My dear family in Christ,

I’m sure that many of us are starting our preparations for the upcoming holiday season, beginning with Thanksgiving and extending into Christmas and the New Year. It is my hope and prayer that these preparations will lead to joyous and grace-filled celebrations with family, friends, and fellow parishioners.

While I am beginning my own personal preparations, including thinking about how to enter into a truly fruitful Advent and considering ideas for homilies for the upcoming feasts, I also have to prepare myself for the annual Fall meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). This organization made up of all the bishops of the United States serves the Church in the USA by providing guidance, support, advocacy, and many other services to individual dioceses and bishops.

I will be Baltimore from November 9-13, 2025, and will have the opportunity of spending time with my brother bishops in prayer, dialogue, and meetings. While some of our meetings are held in executive sessions, the public sessions are live-streamed from the USCCB website and can be viewed by anyone wishing to do so. Some of the items we will be addressing range from the election of committee chairs and the new USCCB president and vice-president, to the approval of liturgical texts, to the on-going response of the Church to immigration in the USA. This year, in response to Pope Leo XIV’s attention to the issue, we will also be offered a workshop on Artificial Intelligence (AI), considering both its promise and possible threats. All in all, I am praying it proves to be a successful and fruitful several days in conference.

On a more personal level, the days in Baltimore give me the opportunity to visit our seminarians at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and connect with friends in the episcopacy, including Archbishop Coyne and Bishop Matano.

Please pray for my safety in travels (I’m driving down) and that the meeting of the USCCB will prove a success. Know that I will remember our Diocese in prayer, especially in the celebration of Holy Mass while I am away.

Finally, I renew my hope that our preparations for the upcoming holidays will include all of us taking the time to consider the place of God in our lives and not forget to pray each day in thanksgiving for the many blessings we enjoy, and attend Mass each weekend and Holy Day so as to be nourished by God’s Word and the Bread of Life.

God alone suffices,

The Most Reverend John J. McDermott

Bishop of Burlington