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VOLUME 59, ISSUE 61 | FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2025 | NDSMCOBSERVER.COM
Students prepare to receive sacraments OCIA program guides largest cohort in ND history through process of initation into the Catholic Church By ISABELL A PONCIROLI News Writer
As Easter approaches, Notre Dame students in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCI A) program continue to prepare to receive the sacraments of initiation. This year’s program is the largest class ever recorded at Notre Dame, w ith 55 students taking the next step in their faith journey. Brett Perkins, assistant director for evangelization and religious education, is the director of Notre Dame’s OCI A program. Fr. Brian
Ching, C.S.C., rector of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, also works closely w ith the OCI A students. The OCI A program was prev iously know n as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCI A). The Vatican announced the name change in 2021, and it took effect in 2024. The word “order” replaced the word “rite” to more accurately describe the process as a collection of rites. “There are three steps that people go through on that journey toward becoming Catholic or getting confirmed, and so each of those
Papal secretary talks diplomacy
steps is called a rite. The fact that the whole thing is called an order now, as opposed to a rite, is a little bit more accurate,” Perkins said. The first step is the Rite of Acceptance, an initial public presentation to the local church communit y by name. The second step is a twopart rite celebrated at the beginning of Lent, the Rite of Sending and the Rite of Election. The Rite of Sending happens at ever y parish church, where the godparents and sponsors of the students give testimony to
Courtesy of Sabrina Searl.
see OCIA PAGE 4
OCIA students and sponsors attend Rite of Election with Bishop Kevin Rhoades at St. Mattthew’s Cathedral in South Bend, Sunday March 2.
Journalist speaks on Asian Americans advocacy By SOPHIE HANAWALT Notre Dame News Editor
SOPHIA TRAN | The Observer
The Honorable Emilce Cuba, an Argentine theologian, professor and Roman Curia official spoke on nonviolence, religion and world peace. By SOPHIA TRAN Associate News Editor
On Thursday, March 20, the Kroc Institute hosted the Honorable Emilce Cuda as a speaker during the institute’s 26th “Annual Dialogues on Nonviolence, Religion, and Peace.” Cuda serves as the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Holy See and is known for her international lectures on social democracy, Catholicism and
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justice concerns. Her hourlong talk was followed by lunch and an open conversation, also hosted by the Kroc Institute. During her dialogue session, Cuda spoke on diplomacy, interdisciplinary dialogue groups and the recognition of human dignity, with principles rooted in Pope Francis’ teachings on hope. Notably, she referenced Francis when discussing the harsh reality of social justice and politics. see SPEECH PAGE 3
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As part of Notre Dame’s Asian American Distinguished Speaker Series, LGBTQ+ activist, journalist and author Helen Zia spoke in the Smith Ballroom of the Morris Inn on Wednesday evening. The Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, which is a part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, hosted the event, titled “Helen Zia: A Life at the Intersection of Activism, Writing, and History.” Assistant professor of American Studies Jennifer Huynh served as a moderator. Zia, who is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and a Princeton alum, gave a detailed account of the events that inspired her to create change through her current career in journalism and life as an activist. She was a teenager in New Jersey in the 1960s, a time when the United States was home to only about 500,000 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Many of those there were “relegated to live” in ghettos that classified them by their race, Zia said. Zia added that she “always felt like an alien” in her state, so she rarely spoke up and avoided bringing attention to herself in
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school. Zia described how she frequently received the question, “Where are you from?” despite the fact that she was born and raised in the United States. “And then, finally, if I let [the questioning] go on for a while, that might mutate into ‘your people’ – ‘Where are your people from?’” Zia explained. “And then I would have to relent and say, ‘Oh, my parents are from China.’” When she asked the same question to white people, she usually received the response, “My people are from America, of course.” Zia recognized that this was, in part, a failure of the American school system to educate children on the rich history of Asian Americans. “How could I blame anybody for being ignorant about Asians in America? Back then, there were no history books that included Americans of Asian heritage [and] no classes, even at the college level, let alone kindergarten through 12th grade,” she said. She added that, as a child, she was unaware of Asian American history too. “I had no idea how much Asian Americans have always been part of the American people,” Zia said.
She discussed many prominent Asian Americans who invented and contributed to common food practices and industries in the United States (including the frost-resistant orange and the process of sun-drying shrimp), describing these people and their stories as “MIH”, or “missing in history.” When Zia eventually learned these things, she was both happy to learn something that connected her heritage to the United States and sad that she had been deprived of such important knowledge for so long. “I used to wonder, how different would life have been for me as a kid growing up if just a little bit of this had been known?” she said. When Zia got to college, situated within the tumultuous anti-Vietnam War period of the 1970s, she began a long process of learning how to speak up. Zia threw herself into liberation movements organized by other Asian American students, first as a helper, but eventually as a speaker in a peace rally denouncing the war. “What I [learned] was that I could speak out if I had to, and
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see ADVOCACY PAGE 3