West Virginia Catholics

05/18/2026

For those of you who knew me in Almost Heaven, if you want to hear what I sound like with a speech impediment, it's on full display here in my most recent interview. It's beyond humbling (OK, it's flat out embarrassing), but the information I'm getting out is good.

Brian O'Neel joins Vanessa to promote his latest initiative, saintstombs.com.

05/04/2026

Presented without comment.

The next bishop for West Virginia Catholics will be an El Salvador-born advocate for immigrants who has opposed U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown policies.

05/01/2026

We have a new bishop!

From the Vatican's Press Office today

The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston (USA) presented by HE Msgr. Mark E. Brennan.

The Holy Father has appointed as Bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston (USA) His Excellency Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, currently titular Bishop of Aeto and Auxiliary of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Washington.

Curriculum vitae

Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala was born on August 14, 1970, in Chalatenango, El Salvador. After studying philosophy at Saint John Vianney College Seminary in Miami and theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, he earned a licentiate from the Pontifical Scalabrinian Institute of Pastoral Theology for Human Mobility in Rome.

He was ordained a priest on May 29, 2004 for the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Washington.

He has held the following positions: Parochial Vicar of Mother Seton in Germantown (2004-2008), St. Bartholomew in Bethesda (2009), and the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle in Washington DC (2009-2013); Parish Priest of Our Lady Queen of the Americas in Washington DC (2013-2017), and Saint Mary in Landover Hills (2017-2023).

He was appointed titular bishop of Aeto and auxiliary of Washington on December 19, 2022, receiving episcopal consecration on February 14, 2023.

04/28/2026

Let us pray for the happy repose of the souls of these faithful West Virginia priests. This was printed back in 1948

04/16/2026

Happy feast of St. Drogo the Shepherd.

St. Drogo was born into to the Flemish nobility. His mother died giving him birth, a fact that emotionally crushed him when he learned of it at age 10; he imagined himself responsible for her death. Later in life he practiced extreme penances, possibly to expiate this guilt. Orphaned in his teens. At 18, he disposed of all his property and became a penitential pilgrim, making nine trips to Rome, Italy. Shepherd for six years at Sebourg, near Valenciennes, France, working for Elizabeth de la Haire. Revered for his holiness. Reportedly able to bilocate, with witnesses seeing him simultaneously working the fields and attending Mass. Stricken with an unsightly bodily affliction during a pilgrimage, he became a hermit at Sebourg in Hainault for 40 years surviving on barley, water, and the Eucharist. He died around 1186 in Sebourg. He is the patron saint of unattractive people, so obviously, I pray to him a lot. Since he could bilocate by attending Mass and watching his sheep at the same time, he is the patron of those with multiple jobs. People with multiple jobs often need a lot of coffee. Hence, his connection with the dark brew. In fact, if you're ever in Lowville, NY, drop into St. Drogo's Coffee & Bake House for a cuppa.

04/10/2026

A happy feast of Bl. Ramón Ramírez Flórez!

The son of Ramón Ramírez Flórez and Isabel Ramos, he was baptized at the age of one day. Feeling a call to the priesthood, Pedro began his studies on 4 October 1915 in the diocese of Garzón, Colombia, but in 1920 he began to have doubts about his vocation, and left the seminary. For the next few years he lived as a single man, worked as a choir director in several places, suffered from severe headaches, and never stopping his discernment of a vocation. By 1928, with the help of a pious female friend, Pedro decided that he was, indeed, called to the priesthood, and returned to his studies. Ordained a priest on 21 June 1930.

Parish priest in the Chaparral region, then in Cunday, Colombia in 1934, in El Fresno, Colombia in 1943, and then in Armero, Colombia in 1948. When the the Colombian civil war, known as La Violencia (aka, The Thousand Days War), broke out, his parishioners tried to smuggle him out of the area – the Socialist Colombian Liberal Party blamed Father Pedro for the killing of their leader, which triggered the conflict. Pedro refused to leave, saying that his parishioners would need him during the conflict. On the afternoon of 10 April 1948, some members of the Colombian Liberal Party broke into his church, found Father Pedro putting the finishing touches on his will, accused him of a number of offenses, dragged him to the town square, and murdered him. Martyr. He is buried in the Catedral de San Sebastián.

04/06/2026

From Jan. 20, 1948

04/06/2026

"…If we remain in the presence of God continually, our words, our actions, everything becomes an act of adoration… I would like prayer and acts of love to be synonymous for us" (Servant of God Isabelle de Clermont-Tonnerre, Or.A.)

04/02/2026

I know Jennifer, and I've read the author she's going to teach about, and this is going to be fantastic. Best yet: It's free!

Official website of the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln.

04/01/2026

“The purpose of parenthood is to people the earth with adorers of God and to fill heaven with saints.”—St. Francis de Sales

04/01/2026

There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future. ~ St. Augustine of Hippo