The Diocese of Arlington: Celebrating 31 Years

By Bishop Paul S. Loverde
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 8/18/05)

The following address was given by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde at the diocese’s second annual media breakfast on the eve of the Arlington Diocese’s 31st anniversary (Aug. 13). Bishop Loverde hosted approximately 20 members of print, radio and TV media, and outlined the diocese’s outreach to Latino Catholics, multicultural communities and commitment to Catholic education and service to the poor and disadvantaged. He also introduced Father Jose Eugenio Hoyos, the newly appointed Director of the Spanish Apostolate (Apostolado Hispano).

I want to welcome you warmly and thank you for attending this media breakfast. It is the second time that we have hosted such an event, and I want to tell you that I value it as a time for me to get to know you better, and also a time to share some of our vision with you. I am grateful for your interest, your questions and your continuing coverage of what I think — and I know I am biased when I say it: you are covering the most exciting place in the country to be a Catholic today, the Diocese of Arlington.

You know, I drive around the diocese a lot, so let me begin with kind of an outline. This diocese is bordered by the Potomac River on the north and east, West Virginia on the west and then the far reaches of counties like Shenandoah, Page, Madison, Orange and Spotsylvania, the Northern Neck on the east, and then on the south, the Rappahannock River. Throughout the diocese, we are opening schools and parishes. Just this summer, I opened two new missions — they are future parishes. They will develop into a parish. And I also raised a mission to a parish, which then gives us a total of 67 parishes, with over 400,000 registered parishioners. Our parishes span this spectrum from All Saints Parish in Manassas with over 16,000 people, to the newly formed Parish of St. Peter in Little Washington, which has just over 400 parishioners.

What I’d like to do for a few minutes is to tell you about the mission of this diocese as I see it at the present time, and it boils down to three basic points.

First, the core of the Church’s mission is to pass on the faith. One of the ways we do that especially is through education, through Catholic education. Catholic education benefits the entire community. Our 39 diocesan schools educate around 18,000 students annually. We are providing a quality faith-based education in a culture where values are often difficult to discern. As we do this, I might add, we are saving Virginia taxpayers $570 million dollars annually. Additionally, over 15,000 youth are active in our diocesan youth ministry programs, demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to the faith and the formation of our youth. Our programs help our youth to grow in their knowledge of the faith and their concern for others in need and their ability to serve the needs of others.

The second dimension of our mission at this time is serving the poor and the disadvantaged. Part and parcel of the Gospel call is to serve the least of our brothers and sisters, to reach out to them, the poor, the disadvantaged. As the human service arm of the diocese, our Catholic Charities provides services of inestimable value to over 30,000 people each year through such programs that include immigration assistance, providing food for the hungry, counseling, adoption services, emergency assistance and care for the elderly. In addition to what we do through Catholic Charities, there also are a number of other outreach services that are found at the local parish level.

And finally, the third segment of our mission these days, as I see it, is ministering to our multicultural community. History reminds us that the Catholic Church in America was initially an immigrant church. This diocese at the present time is a modern-day microcosm of that legacy. For many immigrant Catholics, the Church serves as the touchstone and assists them in integrating themselves into society. We have seen this in our own diocese. I see this here more and more, having been here six years. Numbers of different wonderfully gifted people bring us their culture and their faith, including the Vietnamese Catholics, the Korean Catholics, the Ghanaians, Brazilians and the list goes on. And the greatest number among them is our own Hispanic sisters and brothers.

With these three basic facets in mind, I just want to share just a word or two about my own upbringing, about what I believe the diocese is poised to do at this threshold, and finally, a few specifics of how our local Church is impacting lives through education, through service to the disadvantaged and through outreach to our Hispanic Catholic sisters and brothers as well as to other multicultural communities.

I am the son of a Sicilian immigrant. My father came from Sicily at age 18. My mother’s folks came from Sicily, although she was born here. I grew up in a wonderful little town — it has grown a little bit since. I grew up in a community where the Sicilians were truly bound by their culture and their faith. As a boy, I spoke first Sicilian. I was only 4 years old when I began to speak English rather well; but I remember the culture, I remember the bondedness of our people, and I heard from my father especially what it took for him to leave his own homeland at age 18, come across to this country and then to feel initially very unwelcome — it took him a long while to be able to settle in to finding a job, to being accepted. Till the day he died, he retained his wonderful dialect, his accent. I still remember how we would phrase certain things. Anyway, I just wanted to give you that background because whenever I am among a group of people from another ethnic background and culture, I immediately feel within myself a certain bondedness, because I remember, and I still treasure, what it meant for me to grow up in that particular culture.

I view the diocese at the threshold of something truly exciting. Tomorrow we will be 31 years old. Now, in the history of the Catholic Church, that is quite young. But nonetheless, we are 31 years old.

