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News & Herald
U00C-8CI,
Volume 4 Number 7 • October
Serving Catholics in Western North Carolina in the Diocese of Charlotte
14,
1994
ion Di. i aeon a fe Orcfinafii
Mark Lawlor, seminarian for the Diocese of Charlotte, was ordained a deacon on Oct. 8. He returned to his home parish, Sacred Heart in Salisbury, for ordination, with Bishop William G. Curiin presiding. In the photos above, seminarian Lawlor lies prostrate on the floor as a sign of his commitment to serve the Lord and His church. Bishop Curiin lays hands on Lawlor, ordaining him as a deacon. By laying hands on Lawlor, Bishop Curiin imparts the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the third photo, Bishop Curiin offers an
Seminary
in
Indiana,
will
embrace as a sign
be ordained
welcome to the newly ordained June of 1 995.
of fraternal
to the priesthood in
Pope Encourages Families: Draw Strength From Religious Faith VATICAN CITY
(CNS)
— Lead-
ing a two-day celebration that
mixed
liturgy with a sound-and-light show, Pope
John Paul II encouraged families from around the world to draw strength from the faith and resist the "social decay" of contemporary culture. The Oct. 8-9 ceremony, the culmination of the International Year of the Family, was marked by a festive mood as more than 150,000 people from 130 countries packed St. Pete Square for an evening of singing and dancing and for Sunday Mass the next morning. The pope, looking refreshed and buoyed by the crowd, joked about his age and spoke off-the-cuff about a topic dear '
to his heart: the
family in modern society.
Despite the good efforts of many, he said,
"today's family
ened.
is
seriously threat-
And how could the Church not be
worried?"
pope Church was working to protect couples from a "hedonistic selfishness" that drains the vitality of families and In his evening talk Oct. 8, the
said the
'Go
into the diaconate.
And Make
Rev. Mr. Lawlor, a seminarian at St. Meinrad Photos by JOANN KEANE
Disciples'
Faith Is Treasure To By
makes some marriages "almost sterile."
CAROL HAZARD
Share
In addition to personal invitations
Church leaders are trying to counter a "deceptive form of neo-colonialism which imposes projects of the systematic limi-
more meaning in life? How about someone who is searching for a church com-
from active Catholics to inactive Catholics or to people looking for a church home, advertisements will appear in 36 newspapers across the diocese beginning
tation of births."
munity?
Oct. 14.
On
the international level, he said,
Associate Editor
Know someone who is thirsting for
which he
As part of an evangelization project,
said was evident at a recent U.N. confer-
the Diocese of Charlotte is taking to heart the Church's central mission to
The ads and paperback materials for The Catholic Way of Life are part of an outreach program developed by the
spread the Gospel and share the
He
criticized a tendency,
ence on population and development, to distort the meaning of the family by removing it from the context of marriage.
All this represents a great danger for humanity because of the family s role as '
the basic cell of society and the first place
of formation for individuals, he said. "Faced with the cultural and social
decay presently taking place, in the presence of the spread c-f ills such as violence, drugs and organized crime, what better guarantee of prevention and liberation is there than a united family, morally healthy
and socially involved?" he said. Looking out on the tens of thousands of families in
St.
Peter's Square, the
See Families, Page 2
faith.
Paulist National Catholic Evangeliza-
conducting a major push to invite people at no cost to learn more about the Catholic way of life. Forty-two parishes
tion Association in response to the U.S.
are participating.
Catholic Evangelization in the United
Beginning on Mission Sunday, Oct. 22-23 or the weekend after, depending upon the parish, parishioners will be asked to distribute request forms for information about the faith to friends, neighbors or co-workers who have expressed an interest in the Church. "This is a tremendous opportunity to reach out on a very broad scale through-
States."
It's
out the diocese," says Spiritan Father Ed Vilkauskas, diocesan director of the Office of Evangelization.
bishops' document, ciples:
"Go and Make Dis-
A National Plan and Strategy for
PCNEA has responded to 7,700 rewas two years, indicating that people are eager to learn more about the Catholic Church and will respond if only they
quests since the outreach program started
are invited.
The Diocese of Charlotte was one of three dioceses to participate in a 1992 pilot
program. The effort brought in 550
responses from western North
See Miss
Ca re
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