Archive for category: Featured Stories

Maura Baker

Staff Writer

Formerly Faith Community Pharmacy, now Faith Community Health Network (FCHN), officially cut the ribbon and opened the doors to its new Faith Community Clinic, July 15. Located in Newport, the clinic, which soft opened in June, offers free primary care, preventive services and lab testing — carrying the torch of FCHN’s commitment to provide “quality, compassionate care for all.”

The ribbon cutting ceremony was well attended, with FCHN executive director Aaron Broomall commenting, “I think the abundance of people that made time on their Wednesday morning to be here just shows you that our organization from the start has been built around a community of people that come together and care about people,” he said. “None of our work would be possible without the generous contributions of time and effort and insights from everybody that is here.”

“I think one of the foundations of our organization is that at the end of the day, our work comes down to people,” Mr. Broomall continued later in the ceremony. “One of the things I am most proud of, and I can’t take credit for it, our staff can, is that we always focus on the person. That there is an individual in front of us who is struggling, who is scared, who doesn’t know where to turn and they walk in our doors. And when they do, they’re greeted with a smile. They’re treated with dignity and respect. We learn their name and we learn their story because advancing somebody to health is more than just diagnosis and medication.”

Stacie Wethington, RN, the clinic’s director, looked to the future of the clinic in a later interview with the Messenger. “I’m looking forward to getting more patients from the community and being able to provide medical care for them,” she said. “We’ve talked a lot about how we’re not just physical care — we hope to touch them in lots of ways, whether that be spiritual counseling, if they desire that, but there are a lot of social determinants that we look at.”

Volunteers and staff of Community Health Clinic look beyond just physical health, according to Ms. Wethington, addressing issues such as food and housing insecurity and mental health and grief as well — using patient navigators to help guide patients to resources that they might need.

“The patients that we’ve seen have been amazing and grateful,” she said, “and the care is much, much needed. I think it’s been a blessing not just to the patients, but also to the staff and volunteers.”

To learn more about Faith Community Health Network, as well as to seek help or volunteer opportunities, visit their website online at https://fchealthnetwork.org/.

Maura Baker

Staff Writer

It is estimated that approximately one in five adults in the United States live with mental illness, as reported by the National Institute of Mental Health. With most people struggling themselves or knowing someone struggling with their mental health, many find themselves as “first responders” on the front line of preventing suicide.

A former first responder herself, Autumn Ruehl, CSW, now works as a mental health counselor with Catholic Charities in Northern Kentucky. Ms. Ruehl, with Catholic Charities and in collaboration with Mental Health America of Northern Kentucky and Southwest Ohio, is offering a free “mental health first aid” training, Aug. 25, 9 a.m.–3 p.m., at the diocesan Curia, Covington.

With this training and certification normally attached to a cost of more than $100 per person, this free training is ideal for anyone who wants to better support loved ones, friends, coworkers, parishioners or members of their community. Participants will learn how to recognize the signs of someone experiencing a mental health challenge, respond with confidence and compassion and connect individuals to appropriate resources.

“Mental health first aid is best used as a first line of defense,” said Ms. Ruehl. “What it does is empowers us and helps us feel more comfortable to start the conversation with somebody we think is experiencing a mental health challenge.”

Ms. Ruehl mentioned that, statistically, someone struggling with their mental health are more likely to seek out professional support if someone else suggests to them, making us the “first line” that people might come in contact with.

Additionally, “mental health first aid helps people recognize when someone they love or come in contact with frequently might be experiencing a mental health challenge,” Ms. Ruehl said. Recognizing these signs is imperative, even to saving lives, with 130 Americans losing their lives to suicide each day.

“We know that,” just like with physical illnesses and injuries, “with early intervention, there are better outcomes,” Ms. Ruehl said.

With a minimum required class size of 25, more participants are needed for the free training and certification to remain available. Registration is available now online at https://form.jotform.com/MHFACollaborative/catholic-charities-mhfa-8252026.

Laura Keener

Editor

When Bishop John Iffert’s weekly schedule appeared unusually short in the July 10 edition of the Messenger, there was a reason: he was preparing to travel to Nairobi, Kenya and Madagascar on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Church in Africa. Before leaving, he spoke about the trip, the work of the subcommittee, and why solidarity with the Church in Africa matters to Catholics in Covington and beyond.

