BELMONT — Last Sunday morning under Carolina blue skies, Bishop Peter Jugis blessed the land that will become the permanent home for St. Joseph College Seminary.
The 86-acre wooded site sits along Perfection Avenue in Belmont, just north of Belmont Abbey College. Bishop Jugis was transported to the undeveloped site Oct. 22 on a large green four-wheeler – cheered on by the young men enrolled in the college seminary.
They gathered near what will be the main entrance to the college seminary, and the bishop sprinkled the ground with holy water and blessed it. Then he buried a small crucifix and several holy medals near the future site of the seminary chapel, including a St. Michael medal, Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart medals and a Miraculous Medal.
In his remarks during the blessing rite, Bishop Peter Jugis spoke to the college seminarians about the need to foster devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, patroness of the diocese, and the importance of praying the rosary and asking for her intercession in their lives.
“It is quite providential that we gather during the month of the rosary, October, for this significant milestone in the history of this great institution which is St. Joseph’s Seminary, to be asking God’s blessing upon this land and the prayers, the intercession and the blessing of our Blessed Mother, and (also for) the prayers of the great St. Joseph,” he said.
The day was also significant as the feast of St. John Paul II, who had a particularly close devotion to Mary. The late pope ordained Bishop Jugis to the priesthood in 1983 in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and in 2003 appointed him as the fourth bishop of Charlotte.
After he concluded the blessing rite, Bishop Jugis commented on the significance of the occasion, recalling the day in March 2016 when he announced the establishment of the college seminary.
“We’ve had a long process of getting to this day,” he said. “Several years, of course, of discerning the Lord’s will for our diocese and discerning the call of many young men for the priesthood. It is a great beginning.”
This site for the college seminary – “our own building and our own land,” he noted – will enable the diocese to continue responding to the Lord’s work in fostering local religious vocations.
That sense of ownership was also instilled in the young men by Father Matthew Kauth, rector of the college seminary.
The night before the bishop’s visit, the young men cleared an area near the future entrance, Father Kauth said. They erected a cross made from trees they cut down, then camped out overnight on the site.
“I wanted to be able, in some sense, to claim it as our own,” Father Kauth noted. “This is something that is going to hopefully be in the diocese for perpetuity. I want them to feel a sense of their claiming the land, claiming it as their home. Not just for seminarians, but for priests – for the priests to be able to come here. Also, for it to be a place of spiritual grace for the whole diocese to pray for the priesthood.”
“We are going to come out here over the course of the next several months and begin to clear out the land,” he continued. “We wanted it blessed first by the bishop. We will be bringing the seminarians out here with some frequency to pray the rosary and sanctify the land that is here. We’re going to make our own pathways and things.”
The diocese closed on the $1.4 million purchase of the 86-acre site, located approximately two miles from Belmont Abbey College, on Sept. 11.
Funds used to purchase the land came from donations earmarked for a permanent home for the college seminary.
St. Joseph College Seminary was founded in 2016 for undergraduate men discerning a possible religious vocation, before considering the step of enrolling in a major seminary for specific formation to the priesthood. Students work toward a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Belmont Abbey College while experiencing a Benedictine-style communal life on their path of discernment.
Only in its second year, the college seminary’s enrollment is 16 men. Students are being temporarily housed in two separate residences adjacent to the campus of St. Ann Church in Charlotte – the former Poor Clares convent behind St. Ann School and a house on Hillside Avenue.
Neither building has room for more students.
Construction plans call for the college seminary to be developed in two phases, but even those plans are being modified as diocesan officials strive to accommodate the unexpectedly high enrollment.
Originally, the plan was to house up to 20 students in a 17,000-square-foot building, and future expansion planned to double that to 40 students.
Because enrollment is already at 16 men, diocesan planners have accelerated those plans, now moving forward with a 27,000-square-foot building that can house up to 40 men at the start.
Besides 40 dormitory-style rooms, the main building will include academic spaces, administrative offices, four faculty offices, a guest suite, a gathering space and refectory, chapel and study space.
The projected cost to complete the first phase is approximately $15 million, higher than the original project estimate of $7.5 million because the plans were enlarged to accommodate twice as many men, the original plans did not anticipate the need to buy land, and because of price increases in the construction market.
Fundraising for the college seminary totals $4.5 million so far.
Fundraising will continue outside the diocese this year, with fundraising work in the diocese expected to begin in the fall of 2018.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
CHARLOTTE — In his message for World Mission Sunday on Oct. 22, Pope Francis reminds the faithful that mission is at the heart of the Christian faith.
“World Mission Day, promoted by the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, is a good opportunity for enabling the missionary heart of Christian communities to join in prayer, testimony of life and communion of goods, in responding to the vast and pressing needs of evangelization,” he said.
Promoted by the Pontifical Mission Societies, World Mission Sunday is the annual worldwide Eucharistic celebration for the Missions and missionaries of the world. The special second collection taken up during Masses Oct. 21-22 is a global effort for the entire Church to provide for the building up of more than 1,000 local churches in Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands and parts of Latin America and Europe.
