LOUISVILLE (KY)
Louisville Eccentric Observer

Oct. 23, 2019

By Danielle Grady

Members of St. William Catholic Church stood shoulder to shoulder on the steps of their Park Hill church, holding signs and banners declaring: “Refugees and Immigrants Welcome.”

“This morning, we reaffirm our long-standing commitment as a sanctuary parish,” Dawn Dones, the pastoral associate for St. William, told a huddle of TV cameras and reporters.

With that, St. William, located at the corner of 13th and Oak streets, became the first Catholic church in Louisville in recent times to publicly declare itself a sanctuary, but the parish has had many firsts.

St. William has long been known as an advocate for progressive, social justice causes, despite — and sometimes at odds with — the often-conservative nature of the Roman Catholic Church. The congregation’s activism goes back to the ‘60s when it opposed the war in Vietnam and began advocating…