St. Anthony Shrine holds special appeal
Catharine Brennan splits her time between Philadelphia and her beloved Boston — and her heart always takes her back to St. Anthony Shrine.
She loves the music. She loves the uplifting sermons. She loves the shrine’s caring mission — and she’s become a loyal donor to the downtown church.
“They really are the heart and soul of what we should be doing as a church,” said Brennan, 64, a former college guidance counselor who now helps run the College Perspectives Mentor Program at Cristo Rey Boston High School in Dorchester.
“They reach out to everybody and everybody is welcome,” said Brennan, a mother of three and grandmother. “You feel that so strongly when you walk in there, the way they just value everybody and pay attention to the needs of anybody who walks in the door, whether they’re affluent or homeless or hungry or need health care.”
Throughout the years, women have been faithful donors, said Maryanne Rooney-Hegan, the shrine’s director of development.
And an increasing number of women have been making donations both large and small in the wake of the 2016 opening of the Women’s Health Clinic at St. Anthony. Rooney-Hegan was instrumental in getting a recent $500,000 grant for the clinic from the Woburn-based Cummings Foundation.
Catharine said she and her husband, Jack, have always been drawn to the shrine.
“They try to do what we all should be doing as people, just reaching out and making sure that everybody is cared for,” Brennan said of St. Anthony’s. “I don’t know of anybody who does it as well as they do. It’s really a special place.”