Q: Where are you headed?

Bishop Iffert: I am getting on an airplane July 16 and traveling first to Nairobi, Kenya, and then to Madagascar. I will be there on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Church in Africa. In Nairobi, I will attend the AMECEA (the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa) bishops’ conference, which includes countries in northeastern Africa such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda. Afterward, I will travel to Madagascar for that bishops’ conference as well.

Q: What will the bishops be discussing in Nairobi?

Bishop Iffert: The bishops are beginning a dialogue in which they are accompanying and listening to young people, especially young men. They want to understand the difficulties young people are experiencing, including a lack of opportunity, and how those struggles can contribute to instability and violence. The hope is to find ways for the Church to help young people make a successful transition into adulthood and to advocate for policies that create more opportunities and reduce violence and sectarianism.

Q: How long have you served on the subcommittee?

Bishop Iffert: This is my second year. I became involved after talking with Archbishop (Thomas) Zinkula, who chairs the committee, about my plans to travel to Ghana to visit the families of priests serving here. He invited me to serve. The work has been some of the most positive and reaffirming committee work I have done.

Q: What does the subcommittee do?

Bishop Iffert: The subcommittee is part of the Committee on National Collections and focuses on the Church in Africa. Through an optional national collection, it provides small grants, up to $50,000, for projects submitted through bishops’ conferences. The requests are carefully reviewed by regional bishops, staff and technical experts before the bishops on the subcommittee make the final review.

Q: What kinds of needs have stood out to you?

Bishop Iffert: One grant application from South Sudan has stayed with me. The bishop there has lived in the midst of civil war for 10 years, and every one of his priests has either witnessed or been the subject of traumatic violence. He requested funds to bring counselors to help his priests cope with trauma so they could continue serving the people. Reading an application like that gives you a sense of the Church in the broader world and of our unity in Christ.

Q: Is it dangerous for priests in parts of Africa?

Bishop Iffert: In some places, yes, especially where there is conflict between radicalized Muslim populations and strong Christian communities. Those conflicts can be very dangerous. But I do not want to contribute to the idea that the entire continent of Africa is dangerous or struggling. There are beautiful, developing and thriving nations and societies in Africa. There are also dangerous places where radicalization has taken hold.

Q: Why should Catholics in the United States care about solidarity with the Church in Africa?

Bishop Iffert: Because we are a universal Church. We are not fully the Church we are called to be if we are separate. Charity may begin at home, but I cannot be charitable to my own family if I do not also see how the whole human family is connected as children of God, and how Christians are connected as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

The bishops are concerned about the Church in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa because the way those churches grow and form affects the whole Church. The way we respond to the needs of our brothers and sisters also affects the way Christ grows in us.

The vocation of bishop, you know, we serve. This is something we need to get across more. We are not Congregationalists. We are Catholics. Every pastor, while he is entrusted with the care of souls in a certain parish, he has responsibility for the whole diocese as well. He shares with me a responsibility for the evangelization and the sustenance, and the sanctification of the whole diocese. That’s what we mean when we say that priests form a college around the bishop.

The same is true of bishops. We have responsibilities for a particular local Church. My responsibility is for the apostolic ministry in the Diocese of Covington, but I also share with all my other brother bishop’s responsibility for the whole Church. I share that responsibility with my brother bishops and the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome. If we fail to support one another, then we’re failing Christ. We’re failing the apostolic witness that went out to the corners of the world.

Q: How does that connection show up here in Covington?

Bishop Iffert: There is a fundamental unity and a fundamental missionary impulse that is essential to the life of the Church, and right now we’re seeing it work in both directions. We see it in priests from Africa who serve here. Priests from Ghana and Uganda have come to serve our communities because their dioceses know that we do not have the number of priests we have been used to. They come to us as missionaries. At the same time, we say to the Church in Africa, “Here are the resources we have. How can we help you?” There is more than an economic exchange. If we do not serve one another, we fail to be the Body of Christ we are intended to be.

Q: Do you have an agenda for the trip?

