BLACKSBURG, Va. — A 2015 Charlotte Catholic High School graduate is the first candidate to be sponsored by Virginia Tech’s Newman Community Campus Ministry in the college’s annual Homecoming Queen competition.
Ali Buck selected a Respect Life platform, partnering with the Special Olympics in its “Spread the Word to End the Word” initiative during the week-long Homecoming campaign Oct. 29-Nov. 4.
Pictured: Charlotte Catholic High School graduate Ali Buck (center) promoted her 2018 Homecoming Queen platform “Spread the Word to End the Word” during a week-long campaign at Virginia Tech University.
Buck, who volunteered with Camp SOAR in Charlotte for two summers, chose this initiative to start a conversation on the use of the word “retarded” when referring to people with special needs, in the hope of ending use of this derogatory term.
“My campaign focused on starting the conversation on campus with friends, family members and even strangers to stop using the word ‘retarded’,” Buck explained. “The goal of my efforts was to show students that using the r-word hurts, and it personally affects people that you encounter every day.”
Throughout the week of campaigning, Buck asked students to sign a banner to stop using the word.
“It was super exciting because I originally bought one banner that I planned to use the whole week, but we filled it with signatures in one day. We ended up needing to get a second banner on Wednesday, which we filled by Friday,” she said.
Buck was introduced to “Spread the Word to End the Word” at a middle school youth group event at her parish, St. Matthew Church in Charlotte.
“We had a representative from the organization come and speak to us about why we should not use the word and asked us to sign the pledge. That event and my signature stuck with me from then on.
“It became something that I was passionate about, and I was so excited to bring the campaign to a campus as large as Virginia Tech,” she said.
Buck and her team also gave out red awareness ribbons to students when they signed the banner.
“I hope that with people wearing the ribbons on their backpacks, it will be an easy way to start the conversation with other people,” she added.
Buck was not crowned Virginia Tech’s Homecoming Queen, but she believes that she and her Newman Center team were successful in starting a real conversation on campus.
“Throughout the week we talked to hundreds of people and our message was spread throughout campus. I spoke to so many students who were able to open up to me that they had a sibling with special needs. It was an amazing experience,” she said.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior Reporter
Buck made two banners to support all the signatures by students and others who pledged to join her efforts to treat people who have special needs with dignity. (Photos provided by Ali Buck)
CHARLOTTE — Where do our young people currently stand in their faith life?
That was the underlying premise of the Diocese of Charlotte’s Youth Ministry survey of youth who are active in their parish or Catholic school. Results of the extensive survey of 670 teenagers, conducted by principal researcher Dr. Charlotte McCorquodale, were released earlier this month by Youth Ministry Director Paul Kotlowski. It is the first youth survey by the diocese since 2012.
The survey included only youth who already participate in parish life or attend Catholic school, but Kotlowski noted the survey results demonstrated that “involvement in parish youth ministry has a positive impact on youth and their attitudes toward their faith and the Church.”
“These survey results are an excellent selling point for getting and keeping teens involved in parish youth ministry,” he said. “Used correctly, these results can serve as a worthwhile diagnostic tool for parishes, as it can assist in the determination of direction and emphasis in programming and program development.”
Some of the results which Kotlowski highlighted:
- Most of those surveyed said they enjoyed the youth ministry program offered at their parish, with 86 percent calling their experience of religious education either good (49 percent) or excellent (47 percent).
- There was an increase from 26.5 percent to 31 percent of youth who said they have considered a vocation to the priesthood or religious life, over the 2012 survey.
- 66 percent of Catholic school respondents, 66.5 percent of public school respondents, 56.9 percent of home school respondents and 55.6 percent of private school respondents claimed to have a personal relationship with Jesus.
Kotlowski also noted that questions about Catholic teaching showed mixed results:
- While 94 percent of respondents agreed with Catholic teaching that Jesus in truly present in the Eucharist, 39 percent also thought that all religions are equal.
-When asked if God has determined right and wrong, 84 percent agreed. But when asked if right or wrong are a matter of personal opinion, approximately 26 percent of white respondents and 51 percent of Hispanic respondents agreed with the statement.
