national catholic prayer breakfast

National Catholic Prayer Breakfast to Be a Weekend Event

By Henrietta Gomes
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the Issue of 4/5/07)

More than 1,000 participants are expected to arrive in Washington next week for the fourth National Catholic Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton and Towers. The breakfast started as a morning event lasting only a few hours, but this year has expanded to a three-day event that will start with an evening Mass on April 12 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew in Washington, celebrated by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde, who will also be the homilist.
It all started when Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis, a Catholic-based advocacy organization, pitched the idea for the Catholic prayer breakfast to his friends several years ago. “I thought it was a great idea because there was not enough public presence of Catholics,” said William Saunders, one of the five founding members who serves on the board of directors. “There was clearly a hunger for it and a need for it,” said Saunders, who serves as senior fellow in Bioethics and Human Rights Counsel in Washington. The event, he said, “is a call to Catholics to pray for the country, for our leaders, to express solidarity, and to be a witness.”
The idea of a Catholic prayer breakfast “just resonates with people,” said Austin Ruse, who felt compelled to act when he first heard Sella’s idea, which he described as “high concept” and “sensational.” Ruse, another founding member of the prayer breakfast and a board member, said the event meets an aspect of the “new evangelization,” called for by the late Pope John Paul II. Ruse, a parishioner at St. Rita Church in Alexandria, is president of the Catholic Family Human Rights Institute.
“I believe in flying the flag,” said Ruse. Although it makes one “readily identifiable to your enemies, it also makes you identifiable to your friends, who will gather around,” he said. The purpose of the prayer breakfast, he added, is to raise “the flag of Catholicism in the public square.”
The actual breakfast will start after participants pray the rosary at 7:15 a.m. at the Hilton on April 13. In an attempt to draw more people from around the nation, this year the event will include two talks by Dr. Scott Hahn, internationally acclaimed Catholic speaker, and Father Richard John Neuhaus, president of First Things magazine in New York. Lunch will follow the talks along with two panel discussions on “Public Policy Issues of Interest to Catholics” and “Catholics in Entertainment and the New Evangelization.” The panelists include Raymond Arroyo, EWTN news director; Steve McEveety, producer of “The Passion of the Christ”; Eduardo Verstegui, lead actor in the movie, “Bella”; Carter Snead, associate professor of law at University of Notre Dame Law School.
Last year President George W. Bush attended the event and addressed the participants. He has been invited again this year, but his attendance has not been confirmed.
The evangelization aspect of the breakfast is the most important part, said Saunders, who will celebrate the 10th anniversary of his initiation into the Catholic Church next week. For him it is personally gratifying to witness the expansion of the prayer breakfast. “The most important thing in my life is becoming Roman Catholic. I hope the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast will bring others to the faith or to a deeper appreciation of it.”
On Saturday, the participants will go on a “tour of Catholic Washington,” which will include a visit to the Capitol, Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and a tour with lunch at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center.
For more information go to www.catholicprayerbreakfast.com.

Henrietta Gomes can be reached at hgomes@catholicherald.com.