FROM “VENERABLE” TO “BLESSED”:
FOUNDER OF HOLY CROSS TO BE BEATIFIED

By Michael O. Garvey
From ND Works, Notre Dame’s Faculty and Staff Newspaper published Aug. 16, 2007

Dozens of members of the Notre Dame community will travel to LeMans, France in September and join with other members of the Order of Holy Cross and its affiliates for beatification ceremonies honoring Basil Anthony Moreau.

Moreau, the 19th-century French churchman, founded the Congregation of Holy Cross in LeMans. He is to be beatified in a ceremony at the Centre Antares, a sports arena, on Saturday, Sept 15.

A person who is “beatified” by the Catholic Church has significantly advanced toward “canonization,” or the status of being officially and solemnly proclaimed a saint.

Notre Dame was born as a project of the Holy Cross order in 1842 and continues to rely on Moreau’s followers for its administration, inspiration, and communion in the Catholic Church.

“This event is a significant opportunity for the Holy Cross order and the University community to recall and reflect upon Father Moreau’s invaluable wisdom, which continues to lead us today,” says President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., who will lead the University’s delegation to LeMans.

“Among his leading principles, Father Moreau believed ‘the mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart,’” Jenkins recalls. “Father Moreau also said ‘Society has a greater need for people of values than it has for scholars.’ These thoughts remain fundamental in our efforts to educate talented students whose hearts, hands and minds reach out to those around them.”

Some 60 undergraduate students who are participating in international studies programs in Europe will join the contingent of University faculty and staff, as will administrators, deans, and faculty members.

Among official activities of the two-day event, Bishop Jacques Maurice Faivre, of LeMans, will preside at a 4 p.m. Mass on Saturday, Sept. 15 in the Centre Antares, during which Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will read a letter from Pope Benedict XVI declaring Father Moreau “blessed” and establishing January 20 as his liturgical feast day.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., will preside at a Mass of thanksgiving for Father Moreau’s beatification at the cathedral of LeMans.

The new Moreau statue was carved by Robert Graham, a Los Angeles sculptor whose works include the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Duke Ellington statue in New York City’s Central Park, and the bronze doors of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, Aug. 28, a video on Father Moreau’s life and the significance of his beatification will be shown during the 5:30 p.m. Mass for the opening of the school year in the Joyce Center. A few days before the beatification, the occasion will be the subject of a letter from Father Jenkins to the Notre Dame community. Prayer cards honoring Father Moreau will be distributed both during the Opening Mass and in Father Jenkins’ letter.

Other faculty and administrators to attend beatification ceremonies in LeMans are John Affleck Graves, executive vice president; Rev. James E. McDonald, C.S.C., associate vice president and counselor to Notre Dame’s President; Thomas G. Burish, provost; John Cavadini, chair of the theology department and director of the Institute for Church Life; Rev. Mark Poorman, C.S.C., vice president for student affairs; Patricia O'Hara, dean of the Notre Dame Law School; Carolyn Woo, dean of the Mendoza College of Business; and Hilary Crnkovich, vice president for public affairs and communication.