The Archdiocese of Chicago’s 14th Annual Prayer Service for Child Abuse Prevention and Pinwheels Planting will be held at 11 a.m., on Thursday, May 1, 2025 at the Healing Garden at Holy Family Parish, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., Chicago. The outdoor service will be led by Bishop Lawrence J. Sullivan, vicar general, and Greg Richmond, superintendent of Schools for the Archdiocese of Chicago. As part of the prayer service, students, staff, parishioners and community members will pray, sing, plant pinwheels and tie blue ribbons on to trees in the Healing Garden, both symbols of child safeguarding efforts.
The Healing Garden is a place dedicated to the healing, recovery and reconciliation of child abuse victims and their families and the larger Catholic Church community. It has served as the site where the community comes together each year spring to recognize National Child Abuse Prevention Month, which is observed in April.
“Each year, the Annual Prevent Child Abuse Prayer Service provides us a new opportunity to come together in prayer and song to raise awareness, and to bring focus to the important message of the prevention of child abuse in all its forms,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago. “The protection of children and youth from abuse and other harm is the responsibility of the entire Church, including the faithful and we must all do our part to keep children safe. Let us pray for those children and youth who experience any form of harm and may the winds of change bring an end to all child abuse. In this we pray.”
More than 100 students from St. Ailbe School, Annunciata School, Old St. Mary’s School and St. Therese School will attend the service. In addition to Sullivan and Richmond, speakers will include Michael Hoffman, chairperson for the Hope and Healing committee and victim-survivor; Leah Heffernan, senior director, Office for the Protection of Children and Youth (OPCY) and Rev. Patrick Fairbanks, SJ, chaplain at Saint Ignatius College Prep. Students from Saint Ignatius College Prep will provide music, read the Prayers of the Faithful and help to plan the luncheon for elementary students following the event.
“Children and adults come together in public prayer and song to highlight the safety and dignity all children deserve as children of God,” said Hoffman. “When I was a little boy, I never heard public messages surrounding my safety. I was never allowed public and explicit permission to say if anything bad happened to me, or if an adult was doing something wrong to my body. This prayer service marks significant progress from when I was a little boy. I am grateful to Cardinal Cupich, OPCY, the Office of Catholic Schools and Saint Ignatius College Prep as partners in this important ministry of safeguarding all of God’s children from any kind of harm.”
The Healing Garden was created by a committee of victim-survivors, diocesan priests and OPCY staff. Through the garden, many victim-survivors have been helped to heal, learn and grow from the abuse they suffered, freeing their spirits from fear, shame and judgement.
A working group of clergy abuse survivors proposed the creation of a National Healing Garden in Washington, D.C. to promote reconciliation, healing, and peace in the aftermath of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis. The garden will demonstrate and make visible the U.S. Church’s permanent commitment and obligation to the healing of victims of abuse and to repairing the wounds of abuse in the Church. It will serve as a peaceful site for prayer, reflection and solitude for the public.
Hoffman, chair of the project, said, “The National Healing Garden is meant to be a heartfelt expression of hope for healing in the Church. We are now in the process of reaching out to the Church as a whole, in a deliberate and intentional invitation to engage together in the efforts to heal. Healing is not a solitary act; survivors cannot do this alone. The goal of the National Healing Garden is to invite reconciliation, healing and eventual freedom from the painful wounds caused by abuse, not only for survivors of abuse and their families, but also for the entire Body of Christ.”
Through OPCY, schools and parishes provide age-appropriate, research-based training to children and youth enrolled in our schools and parish religious education programs to help them better recognize inappropriate behavior and understand how they should report it to trusted adults. More than 100,000 students receive safe environment training in Catholic school and religious education classes annually.
About Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago
For more than 175 years, schools have been a critical and dynamic ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Generations of families have relied on Catholic Schools for academic and spiritual development, resulting in an alumni community that numbers in the millions. Today, 186 Catholic schools serve more than 60,000 students in pre-school through twelfth grade. They form a community that represents every zip code in Cook and Lake counties and continue to deliver on the promise of Catholic education by preparing students to live faithful and successful lives.
About the Archdiocese of Chicago
The Archdiocese of Chicago, the third largest in the United States, serves more than 1.9 million Catholics in 216 parishes in Cook County and Lake County, a geographic area of 1,411 square miles. The Archdiocese, pastored by Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, has more than 13,000 employees in its systems and ministries, including Catholic Charities, one of the region’s largest nonprofit social service agencies. The Archdiocese also has one of the country’s largest seminaries. Its 150+ elementary and secondary schools comprise one of the largest U.S. private school systems.