St. Cecilia pastor encounters Appalachia faithful on mission immersion trip

At left, Father Francis Macatangay, pastor of St. Cecilia Parish in Houston, looks at a regional map of eastern Kentucky at Our Mother of Good Counsel Church in Jenkins, Kentucky, on June 10 during a Catholic Extension Society immersion trip to the Appalachian region of Kentucky. (Photo by Juan Guajardo/Catholic Extension)

JENKINS, Kentucky — Father Francis Macatangay of St. Cecilia Catholic Church traveled to the Appalachian Mountains in eastern Kentucky for a pastor immersion trip, sponsored by Catholic Extension Society. Catholic Extension has a long history of supporting missions in the Appalachian Mountains, where Catholics represent less than one-half of a percent of the total population in most of its counties. 

Catholic Extension’s mission immersion program aims to broaden church leaders’ horizons through enriching learning experiences of the Church’s missionary activities. 

In the eastern Kentucky region, the parishes are small, the facilities are very basic, the priests are limited and the Church’s financial means are also extremely limited. 

A largely dismantled coal industry, which was the longtime economic backbone of the region, has left many people in distress due to the challenges of poverty, food insecurity and inadequate housing, many without running water. Nonetheless, the Catholic Church still has a strong reputation in the area; that way, anyone who has a need can get help. 

While on the trip, participants met with Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv., of the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, for an overview of the diocese and its Laudato Si’ initiative, and visited many parishes within the area that need help. They also met with a small congregation of the Missionaries of Charity, the community founded by St. Teresa of Kolkata, who serve families in Jenkins, Kentucky. Their efforts began the order’s first-ever rural American mission. The Missionaries of Charity often visit the local prisons and various drug rehab centers in the region.

In July 2022, Jenkins was one of 13 counties in Eastern Kentucky that were declared federal disaster zones after severe flash flooding inundated the region with more than 16 inches of rain.

One of the greatest afflictions that communities faces are not economic poverty, poor housing conditions or threats of flooding. Rather, it is the prevalence of drugs and addiction and the casualties of despair that result from it — families torn apart, people imprisoned or killed.
With the Missionaries of Charity, Father Macatangay met a family impacted by drug addiction and struggle. Because of the help from the sisters, the family began the road to recovery and even had the family’s grandchildren baptized at the nearby Catholic mission. 

The idea of an immersion trip is to bring faithful to the periphery to meet and stand with the homeless, the abandoned, the sorrowful and the powerless. These are precisely the places where the Catholic Church plants itself — often with the support of Catholic Extension Society — to offer spiritual and social care to those most in need. 

To learn more about the Catholic Extension, visit catholicextension.org.