I would like to say a wonderful word of gratitude to my brother priests who have assisted so well in trying to reach out to our Hispanic sisters and brothers and to our other communities as well. So many of my brother priests and deacons have been using their zeal and their creativity to be the hands, the feet, the ears of Jesus to these sisters and brothers of ours. For example, in terms of our Hispanic sisters and brothers — 10 years ago, just a handful of our parishes offered the celebration of the Mass in Spanish. Five years, ago, that number was 20. Today, the number is 34, with five having been added this past year. There is more to do, but we are moving forward, and that is the exciting sign. We are moving forward — we are not going backward.

It is an exciting time to be the bishop of this diocese. In fact, it is a great privilege. It is a time for building foundations. I think that when you go out and get to know the Catholics in this diocese — it spans urban, suburban and rural settings in the 21 counties in Northern Virginia, you find that it is an exciting time to be Catholic. One paper — represented here today — led off a story this past June with the following headlines, "A population and immigration boom has flooded Northern Virginia with residents who are filled with the Holy Spirit … ." And I have to say, that is the key ingredient. It is the enthusiasm that God the Holy Spirit gives us that enables people to come together.

While I do not need to tell you that other dioceses are facing, regrettably, the challenges of consolidation and closings, in this diocese we are doing the very opposite, and it is a wonderful, wonderful challenge — it is unprecedented growth in our diocese. Our people see that, and they have responded. As you know already, our people have made a significant commitment in terms of building foundations through pledging nearly $115 million dollars to our capital campaign. Those are pledges, they are still coming in, but nonetheless it is a commitment of our people to building solid foundations.

The lion’s share of that capital campaign is earmarked for Catholic education in a variety of ways, for example, including $10 million in endowments for our Catholic schools. Our abiding commitment to making Catholic education available and affordable to every Catholic in this diocese — whether Hispanic, Asian, African-American, Anglo — is one that requires incredible focus, sacrifice (I know that from my parents), and a willingness to serve. In addition to the endowments we are trying to fund, we already have a tuition scholarship fund which has already provided over $1 million a year. Now with funds of the capital campaign, I am pleased to say that we are going to be equipped to throw out the scholarship net wider, impacting more lives for the better with the precious gift of faith, a gift, by the way, which is one of the Church’s most effective tools I think in combating an issue we are facing today in Northern Virginia: that of the gangs. When we give the gift of a Catholic education, we give our children a lifelong gift. This past year, seven of our already established schools in the urban area that we call our Metro Schools have found that because of the population shift, there are now more openings there, and we are finding ways, looking for ways, to try to fill those schools so they continue to be the beacon of hope they have been for many years.

Let me conclude with three specifics. I said the diocese is filled with the Holy Spirit, and I believe that. Now, that is kind of general, so let us see if we can find some specifics of how the enthusiasm generated by the Holy Spirit has come to be seen in some very concrete ways. Let me name three, although it was awfully difficult to keep it to three.

Earlier this year, a parish of ours in Colonial Beach — in tandem with the local Knights of Columbus — took stock of their needs. What they discovered was that nearly 25 percent of Colonial Beach residents live at or below the federal poverty level, and that nearly 33 percent of the residents maintain no medical insurance. They also took note of the growing Latino Catholic population on the Northern Neck, now estimated about 7,000. In the words of the local priest which I think typify the situation — he said, "If you live here, you notice there are significant needs … ." So together, what did they do? They opened the Guadalupe Free Clinic in May of this year. Staffed solely by volunteers, the clinic serves medically uninsured residents of Colonial Beach and Westmoreland County who are living at or below the federal poverty level. Just last week, I happened to be with the Knights of Columbus at their international convention in Chicago, where that parish and the local Knights received an award from the Knights of Columbus called the International Community Project Award. I am excited about that kind of wonderful outreach, that is concrete, and that tries to make a significant difference in the lives of people who are in need.

A second specific example — we are blessed in this diocese to host the Office of Refugee Resettlement. It is the largest such service provider in Northern Virginia, and we just celebrated our 30th anniversary. What I am thrilled about is that in the last 30 years, this particular office has served and assisted 18,000 people, a marvelous number.

Finally, next week, a new Catholic school will open in this diocese, Our Lady of Hope Catholic School in Potomac Falls. It is a K-8 facility, and on Aug. 29, 145 students will report. Part of what made this possible was the assistance that parish received through the capital campaign. This is the third opening of a Catholic elementary school in the last six years. I am absolutely thrilled to think that lives will be changed for the better for generations to come because people who attend that school will be formed in body, soul and spirit, contribute to this great country, this community and to our Church.

Well, the main person here today is Father Hoyos, because on July 1, he took the directorship of the Spanish Apostolate. And so, I think what I want to do is welcome you, Father, and to tell you we are delighted you are with us as we begin a new era, as we move forward, building on the wonderful work of your predecessors.

So let me conclude that by saying that the three facets of our mission — Catholic education, service to the disadvantaged and ministry to an ever-more multicultural Church — this is what focuses the mission for the diocese. It is a great story, a story I invite you to cover. Thank you.

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