YI E S SAGE
The Message -- for Catholics of Southwestern Indiana VOLUME 24 NUMBER 34 April 22, 1994
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EAST DEANERY
speaker: St. Meinrad students are diverse and dedicated
Message editor dents have a mature, broader life-expe-
diversity of the Church in the United
Father Mark O'Keefe, acting academic dean
Theology. Father Oeefe was speaking at a gather-
held at Sarto Retreat House in Evansville, April
"A Profile of Today's Student at Saint Main-
statistics for both the college and the theology divisions.
are typically college age -- between 18 and
and two foreign countries. States with the
ofstudents are Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Illinois.
oft.he college students came from high school
had no previous Catholic school education.
come from single-parent families.
were altar servers.
about the priesthood during their first eight
education, but a majority of them report they received
from anyone.
percent say they were influenced by a St. Meinrad alumnus.
drawn from surveys. Information about theology
by Father O'Keefe from his personal knowledge of the
students in theology come from a pre-the0logy program.
seminary.
a college ' : : :: ' ..... " " : =' "
students are in their late 20s, slightly older than the
students.
students had other (non-seminary) college experience
students have had a kind of adult conversion
€ of them went through a period of some years of not
their faith.
theology students today are not as ira-
as were students 25 years ago. While many stu-
rience, their experience of faith has
had less of a chance to develop and ma-
ture.
Some students are looking for the
certainty they did not find in their fam-
ily or in society, and the hope to find a
kind of black-and-white security in the
Church, he said.
Students who come from a deeper
experience of Catholic culture, or who
have come from a college seminary,
tend to have a better understanding
that there are various ways of viewing
things within the Church. Father
O'Keefe said there are, of course, some
areas of certainty in Church teaching,
but the areas are not as broad and as
numerous as some theology students
expect them to be.
St. Meinrad has been providing
training for lay ministers for 25 years,
but a residential program for lay per-
sons is new this year.
Among students in the residential
program for lay persons are an English professor, a Holy Cross brother and
the wife of a Methodist minister.
in a sabbatical program at St. Meinrad are also diverse. The
Benedictine Father Mark
O'Keefe speaks to St. Meinrad
alumni at Sarto Retreat House,
April 12. Father OKeefe is act-
ing academic dean at St. Main.
rad School of Theology.
St. Meinrad has 118 college students and in the e
theology. All students -- those in priesthood preparation and these in lay rain:
istry studies participate in programs of spiritual formation.
In the Diocese of Evansville, St. Meinrad alumni include 103 priests, 387 lay
persons, 39 summer session alumni and 12 students who reside in the diocese
While Father OKeefe said that the diverse student body clearly reflected
the diversity of the Church, he also found another fact to be just as obvious.
"Today's students are as dedicated to the service of God as we were in our
day," he said.
says church needs strong families to promote vocations
Service
To
crisis the
promote
able
eats and reli-
Paul II said
or the 1994
World Day of Prayer for Voca-
tions April 24.
The pope encouraged fami-
lies to act as "a garden or a
first seminary" in which the
seeds of vocation can grow to
maturity. That means parents
must be willing to "prepare,
cultivate and protect the voca-
tions which God stirs up in
their family," he said.
But this is a difficult task
when families are caught up in
the "consumerism, hedonism
and secularism" of contempo-
rary society, said the papal
message, released at the Vati-
can Dec. 28.
"How sad it is to learn of sit-
uations, unfortunately numer-
aims to bring environmental
to 18,500 parishes
(CNs) __ In tional program m the National parish communities."
environ-
the front
Church, a
kit is to be
the nation's
in-
arth Day,
led =Renew-
Earth: A
has," was
Catholic
ronmental
as Part of the
Pligious
Environ-
in the na-
Council of Churches, the Coali-
tion on the Environment and
Jewish Life, and the Evangeli-
cal Environmental Network
prepared similar booklets for
their own congregations. In all,
53,000 churches and syna-
gogues were to receive educa-
tional materials on the envi-
ronment.
=The parish is vhere our
faith life is lived%ut, said
Walter Grazer, manager of the
USCC program. =If the
Catholic Church is going to
make a difference in helping to
bring about environmental jus-
tice, it will be through our
The Catholic booklet,
printed on recycled paper, of_
fers suggested prayers, homily
helps, essays for reflection and
a four- step process for orga-
nizing an environmental jus-
tice committee in the parish.
It also contains the full text
of "Renewing the Earth: An In-
vitation to Reflection and Ac-
tion on Environment in Light
of Catholic Social Teaching,"
the 1991 document of the U.S.
bishops from which the special
three-year program on envi-
ronmental justice arose in late
1993.
See BOOKLET page 2
ous, of families overwhelmed
by such phenomena and of the
devastating effects!" he said.
Individual families and the
church pay the price of this
"widespread disorder of ideas
and of moral behavior," the
pope said. He questioned how
children who are "morally or-
phans, without educators and
without models" can grew up
to respect Christian values.
In such conditions, he said,
it becomes especially difficult
for the seeds of vocation to de-
velop.
=The strength and stability
of the fabric of the Christian
family represent the primary
condition for the growth and
maturation of sacred vocations,
and they constitute the most
pertinent response to the crisis
of vocations," he said.
The pope called on the
church to help parents better
recognize and welcome a tell-
gious calling among their chil-
dren. All priests and religious
who work with families in
schools, hospitals and other en-
vironments should show joyful
witness to their calling, he
added.
The parish community
should recognize its own re-
sponsibility and implement
long-term projects to encour-
age vocations, =without being
too concerned about immediate
results," he said.