Through the work of these churches and their witness to Christ, the poor receive practical help and experience God’s love and mercy, His hope and peace.
“The Pontifical Mission Societies are a precious means of awakening in every Christian community a desire to reach beyond its own confines and security in order to proclaim the Gospel to all,” Pope Francis explained.
“In them, thanks to a profound missionary spirituality, nurtured daily, and a constant commitment to raising missionary awareness and enthusiasm, young people, adults, families, priests, bishops and men and women religious work to develop a missionary heart in everyone.”
The Holy Father added, “World Mission Day, promoted by the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, is a good opportunity for enabling the missionary heart of Christian communities to join in prayer, testimony of life and communion of goods, in responding to the vast and pressing needs of evangelization.”
For more information about the Pontifical Missions Societies, go to www.propfaith.net/onefamilyinmission/default.aspx.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter. Pontifical Mission Societies contributed.
CHARLOTTE — Parishioners at St. Joseph Vietnamese Church celebrated the start of the season with their Fall Festival last weekend.
The three-day festival Sept. 29-Oct. 1 included traditional Vietnamese food, music, carnival-style games, prizes, fireworks, and, of course, the amazing Hidden Dragon Lion Dance team.
— Photos by John Cosmas, Catholic News Herald
CHARLOTTE — At its “Love Begins at Home” banquet in uptown Charlotte Oct. 19, more than 850 supporters of MiraVia gathered to raise money and hear the good news about the outreach ministry which helped more than 511 young mothers and children last year.
Bishop Peter Jugis, Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari of Belmont Abbey and Monsignor Mauricio West, chancellor and vicar general of the Diocese of Charlotte, offered prayers at the 23rd annual banquet.
MiraVia, which began as Room At The Inn in 1994, helps abortion-vulnerable women choose life and build independent, healthy lives for themselves and their children. MiraVia offers life skills classes, material assistance and moral support to the women who come to them for help – free of charge. Since its founding, MiraVia has helped 7,465 women and their children at its outreach facility in Charlotte.
Debbie Capen, MiraVia’s new executive director, who took over the position last spring after longtime director Jeannie Wray retired, shared the good news of how donations to the outreach ministry helped women and children this year.
Pictured: Catholic bestselling author and EWTN television host Donna Marie Cooper O’Boyle delivers the keynote address Oct. 19.(Photos by SueAnn Howell | Catholic News Herald)
She noted that donors contributed more than 31,050 diapers, 1,027 bags of clothing and 4,054 pounds of food over the past year to MiraVia moms and their babies. Volunteers offered 742 hours of service to assist the mothers and their children at both of MiraVia’s facilities last year.
Capen shared that St. Teresa of Calcutta, whose quote from her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize speech was used as the theme for this year’s banquet, had written MiraVia a letter in the years before her death.
Jordan Raniszneski, president of the MiraVia board of directors, presents a statue of the Blessed Mother to O’Boyle after her address. “Her message is especially important to MiraVia, because back in 1994 she wrote us a personal letter. I still have it in my office. I keep it safe, sometimes I pull it out,” she said. “In that message she wanted us to know that she would pray for our work and that what we were doing was important. She wanted to encourage us.”
Capen explained that part of St. Teresa’s Nobel Peace Prize speech said, “The greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of the innocent, unborn child…” She went on to say, “But love begins at home.”
“I hope that she is proud of us here tonight trying to create peace by serving the unborn in the work of MiraVia,” Capen said.
Capen also noted that 14 mothers and their babies were served by MiraVia through their residential facility for college student mothers on the campus of Belmont Abbey College in Belmont. Two of those mothers chose MiraVia after learning about the program from an article published in Columbia magazine, the international publication for the Knights of Columbus, last June.
Faculty, staff and students at the Catholic college are supportive of the mothers on campus and have been known to throw surprise baby showers for the student moms.
“Belmont Abbey is proof that the culture of life is alive and well,” Capen asserted.
The keynote speaker for the 23rd annual banquet was Donna Marie Cooper O’Boyle, an award-winning Catholic author and television host on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). O’Boyle had a decade-long friendship with St. Teresa of Calcutta, receiving 22 letters from her over the years. She had the privilege of seeing her 12 times over the course of their friendship.
O’Boyle spoke candidly of the great suffering in her personal life, especially when she was an expectant mother abandoned by her spouse, and her enduring faith and trust in God through it all. She met St. Teresa of Calcutta through her spiritual director, Jesuit Father James Hardon, whose cause for canonization is being put forward.
“She was praying for me,” O’Boyle explained.
St. Teresa told her that saints learned the beauty of the cross. “You are living in the shadow of the cross… You’ve come so close to Jesus on the cross that He could kiss you,” St. Teresa told her.
Retired executive director Jeannie Wray accepts a bouquet of roses in recognition of her years of service to MiraVia.O’Boyle encouraged those present to reach out to others just as St. Teresa of Calcutta did.
