Discovering and developing a charism involves prayerful discernment and active experience, seeing if there’s a greater success for the efforts than normal human efforts can explain. Learn more and get started by taking the free survey at www.activateyourbaptism.com.
From the Bishop
Would you please share the above 30 second video about the Hyde Amendment on your social media?
Open video in Facebook Open video in Twitter
Thank you for all you are doing to raise awareness about threats to the Hyde Amendment and to
promote our petition at NoTaxpayerAbortion.com. Together we are powerful!
The post Sign the petition & help spread the word: NoTaxpayerAbortion.com appeared first on Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.
The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph welcomes Angela Laville, CPA, MBA as Chief Financial Officer for the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph following a national search. Laville will step into the role as the diocese bids farewell to Dave Malanowski, who retires after 30 years as CFO and head of the Office of Finance for the diocese.
“Angela’s extensive experience in both financial and operational leadership matched with her commitment to follow God’s call for her life and her Catholic faith makes her a strong leader for the diocese and the Office of Finance,” said Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop James V. Johnston, Jr. “Angela has already shown her tremendous value in the few short weeks she has been on the team and we are proud to introduce her to the rest of the diocese.”
Laville brings nearly 35 years of corporate and non-profit experience, including work for Ernst & Whinney (now known as Ernst & Young), Sprint, GE Insurance, TranSystems Corp., and most recently, the Enterprise Center of Johnson County where she served as CFO. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in accounting and an MBA with an emphasis in finance from Rockhurst College (now known as Rockhurst University) in Kansas City, as well as a GE Six Sigma certification.
James VanDyke served on the CFO search committee and is a member of the Diocesan Finance Council. He says, “I have known Angela for 35 years as a parishioner of St. Elizabeth parish and a co-worker at Ernst & Whinney. I know first hand her strong Catholic faith and her financial expertise and am confident she will be a great financial leader for our diocese.”
Laville is a licensed Certified Public Accountant and Certified Global Management Accountant. She has her AICPA certification in non-profit accounting and served as an instructor at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneurial Program for Fort Leavenworth. Her non-profit work includes three years as CFO of Community Living Opportunities, Inc. in Lenexa, Kansas and five years at Enterprise Center of Johnson County.
Laville understands that we must grow the Catholic Church through education and programs while managing the financial margins to be successful. She says, “The construction of plans that incorporate financial, operational and end goals can be difficult; however, it is absolutely essential to utilize the goods the Church receives to further the Church Family. God calls each of us through various stages in our lives and He provides the resources we need to serve others. I believe that the path God placed me on has provided me the experience that will help the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to be successful in the vision of One Family: Restored in Christ – Equipped for Mission.”
Laville grew up in St. Elizabeth’s parish in Kansas City, Mo., and graduated from St. Teresa’s Academy before attending Rockhurst College for her undergraduate and MBA training. She serves the Church through volunteer work at her home parish, Church of the Ascension in Overland Park, Kan., as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, on the Vocations Committee and in the Faith Formation program.
About the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph
The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was established in 1956 when the Dioceses of Kansas City (founded in 1880) and St. Joseph (founded in 1868) were combined. Led by Bishop James V. Johnston, Jr., the Diocese is home to nearly 124,000 Catholics in 87 parishes and 10 missions across 27 counties in northern and western Missouri. Under the guidance of Bishop Johnston, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph continues its mission to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to live and serve in charity in northern and western Missouri. kcsjcatholic.org
The post The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph Welcomes New CFO appeared first on Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.
Due to the recent announcement from Mayor Lucas rescinding Kansas City’s Fourteenth Emergency COVID Order, all restrictions have been lifted on the upcoming Priestly Ordination. This means the Ordination is open to all: we will not be giving out tickets or having assigned seats.
The Ordination to the Priesthood of Deacons Armentrout, King and Lemus will be held 10 am Saturday, May 29 at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception (416 W. 12th St.. Kansas City, MO 64105).
Doors open to the public at 8:30 am. The front doors will close at 9:45 am to allow the procession line to form. Please arrive early to get a seat. There will be no social distancing requirements and masks are optional.
First blessings will be immediately following the Ordination at the Cathedral.
The post May 29: Ordination to the Priesthood appeared first on Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.
The question before the Church about the incoherence of any person being engaged in gravely evil activity and receiving the Holy Eucharist is tremendously important and has been for many ages. Bishops, as pastors, always have a responsibility pastorally to address this question of worthy reception for the good of individual souls and the entire Church. I applaud Archbishop Gomez for putting this question on the USCCB agenda and for allowing the very deliberate process of the conference to proceed so that the bishops can prayerfully consider this matter. I believe the current process does not conflict but rather engages with the advice received in the recent letter from Cardinal Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
This question touches on many gravely evil activities besides abortion, and it assuredly pertains to all Catholics, not simply those in public office. Nevertheless, it remains a scientific fact that abortion ends an innocent human life, and the Bishops of the United States have rightly noted that abortion is the “preeminent” issue of our time. It is a preeminent concern due to the sheer scale of human lives taken (60 million unborn children have died since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973), the fact that abortion often takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and the direct nature of intentionality by willfully killing the most innocent and defenseless among us.
Advocating for or enacting laws which promote such killing as a right, which subsidize such killing, or which seek to expand access to such killing are gravely evil acts, contrary to the Catholic faith. The Catholic Church teaches that any person engaged in such acts is called to repentance and reconciliation prior to presenting oneself for Holy Communion. Catholics in public life who advocate for abortion in these ways and then present themselves as devout Catholics according to their own self-understanding create a source of great confusion among American Catholics. Pastors have a responsibility to help individuals towards repentance out of concern for their salvation, but also to protect the faithful from being misled by bad example and scandal.
While this issue impacts, among others, those in public office, it is not fundamentally a political issue, but rather a pastoral one. Bishops, as teachers and pastors, have the duty to lead people toward that which will help their soul’s salvation, and to warn against actions and choices which place that salvation in jeopardy.
The post Statement of Bishop James V. Johnston on the Matter of Eucharistic Coherence appeared first on Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.
