News
New Thrive For Life House for Women Opens in Milwaukee
Father Christopher Alt, SJ
This summer, Milwaukee’s St. Bakhita Catholic Worker House, a community offering hope and healing to women survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, became the fourth Thrive for Life community in the United States and the first women’s house in the network.
Founded by Fr. Zach Presutti, SJ, of the USA East Province, Thrive for Life has provided transitional housing, and help with returning to school and society, to formerly incarcerated men. The first Thrive for Life “House of Study” in Milwaukee, Joseph House, opened in 2024 in a former convent and monastery. Now, St. Bakhita House offers hope and healing exclusively to women in Milwaukee.
Father Christopher Alt, SJ, director of jail and prison ministry for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, provides pastoral leadership to both houses, working jointly with Fr. Presutti.
St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese Catholic religious sister canonized in 2000, is the patron saint of human trafficking and slavery.
New Associate Provincial Assistant for Secondary and Pre-Secondary Education
The Midwest Jesuits are pleased to announce the hiring of Dr. Kate Schulte as the province’s new associate provincial assistant for secondary and pre-secondary education.
After concluding her service as assistant principal for academic life at St. Francis High School in Wheaton, Ill., she will formally join the province this fall. Dr. Schulte will assume the responsibilities of Patrick Gallagher, who was named the Midwest Province’s provincial assistant for secondary and pre-secondary education in the spring.
“Given Kate’s extensive experience in Catholic and Jesuit education, I have full confidence that she will be an excellent companion and resource to our schools as they animate our shared Jesuit mission,” says Very Rev. Karl Kiser, SJ, provincial of the Midwest Jesuits. “Together, Patrick and Kate will be a tremendous team accompanying our schools and their leaders.”
Schulte brings nearly two decades of experience in Catholic and Jesuit education to her new role, including 15 years at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago, where she served as assistant principal for student services and mathematics department chair. She is a graduate of Loyola Academy, Marquette University and Loyola University Chicago.
Dr. Kate Schulte
UDJ Receives Grant to Develop AI Approach
The University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy (UDJ) has received a rapid response grant from the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good as part of the DELTA project.
An acronym for Dignity, Embodiment, Love, Transcendence and Agency, the DELTA project proposes a faith-informed approach to technological advancement. UDJ, which serves students in grades 7-12, will use its grant to develop a faith-based, social and emotional learning-informed pedagogical approach to using AI in the classroom.
“Artificial intelligence is among the most pressing issues facing our students, their learning and their future,” says UDJ President Fr. Dan Dixon, SJ. “We need to equip them with tools not only to understand how to use AI, but how to think about it.”
A total of 12 grants were made to schools and organizations across the country from a pool of more than 160 applicants. DELTA and all rapid response grants are made possible through support from Lilly Endowment Inc.
Fr. Dan Dixon, SJ
Creighton University Law Students Abroad
Creighton University (CU) in Omaha, Neb., celebrated the creation of the Samuel & Ida Kaiman Center for International Criminal Justice & Holocaust Studies in 2025, and this year, CU School of Law students traveled abroad for experiential learning opportunities in an expanded summer program.
For more than a decade, CU law students have visited Germany, the Netherlands and Poland to learn firsthand about the Holocaust and international war crimes through the Howard A. Kaiman “Nuremberg to The Hague” Summer Abroad Program. Now, with the $2 million gift that made the Center possible, CU has expanded the program under the direction of Michael J. Kelly, the school’s Senator Allen A. Sekt Endowed Chair in Law Professor.
Donna Gilbert and her children, Dave and Stacey Gilbert, provided the gift and named the Center in honor of Donna’s parents, Samuel and Ida. Howard Kaiman, a lifelong Omahan and attorney (CU JD ’67), was Donna’s brother.
“It was important to our family to use their legacies to do good in this world and support the local community,” Dave Gilbert said at the Center’s dedication ceremony.
The Howard A. Kaiman “Nuremberg to The Hague” Summer Abroad Program takes Creighton University School of Law students to Europe for firsthand learning about the Holocaust and international war crimes.
Marquette Football Ruled From the Start
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the first-ever Associated Press (AP) Top 20 college football poll, which was released on Oct. 19, 1936.
Who was ranked No. 20 that week? Marquette University.
The Golden Avalanche, as the team was known then, trailed two other Jesuit schools (Holy Cross, No. 17; Fordham, No. 16), several schools in the Top 20 this year and many more that haven’t been ranked for decades.
Marquette rose as high as No. 4 in 1936, compiling a 7-0 record with wins over Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ole Miss before going on to compete in the inaugural Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1937.
Marquette football disbanded at the end of the 1960 season, and, as folks in Milwaukee like to say, has been undefeated ever since.
Sr. Jean Dolores Schmidt
Sister Jean Celebrated in Documentary
By Michael McGrath
In 2018, Loyola University Chicago (LUC) took the country on an unforgettable ride. The Ramblers returned to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for the first time in three decades and kept winning, making an improbable run to the Final Four and introducing the school to millions of people across the country.
Leading the charge through the national zeitgeist was Sr. Jean Dolores Schmidt, BVM, the Ramblers’ diminutive, basketball-loving chaplain and an inseparable part of Loyola’s Cinderella story. Now, an independent documentary, The Cinderella Nun, focuses on Sr. Jean beyond her basketball celebrity, exploring her life as an educator, mentor and religious sister.
The Jesuit-educated filmmakers, T.J. Berden (LUC), and Dave Kang (Marquette University), followed Sr. Jean for two years, interviewing her and documenting her life.
“She educated people,” Berden says. “She journeyed with people. She cared about the person in front of her.”
Berden’s time as a Loyola student also brought him into contact with Fr. J. Michael Sparough, SJ, who became an important mentor, later advising Berden on two feature films and remaining a source of encouragement.
A member of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), Sr. Jean died in 2025 at the age of 106.
Berden and Kang are hoping for a nationwide theatrical release. For more information, visit www.cinderellanun.com.
IN THIS ISSUE
ON THE COVER
The 2026 ordinands at Church of the Gesu in Milwaukee.
Photo: Steve Donisch