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WYD-SERVICE Jul-11-2008 (430 words) xxxi
U.S. college students spend days in service before heading to Sydney
By Catholic News Service
MANILA, Philippines (CNS) -- On their way to World Youth Day in Australia, 23 students and five staff members from a U.S. Catholic university stopped off in Manila, not for sightseeing but for service.
During a 10-day stay, the group from Jesuit-run Fairfield University in Connecticut worked on a house-building project, similar to the U.S.-based Habitat for Humanity program; at a health clinic and Jesuit outreach center for people who work and live in and around a dump, which creates serious health risks; and at the National Bilibid Prison, where a Jesuit-run prison ministry serves inmates and their families.
The service projects were arranged by the Jesuits' Australian province.
Conor O'Kane, associate director of campus ministry at Fairfield, said in a statement that the service portion of the trip "gives us the opportunity to walk in solidarity and in accompaniment with the people who are living on the margins of Filipino society."
In addition to the Fairfield students and staff, nearly 1,300 others from several Jesuit-run universities -- including Georgetown in Washington, Santa Clara in Santa Clara, Calif., and Regis in Denver -- were engaged in service trips in Southeast Asia prior to the July 15-20 World Youth Day.
Once in Sydney all the students from the Jesuit schools involved in service were going to attend a two-day retreat "to process their experiences."
Fairfield's president, Jesuit Father Jeffrey von Arx, was to join his university's group in Sydney.
Service also was part of the World Youth Day experience for a contingent from the Diocese of Manchester, N.H. Twenty-one young adults, a parish priest and lay youth minister landed in Sydney days before the international event to work.
In a blog posting detailing their experiences July 10, Father Volney DeRosia of St. Bernard Parish in Keene, N.H., said the group would be helping repair the Stations of the Cross in a local community church.
Bishop John B. McCormack of Manchester, who supported the group's two years of fundraising to get to Australia, congratulated the young people from his diocese.
"World Youth Day has sparked a profound response by young people around the world to the call of Christ to serve others and to build up the church. I am pleased and grateful that there are pilgrims from New Hampshire in Australia," he said in a statement.
"I am confident that their experience will deepen their relationship with the Lord and make them even more effective disciples who lead others to know of God's love for everyone," he said.
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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