Gala Congar fundraiser benefits lay ministry formation programs in U.S.
SALT LAKE CITY — An evening of fun and frivolity benefited a serious purpose as a silent auction and raffles raised funds to assist lay ecclesial ministry formation in the Diocese of Salt Lake City and elsewhere in the United States.
The annual Gala Congar, held Aug. 17 at Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, supports the Congar Institute. The Texas-based institute, a ministry of the Southern Dominican Province, provides educational resources for lay leaders in the United States. It began in 2005; in 2006 it began working with the Diocese of Salt Lake City’s lay ecclesial ministry formation program.
The first group of the diocese’s lay ecclesial ministers were certified in 2010. The second and third groups, one for English speakers and the other for Spanish speakers, have just completed the third year of their four-year training program.
"Laypeople are not merely collaborators with the clergy, laypeople are persons who share co-responsibility for the being and the activity of the church," said Dominican Father Wayne Cavalier at the Gala Congar, quoting Pope Benedict XVI.
As director of the Congar Institute, Fr. Cavalier said he hopes that those who complete the lay ecclesial ministry formation program will "be responsible, committed, effective pastoral agents that the bishop can trust and have confidence in. These are natural leaders in their communities. … They’ve been called by God to serve their community, and it is good and appropriate that they do so."
The Congar Institute has been involved with every step of the LEM program in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, from designing the curriculum to providing expert speakers to helping with the year-end assessments, said Susan Northway, the diocesan director of religious education, who oversees the LEM program.
"The Congar Institute to me is such a treasure to us because we don’t have the kind of academic depth available here … To be able to have these scholar teachers and these scholar ministers come in here, teaching and helping is just extraordinary."
"They send us the best speakers in the field," agreed Maria-Cruz Gray, Hispanic Ministry director.
The speakers, experts in their fields who come from all over the country, donate much of their time, Fr. Cavalier said. Therefore, the Gala Congar and the funding it provides "is a wonderful, unexpected gift," he said.
At the event, the 2013 Yves Congar award was presented to Gregory Glenn, who helped found the Madeleine Choir School and is liturgical director of the Cathedral of the Madeleine.
Glenn, who also teaches theology at the school, inspired at least one 8th-grader "to take this material seriously," as Father Christopher Gray said during his remarks at the Gala Congar while honoring Glenn.
Fr. Gray is a former student of Glenn’s.
"I would not be who I am today – a priest of Jesus Christ – except for the science and the knowledge of divine things wrapped in the mystery of the love of Christ that he instilled in me not so many years ago in the very first year of the Madeleine Choir School," said Fr. Gray, who was ordained in June. "And so, Mr. Glenn, from the bottom of my priestly heart, thank you."
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