Young Adult Ministry Annual Fall Fest brings young adultÂŽ together for faith, values and fun By Jack Smith
Three Santa Clara University students attend last weekend's Fall Fest at USE More than 250 young adults from as far as Honolulu attended the annual day of prayer, faith exp loration and fun.
ore th an 250 young adults from th roughout the Bay Area and as far as Honolulu gathered M for the Seventh Annual Fall Fest held at the University of San Francisco Saturday, October 25. The full day of prayer, workshops and fellowship is sponsored by the Archdiocesan Office of Young Adult Ministry, headed by Dominican Sister Christine Wilcox, in cooperation with the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at USE Mary Jansen, of the Office of Young Adult Ministry, said, "the purpose of Fall Fest is to get young adults excited about their faith. They can come together in a forum that leaves them strengthened and validated so they can go back and be active participants in their parishes." Topics for this year 's 33 different workshops were drawn on the unifying themes of the U.S. Bishop 's 1997 pastoral plan for young adults , "Sons and Daughters of the Light. " The pastoral letter sought ways of connecting young adults to Jesus Christ , the Catholic Church , the mission of the Catholic Church in the World , and a peer community with shared YOUNG ADULT MINISTRY, page 10
ORDINARY T IME
John Paul II - 25 years our Pope! I was moved - inspired - more than I thought I would be at the celebration of the Pope 's silver jubilee on October id. Perhaps it was because of the vivid memory I had of being in St. Peter 's Square at that same hour 25 years before. At th at time , I was beginning the third of my six years working at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the piazza , I stood with the crowd that always gathers morning and afternoon during a conclave to witness the smoke rising over the roof of the Sistine Chapel. It is this smoke that signals whether the work of the cardinal-electors has been completed or not. Black smoke means the required two-thirds majority for election of a new pope has not yet been reached , and the cardinal s will have to return th at afternoon or the following morning to vote again. White smoke tells the waiting crowd in the piazza - and the world - that they have completed their task. Soon after the white smoke vanishes in the sky, the Cardinal Camerlengo will appear on the loggia of St. Peter 's Basilica with the thrilling words: "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus Papam!" "I proclaim to you a great joy: We have a Pope!"
The cardinals ' choice (and the Holy Spirit 's!) took the world by surprise. In the year of the three popes, when his predecessor lived barely a month as pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla , Archbishop of Krakow, Poland, a vigorous 58, had been chosen to lead the Catholic Church in the final decades of the 20th century, and into the 21st indeed, into the third millennium of Christianity. For the first time in over 450 years a non-Italian was elected pope. Even more surprising, this man was from a country behind the Iron Curtain , a phrase once so common that we never hear any more. Soon we began to learn from him that the division of the geopolitical scene into East and West was not destiny, that his voice proclaiming God's p lan for the freedom of the human spirit everywhere to love God and neighbor helped millions under Communist rule find their voice as well. On that night in St. Peter 's Square the immense intellectual and pastoral gifts that Pope John Pau l II has brought to the papacy were still undisclosed to most of us. If 1 found myself thrilled by the daring choice made, not everyone in the piazza was so elated. I was standing next to my boss, Msgr. Alberto
Archbishop William J. Levada Bovone, who as Undersecretary was the third-ranking superior in the Congregation. We became good friends over the years, with his visits to California and Oregon, and my more frequent return visits to Rome. He was a kind, cultured gentleman , whose subsequent work as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the ORDINARY TIME, page 3
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