A Note From Father Eickhoff

Let me start off this bulletin article with a word of caution about email and text scams using my name or that of St. Anne Parish. In the last few weeks there has been a surge in emails and texts being sent to St. Anne parishioners that were supposedly sent by me. These emails and texts ask the recipients to contact the sender for additional instructions or to purchase gift cards and then send them to a needy person. Sadly, these emails and texts are fakes and are being sent by persons trying to ensnare St. Anne parishioners in a scam meant to defraud you. There are no means that I or the parish can stop these scammers from sending these emails or texts to you. I can however offer you these tips as to how to determine whether an email or text you may receive is really from me or the parish:

¨ Every email that I send to St. Anne parishioners comes from my official St. Anne email address: freickhoff@stanneparish.org. If the email you receive has a different email address, it comes from a scammer, and you should delete the email. Please do not go by the name alone in your email program – that is not a means of determining whether an email is real or not – rather check the actual email address.

¨ I do not send emails or texts asking parishioners to send money, gift cards, or any other form of currency to either myself or another person directly. All contributions of any kind that I may ask for from parishioners will be sent to St. Anne Parish or the Diocese of Joliet so that the contributions can be properly accredited according to the accounting rules of the Diocese of Joliet.

¨ If the email or text looks suspicious it probably is a scam. By this I mean that I strive to send emails and texts that are grammatically correct, correctly formatted, and free from misspellings. If the email you receive contains numerous grammar and spelling errors, it is likely a scam.

¨ If you are in doubt about an email or text, please call the parish office for advice before purchasing gift cards or sending money.

In other news. This coming Friday and Saturday (June 21-22) St. Anne Parish will hold a special 24-hour Eucharistic Adoration in honor of the closing of the Year of the Eucharist. The adoration will begin at 12pm on Friday and end on 12pm on Saturday. Parishioners can sign up on the bulletin board in the narthex after Mass this weekend to spend an hour with the Lord in the Holy Eucharist. You can also come and pray before the Lord without signing up if you are unable to spend an entire hour with the Eucharist.

 

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Stephen Eickhoff
Pastor