When Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. arrived at West Point in 1932 the administrators were caught off guard, as they were not expecting a light-skinned, mixed race cadet. One drop of negro blood still consigned you to the ashes, and so Cadet Davis was housed in a converted janitor’s closet. West Point invoked the policy of “Coventry”, more clearly, the silent treatment, hoping the extreme social isolation would force him to quit.

As we celebrate the 25-year anniversary of our Las Vecinas de El Salvador ministry and renew our Sister Parish Covenant this November, we are more committed than ever to support the scholarships, job training workshops, food distribution program, health clinic, and other special programs and projects we fund. Our online auction is the main fundraising event of the year, and we need your donations to make it a success!

Last weekend, we began the month of November, when the Church remembers in a special way all those who have gone before us in faith, with our annual All Souls Day Requiem Mass. It was a beautiful and moving celebration. Our choir, under the direction of Patrick Hagen, led us in prayer with Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, and the church was filled with parishioners who had come to remember and pray for their beloved dead, entrusting them once again to the loving embrace of God. As Fr. John reminded us in his homily, “Death does not sever the bonds of love.”