The Canons Regular of St. John Cantius
Our Apostolates
Located in the heart of Chicago, St. John Cantius Parish is the home of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Roman Rite in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms. To see more information about this parish visit their website cantius.org
St. Peter Parish is the second church staffed by the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius and is located in Volo, Illinois. You can visit their website here.
St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Springfield, IL is also staffed by the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius. It includes Catholics from three different churches combined into one parish. Visit their website to learn about Mass times and other activities.
The St. Anne Chapel is a small Polish-built mountain church located in Lawton, Michigan on 90 acres of land owned by the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius.
Please contact canons@cantius.org for mass times or check out the beauty of this place on their Facebook page
Biretta Books publishes religious books, and video productions to help educate Catholic clergy and laity about Catholic subjects including, but not limited to Sacred Liturgy, Catechetics, Marian Spirituality, Eucharistic Theology and Piety, Devotions to the Passion of Christ, Gregorian Chant, Organ Music, Sacred Polyphony and liturgical music. The books and media help Catholic clergy and laity by re-invigorating the liturgical, sacramental and devotional life of the Church. Biretta Books also offers Sacred Vestments, Sacred Vessels and church goods for clergy. All proceeds benefit the Canons regular of St. John Cantius. BirettaBooks.com
One of the missions of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius is to help both priests and laity to understand intellectually and spiritually, the Liturgy of the Roman Rite. This exploration of the Liturgy allows them to comprehend its sacred ceremonies, and to be transformed by its inestimable beauty.
As part of this mission, the Canons are creating an online resource, Sancta Missa. Using videos, multimedia tutorials and recommended resources, the site will simplify the process of training priests to celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite according to the 1962 Missale Romanum. The canons also offer on-site week-long workshops three times a year for small groups of priests. In the future, the Canons Regular will offer video tutorials on the celebration of the Mass in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite as well.
The Canons Regular of St. John Cantius offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the souls of the faithful departed enrolled in the Perpetual Society. The Mass is also offered for the living members of the Perpetual Mass Association. Visit the Perpetual Mass Association’s page for more information.
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The Crusaders for Life is a youth-led, grassroots, pro-life movement organized by highschool and college students from St. John Cantius Church in Chicago and St. Peter Church in Volo. Groups have expanded into other cities incliding Downers Grove, IL, Danbury, CT and Detroit, MI.
The crusaders make annual trips to DC and cities across the midwest to attend pro-life marches and rallies, bringing their enthusiastic and yellow affirmation of the beauty and dignity of life in all of its stages. The Crusaders also pray outside of local abortuaries for the the staff, the mothers and fathers, and to mark the passing of the babies. They meet monthly to pray for an end to abortion, to stay abreast of current life issues and to explore ways to defend life with confidence and conviction. Visit their website at LifeBalloons.com
The parishes staffed by the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius offer extensive youth activites.
St. Don Bosco Camps are an essential part of the summer for boys and girls ages 8-13. Held annually at the Lawton, MI property, these camps aim to get youth outside, active, social, and virtuous with five fun days of sports, tent camping, camp-fires, Daily Mass and devotions, and talks to grow in virtue.
Youth 13 and over participate in annual walking pilgrimages one for boys and one for girls. Typically the pilgrims cover 75 miles over five days visiting sacred spaces and camping along the way.
There are also monthly youth group meetings at the parishes. Evenings include adoration, confession, talks, pizza and sports/bonfires.
The Archconfraternity of St. Stephen provides altar servers for all parish Masses. The parish, preserving the tradition of men and boys serving at the altar, hopes to foster many vocations to the Catholic priesthood.
the Archconfraternity, established at Saint John’s in 2009 aims to encourage the highest standards of serving at the Church’s liturgy contributing to the whole community’s participation in a more fruitful worship of God. Additionally it provides altar servers with a greater understanding of what they are doing so that they may serve with increasing reverence and prayerfulness and thereby be led to a deepening response to their vocation in life.
The Canons Regular of St. John Cantius offers sacred music opportuniities for the adults and youth of the parishes. At St. John Cantius there are three adult choirs, an orchestra, two scholas and three youth choirs. This is a vigorous music program training the choir members in polyphonic music, church history and sacred worship.
The Choirs and Orchestra celebrate the great works of classical liturgical music as a living tradition within the Roman Catholic Church. Members come from both professional musical backgrounds as well as non-professionals who enjoy classical works of composers such as Mozart, Haydn, Palestrina, and Schubert. Musicians are motivated not merely by a desire to perform classical works, but more importantly for the glory of God—the reason for which these works were written originally.
The St. Martha’s Guild is a group of parishioners at St. John Cantius Church who are working to restore the art of Liturgical needle crafts. In addition to taking care of any mending needs of the parish, members are learning vestment restoration, lace making and repair, several types of embroidery, gold work, fine linen stitching and many other sewing techniques. They are working to revive these waning art forms, and to provide training and support to other embroidery enthusiasts who believe it is important to invest significant effort into items used in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The guild’s website, stmarthasguild.com, organizes a growing collection of resources, tutorials, project specifications and sources of inspiration along with a blog and gallery.