Critical topics lead to conference scholarships

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY – The upcoming changes to the Roman Missal will be the focus of the 2011 Southwest Liturgical Conference, which will be hosted by the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Because the changes will affect all Catholics, two local organizations are offering scholarships to the four-day event.

"This important information and preparation is essential to the Catholic community," said Karin Hurley, SWLC core program committee chairperson, adding that the changes to the missal are one of the most important issues for Catholics in the last 40 years. "The liturgy, like Bishop Wester says, is what forms us as a people. It’s how we pray, how we come together to embrace the risen Christ."

The Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of Salt Lake City, has deemed the SWLC extremely important, one reason that the Catholic Women’s League has offered eight scholarships to people in the Delta, Fillmore and Beaver missions to attend the conference.

"Catholic Women’s League was originally started by Bishop [Joseph S.] Glass and one of our duties is to be of mutual help to the diocese and to help the bishop with any of his programs," said Cece Holt, CWL hospitality chairperson. "I went to the Catholic Women’s League executive committee meeting and I asked if we could possibly fund a couple of scholarships. The women immediately said, ‘There is a need here and this is such a wonderful conference … Let’s fund eight scholarships’" for the missions.

Holt knows from experience the value of both a scholarship and the conference. In 1996, when she had four children in Catholic schools, she attended the SWLC on a scholarship, without which she couldn’t have gone.

"For me, personally, it was an amazing conference, not only as a person involved with liturgy but as a layperson in the diocese," Holt said. "The benefit is that you really get a better understanding of what liturgy is all about. And that liturgy truly is the work of the people. I sometimes worry that people say ‘this is only for people who are involved in liturgy.’ Well, we are the people in the pews. We are the people who are involved even if we’re not involved in the planning of it."

The Saint John the Baptist Ladies Association also is funding 10 partial scholarships; these will be for catechists in their parish, said Hurley, a member of the association’s board.

"This is an extraordinary opportunity for people in our diocese," because of the depth of what will be addressed at the conference and the number of prominent speakers, Hurley said.