Grand Rapids Serra Club Newsletter, December, 2007

Calendar of Events.

December 6, 2007. Vocations Dinner, Noto's. Social Hour 6:00 p.m. Dinner 7:00 p.m.

December 14, 2008. Registration Deadline, Super Weekend.

December 17, 2008. Board Meeting, Louis Benton Steak House, 12:00 Noon.

For our January, 2008 meetings, it is important to note two changes from our ordinary schedule: a) The locations of the meetings will be reversed, and b) there will be no noon meetings during January. Membership Chairman Tim Hile sends the following message: Dear Serrans: Please reserve Monday, January 14, 5:30 p.m. at Sacred Heart. We will be having our New Member Investiture Service in the church at Sacred Heart and then moving to the rectory for a cocktail reception and appetizers. Please mark your calendars now. Also, please forward this message to any members you do not see on the list.

January 19, 2008. Grand Rapids Serra Club Planning Meeting. Exact time and location TBA.

January 28, 2008. Member-Guest Reception at Louis Benton Steak House, 5:30 p.m. Those Serrans still receiving a paper copy of the newsletter will find a special Member-Guest enrollment form included in this mailing. Those receiving the electronic version, please find Tim's November 17 e-mail and click on Attachments. Otherwise, just let Tim know if you need one of these forms and he will send one to you. Fax him with your request at 616-457-4050 or send him an e-mail at thile@ottawa-kent.com

OTHER SERRA REGIONAL, NATIONAL, AND INTERNATIONAL EVENTS:

January 10-13, 2008. Super Weekend at O'Hare Mariott, Chicago, IL. The USA Council Finance Committee Meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. Those interested in attending can get in touch with the USA Council Office in Chicago as follows: USA Council of Serra International, 65 E. Wacker Place, Suite 802, Chicago, IL 60601. Toll free:888-777-6681, or at serraus@serraus.org
For our new members who may not be familiar with Super Weekend, Super Weekends are scheduled twice a year so that the USA Council Board and USA Council Committees have an opportunity to work on the here and now but also toward the future.
The USA Council of Serra International schedules three Board Meetings during the Serra year. The first of these meetings is scheduled to occur during the Serra International Convention. The second and third meetings occur in September and January. The September and January meetings are characterized as "Super Weekends." All Serrans are encouraged to attend Super Weekend.

January 13-18, 2008. National Vocation Awareness Week.

Looking Ahead. The 2008 Serra International Convention will be held August 12-17 at Aguas de Lindoia, Sao Paulo State, Brazil.

A Gift for our Seminarians: At the November meeting, the Board agreed upon a $25 Visa gift card for each of our seminarians. We will pass the cards on to Father Ron, and he will distribute them.

Register on-line to receive the Serra USA electronic newsletter at serraus.org.

Congratulations to our newest member, Dr. Patricia Hughes, D. Min, Director of the Pastoral Services Division of the Diocese of Grand Rapids. Welcome to our club. Also, Joseph Scoville has offered to take the temporary secretary position in Monica's absence, and we have accepted his offer.

A Thank-you Note. Dear Pam and Members of the Serra Club: Thank you for your prayers during my recent illness. I truly appreciate your gift of Masses on my intention at the National Shrine of St. Jude. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families. We truly have much to be thankful for. With gratitude, Sr. Zelia M. Cordeiro.

Please Pray For Father Bob Hart, of Prince of Peace Parish, Muskegon. He is very ill.

Serran Paul Nelson submits an article that he believes would make for an interesting discussion. The article is called, "Do Catholic universities make the grade?"
Because of its length, we will present it in two installments.

HOW CATHOLIC SHOULD A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY BE? "As Catholic as possible," is the proper answer, but what that means will vary from institutin to institution. Consider these different approaches: The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire educates a small number of highly committed Catholics and requires everyone to spend a semester in Rome. In contrast, Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, the most Protestant state in the nation, serves students from diverse religious backgrounds and seeks to educate all of them in the Catholic and Benedictine traditions. Christendom College in Virginia requires all professors to be Catholic, and each must make an annual profession of faith to the diocesan bishop. The University of Notre Dame in Indiana, on the other hand, requires all professors to be exceptional scholars in their fields and strives for a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals, but imposes no creedal tests. As these examples reveal, Catholic colleges and universities manifest their Catholic identity in very different ways, depending upon their founding charism, mission, resources, sponsorship, size, and student body. Yet each is Catholic and adds to the Church's mission in unique ways.

In Catholic Higher Education (Oxford University Press), Melanie M. Morey and Father John J. Piderit, S.J. identify four models of Catholic higher education, each representing distinctive rather than mutually exclusive points of emphasis.

