Almost 200 people gathered at the Dyker Beach Golf Course for the third annual fundraiser, “Celebrating Lay Ministry: Working in the Vineyard of the Lord.”
The event, which benefits the Pastoral Institute Scholarship Fund, honored retired Auxiliary Bishop Guy Sansaricq and Father Emmett Nolan, C.M., pastor of St. John the Baptist parish, Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Ted Musco, executive director of the School of Evangelization, welcomed attendees and noted that as lay leaders in a variety of ministries, they are crucial to the efforts of the new evangelization.
Bishop Sansaricq was recognized as a strong advocate of the need for well-trained lay leaders.
Director of the Pastoral Institute, Gerald Tortorella, noted that Bishop Sansaricq “supported and helped to implement the 10-week Foundations for Ministry Program in Creole, in which he has been an instructor. But even before that, Bishop Guy’s ‘Kolèj Pastoral’ has met the pastoral needs of the Creole speaking population of this diocese for 26 years.”
Bishop Sansaricq was presented with a check to put toward the purchase of modern tools of communication for Radio/TV Solidarité, which reaches out to the worldwide Haitian population by means of the Internet.
St. John the Baptist parish, under the stewardship of its pastor Father Nolan, knows the value of lay formation for leadership. Since 2005, 39 persons have been commissioned as lay pastoral leaders after completing the diocesan Lay Ministry Program.
Father Nolan has empowered his leaders to act as coordinators or team members for a variety of ministries such as liturgy, hospitality, evangelization, social justice, youth ministry, faith formation and stewardship. In recognition of the service to the Bedford-Stuyvesant community for almost 150 years, a donation was made to the parish’s thrift shop.
Also recognized was the Class of 2004 of the Pastoral Institute’s Lay Ministry program as they celebrated the 10th anniversary of their commissioning as lay pastoral leaders for the parishes in Brooklyn and Queens.
The Pastoral Institute Scholarship Fund, which is administered by the Catholic Foundation for Brooklyn and Queens, provides support that enables many to take advantage of the programming provided by and through the School of Evangelization’s Pastoral Institute.