Bishop Iffert: Yes. The AMECEA group has a detailed agenda for us. The meeting itself runs during the first part of the trip, and afterward we will have meetings, guided tours and time with Church leaders in Nairobi. There is also an agenda in Madagascar, though I do not yet know all it will include. I know the day I am arriving, the day I am leaving and the people I am trusting myself to. We will see where it goes from there. I hope to visit with the Sisters of Divine Providence who have a provincial house in Madagascar.

Q: Anything else you hope to see?

Bishop Iffert: I told them I definitely want to see the lemurs in Madagascar.

Q: What has serving on the subcommittee meant to you personally?

Bishop Iffert: I love being part of this committee. It has been very fruitful — fruitful for me and for my own spirituality.

Bella Bailey

Multimedia Correspondent

As the spring portion of the Diocese of Covington’s strategic planning process draws to a close, each commission and their respective committees will meet once more to draft their goals for the future. Since May, each commission has been involved in a deep process of education and discernment with members of the Diocesan community who have volunteered their time and effort as members of commission committees.

Over the course of three months, each committee has met to learn, grow and develop specific interest areas of the Diocese of Covington’s strategic plan. Together, they worked toward a common goal of improving the lives of all those who live and worship in the Diocese of Covington. For some commissions it was planned giving, for others it was ministry work, for the Schools Commission their goal was simple: promoting student success.

Chair of the Academic Excellence Committee and Chair of the School of Education for Thomas More University, Crestview Hills, Christy Petroze, said “my thought is always ‘how does this impact my students,’ and if it doesn’t really impact my students then I’d rather be doing something else.”

The Schools Commission consists of four committees: mission and Catholic identity, academic excellence, governance and leadership and operational vitality. “Those have to exist to support our work,” said Dr. Petroze, “but I would imagine at the heart of it is about student success in our Catholic Schools, to promote the Catholic faith in education.”

Dr. Petroze outlined that the Academic Excellence Committee has identified two primary areas focus areas of standardizing curriculum and increasing inclusive education. In August of 2025, the Diocese of Covington hired Emily Urlage, director of curriculum and instruction for the Diocese of Covington’s school office. Since being hired, Mrs. Urlage has worked to create a standardized curriculum for Diocesan schools.

Once completed, these new curricula will serve as “guidelines,” said Dr. Petroze, “they are not telling teachers how or what to teach.” But rather, the curriculum will continue to move Diocesan schools into a “more rigorous academic setting … that’s the expectation across the Diocese,” said Dr. Petroze.

In addition to standardized curricula, the committee is also focused on inclusive education, citing the support of the Fire Foundation of Northern Kentucky. Dr. Petroze explained that the question is “how can our Catholic schools be more inclusive to students with special needs?”

As the committee continued to meet throughout the summer months, members comprising of parents, grandparents, teachers and alumni have all come away with a deeper understanding “of the structure of the schools and the expectations of teachers, parents and students,” said Dr. Petroze. “It has been a nice community space to have these open conversations and people are just feeling free to ask the questions.”

As the committee meetings come to an end, Dr. Petroze reflected on the opportunity to meet and discern with members of the community who are spiritually invested in the state of Catholic education in the Diocese of Covington.

“It has been a really wonderful experience to see all of those community stakeholders who really do want to see Catholic education continue. They all have a stake in it, they want to see it grow and they are committed in positive ways to listening and solving … it’s been awesome to have that many people in the room who care about Catholic education,” she said.

Laura Keener

Editor

On the 50th anniversary of the Associates program of the Congregation of Divine Providence, Melbourne, Bishop John Iffert celebrated Mass, June 28, in the chapel at Holy Family Home.

The Mass was joyful and filled to near capacity with both Sisters of Divine Providence and many of the over 80 Associates. During Mass, two women, Jerri Abrams of Newport, Ky., and Rachel Alonzo of New Mexico, were received as new Associates.

In his homily, reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the Associates program, Bishop Iffert connected the milestone to the wider witness of consecrated life and God’s abundant love. Consecrated life, he said, gives “witness to the universality of God’s love” and to the way God “shares his love prodigiously.”

Drawing on the image of a garden, Bishop Iffert noted that while people carefully place seed in prepared soil, “that’s not the way God sows seed,” adding that “the whole world is his garden.”

“God shares his love prodigiously, right, with a fecundity and an amazement that just takes hold of the world,” Bishop Iffert said.