Immersion colleges serve only staunchly Catholic students , who are required to take at least four courses in Catholic theology and philosophy. Campus life is infused with Catholic moral teaching, sacramental opportunities, and spiritual vitality. Faculty are all or overwhelmingly Catholic. Most institutions in this category are relatively small and located outside urban areas, such as Southern Catholic College in Georgia. With nearly 2,000 undergraduate students, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio is considerably larger than the typical immersion college.
Persuasion schools seek to instill in all students, Catholics and others, "a certain religious maturity in knowledge of the Catholic faith." Required Catholic courses number about half of what is expected in immersion schools. Persuasion universities provide Catholic worship services and activities, but participation is encouraged rather than expected. Catholic professors are actively recruited but do not necessarily predominate. This type of institution is most common and includes, for example, Villanova University in Pennsylvania and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Diaspora universities, often located in inner cities or in predominantly non-Catholic regions, serve a student body in which Catholics are a minority--although Catholics are actively recruited. These institutions encourage but seldom require students to take courses on Catholic teaching. Catholicism anchors the institution's character and provides a clear guide to activities and policies, while a predominantly non-Catholic faculty strives to blend Catholic teaching with interreligious sensititivy. DePaul University in Chicago is the most prominent of the diaspora institutions.
Cohort universities attract academically distinguished students who as graduates are expected to exercise considerable social influence in promoting viewpoints informed by Catholic teaching. Among an internationally distinguished faculty and student body, Catholics are well represented but typically in a minority. Students usually are not required to take Catholic courses but may do so. Catholic students, who form a "cohort" at such institutions, are given generous resources to strengthen and express their Catholic faith outside the classroom. Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. is the most prominent of the cohort institutions.
There are also many other types of institutional distinctions. Some Catholic universities, such as Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland, have on-campus seminaries, while most others do not. Nine Catholic colleges are diocesean institutions, such as Loras College in Iowa, while most others are sponsored by religious orders and a few are governed by lay incorporators.
All this variety, while unsettlilng to some people, helps to address the complex and seemingly endless needs of the church in secular society. Across-the-board uniformity among Catholic colleges and universities would diminish rather than enhance the church's impact in the world. In part for this reason, Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter Ex Corde Ecclesiae guarantees a generous degree of autonomy to institutions.
Some critics urge Catholic families to walk away from Catholic institutions that serve significant numbers of non-Catholics, that allow any notable presence of non-Catholic or secular voices, or that invite controversial speakers or artists to campus. The core of this strategy is to purge Catholic institutions of distracting influences, leaving as "authentically Catholic" only institutions of the immersion variety. However, if immersion colleges continue to serve only ardent Catholics (who constitute a minority of all Catholics), who is to teach and inspire all the others?
Fortunately, more than 200 other Catholic institutions take up the complex challenges of educating a broad range of Catholic students, including those who come from families where knowledtge and practice of the Catholic faith are weak. In such institutions, leadership and inspiration are possible, but control is not. So, to paraphrase one of Jesus' parables, most Catholic colleges gamely work at growing intellectual and Catholic wheat in the midst of the world's weeds, even when society's spiritual soil is parched. The work of these Catholic colleges and universities has an almost missionary or prophetic quality to it--requiring respect, sensitivity, patience, love, and acknowledgement of freedom of conscience. These Catholic institutions contribute profoundly--if not always perfectly--to fulfilling Jesus' instruction to go out into the world to spread the Good News.
By Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. U. S. Catholic, November 2007. To be continued...

Serran Leonard Grotenrath recommends this follow-up on Father Thomas Simon's address at the Serra luncheon on November 12: http://catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=7832. The article provides commentary on what is at stake in Pope Benedict's effort to reform the post-Vatican II liturgy.

A Message from our President: Dear Serrans: The 17th Annual Vocations Dinner is just a few short days away, and I would like to thank Bob Paul and his committee for all of their work on this year's event. This is the largest project we are asked to lead by our bishop to assist financially the Office for Priestly Vocations in its ministry. For many of us, the Vocations Dinner marks the beginning of the Christmas season. Having chaired this event in the past, I recall the amount of planning and hard work that is the key to its success. This year's committee has worked for many months, and we can be proud that nearly 200 people will be joining us this year.
As we conclude 2007, I believe that we can be proud of our accomplishments for the past year. Our membership has increased 23.6 percent, bringing our total number of active members to 60. Our efforts and success have been recognized on both the national and international levels. This success can be attributed to the model our club employs in carrying out its mission to
"Foster vocations to the ministerial priesthood and religious life," but in making a strong effort to foster our own vocations as lay men and women and permanent deacons through our club activities and lecture series carried out each month.

At the next board meeting, scheduled for December 17, the 2007-08 officers will begin formulating the agenda for our annual planning meeting to be held in January of 2008. Between the December and January board meetings, the officers will be working on strategies and models for their respective offices to follow for 2008-09. Please offer suggestions to me at mkubik@umich.edu by Sunday, December 16 so that they may be included in our planning agenda. Suggested items may concern the operations of the club, programming, and social and club activities.
I look forward to seeing you on Thursday, December 6 and wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Very truly yours, Mark A. Kubik, President.

A Prayer to the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, come. Encircle us with light. Raise our consciousness of being one with You. Help us to hear each other with open hearts.
Guide us as we seek to know our purpose. Give us a vision of what it is we want and need to do for self, community, and all humanity.
Help us to empty ourselves and and make room for faith and hope. Speak through us as we meet together. Uplift our hearts and minds.
Empower our words and actions which are helpful to people, and buffer the ones which are not. Forgive us our shortcomings and help us to forgive ourselves and each other.
Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Come as the wind and blow! Come as the Water and quench! Come as the fire, and burn until we are wholly yours. Amen.

Serran Bill Bjork's recommended reading. Bill Bjork sends our readers some details on the book recently published written by Fr. Bob Miller (born in 1950), who was originally from Grand Rapids.

Both Prayed to the Same God
Religion and Faith in the American Civil War
By Robert Miller
Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Copyright 2007