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thea VOL. 47, NO.34
• Friday, September 12, 2003
FALL RIVER, MASS.
Southeastern Massachusetts' Largest Weekly • $14 Per Year
Needy receiving Catholic education via scholarships ~
St. Mary's Education Fund assisting 702 students looks to help nearly 900 next year. By DEACON JAMES N. DUNBAR
FALL RIVER - Knowing full well the value of a Catholic education, diocesan officials and teams of dedicated volunteers are pressing once again to ensure that financial hardships won't prevent any needy child from realizing that opportunity. Not about to sit on the laurels of their success in providing more than $2.7 million to more than 3, I00 financially strapped students in the diocese's 23 elementary schools, two middle schools and four high schools, from 1995 through this year, the St. Mary's Education Fund teams are looking at the challenge ahead. During this current school year, the generosity of so many people means that more than $600,000 is being distributed to 702 students of the approximately 9,000 enrolled in diocesan schools, "the largest amount ever given and it is spread among every one of the schools," said Michael J. Donly, director of Development for the Fall River diocese. "We had 900 applicants this year. But in the 2004-2005 school year we expect in excess of 1,000 students from families who can't afford to send them to Catholic schools because of financial hardship to ask us for scholarship assistance," he added.
Currently there are a total 8,680 students attending the Catholic schools of the Fall River diocese. There are 5,281 enrolled in the elementary schools, 529 in middle schools, and 2,870 in the high schools. All offer a tradition of quality Catholic, valueoriented education leading to greater selfesteem, accountability, maturity, and above average performance. The network includes 23 elementary schools extending from the Attleboros to Cape Cod; two middle schools - Hyannis and Taunton - and the four high schools in Attleboro, North Dartmouth, Fall River and Taunton. And there are plans to open a new elementary school in South Yarmouth in September 2004, and another school is being planned for the Sandwich-MashpeeFalmouth area. "So as the diocese offers so much Catholic education, there is a greater demand for an opportunity to attend diocesan schools," Donly said. "That's where the St. Mary's Education Fund comes in, to offer needbased scholarships." In 1991, the diocese established the Fund from the proceeds of the sale of the former St. Mary's Home of New Bedford, an orphanage sponsored by the diocese. Interest from the Fund provides the scholarships. From the very first Scholarship Dinner held in the Fall of 1995, there has been an increasing sense of purpose and enthusiTum to page three - Fund
Pope John Paul II will mark the 25th anniversary of his election as pope on October 16, and to celebrate that The Anchor in the coming weeks will run a variety ofphotos and stories about His Holiness and the events that have marked his pontificate. The stories will feature an overview of his papacy and how he has inspired millions ofpeople, his love for youth, how the Church has changed, interviews with people who know and work with him, areas in which he has had a special impact, his role as a communicator, his evangelization and lifelong devotion to the Virgin Mary, and what's in store as his pontificate continues.
Pope's travels abroad called most revolutionary of papacy By JOHN THAVIS .CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE VATICAN CITY - In past centuries, Catholics went to Rome to see the pope. Pope John Paul II has reversed the practice, traveling to 129 countries in order to meet people where they live, work and worship.
Many observers count that as the most revolutionary change implemented during the first 25 years of Pope John Paul's papacy. From behind the Vatican walls, a supreme pontiff came into the streets, factories, refugee camps, presidential palaces and Tum to page 13 - Pope
THE SOUZA Family of North Dartmouth are welcomed into the Catholic Church by Franciscan of the Primitive Observance Father John Sweeney at a recent ceremony at St. Julie Billiart Church.
Dartmouth couple'S faith journey comes full circle By DAVE JOLIVET EDITOR
NORTH DARTMOUTH - For Bob and Yvonne Souza of North Dartmouth, their Christian faithjoumey has taken them to where it began. Both were raised as Catholics, Bob in New Bedford and Yvonne in New York State, and they felt
the need to leave the Church hoping to strengthen their relationships with the Lord in the Protestant Church. And strengthen it they did. Bob became an ordained nondenominational minister and together the couple raised seven children in the Christian faith, with Yvonne also taking on the Tum to page J3 - Couple