A reader writes

In the early 1900’s the Russian Far East boasted a thriving Roman Catholic population. Many Russians, Poles, Lithuanians and other groups inhabited the area. They built schools, hospitals, and beautiful churches.

After the revolution of 1917, Siberia became a showplace of the new Communist era, a land without churches and without God. Under Stalin all Catholic churches were confiscated and many were turned into the most degrading uses imaginable. Catholics were murdered by the thousands, and their bodies dumped into mass graves. Cemeteries were turned into amusement parks.

Two American priest, Fr. Myron Effing, CJD, and Fr. Daniel Maurer, CJD, arrived in Vladivostok in 1992 to help re-establish the Church in the region. They founded or refounded eleven Catholic parishes in an area covering nearly 600,000 square miles. With the foundation laid, additional priests and sisters are joining the work, and parishes are slowing growing and multiplying.

Fr. Maurer who just visited our parish and the Catholic school is serving God in an amazing mission to help bring back the Catholic Church in Russia. Please pray for their work and if you’d like to learn more, visit their website here.

The video does a good job of telling about the work.

Check thou it out. The Pope has more divisions than Stalin thought.