Classmates are now episcopal colleagues as they help lead the U.S. Church By Jim Wogan Bishop Mark Beckman’s sister, Melissa, remembers the day her oldest brother left for Belgium. “When he was headed to the airport, I hid because I didn’t want him to get on the plane, and it took them a while to find me,” she said, looking back almost 40 years. “We wrote letters back and forth, and he would call every now and then. He would send us chocolates from Belgium.” In 1984, following his graduation from St. Ambrose College Seminary in Davenport, Iowa, Mark Beckman made a leap of faith—a giant step that took him 4,500 miles from his hometown of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., all the way to the small Belgian city of Leuven, also referred to as Louvain in French. “Monsignor Tracy Ellis, the dean of Catholic-American Church history, gave a lecture at St. Ambrose... Read more →