- 67 percent of respondents agreed with Church teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman, about the same percentage reported in the 2012 survey.
Michael Becker, youth minister at Sacred Heart Church in Salisbury, worked with Kotlowski on designing the survey and evaluating the results.
“In several of the answers you can see how our culture is attacking the moral compass of even our best and most engaged youth,” Becker noted.
He pointed to 20 percent of youth disagreeing that marriage can only be between one man and one woman; 39 percent stating that all belief systems and religions are equal; and 33 percent falling into relativism by agreeing that right and wrong are a matter of opinion.
“This shows that we have a lot of work to do teaching our teens about morality, especially the tough topics. We need to reach out to our youth in a charitable manner and help them to understand the morality of the Church and the teachings of Christ,” Becker said.
Michael Quinn, youth minister at St. James Church in Concord, had 29 youth respond to the survey.
“This survey has given us a better sense of what our youth see as important,” Quinn said. “As a diocese we seem to be supporting and speaking to those needs well. It also helped us identify some ways that we were not as aware of a need in our youth.”
Quinn thought the survey “left us with more precise questions that we need to seek answers to from our youth in order to continue developing our ministries for them.”
Sarah Rose, youth minister at St. Aloysius Church in Hickory, said, “What encourages me most is that, for those who responded, the Mass continues to be central in their faith. I was also encouraged by the additional ‘faith practices’ responses which, again, would be pretty strong given that this was such a small population of active youth.”
Rose said she has made a concerted effort at her parish to engage youth from both the white and Hispanic communities. The youth even helped rename their youth ministry “Infractum,” is Latin for “unbroken.”
“How perfect that our teens chose a name in the universal language of the Church that identified us as a group that was unseparated and unbroken,” she said.
She added, “Imagine if our faith didn’t end on Sunday, but that we went out – with Christ fresh on our tongues – and spread the fire of the Holy Spirit to bring people to the Church. Now there lies the model for Catholic youth ministry.”
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
CHARLOTTE — St. Matthew Church, the largest parish in the Diocese of Charlotte, has as its goal to become a place of encounter so that all who enter meet Jesus – no matter how big the parish family gets.
Situated in an area of Charlotte that has experienced phenomenal growth over the past two decades, St. Matthew Parish now has more than 10,700 registered families and more than 100 ministries spread across two campuses, one in Ballantyne and another in Waxhaw. The growth is expected to continue, so the parish is undertaking a new pastoral plan to help it prepare for the future and meet the needs of its numerous parishioners.
The 2019-’21 Parish Plan will primarily focus on three areas: “Feeding the Sheep” (parishioners attending Mass), “Feeding the Shepherds” (parishioners attending Mass and participating in ministry), and “Feeding the Multitudes” (reaching out to parishioners not attending Mass, former Catholics and people who do not practice any faith).
The plan will also aim to increase youth, young adult and family involvement in the parish. This will be done by: “Encounter” (meeting the youth and young adults where they are), “Form” (offering a variety of opportunities for youth and young adults to grow spiritually), and “The Send” (inviting participation in parish ministries and all aspects of parish life).
The plan will involve key improvements to the parish’s communications efforts as well as its facilities.
In preparation for the new pastoral plan, the parish council reviewed the latest studies by the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate as well as parishioner surveys.
Father Pat Hoare, pastor, introduced the plan to the parish via a video message at all Masses the last weekend of September, inviting everyone to volunteer via an online response survey to become involved in one particular area of interest for them.
“We received nearly 200 responses, and have begun reaching out to those volunteers as we form implementation teams,” he said. “Four teams – The Sunday Experience, Evangelization and Engagement, Leadership Development, and Welcoming and Hospitality – have committed leadership and are having initial meetings. We have also begun some initial discussions and focus groups relating to other areas of the plan.”
The Parish Leadership Team meets weekly to consider activities in each of those areas and intends to work together to intentionally implement strategies and action items around each of the goals and pillars, he said.
