Latest news with #FatherMichaelPfleger
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
‘This is personal': 7 teens wounded in drive-by shooting in Auburn Gresham after St. Sabina graduation party
Chicago police said seven teens were wounded in an overnight shooting at a large gathering in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood after a St. Sabina graduation party, drawing an angry statement from the church's longtime leader, Father Michael Pfleger, Shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday, officers on patrol in the 1200 block of West 78th Street were trying to disperse a large crowd when a vehicle drove by and someone opened fire. Seven teens were shot before the vehicle fled the scene, police said. Officers located multiple victims shot in an alley in the 1200 block of west 78th Street who were initially uncooperative, according to a police report. Victims later said that they were leaving a graduation party at St. Sabina Church when three to four people with ski masks exited a black SUV and started shooting. A neighbor also told officers that they saw a person step out of a dark colored SUV and shoot at the victims who were on the sidewalk. Officers located a rifle found underneath a car and multiple shell casings were also found on the block, according to a police report. 'I'm angry, I'm mad, and I'm disgusted,' Pfleger said in a video on Facebook. 'This is not something you can solve by more programming, more police, by SNAP Curfew, none of that stuff can stop this. 2 o'clock in the morning what's gonna stop this is parents saying 'Where the hell are your kids?'' Pfleger in his statement urged parents to make sure they always know where their kids are, for young people to make wiser choices about what they post on social media and for people stop carrying around guns and embracing gun culture. 'This is personal. This is an attack on St. Sabina. This is an attack on me personally. This is an attack on everything we stand for,' Pfleger said. Pfleger said that he is planning to offer a $10,000 dollar reward to anyone who catches the suspects of the shooting. He is advising anyone with information on the shooting to call either the police at 312-745-3610 or 773-483-4300 Teens ranging in age from 17 to 19 were taken to area hospitals. No one was in custody for the drive-by shooting, and detectives were investigating. The incident also comes about two weeks before St. Sabina is scheduled to do their peace walks, where St. Sabina parishioners walk through the neighborhood every Friday during the summer to prevent gun violence. The walk includes passing out information about social services and job opportunities, among other resources. The first march is scheduled for June 13 at 7 p.m.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
‘This is personal': 7 teens wounded in drive-by shooting in Auburn Gresham after St. Sabina graduation party
Chicago police said seven teens were wounded in an overnight shooting at a large gathering in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood after a St. Sabina graduation party, drawing an angry statement from the church's longtime leader, Father Michael Pfleger, Shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday, officers on patrol in the 1200 block of West 78th Street were trying to disperse a large crowd when a vehicle drove by and someone opened fire. Seven teens were shot before the vehicle fled the scene, police said. Officers located multiple victims shot in an alley in the 1200 block of west 78th Street who were initially uncooperative, according to a police report. Victims later said that they were leaving a graduation party at St. Sabina Church when three to four people with ski masks exited a black SUV and started shooting. A neighbor also told officers that they saw a person step out of a dark colored SUV and shoot at the victims who were on the sidewalk. Officers located a rifle found underneath a car and multiple shell casings were also found on the block, according to a police report. 'I'm angry, I'm mad, and I'm disgusted,' Pfleger said in a video on Facebook. 'This is not something you can solve by more programming, more police, by SNAP Curfew, none of that stuff can stop this. 2 o'clock in the morning what's gonna stop this is parents saying 'Where the hell are your kids?'' Pfleger in his statement urged parents to make sure they always know where their kids are, for young people to make wiser choices about what they post on social media and for people stop carrying around guns and embracing gun culture. 'This is personal. This is an attack on St. Sabina. This is an attack on me personally. This is an attack on everything we stand for,' Pfleger said. Pfleger said that he is planning to offer a $10,000 dollar reward to anyone who catches the suspects of the shooting. He is advising anyone with information on the shooting to call either the police at 312-745-3610 or 773-483-4300 Teens ranging in age from 17 to 19 were taken to area hospitals. No one was in custody for the drive-by shooting, and detectives were investigating. The incident also comes about two weeks before St. Sabina is scheduled to do their peace walks, where St. Sabina parishioners walk through the neighborhood every Friday during the summer to prevent gun violence. The walk includes passing out information about social services and job opportunities, among other resources. The first march is scheduled for June 13 at 7 p.m.
