Illinois, Colorado Catholics offer helping hand to Mississippi parish

Published: 2005-09-21

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Catholics in Illinois and Colorado are among the volunteers helping a small, predominantly African-American parish in Mississippi to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. "My church and my school were completely destroyed. My rectory and the convent were flooded with 4 feet of water. It's terrible here," said Josephite Father William L. Norvel, pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Parish in Pascagoula, Miss., in a Sept. 16 interview with the Denver Catholic Register, archdiocesan newspaper. But help and hope have come from Cure d'Ars Parish, a 400-family, predominantly African-American faith community in Denver, and from the 5,500-family St. Isidore Parish in Bloomingdale, Ill., in the Diocese of Joliet. "The Catholic response has been amazing," Father Norvel said. "We're going to make it with some help from our friends."

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .