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CV NEWS FEED // Along a busy stretch of I-71 in northern Kentucky, thousands of commuters are encountering a striking sight: a Catholic flag flying high above a waste facility, visible from one of the highest points between Cincinnati and Louisville.
The flag — this month honoring the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — is part of an ongoing public witness by the Brueggemann family, who own and operate Bavarian Waste, a five-generation family business rooted in Walton, Kentucky.
Each month, the family raises a new Catholic flag aligned with traditional devotions. The lineup includes recognizing the Holy Name of Jesus in January, St. Joseph in March, and Our Lady of the Rosary in October — among other feasts and titles deeply rooted in Catholic devotional tradition.
“We’re not just proud Americans,” CEO Jim Brueggemann told CatholicVote, “but we are proud Catholics as well.”
The flag display began several years ago, when the Brueggemann family first posted a sign encouraging people to pray the Rosary. That led to the installation of a 100-foot flagpole originally meant to fly the American flag. With an estimated 40,000 cars on the road daily, the family realized the flag could serve as a powerful tool of evangelization.
“Our company logo is ‘dedicated to serving God and country’ and we were trying to figure out, you know, a way that we can more publicly display that,” said Nicholas Brueggemann, one of Jim’s 16 children who works as site manager for the company.
The motivation grew deeper as Nicholas and his family witnessed increasing acts of desecration against churches and Catholic symbols, including the toppling of statues and vandalism of sacred spaces across the country.
“At the time, there wasn’t a lot of pushback against that,” Nicholas said. “And we looked around and thought, well, someone needs to do something. Ultimately [we realized] no one’s really going to come to our rescue, so if we’re Catholic we need to be leading the way, saying we’re not scared about our Catholic faith, and we’re not ashamed of it.”
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Jim Brueggemann echoed that conviction.
“I would say that society is becoming more godless all the time and so we have to counter that to get back to a God-centered society,” he said.
Both men emphasized that the initiative is a statement of identity and trust in God.
“If God is in control of everything, it really doesn’t make sense to be scared of promoting the Catholic faith,” Jim said.
He added that they haven’t received the kind of backlash some might expect: “We’ve actually not really had much negative feedback at all, which almost kind of surprised me.”
He challenged other Catholic business owners to consider how they can witness through their work.
“For businesses to act like they might lose customers or something else, [that means] you’re not putting your faith up front and first,” he said. “We hope to promote more Catholic businesses to do similar stuff to what we’re doing, just to counteract the diabolical [element] that’s in our society right now.”
The flag effort took on particular meaning when the family first raised it in the month of June — intentionally as a public witness during Pride Month.
“Our goal was just to kind of counter the pride month for June,” Nicholas explained, noting that they wanted to reclaim the month in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A short video of the flag display soon went viral, and the public response was overwhelmingly positive — with letters and messages of encouragement pouring in from across the U.S. and countries like Slovakia, Canada, Australia, and Italy, thanking the Brueggemanns for their witness.
The family is especially excited to continue that tradition this coming June, when they’ll again fly a flag honoring the Sacred Heart — a devotion deeply woven into their company’s history.
“My grandpa and great-grandpa had a real strong devotion to the Sacred Heart,” Nicholas said. “And I think that really we are as profitable as we are and able to do what we do because of all those graces.”
Nicholas said that the family hopes the flags are “touching people when they drive by, and that they do get that grace, or think a little bit more about their faith when they’re going to work or going home to their loved ones.”
