Prayer, fasting, listening and teaching are among pastoral responses in the Worcester Diocese and elsewhere to the clergy sexual abuse crisis. This week Bishop McManus told The Catholic Free Press that sexual abuse is a terrible, embarrassing, dark part of the Church’s history and “people want to know that we’re doing something about it.” 

Bishop McManus is among four people from the Worcester Diocese attending the fifth National Encounter of Hispanic/Latino Ministry, or “V Encuentro,” in Grapevine, Texas, near Fort Worth. (Encuentro is Spanish for encounter.) 

This fall, Gloria Josephs, who’s the youth ministry director at St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Westborough, will help the Worcester Diocese’s Haitian Apostolate attempt to bring at least 17 new parishes into the apostolate’s successful twinning program that serves the Diocese of Les Cayes, Haiti. 

“To Know Him, to Love Him, to Serve Him,” is the theme of the upcoming Worcester Catholic Women’s Conference. With this year’s slate of speakers and a variety of exhibitors, the organizers of the conference expect it to be sold out. The conference will take place Nov. 10 in the Tsotsis Family Academic Center at Assumption College. 

WESTBOROUGH - St. Luke the Evangelist Parish’s organic community garden has a waiting list. And despite the challenge of a wet, very hot summer, the Heirloom Harvest Farm continues to produce vegetables for its shareholders.

It was a good year for the annual Partners in Charity Appeal, according to Michael Gillespie, director of the Office of Stewardship and Development. The fund drive finished with $5,076,252 in gifts and pledges, topping the $5 million goal.