CHICAGO (OSV News) — The eight finalists for Catholic Extension Society’s 2025-2026 Lumen Christi Award include an Irish-born Franciscan sister, now 81, who has spent 41 years ministering on an Indian reservation in Wyoming and an El Paso, Texas, diocesan priest who founded a lay ministry formation institute in 1989 that to date has trained 72,000 faithful.
Catholic Extension’s highest honor is given to those “who radiate and reveal the light of Christ present in the communities they serve,” according to a news release.
This year’s eight finalists were chosen from among 41 nominees submitted by bishops from Extension dioceses. The award recipient will be chosen from these finalists and announced in the fall.
“This year’s Lumen Christi Award finalists are ordinary people doing extraordinary things in the name of their faith and on behalf of the Catholic Church,” Father Jack Wall, president of the Chicago-based organization, said in an Aug. 21 statement. “Their stories are a reminder to us of the hope and transformation the Church brings into communities throughout America every day.”
Award finalists receive $15,000 to support and enhance their ministry. The winner of the Lumen Christi Award recipient will receive a $100,000 award, split between the honoree and the nominating diocese.
Since 1905, Catholic Extension has supported Catholic faith communities in the nation’s poorest regions. Its first Lumen Christi Award was given in 1978.
Examples of service
The 2025-2026 Lumen Christi Award finalists include:
— Franciscan Sister Teresa Frawley, Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming: Now 81, Irish-born Sister Teresa for the last 40 years she has served the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho people on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, which spans 2.2 million acres. After many years on the reservation, she was honored with the name “Eagle Wing Woman.”
— Msgr. Arturo Bañuelas, Diocese of El Paso, Texas: A native of El Paso, Msgr. Bañuelas established the Tepeyac Institute in 1989 to provide lay ministry formation in the diocese. Twelve hundred people participated in the first classes offered, and 37 years later, 72,000 people have participated in the Tepeyac Institute’s formation programs. Every parish in El Paso has ministers who have been trained by Tepeyac. Now retired, he also served as pastor at two of El Paso’s largest parishes, St. Pius X and St. Mark the Evangelist.
— Christina Kihn, Diocese of Gaylord, Michigan: Kihn’s own experience with homelessness brought her to work as the director of the Center of Charity, a ministry of All Saints Parish in Alpena, Michigan, serving low-income and homeless members of the community. The ministry offers temporary lodging, meals, essential resources, case management and connections to social, mental and substance abuse services. Kihn leads a team of 153 volunteers.
— Didier Aur, Diocese of Memphis, Tennessee: After overcoming challenges with dyslexia as a child, Aur has gone on to have a nearly 40-year career as a leader in Catholic education and has led multiple schools across the Memphis Diocese. He is currently the principal at St. Ann’s Catholic School in Bartlett, Tennessee. In 2022, he started the Erika Center at St. Ann Catholic School, which educates 20 students with dyslexia each year.
— Father Melvin Diaz and Carmen Alicia Rodríguez Echevarría, Diocese of Ponce, Puerto Rico: Father Diaz, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Guayanilla, and Rodríguez Echevarría, principal of the parish school, refused to give up when the church collapsed from the earthquakes that devastated Puerto Rico in January 2020. The church walls collapsed on part of the parish school. Then in 2022 Hurricane Fiona roared in, took what remained of the church roof and deposited it next to a white tent used for the Eucharist and a temporary school lunchroom. Together Father Diaz and Rodríguez Echevarría decided the church would take on a new mission and new purpose in their devastated community, and it would begin with reviving their school, which had dwindled to an enrollment of only 90 students but is now at 229. “Even though the church building is wrecked, what is rising now needs no brick or mortar. Immaculate Conception’s foundation is rock solid and stronger than ever,” Catholic Extension said.
— Father Rafael García Molina, Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico: Father García Molina is pastor of Santa Luisa de Marillac in San Juan, located next door to over 600 residents of a low-income housing complex. He is spearheading a program that pays residents within this community to cook, clean, provide child care and otherwise care for their neighbors in need, such as the elderly, disabled and single mothers. “This arrangement builds community, trust and fellowship, while also providing jobs for many of the residents,” Catholic Extension said.
— Sister Anne Francioni, a School Sister of Notre Dame, Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri: Sister Anne began Whole Kids Outreach in 1999. The ministry serves 11 counties in southeastern Missouri, covering 80,080 square miles and helps rural families living in poverty who experience higher than state averages for food insecurity, substantiated child abuse, inadequate prenatal care, teenage pregnancy, infant mortality rates and preventable child hospitalization.
— Deacon Tony Underwood, Diocese of Tucson, Arizona: Deacon Underwood is the pastoral administrator of St. Patrick Church in Bisbee, Arizona, a former mining town that has experienced economic decline. After working 23 years in the aerospace industry, he felt a calling to the diaconate and was ordained in 2003. He keeps the church’s physical doors open every day from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. so the church can reach out to those who “are hurting” and so they can “more easily find their way to the church. He also manages St. Michael Mission located 10 miles away in the tiny village of Naco.
