In 2013, several individuals from St. Marianne Cope’s birthplace of Heppenheim, Germany, visited Kalaupapa, where our Sisters greeted them with genuine Franciscan hospitality. Recently, S. Davilyn Ah Chick received an email from Fr. Thomas Meurer, the pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Heppenheim, with exciting news and an invitation.
In a parish consolidation in his church’s home diocese, Fr. Thomas noted that Heppenheim’s four parishes will become one on January 1, 2025. When the parish council considered a name for the new parish, “the pastoral council decided by a unanimous vote to name the new parish “Heilige (which means Saint) Marianne Cope Heppenheim,” he wrote.
He also invited the Sisters to attend a festive service at St. Peter’s in Heppenheim to celebrate the foundation of the new parish and its patron saint.
It’s wonderful that St. Marianne will have a parish named in her honor in the town where she was born!
