The Catholic News & Herald 1
July 21, 2000
July 21, 2000 Volume 9 t Number 41
S e r v i n g C a t h o l i c s in Western North Carolina in the Diocese of Charlotte
Inside
Mountain church celebrates 50 years
Teens find joy in summer service
By JIMMY ROSTAR Associate Editor
...Page 3
Prison ministry leads to six confirmations in Raleigh
Local News Prayer experience centers the faithful ...Page 3
Mooresville parish center becomes reality ...Page
9
Background helps volunteer
Every Week Entertainment ...Pages 10-11
Editorials & Columns ...Pages 12-13
Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind. — Leonardo da Vinci
Photos by Jimmy Rostar
Above, Father C. Morris Boyd reads the text of a commemorative plaque honoring the 50th anniversary of Our Lady of the Mountains Church in Highlands July 16, as Bishop William G. Curlin prepares to bless it. Bishop Curlin also confirmed this year’s confirmation class.
HIGHLANDS — During a gathering to celebrate a faith community’s golden anniversary, the diocese’s spiritual leader told the congregation that the true reason for celebration is the bringing of Christ’s presence into the world. Bishop William G. Curlin presided at a Mass honoring the 50th anniversary of Our Lady of the Mountains Church July 16. The congregation packed into the mountain church for the anniversary liturgy, during which five youth were confirmed and the spirit of Catholic life was pondered. “What does it mean to be a Catholic?” Bishop Curlin posed to the congregation. “It means that Christ walks the earth in us. It is through our words, our deeds, our lifestyle that people begin to realize that God is alive in us.” For 50 years, the Catholic community of Highlands has brought Christ to this corner of the world. A half-century after the building of its church, the community of
See Highlands, page 4
“Encuentro 2000” celebrates diversity By AGOSTINO BONO LOS ANGELES (CNS) — “Encuentro 2000” opened with Native American drums calling the participants from across the nation to gather in assembly. At the end of its final liturgy, 5,000 worshippers tied ribbons to one another’s wrists, a traditional Hmong sign of sending forth. In between, the different languages and styles of dress, music, art and worship celebrated the many-textured, many-hued richness of Catholic life in the United States. The Eucharist brings unity to that diversity, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said at the final Mass. “It is here that we take up the gift and task of being a people whose lives are committed to reconciliation, peace and unity,” he said. Five-thousand Catholics from 150 dioceses converged on the Los Angeles Convention Center July 6-9 for “Encuentro 2000: Many Faces in
God’s House,” the only national event of the jubilee year sponsored by the U.S. bishops. More than 150 countries of origin were represented. “The idea of Encuentro is after seeing all of the beauty, pageantry and traditions that make up the American Church, that the participants would take those ideas back to their individual dioceses and make that diocese a reflection of all cultures and traditions,” said Rev. Mr. Curtiss Todd, vice chancellor and vicar for African American Affairs Ministry of the Diocese of Charlotte, in attendance at the conference. “The key was having many different cultures represented in order to enact active, open and willing acceptance of the presence of many traditions and contributions of various groups of people.” “‘Encuentro 2000’ marks the first national gathering to lift up the riches of the church’s racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in the United States,” Cardinal Mahony said. Encuentro is the Spanish word for encounter or
meeting. Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala of Los Angeles, chairman of the Encuentro organizing committee, told reporters, “We will see that the music of the Latinos makes the Anglos’ feet move, the incense of the Asians reminds Europeans of the transcendence of God and the drumbeat of the Native Americans pulsates in the hearts of all.” Sprinkled through the meeting were liturgical ceremonies indigenous to various groups of U.S. Catholics. Among participants at the fourday meeting were 82 U.S. bishops and several from Latin America. “It was truly a God-experience of being in the presence of the bishops and thousands of members of the church from different nations and races,” said Mercy Sister Maureen Meehan, director of religious formation of schools in the Diocese of Charlotte. “We became unified and truly walked the bridge to the new millennium
See ENCUENTRO, page 4