“Our Lord wants us to evangelize like Mother Teresa did, one by one… Every person who came before her was Jesus, in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor. And she lived that Gospel of Matthew. Jesus said, ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to Me.’ So every person she ministered to was Jesus.”
“Our Lord calls us all to see Jesus in one another,” O’Boyle said. “Mother Teresa said that ‘Calcutta is all over the world for those who have eyes to see.’”
For more information about MiraVia, go to www.mira-via.org.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
Asheville community rallies to support family
ASHEVILLE — The Catholic community in Asheville has bonded together to bring love, support and help after a tragic crash Sept. 26 took the lives of two Arden brothers.
Asheville Catholic School student William Gibbs, 10, and his brother who also had attended the school, O’Brien Gibbs, 13, died when the car they were riding in veered off Mills Gap Road and struck a tree. Their older brother and their mother, Jo Gibbs Landreth, were injured.
In the days following the crash, a Go Fund Me campaign set up by Asheville Catholic School has raised $150,000 to help the family, but that’s not all the community has done, said Principal Michael Miller.
“The Asheville Catholic School broader community has been extremely supportive of certainly the family involved, and also of the school,” Miller said.
“The community’s response has been more than anyone could have asked for or expected. It’s very inspiring and comforting on many levels.”
He said it was tough on all of the staff and students to hear the news, especially the boys’ classmates. Diocese of Charlotte Schools Superintendent Dr. Janice Ritter “mobilized” counselors from other schools, and the morning after the tragedy they were on hand at Asheville Catholic School to talk to students and staff, Miller said.
In the days that followed, families of students dropped in to offer encouragement and brought treats to brighten everyone’s day, he added. “A million little things by one and all to help us all get through the loss.”
From counseling to financial planning, members of the community have also offered their individual expertise to the family affected. A family with an extra vehicle has even given Landreth a car to use until she is able to get a replacement vehicle, Miller said.
Asheville Middle School, where Landreth works, has coordinated a meal train with Asheville Catholic School and with assistance from their fellow parishioners at St. Barnabas Church in Arden, who are making desserts for the family.
“All three of the boys were altar servers – the oldest still is,” said Father Adrian Porras, pastor of St. Barnabas Church. “It’s a big loss for our community, and it’s felt when we celebrate Mass.”
Parishioners have reached out in many ways to Landreth, who is also active in the parish, he said. When things settle down, the parish will be there to continue providing support, he said.
As the Asheville Catholic School community moves forward, Miller said, students are already making plans to remember their classmate, William.
The robotics team, as part of this year’s competition, has plans to construct a rain garden in his honor, Miller said.
There has also been a donation set up for a drama scholarship at the school in his name.
Through the outcry of love and support, Miller said what is needed now most is prayer. He asks that everyone continue to pray for healing.
— Kimberly Bender, Online reporter
Concord community grieves loss of two teenagers
CONCORD — St. James the Greater Parish has been in mourning after a hit-and-run accident claimed the lives of Concord High School students Jessie Marroquin Avelino, 14, and Ricardo Solano, 15.
Concord police have charged driver Francisco Daniel Marin-Gonzalez, 21, with several counts including felony hit-and-run and felony death by motor vehicle, according to local news reports. Police said Gonzalez fled the scene after hitting and killing the teenagers the night of Sept. 30 as they crossed Concord Parkway North near Liske Avenue. He remains in the Cabarrus County jail under a $1 million secured bond.
Church members grieved for the youths’ deaths during a funeral held Oct. 5 at St. James Church.
In his homily, Redemptorist Father Fabio de Jesus Maron Morales, said, “Ricardo and Jessie: those sons, those brothers, those friends are now in the hands of God. In those hands that have created them and also created us, in those hands in which one day when our pilgrimage on this earth is over, we will also be. There, we will all together be able to enjoy the presence of God.
“These young boys are now with God. So now we have to accompany them with our prayers and remembrance, united with Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us. This departure, aside from the hurt that it causes to the broken heart, will make us think of the joy in finding the presence of our Lord.”
He read from Wisdom 3:1-9: “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace...”
In the wake of the sudden tragedy, counselors and crisis response team members were on hand at Concord High School when students returned to school Oct. 2. Students wore white to honor their classmates, WBTV reported Oct. 2.
“I was speechless,” Leslie Moreno told WBTV. “I didn’t know what to do or say.”
Moreno, who was friends with Avelino, said she will miss him. “He was just so caring and kind,” she said.
The victims’ friend and recent Concord High graduate Yara Quezada started a fundraising campaign on YouCaring to collect funds to cover the families’ funeral costs. Earlier this week the campaign exceeded its goal of $6,000, raising a total of $6,766.
“The families are grieving and the last thing they should worry about is money. I hope that we will be able to come together in the midst of this tragedy to help out two young Spiders who were taken from us too young,” Quezada wrote.
— Catholic News Herald