Kathy Bartlett, parish director of liturgical ministries, has been at St. Matthew Parish since the first Mass was offered at a neighborhood movie theater in 1986.
“Boy, have things blossomed,” she says. “What I love most is the special congregation we have. There are so many people who will go beyond themselves to build, serve, grow in faith and spirituality creating a strong community of soldiers for Christ in so many different ways.
“I hope this new pastoral plan will bring forth a whole new crew of laborers to add to the existing crew. The ‘harvest’ is ripe.”
Bartlett thinks it is critical for the parish to increase the involvement of the parish’s young adults and teenagers – “our future,” she says.
“And,” she adds, “that we continue to affect the spiritual growth of everyone, even those not necessarily sitting in our pews, is my biggest hope and area of excitement.”
The parish must “aid in unleashing the power of the Holy Spirit in everyone God allows us to touch, thereby fostering that personal relationship with Christ, our foundation,” she says.
Diane Kiradjieff, parish director of faith formation, is also excited about implementing the new pastoral plan.
“I am blessed to have been a part of putting together and to be a part of putting into action the second goal, which focuses on our youth and young adults,” Kiradjieff says.
“Our three-step approach begins with the encounter – seeking to bring the Church to the youth and young adults, rather than just get them to church. Intentionally meeting them where they are at, creating the excitement and opening – or re-opening – the door to a relationship with Christ,” she says. “Next is to provide opportunities for them to form and energize that relationship through continued encounters in the Eucharist, Scripture, service opportunities and exposure to the teachings of the Church.”
“Honestly, I cannot say that it is a revolutionary approach,” she notes. “Rather, we took a page out of Church history – looking to the first disciples and how they grew the Church: encounter those who had not heard about Jesus, form them by teaching them about Jesus, and send them to share the Good News with others.”
The 2019-’21 Pastoral Plan states four overarching goals for St. Matthew Parish for the future: to become a place of encounter so that all who enter its doors meet Jesus; to share God’s loving and saving plan with all; to build a new generation of leaders filled with the joy of the Gospel; and to be an amazing parish.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
“Sharing the Journey with CRS in its 75th Anniversary Year” was the theme of three educational presentations held recently in Asheville, Charlotte and Winston-Salem. Presented by Augusto Michael Trujillo, Southeast Regional Office Communications Relationship Manager for Catholic Relief Services, the three events were sponsored by Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte.
Trujillo spoke about how CRS is “sharing the journey” with those who are poor in more than 100 countries, highlighted stories from CRS’s 75 years of global outreach, and shared his own family’s personal connection to CRS. His father, a refugee from Cuba, was going through some old paperwork one day when he found a document stating that CRS had processed his entrance into the U.S. in the early 1960s and helped him resettle in Atlanta after fleeing communist Cuba. His son, who has been an employee of CRS for eight years, was thrilled to see this paperwork and learn about this “CRS family connection.”
Trujillo is pictured holding a CRS anniversary cake with Becky Dubois, Catholic Charities’ Winston-Salem office director, accompanied by Catholic Charities staff and parishioners who attended the Oct. 19 presentation.
— Photo provided by Joseph Purello
CHARLOTTE — Conversations about how to combat racism are continuing among Catholics in Charlotte, and their latest effort to encourage racial unity and promote social justice featured the leaders of Pax Christi USA.
Pax Christi USA is a national Catholic peace movement founded in 1972, part of Pax Christi International. Sister Patricia Chappell, its executive director, and Sister Anne-Louise Nadeau, director of programs, were hosted by Our Lady of Consolation Parish in Charlotte Nov. 16-17, where they met with local Catholic leaders from parishes that have been working to bridge the divide between races in Charlotte following racial protests that erupted in 2016. The racial protests, sparked by a police shooting, led to the death of a young member of Our Lady of Consolation Parish.
Members from that parish joined with parishioners from St. Peter, St. Gabriel, St. Luke and St. Matthew churches – vowing to improve racial relations among Catholics, one person, one conversation, one encounter at a time.