CBS News
30-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
St. Sabina Church community has been walking for peace every summer Friday for nearly 20 years
The St. Sabina Church community is not afraid to take to the streets to fight gun violence; they have been walking for peace every Friday night during the summer for nearly 20 years. "The communities with the most violence have poor schools, have lack economic development, lack of housing, boarded up buildings," said Father Michael Pfleger, St. Sabina pastor. "It's not, it's, you know, not rocket science. If you take everything, you rape the community of everything, then don't wonder why you have hopelessness and you have violence." Fr. Pfleger has often reflected on the root causes of violence in Chicago. "We have made violence part of the wardrobe of America, and guns part of the wardrobe of America, and is now an accepted norm, " he said. But the St. Sabina community is doing everything it can to reverse what has become the norm. Hundreds gather in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood over the summer for weekly Friday Night Peace Walks. Residents want to stop gun violence and put an end to the senseless killings around Chicago. The night is more than just a show of force. The church also educates the community about vailable resources. "We pass out information about services we have, about jobs, about our social service, about if you have a record, you can get an expungement. So we pass out information," said Pfleger. "But the biggest thing people keep telling me is, they come out of their houses and on the porch, we have music plays as we're going down the street. They're dancing on their porches. Their kids are dancing in the street. They talk about the joy of seeing a different presence, you know. And I really think it's so important this year, because there — so many people are depressed and feel so hopeless." Each Friday, the same question is asked in the neighborhood: Where is the tension? They hope that by talking that out, another tragedy can be prevented. This year, the Friday Night Peace Walks at St. Sabina will begin on Friday June 13, and go every Friday until Oct. 1. CBS News Chicago has partnered with Strides for Peace as the media sponsor for Chicago's Race Against Gun Violence in Grant Park on June 5. Click here for more information on the fundraiser, how to sign up and our coverage of participating nonprofits.
Reuters
09-05-2025
- General
- Reuters
Chicago celebrates its native son's elevation to pope
CHICAGO, May 8 (Reuters) - The old parish church buildings on Chicago's far South Side where Pope Leo XIV grew up, attended grammar school and launched his career as a priest are now vacated and in disrepair, a victim of the sometimes painful changes within the Roman Catholic Church since he was a boy. Even so, the derelict structures stand as a silent reminder to the new pontiff's deep, longstanding ties to the city and the second-largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Former Cardinal Robert Prevost stunned his hometown on Thursday when the Vatican announced that the 69-year-old Chicago native had been chosen as the first U.S.-born pontiff in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church. His selection unleashed celebration among Catholics in the Midwestern city and a flurry of questions about the future of his papacy, from how it would shape the divide between church conservatives and liberals to whether he was a fan of the Chicago Cubs or their rivals, the White Sox. 'For Catholics in Chicago, this is somebody who gets us, who knows us, who knows our experience, seeing the closures and the dwindling congregations, and the diminishing Catholic presence in America in general," said Father Michael Pfleger, a priest at St. Sabina Catholic Church on Chicago's South Side known for his political activism. A crowd of clergy and staff members at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago's Hyde Park, where the future pontiff obtained his master's degree in divinity in 1982, erupted in joyful cheers as live television showed Pope Leo walking out onto the Vatican balcony in Rome. "Many of us were just simply incredulous and just couldn't even find words to express our delight, our pride," said Sister Barbara Reid, the president of the theology school. She said the "explosion of excitement" was followed by quiet as the room fell into prayer for the new pope. Reid described Pope Leo as a brilliant intellectual and a person of extraordinary compassion. "It's an unusual blend that makes him a leader who can think critically, but listens to the cries of the poorest, and always has in mind those who are most needy," she said. Lawrence Sullivan, the vicar general for the Archdiocese of Chicago, its 1.9 million Catholics and 216 parishes, said Pope Leo was also a very prayerful and spiritual man. "It's a day of great excitement for Chicago, for the United States to have one of our own be elected as the pope," he said. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, in remarks posted on social media, was more plain-spoken in his exuberance, declaring: "Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago!" The pope-to-be, by all accounts an exceptional student as a youngster, grew up in the old St. Mary of Assumption parish at the far southern edge of Chicago, attending grade school there and serving as an altar boy. He later studied at the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine in St. Louis, according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois, before graduating from Villanova University near Philadelphia in 1977 with a degree in mathematics. He then returned to Chicago to attend divinity school and joined the Augustinian religious order. When he was newly ordained he celebrated mass in his home parish, St. Mary of the Assumption. Since then he has spent the majority of his career overseas, mainly in Peru. His family's parish, situated in a leafy area on the far South Side near the Little Calumet River, has long been shuttered, tattered curtains fluttering in the red brick building's shattered windows. Blocks of clapboard houses and Protestant churches surrounding the church - which closed when the archdiocese consolidated parishes - were quiet on Thursday afternoon. In a goodwill gesture in keeping with the atmosphere of excitement on Thursday, the Chicago Cubs said they had invited the new pope to Wrigley Field to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," a seventh-inning tradition led by a different celebrity at every home game. The storied Major League Baseball team said they could not confirm that Pope Leo was a Cubs fan. His brother, John Prevost, who lives in New Lenox southwest of Chicago, said the new pontiff was not. Residents of Chicago's South Side tend to favor the Cubs' cross-town rivals, the White Sox. Kevin Schultz, professor of history and Catholic studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said Leo's ascendancy would inject energy and excitement into an archdiocese whose community is defined by an array of ethnicities and languages and is increasingly shaped by migrants from Latin America. "We are in the forefront of the changing dynamic of the church throughout the world, with our increasing number of immigrants constituting a larger and larger percentage of the Catholic population in the archdiocese of Chicago," Schultz said. The rise of the Chicago-born priest to the papacy was not without controversy. In 2023, survivors of clergy sex abuse filed a complaint with the Vatican over Prevost and others after the Chicago-based chapter of the Augustinian order that Prevost once led paid a $2 million settlement over rape accusations by a priest whose name was left off a public list of sex offenders.
