April 26, 2011
Cardinals Will Celebrate Mass at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic Church WASHINGTON, D.C. - America's Catholic cardinals will gather in Phoenix Friday, May 6, to raise money for college scholarships at the 22nd American Cardinals Dinner, to be held at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch.
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, and John Garvey, President of CUA, will serve as co-hosts for the dinner. All proceeds from the event will benefit Catholic University scholarship funds.
Prior to the dinner, Bishop Olmsted will serve as the principal celebrant and homilist at a 4 p.m. Mass at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic Church, 10755 North 124th St., Scottsdale. Visiting cardinals, bishops, and clergy will concelebrate the Mass, which will be open to the public.
"My wife, Jeanne, and I are very much looking forward to attending our first American Cardinals Dinner," says President Garvey. "I'm excited about this opportunity to be with the cardinals, whose support is vital to our goal of attracting the brightest students to our campus. I'm also grateful to all who join us at the dinner to show their support for The Catholic University of America, where our dedication to the mission of Catholic education has never been stronger."
"It is a great honor for the Diocese of Phoenix to host the Cardinals Dinner here in Arizona, both because of the cardinals who will be with us and because of the great contribution to the Church that is being made by The Catholic University of America," Bishop Olmstead says. "I am grateful for this wonderful event to raise scholarship funding for students at Catholic University. I hope that many of our own youth in the Southwest will be numbered among those students."
The dinner is expected to feature four cardinals who currently serve as archbishops of U.S. dioceses as well as two retired cardinals. The former are also members of CUA's Board of Trustees.
Also expected to attend the dinner are Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, and Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron, Archbishop of Detroit and Chairman of the CUA Board of Trustees.
Each year a different diocese or archdiocese hosts the black-tie event; this is the first time the dinner has been held in Phoenix. In recent years the dinner has been held in such cities as Atlanta, Houston, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and San Francisco. Since its inauguration, the annual event has raised more than $26 million to support scholarships for Catholic University students.
MEDIA: To obtain more information about the event, contact Katie Lee or Mary McCarthy in the CUA Office of Public Affairs at 202-319-5600 or Robert DeFrancesco, Director of Communications, Diocese of Phoenix, at 602-354-2130 (office) or 602-751-2720 (mobile).
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Founded in 1887 and located in the heart of Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of America is unique as the national university of the Catholic Church in America. The only U.S. university established by the nation's Catholic bishops, CUA marked a special chapter in its distinguished history on April 17, 2008, when Pope Benedict XVI addressed Catholic educators from around the nation on campus. The university opened as a graduate research institution; undergraduate programs were introduced in 1904. Today the private and coeducational campus has approximately 6,900 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in 12 schools of architecture and planning, arts and sciences, canon law, engineering, law, library and information science, music, nursing, philosophy, professional studies, social service, and theology and religious studies.