The Diocese of Owensboro’s 2024-2025 Impact Report is now available online. Read it here.
A Special Message From Bishop Medley
My dear friends,
Our annual impact report special issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic properly gives us an opportunity to look at the engagement of the diocese and our parishes in so many good works.
This year, however, our attention has been drawn to see the Catholic Church with a global view. For several weeks we became accustomed to daily reports on the health of Pope Francis. At the age of 88 and with several chronic health issues, he suffered with double pneumonia. His strong will brought him home to Vatican City from the hospital, and during Holy Week he made multiple public appearances, but his frailty was clear for all to see.
On Easter Sunday he extended his apostolic blessing to pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square and throughout the world. On Easter Monday morning we learned that Pope Francis had died.
This set in motion days of mourning but also rejoicing that this good man had gone to heaven.
Soon after, the most diverse assembly ever of cardinals from around the world gathered to pray and dialogue over several days until they entered into a conclave to choose a new Bishop of Rome – our new pope. On just the second day of the conclave and after only four ballots, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was introduced to the world as Pope Leo XIV. And against all conventional wisdom he is an American, in fact U.S.-born, though much of his ministry has been spent in Peru in South America.
With the backdrop of this historic shift, we continue our journey of missionary discipleship here in western Kentucky. We find our Church concluding a three-year National Eucharistic Revival, the highpoint being the grand Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis last summer, attended by several hundred from the Diocese of Owensboro.
It will soon be four years since the catastrophic tornadoes tore through western Kentucky. Our Catholic Charities continues to partner with other agencies and organizations in helping survivors rebuild their lives. Just this year our region experienced historic flooding, and so we continue to rebuild homes and lives.
Pope Francis’ repeated challenges to care for the least among us, the migrants and refugees of the world, must be a measure of our discipleship. Pope Leo’s choice of the name Leo, inspired by Pope Leo XIII who wrote “Rerum novarum,” an encyclical on Catholic social teaching, signals that he too will speak to the world of us of bearing the Gospel of Jesus to the poor.
There are thousands of catechists, lectors, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and those who visit the sick and homebound, who carry the light of Christ forth from our parishes. Truly, the work of discipleship is entrusted to us all. Join me in prayer though that men and women will hear and answer the Lord’s extraordinary call to discern special vocations to priesthood and consecrated life.
I also ask for your prayers as we launch our Priest Retirement Home Capital Campaign, an initiative to give back to our retired priests who have given of themselves throughout their lives.
This report of our Church’s mission is an exciting story. It is a story that every person is called to become a part of. As you read this story in the following pages, pray that you will be open to hearing your own special call.
I am so very proud of the Diocese of Owensboro and I thank God for our people. Be assured of my prayers for all of you and I kindly ask that you pray for me.
Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Bishop William F. Medley
Diocese of Owensboro