As a young priest serving a parish, Norbertine Father Sebastian Walshe initiated monthly “ask anything” sessions. One question popped up again and again: “How, after 12 years of Catholic schools, could my child elect to no longer practice the Catholic faith?” According to Pew Research Center data, the vast majority of Americans who leave their childhood religion do so before the age of 30, and Catholicism experiences the highest rate of attrition among major religious groups in the U.S.; for every one person who joins the Catholic Church, eight people leave it.

Father Jason Keas, pastor of Holy Apostles Parish, has helped several local couples conceive by distributing powder from the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem. Tradition holds that the Blessed Mother nursed baby Jesus at the site where the Holy Family rested while fleeing King Herod. 

COLORADO SPRINGS. Milton and Lucille Franklin met on a blind date almost 74 years ago in Louisiana. Lucille was 19 and Milton was 22 and in the Air Force when they married on August 16, 1952, at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in New Orleans. 

On Dec. 12, 2025, the Franklins were honored by the Colorado Marriage Encounter Community as the state’s Longest Married Couple for 2025.
Tom and Molly Johnson, Colorado leaders of Marriage Encounter, presented the Franklins with a certificate of recognition and flowers at Holy Apostles’ Mary’s House.

During this Jubilee Year of Hope, the Church calls for all of us to be “tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind” (Spes Non Confundit, 10). Finding reasons for hope and sharing that hope with others is part of our vocation as Christians. Perhaps one of the greatest areas where the hope of Jesus Christ is needed here in the United States is mental health.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this year’s mental health awareness theme is “From Awareness to Action.” Many Catholic dioceses across the United States are taking action to support the mental health of their parishioners.