For the associates marking this jubilee, Bishop Iffert described their commitment as a decision “to be associated with that” generous love and to share in it through their own vocations. He emphasized that this love reaches beyond family, community and national boundaries, calling believers “to love everyone in a crazy, prodigious way” and “to share that with the world” as fully as they are able.

Founded in 1976, the Associate program invites women and men, including priests, to grow deeper in their spiritual life as associate members of the Congregation of Divine Providence.

Two women shared their story of a call that came in very different ways but led to the same place — a deeper life with God, the sisters and one another.

Mary Helen Bertolini, an associate since the early years of the program, said her path began long before she made her commitment. She had once been in the convent with the Sisters of Divine Providence for 10 years. When she left, she said, the way things were then made the break feel final. “It was like, okay, you left, the doors closed,” she recalled.

Then Divine Providence Sister Mary Catherine Hunt invited former members back for a reunion day. For Ms. Bertolini, it was a moment of grace.

“You could feel the healing in the air,” she said. “The comfort, the welcome.”

After that, she became more connected with the sisters again. When the associate program became part of her life, she said, “It was like kind of coming home.”

For Jerri Abrams, who was received as an associate during the anniversary celebration, the call grew slowly. She had known the sisters as teachers, parish leaders and friends of the community.

“I’ve always found them to be women that were inspirational and fun,” she said. “The seed was planted long ago and just had to wait for the right timing.”

That timing came in a simple way. After Mrs. Abrams made a comment at church, another associate heard it and passed her name along. Soon she received a call.

“I was like, I didn’t call this person, but this person called me,” she said. “How did that happen?”

The story of the Sisters of Divine Providence begins in France in 1762 with Blessed Jean-Martin Moye, a parish priest who saw poor villages where children, especially girls, had little chance for school or faith formation. He sent women into those forgotten places to teach and to serve. They traveled with little security except trust in God. That trust became the heart of the Congregation of Divine Providence.

Today, sisters and associates try to live that same Providence charism. Their daily life is grounded in four fundamental virtues: poverty, simplicity, apostolic charity and abandonment to Divine Providence. For associates, those virtues do not take them away from daily life. They help them live it more deeply.

“You don’t do anything different in the life that’s yours,” Ms. Bertolini said. “This helps you just go deeper.” She said the associate life gives her a community for “walking the gospel path,” with sisters who are “support and friends and prayer partners.”

Mrs. Abrams said the virtue that speaks to her most right now is Abandonment to Divine Providence. As a mother and grandmother, she knows the pull to worry and hold on tight. The sisters’ charism, she said, reminds her to “let God be the leader” and to follow.

“You have to kind of let go of something to get something new,” she said. “You have to empty out to fill up with something refreshing.”

Both women spoke of the sisters not as distant figures, but as real people whose lives show faith in action. Mrs. Abrams said she has come to see how much the sisters have done for “Church families, children,” for people in need, and for justice. “They go beyond that,” she said. “Social justice and fairness and rights of others.”

What draws her most is their joy and closeness. Many have known one another since they were young sisters. After years of teaching, nursing, serving and praying, they now share daily life together. “They’re truly a community of love,” Mrs. Abrams said. “They just are so cool. I just love being around them.”

For Ms. Bertolini, the associate life unfolds one day at a time. “Each day has its own call,” she said. Each morning she asks God to help her “show Christ to others” and “walk the gospel path.” At night, she said, she asks forgiveness for the times she did not, and asks her guardian angel to urge her back when she starts to turn away.

Prayer also keeps associates connected even when they are far apart. During the anniversary celebration, associates drew names and promised to pray for another associate for the year. Ms. Bertolini said that kind of prayer “brings people together as community, whether they’re physically together or they’re not.”

That sense of Providence carried through the weekend. “God’s there,” Ms. Bertolini said. “Providence was right in the midst of it.”

Fifty years after the associate program began, the call continues in quiet, personal ways: through a reunion, a teacher, a church comment, a phone call, a prayer. For Ms. Bertolini, it was homecoming. For Mrs. Abrams, it was a new step on a long faith journey. For both, it is a way to share the sisters’ mission in everyday life, with joy, trust and open hands.

For information about becoming an associate, contact Marilyn Schleyer, ACDP, formation coordinator, at (859) 380-6155 or [email protected].