Holy Trinity Catholic Church

DIOCESAN DEVELOPMENT FUND (DDF)
To date our parish has given 62% toward our goal and 38 donors which is 47% of our 81 donors goal. Thank you! Across the diocese, $803,609.55 has been pledged toward the $3,100,000.00 goal. The diocese and Church in southern Missouri need your participation. If you have not yet made your pledge, please add your gift, whatever the amount, in unity with those who have already given by returning a pledge card or clicking the link below.

DDF 2026 - DioSCG Bishop’s Annual Appeal 2026 Diocesan Development Fund (DDF) On August 15, 2026, the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau will gather in West Plains, MO, to celebrate our first-ever Diocesan Eucharistic Congress. This will be a significant event to mark the 70th anniversary of the diocese establis...

When I was growing up, priests ran the church and nuns taught the school. Lay people were expected to “pay, pray and obey.” Our parish had lay trustees because the state required this, but they had very little responsibility. I remember one trustee telling my dad that all he had been asked to do was to fix the plumbing. Pastors who didn’t want lay involvement in decision making could treat the parish councils that began after Vatican II as window dressing.

But in this era of priest shortages and synodality, we are ALL called to full participation in the life of our church including exercising leadership and authority. In Elise Allen’s inspiring new biography of Pope Leo, she describes how he has long embraced this idea. In Peru, he appointed lay people including numerous women to positions of authority. In his parishes and diocese. Will this become his model for the whole Church? Let’s hope so for the good of the Church.

Leadership studies have shown that organizations do best with a mixture of male and female administrators and that surely includes the Church., I’ve seen the positive impact that our female pastoral minister has made. By the time Pope Leo’s successor is elected, will lay women and men be running numerous departments in the Vatican and dioceses worldwide? There are no theological barriers to this.

Today when we “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for the harvest,” we need to ask God to inspire “laborers” of all states of life to give their best talents to the Church and for ordained “laborers” to maximize the use of those gifts.