Pictured: People gathered to hear Sister Patricia Chappell, executive director of Pax Christi USA and member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, speak at Our Lady of Consolation Church in Charlotte Nov. 16-17. (Photo provided by Morris Whitaker)
Catholic teaching is clear, both sisters noted in their talks: racism is a sin and every Catholic has an obligation to speak out against it.
“We have to deal with economic and interracial injustice,” said Sister Patricia. “Being a Catholic organization, we must begin with our own beloved Church.”
Sister Patricia noted the U.S. bishops’ approval last week of a new pastoral letter against racism, “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love.”
“Despite many promising strides made in our country, racism still infects our nation,” the pastoral letter stated. “Racist acts are sinful because they violate justice. They reveal a failure to acknowledge the human dignity of the persons offended, to recognize them as the neighbors Christ calls us to love.”
The pastoral letter also stated: “As Christians, we are called to listen and know the stories of our brothers and sisters. We must create opportunities to hear, with open hearts, the tragic stories that are deeply imprinted on the lives of our brothers and sisters, if we are to be moved with empathy to promote justice. ...We must invite into dialogue those we ordinarily would not seek out. We must work to form relationships with those we might regularly try to avoid.”
Sister Patricia noted that the bishops called for concrete steps to combat racism – covering topics such as racial slurs and jokes to racial profiling, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. Racism is a personal sin, but also a collective or social sin, she emphasized.
“We as parishes and dioceses are going to be mandated, not just if we feel like it, but mandated, to look at the issues of systemic racism,” Sister Patricia said. “We need to get behind our bishop, our clergy, our systems and our diocese, or it won’t happen.”
Nearly all of the U.S. bishops, including Bishop Peter Jugis, voted for the pastoral letter, she noted, “but we cannot be satisfied until it is spoken about on every pulpit, talked about in every school, in every diocese and in every office. It’s our mandate, as baptized Catholics, to be concerned about systemic racism. We have no other choice (but) to be our sisters’ and brothers’ keeper. You and I are the Church, but some of us don’t believe it. Therefore, some of us get scared to address the bishop or the Church. Catholic social teaching says to every one of us: we have the right to organize.”
Sister Patricia Chappell spoke as part of an ongoing campaign by several Charlotte parishes to encourage dialogue between white and black Catholics and promote racial unity in Charlotte. (Lisa Geraci | Catholic News Herald)In her remarks, Sister Anne-Louise acknowledged that confronting with honesty the impacts of “white privilege” on her own life has been difficult.
“I have lost friends during the way, but I like the woman I have become,” she said.
Talking about race, Sister Anne-Louise emphasized, “is not about putting more guilt on people, it is not about shaming. It is just about talking about the truth, and sometimes the truth has got to hurt a little bit before anything good comes out of it.”
As with past events, participants gathered in small groups to talk about racism, their own experiences and memories, and how their Catholic faith informs their view of the problem. Several people brought up instances where they were discriminated against, or heard family members use racially-tinged terms in referring to people of color. Some said they felt embarrassed to talk about race, or pressured not to talk about it.
“We must deal with systemic racism that exists in our Catholic Church, systemic racism that exists in our nation and in the world. We have to be able to do it openly, honestly, relevantly – but also frankly,” Sister Patricia said. “In order to be in right relationships, we need to be able to tell the truth. People of color, we can’t do it by ourselves, because if we could have, we would have done it a long time ago. White folk, you can’t do it by yourselves. We have to do it together. But in order to do it together we have to deal with the pain and the hurt, with the rage, and the reverence of who we are called to be, and that is children of God. We are all called to be children of God.”
The day ended with suggestions for practical action, including: finding ways (individually and collectively) to get out of one’s social, racial and cultural “comfort zone”; being more empathetic; reaching out to others and finding ways to work together; addressing the “isms” of society with children; reaching out across parishes and continuing cross-cultural work; forming a delegation to dis-cuss with Bishop Jugis how the Charlotte diocese could implement the new pastoral letter; and fostering further discussion.
— Lisa Geraci, correspondent
More online
Read the full text of the U.S. bishops’ new pastoral letter against racism, “Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love”