From
the Pastor
Congratulations to Theresa Holt, Patricia Oatney, and Sharon Scanlon who were elected last weekend to the Immaculate Conception - St. Joseph Parish Council for the next three years! Also, a special thanks to Sue Peterson, Jane Stucker, and Mary Wheaton who were nominated to the Parish Council and allowed their names to stand for election. Thanks, too, to our out-going Parish Council members; Craig Chmidling, Ann Christoffersen, Georgia Scanlon, and our Youth Representative Charlie Phillips, for all their contributions to our Parish Council these past years.
This Saturday we celebrate our 4th Annual St. Joseph Parish Germanfest! This celebration of our German ethnic roots is always a joyous evening, beginning with our German Heritage Mass at 4:00p.m. I am looking forward to a great German meal and listening to the Deutschmeister Brass Band, who will be coming from St. Louis!
The German roots of St. Joseph Church run deep. Bishop Miege created St. Joseph Parish in 1858, just three years after he established the Cathedral Parish of the Immaculate Conception. Why did he build another parish so close to the Cathedral? Bishop Miege needed a second parish to serve all the German-speaking pioneers who had poured into Leavenworth since its founding in 1854. The first pastor of St. Joseph Parish was Father Casimir Seitz, OSB, a Bavarian-born Benedictine. The first priest to be ordained in Kansas, he could only preach in German. In 1864, Bishop Miege transferred the administration of St. Joseph's to the Carmelite Order. It was in that year that two Bavarian Carmelites arrived in Leavenworth, searching for an American foundation. St. Joseph's was to be our first foundation in the United States.
This year at our Fourth Annual Germanfest, we celebrate not only the German heritage of St. Joseph Parish, but also the recent installations of our new German Pope, Benedict XVI, and our new German-American Archbishop, Joseph Naumann of St. Louis! We are also proud to be sending seven young people from our Parish Youth Group with their two adult sponsors to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, this August to meet Pope Benedict XVI! Hopefully, our young people will have picked up a few German expressions at the Germanfest to help them out in Cologne!
God Bless you always!
