July 4-5, 2026
Dear parishioners,
Many thanks to all who offered kind words and best wishes as we marked my 10th anniversary of ordination last weekend. Know that I appreciate your support, and all that you have done for me. I was sincere when I mentioned that I have been blessed in many ways by being here with all of you. That being said, I am also grateful to Bishop Thomas for assigning me here, and for granting me a second term at Divine Mercy. I am looking forward to what the Lord has in store for me here in the next few years!
Speaking of last weekend, I forgot to mention it at the Masses, but one of the seminarians that our parish has been so generously supporting, Andrew Messer, was ordained a priest last Saturday by Bishop Thomas. Please join me in offering prayers of thanksgiving for this great day! Your generous donations to the 2nd collection for seminarians on the 5th Sundays of the month helped to get him to this day. If you want to attend one of his Masses, and maybe offer him your congratulations, he will temporarily be in residence at St. John in Delphos. He will be assisting with confessions and Masses there, as well as at St. John the Baptist in Landeck, and St. Patrick in Spencerville. He will only be there for the duration of the summer though, because he will be heading back to Rome to finish his graduate studies. Please continue to pray for him throughout the next year as he writes his thesis! I will be in contact with the diocese so that we can support another seminarian, in lieu of Fr. Messer. Once I know who that is, I will be sure to let you know. Thanks again for helping our seminarians!
Lastly- and on a much different note- as we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, join me in giving thanks for the freedoms we enjoy here in the United States. Indeed, sometimes it is easy for us to forget, or at least overlook, the fact that there are other countries in which citizens do not have the freedom to enjoy the opportunities and liberties that we make use of on a daily basis. Many examples could be given in this regard, including free speech and the right to vote. But above all, we give thanks for the freedom to practice our Catholic faith. While it might sound like something from times past, there are still countries in which Christian practices are not only strictly forbidden, but even openly persecuted (think China, North Korea, Nicaragua, and most countries in the Middle East).
With this freedom to practice our Catholic faith, we recall on this Independence Day the “inalienable rights” that the Declaration of Independence refers to: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. One could debate whether or not the founding fathers had some vague religious intentions with this phrase (that’s an article for another time). For our part, it is easy enough to read that phrase with the lens of our Catholic faith and “baptize” it.
As we have seen play out throughout American history, the secular concept of rights, left unto itself, unravels into relativism. That is, objective truths and moral principles cannot be determined by a majority vote. However, the Church does not view rights in the same way as the founding fathers did. The notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, understood in the mind of the Church, are themes that are part of living virtuously in this life, so that we might attain true and lasting happiness in heaven. Life is created by God himself, and therefore every human life is sacred, and every human person has dignity, from the moment of conception until death. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in the Church’s eyes, are far different from the secular rallying cry of the freedom to do whatever we want to do. Indeed, understood properly, they pertain to the freedom to live virtuously and the freedom to sin, and knowing the consequences of both choices.
On this Independence Day, then, we do indeed give thanks that we live in our great nation. Additionally, let us also offer some prayers for an end to all the ways many people in our country still oppose the true value of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness mentioned above. These include moral relativism, abortion, contraception, the forceful and ubiquitous LGBTQ agenda, and euthanasia, among other items.
Blessings,
Fr. Ammanniti
