3+ week, 5+ day ago (132+ words) Hundreds celebrated Catholic Mass outside the facility Sunday for All Saints' Day. BROADVIEW, Ill. (WLS) -- Hundreds celebrated Catholic Mass outside the Broadview U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Sunday for All Saints' Day. For the second time in three weeks, faith leaders tried to bring Communion to the detainees. But they said they were denied entry again. The Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, who led the Mass, said that despite formally requesting access with 10 days' notice, they were turned away. A hearing to discuss conditions at the facility is scheduled for Tuesday. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the government, alleging the facility is overcrowded and filthy. It also claims detainees are being denied the right to counsel. The Department of Homeland Security has called the claims false....

2+ day, 1+ hour ago (349+ words) CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago Fire Department crews responded to a large church fire on Thanksgiving on the city's South Side. The fire gutted the building from the inside out, causing it to collapse. The fire broke out Thursday afternoon near West 59th Street and South Emerald Avenue in Englewood, CFD officials said. CFD crews were responding to the three-story church building with "lots of additional equipment." ABC7 crews witnessed as part of Renewal Life Church collapsed as it was engulfed in flames and smoke, which quickly spread. No injuries were reported and the exact cause of the fire was not yet known. SEE ALSO | Chicago firefighters to demonstrate possible dangers of frying turkeys Thanksgiving ABC7 spoke with the pastor of the church, Je'Rico Brown. He says the three-story building was empty when the fire started. Brown said he was out feeding the homeless with…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago (719+ words) BALTIMORE -- U.S. Catholic bishops elected Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley as their new president on Tuesday, choosing a conservative culture warrior to lead during President Donald Trump's second term. The vote serves as a barometer for the bishops' priorities. In choosing Coakley, they are doubling down on their conservative bent, even as they push for more humane immigration policies from the Trump administration. Coakley was seen as a strong contender for the top post, having already been elected in 2022 to serve as secretary, the No. 3 conference official. In three rounds of voting, he beat out centrist candidate Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, who was subsequently elected vice president. Coakley serves as adviser to the Napa Institute, an association for conservative Catholic powerbrokers. In 2018, he publicly supported an ardent critic of Pope Francis, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigan, who was later…...

3+ week, 11+ hour ago (1197+ words) WASHINGTON -- Vice President JD Vance recently told a packed college arena that he hopes his Hindu wife would someday convert to Christianity, thrusting into the spotlight the deeply sensitive challenges facing interfaith couples. Experts who have counseled hundreds of couples who don't share religious beliefs say the key is respect for each other's faith traditions and having honest discussions about how to raise their children. Most agree that pressuring or even hoping the other would convert could prove damaging to a relationship, and all the more so for a couple in the public arena. "To respect your partner and everything they bring to the marriage - every part of their identity - is integral to the kind of honesty that you need to have in a marriage," said Susan Katz Miller, author of the book "Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (203+ words) CHICAGO (WLS) -- Sister JoAnn Persch, known to be an advocate for migrants and refugees in the Chicago area has died, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas announced. Sister Persch began her ministry in education, teaching at various Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. In 2007, Sister Persch and Sister Pat Murphy held weekly prayer vigils outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview. Together they attended the prayer vigils every Friday morning. Sister Patricia Murphy died earlier this summer. She was 96. In 2018, they took their cause to the U.S. Capital after literally getting a call to do so. "Because of their relentless advocacy on behalf of migrants and refugees, the two sisters were affectionately nicknamed 'Rabble' and 'Rouser' by friends and fellow advocates in the faith community," the Sisters of Mercy said in a statement. In 2022, they helped start…...

2+ day, 5+ hour ago (678+ words) CHICAGO (WLS) -- Thursday was the 40th annual Rainbow PUSH Coalition Thanksgiving Program that feeds hundreds of families in need. It came as many prayers are being shared for Reverend Jesse Jackson after he was released from a Chicago hospital this week after spending nearly two weeks there. The 84-year-old civil rights activist's family says he was discharged from Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Monday, and he remains stable. ABC7 was told Thursday that Rev. Jackson is still recovering, but the message his family says he gave them was not to focus on his health, but instead continue his mission of giving. "I know, he probably somewhere, writing a book or something or a journal in his mind," Thanksgiving dinner attendee Shelia Thomas said. Thomas wasn't too far off. "When he woke up, he said, 'Hey, I want to make sure that we're focusing…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago (402+ words) VATICAN CITY -- Pope Leo XIV called for "deep reflection" in the United States about the treatment of migrants held in detention, saying that "many people who have lived for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what is going on right now." The Chicago-born pope was responding Tuesday to a range of geopolitical questions from reporters outside the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo, including what kind of spiritual rights migrants in U.S. custody should have, U.S. military attacks on suspected drug traffickers off Venezuela and the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East. Leo underlined that scripture emphasizes the question that will be posed at the end of the world: "How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not? I think there is a deep reflection that needs to be made…...

5+ day, 10+ hour ago (275+ words) THAILAND -- A woman in Thailand shocked temple staff when she started moving in her coffin after being brought in for cremation. Wat Rat Prakhong Tham, a Buddhist temple in the province of Nonthaburi on the outskirts of Bangkok, posted a video on its Facebook page, showing a woman lying in a white coffin in the back of a pick-up truck, slightly moving her arms and head, leaving temple staff bewildered. He said they heard a faint knock coming from the coffin. "I was a bit surprised, so I asked them to open the coffin, and everyone was startled," he said. "I saw her opening her eyes slightly and knocking on the side of the coffin. She must have been knocking for quite some time." According to Pairat, the brother said his sister had been bedridden for about two years, when…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago (798+ words) VATICAN CITY -- Pope Leo XIV on Saturday bestowed one of the Catholic Church's highest honors on St. John Henry Newman, the deeply influential 19th- century British convert and theologian, declaring him a doctor of the church and holding him up as a model for Catholic educators. Only 37 other people have been given the title "doctor" in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. Newman now joins the ranks of such monumental Christian figures as St. Augustine, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. John of the Cross. The title recognizes that Newman, beloved in both the Anglican and Catholic churches, has universal appeal and made a timeless, eminent contribution to understanding the Christian faith. A theologian and poet raised in the Church of England, Newman is best known for his writings and sermons on the development of doctrine, truth and the nature…...