September 24, 2021 | catholicnewsherald.com
WORLD HUNGER DRIVE
OUR PARISHESI
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‘Encouraging’ support for college seminary Nearly 2,000 donors make St. Joseph’s $20M capital campaign a success SUEANN HOWELL SENIOR REPORTER
Another successful World Hunger Drive CHARLOTTE — More than 800 parishioners from St. Matthew Church gathered to pack meals Sept. 11 for the poor during the parish’s 19th annual Monsignor McSweeney World Hunger Drive. This year’s effort involved packing 309,096 meals on site, as well as a virtual fundraising event that raised over $312,000. The food and other critical supplies are headed to the Missionaries of the Poor to distribute in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Donations are also funding sustainability projects and subsidizing education at St. Marc School in Haiti, including expanding the secondary school and starting a trade school. Through the 2021 drive, the parish also continues its financial support for a parish food program for children in Venezuela and a boys’ hostel in India, as well as providing food and funds to assist Charlotte-area homeless through food banks such as Second Harvest and Mel’s Diner. The meal-packing event was part of a number of parish-wide events in September to celebrate the parish’s 35th anniversary.
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY ST. MATTHEW CHURCH
MOUNT HOLLY — Thanks to nearly 2,000 donors, St. Joseph College Seminary has reached its $20 million capital campaign goal. Donations and pledges raised over the past five years have been used to build the new 30,000-square-foot college seminary, a home for young men who are exploring a vocation to the diocesan priesthood while also pursuing undergraduate degrees at nearby Belmont Abbey College. The college seminary currently houses 25 seminarians and those who are responsible for their formation. Bishop Peter Jugis blessed the new college seminary Sept. 15, 2020, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, after an official ribboncutting ceremony. “God continues to bestow huge blessings upon the Diocese of Charlotte, and the successful completion of the seminary capital campaign is one of those blessings,” Bishop Jugis said. “We have a very broad participation from every corner of the diocese, and beyond,” said Fredrik Akerblom, the seminary’s director of development. “When we come together, we can accomplish a lot.” Akerblom noted that everyone involved helped to realize a complex, comprehensive plan to open the college seminary – the only one of its kind between Washington, D.C., and Miami – providing a unique opportunity for young men in the diocese discerning a call to the priesthood. “The participation in this capital campaign was as astounding as it was encouraging. It manifests that the Church here in the Charlotte diocese takes seriously the need for strong and holy vocations to the priesthood. We have relied on God’s providence from day one of this project,” said the college seminary’s rector, Father Matthew Kauth. St. Joseph College Seminary opened in 2016 in a former convent behind St. Ann School in Charlotte, housing an inaugural class of eight college seminarians. Over the course of four years, with a growing number of men entering the program each year, the diocese housed additional students in four separate residences near the St. Ann Church campus while accelerating the construction of a permanent home for the college seminary in Mount Holly. Enrollment has more than tripled since the program began five years ago. With Gothic architecture and brickwork inspired by nearby Belmont Abbey, where in 1876 Benedictine monks planted the roots of Catholicism in western North Carolina, the new two-story college seminary includes 40 dorm rooms, a chapel, classroom, library, faculty offices, a refectory and kitchen, and a picturesque cloister walk where students can meditate and pray. The program aims to nurture local vocations among the parishes and families in the Charlotte diocese, close to home. Graduates go on to major seminaries out of state to complete their priestly formation, then return for ordination to serve in the diocese’s growing parishes. “We are taking responsibility for the men the Lord sends to us,” Father Kauth said. “I feel optimistic of what we can achieve together, pray God, in the future.” “May we continue to serve the Lord faithfully who has been so generous with us,” Bishop Jugis said. “Special thanks to Father Kauth, our donors, and the entire team for their tremendous work on this campaign.” Looking ahead, plans at the college seminary include the construction of a chapel large enough to host liturgies with the seminary community and up to 150 visitors. The current chapel was designed as a lecture and banquet hall and will be used as such once a new chapel is ready.
Learn more For information about the St. Joseph College Seminary, go to www. stjcs.org or contact Fredrik Akerblom, seminary director of development, at 704-302-6386 or email fakerblom@stjcs.org.
