KSHB 41 reporter Marlon Martinez covers Platte and Clay counties in Missouri. Share your story idea with Marlon

Dozens of families across the Kansas City area are left searching for answers after four YMCA branches announced they will no longer offer Head Start programs.

The YMCA of Greater Kansas City confirmed earlier this week that their Columbus Park YMCA, Park Hill YMCA, Thomas Roque YMCA, and Northland YMCA will end their partnerships with Mid-America Regional Council to provide Head Start after May.

“We got a very upsetting email. Nobody, nobody was prepared for this, that the YMCA was cutting ties with Head Start,” said Lacie Cochran.

For parents like Cochran who has had her two oldest kids go through the program and one currently in it, the announcement came as a shock.

“I am worried. We’ve seen locations closed before. There was a program in liberty that closed,” said Cochran.

The decision, YMCA officials say, stems from staffing challenges and shifting priorities within the organization.

“The Y has been honored to operate Head Start programs for the past 20 years. Despite years of dedicated effort to recruit and retain qualified staff in an increasingly difficult workforce environment, it is no longer sustainable to operate Head Start programs.

After much consideration, we made the difficult decision to transition out of Head Start programs. The last day will be May 23, 2025, as long as staffing allows.

We understand the challenges this creates for families and associates. We are working closely with Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), the Head Start grantee overseeing our programs, to assist families and associates.

We remain dedicated to youth development and will continue our other preschool and before and after school programs throughout the metro,” said a YMCA spokesperson.

Head Start is a federally funded program designed to provide early education, meals, and family services to children from low-income households or with a disability.

Without the YMCA locations, a spokesperson said 289 children — of which 93 are set to go on to kindergarten this fall — are impacted by the change.

The Mid-America Regional Council which oversees the YMCA’s Head Start program said they’re working with families to relocate those impacted.
_

IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

CNA Staff, Mar 27, 2025 /
15:50 pm

Amid plans for a blasphemous “black mass” at the Kansas Capitol building set to take place on March 28, Catholics in the state and elsewhere are urging a prayerful, peaceful response, the centerpiece of which will be adoration and Mass at a Catholic church directly opposite the Capitol.

Organized by the Satanic Grotto, the “black mass” — an explicit parody of the Catholic Mass — is set to begin around 10 a.m. Originally slated to take place inside the Capitol rotunda itself, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly later decreed that the event must take place outside, though organizers of the ritual have said they plan to defy Kelly’s order and enter the Capitol building “around 11:30.”

A promotional flyer for the “mass” posted on Reddit lists the “components” of the ritual, which include the “Denounciation [sic] of Christ,” the “Desecration of the Eucharist,” and the “Corruption of the Blood.”

To counter the Satanic event, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, will lead a Eucharistic Holy Hour at Assumption Catholic Church, which is directly across the street from the Capitol.

The Holy Hour will begin at 11 a.m. Friday followed by noon Mass. Similar Holy Hours and Masses are planned in the neighboring Kansas dioceses of Wichita, Salina, and Dodge City. 

The planned Satanic ritual is an “affront to all Christians,” Naumann noted in a recent statement, but he urged the faithful not to “succumb to anger and violence, as that would be cooperating with the devil.”

During the authentic Catholic Mass, “we will pray for God to bless those who blaspheme him and who mock those who believe in Jesus Christ. After all, on Calvary, Jesus implored his heavenly Father to forgive those who crucified him because they did not know what they were doing,” Naumann wrote. 

The archbishop noted that Pope Francis recently announced he will canonize Blessed Bartolo Longo, a 19th-century Italian who embraced the occult and Satanism, becoming a Satanic priest and promising his soul to the devil. 

Amid the fervent prayers of his family, a priest motivated Longo, on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to make a sincere confession and return to the Church. He became a devout and charitable Catholic and even later inspired St. John Paul II to create the luminous mysteries of the rosary. 

“Catholics should not underestimate Satan, his craftiness and power. However, as long as we keep close to Jesus, we need not fear the devil. Throughout the Gospel, we see Our Lord’s authority over the demonic, liberating many who had given themselves to Satan,” Naumann wrote. 

“If we seize the opportunity to draw closer to Jesus through prayer, then we can make this attempt to mock and blaspheme our Catholic faith into what Satan most fears and despises,” the prelate said. 

“Let us pray that the Lord of Life can penetrate and change the hearts of the Satanists of our time with his merciful love. St. Bartolo Longo, pray for us and especially for those who have become ensnared by the evil one. All things are possible with God!”

Archdiocese filed lawsuit over alleged theft of consecrated hosts

Naumann had on March 14 filed a lawsuit in Leavenworth County District Court seeking an order to secure the safe return of any consecrated hosts in the Satanist group’s possession. Satanist groups intending to stage so-called “black masses” have on at least one other occasion boasted of possessing a stolen consecrated host with an intent to desecrate it. 

Naumann settled the lawsuit after the Satanist leaders testified under oath that the hosts and wine they plan to desecrate in the ritual are not “Catholic in origin.”

The planned Satanic event has sparked a heated debate among Kansas lawmakers as to whether the event should be allowed to go forward. The Legislature passed a nonbinding resolution March 20 denouncing the planned ritual. 

(Story continues below)

Subscribe to our daily newsletter

The leader of the Satanic Grotto, Michael Stewart, who has described himself as an atheist who does not believe in Satan, posted a video this week in which he said he expects “up to 5,000 counterprotestors” to show up at the Capitol during his event. 

“5,000 Catholics are what the Capitol Police are preparing for,” Stewart claimed. 

A Catholic-led petition asking Kelly to shut down the event has attracted over 50,000 signatures as of Thursday. 

Students at Kansas’ Benedictine College are invited to pray a rosary in the school’s Mary’s Grotto at 11 a.m. on Friday, school spokesman Steve Johnson told CNA. 

Benedictine students can then participate in daily Mass at 12:10 p.m. that day, which will be offered with the intention for the conversion of those involved in the “black mass,” Johnson said.

Benedictine is in Atchison, about an hour northeast of Topeka. The school is not taking an official group to the capitol to take part in the prayerful protest, Johnson said, but he said some students may be going of their own volition.