June 14, 2026
Dear Friends,
This past week I was in Phoenix, Arizona with a priest friend from our diocese to participate in a national conference on ministry to teenagers. This was my first time attending such an event and it was a great opportunity to meet and to talk with youth ministry leaders from all over the US.
Prior to the conference, I had heard that the Phoenix area is one of the places in the country where the company Waymo has been introducing driverless cars. On Monday evening, my friend and I had dinner at a restaurant located about 15 minutes from the conference center. We took a taxi to the restaurant, but decided to try a driverless car for the ride back to where we were staying. I downloaded the Waymo app to my phone and within a few minutes, a driverless car was on its way to pick us up.
The car pulled up exactly where we had indicated we would be, and I was able to unlock the doors with the app on my phone. After we got into the car and buckled our seatbelts, I pressed a button to start the ride and off we were. At first it was a bit surreal to be riding in a car that had no driver. To see the steering wheel, and to experience the car speeding up and slowing down, all without a driver, created some cognitive dissonance. At the same time, though, it was impressive to see what our technological advancements have achieved. At no point in our 15-minute ride back did we feel unsafe. By the time we got to our destination, it was not hard for me to imagine that we might soon experience riding driverless car as something commonplace.
I mention all of this to you because this experience might help us to appreciate something that we hear in this Sunday’s gospel passage. St. Matthew writes, “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.” Nearly two thousand years have passed since Jesus looked out at that vast crowd, years in which technology has made it possible for us to do more and more things without the need of another human being. But we cannot think that those technological advancements mean that we can live and flourish while being shepherd-less.
We may soon be living in a world in which we are all ride around in driverless cars, but we can never make our way through life without Jesus as our shepherd. He is the one who can give direction and meaning to our lives, since he makes it possible for us to know and live out our identity as beloved sons and daughters of our heavenly Father. Without Jesus as our shepherd, we would be as “troubled and abandoned” as the crowd in today’s gospel.
At the time of Jesus’ public ministry, he called the Twelve to work with him in proclaiming the Good News and caring for his flock. Today the Good Shepherd continues to care and provide for us through those he calls to succeed the Apostles in the ministry of pastoring. Pope Leo and Bishop McClory are for us what the Twelve were for Jesus’ original disciples. Through their humanity—with their gifts and limitations—the pope and our bishop allow us to experience the closeness and care of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
We pray for the pope and our bishop by name during the Eucharistic Prayer at every Mass, asking the Lord to keep us in communion with them and with Christ’s flock. But I want to encourage you to keep Pope Leo and Bishop McClory in your prayers throughout the week.
The pope has the responsibility of guiding the Church through the many challenges we face today, including violence around the world and the changes resulting from the ongoing Artificial Intelligence revolution. Bishop McClory is guiding our diocese at a time of pastoral restructuring. This process involves the merger and closure of parishes throughout our diocese, including the changes we will be experiencing in Dyer. I appreciate that not everyone agrees with the bishop’s decision. But I hope we all recognize that the bishop has asked us to come together as one parish because he believes it will allow all of us to live out the mission the Lord has entrusted to us in our part of the diocese.
Peace,
Father Leo