Father Clifford Smith, Principal Suzanne Bacot, the Hoke family, Jackson, 8, Mason, 5, their mother Shelly, Brooklyn, 2, and their father Jeff, who have all been related to the St. Mark school over the past 30 years, on March 25, 2013 at St. Mark’s School in Plano. (BEN TORRES/Special Contributor)

By Seth Gonzales
Special to The Texas Catholic

PLANO—St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic School is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and Principal Suzanne Bacot believes its growth and success is because of a solid foundation.

“I am a firm believer that every day is a milestone in the field of education,” said Bacot, who has seen the school grow in just about every way since its founding. “We don’t grow by leaps and bounds. It takes a daily, consistent, and meaningful focus to educate a child—mind, body and soul.”

Since her hiring as the school’s principal in 1983, Bacot’s pragmatic approach to education is cited as one of many reasons the school has become one of the few in the country to be recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a “Blue Ribbon National School of Excellence”—twice.

“Next year, we are going to start to work to get it a third time,” said Father Clifford Smith, pastor of St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Parish.

By the early 1980s, the already existing St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Parish had identified the need for a school. When it opened for the 1982-1983 school year, 113 students from kindergarten through third grade were welcomed. Today, the school is home to  679 students. In an effort to keep class sizes down to 25 students in the elementary and middle school grades, there are three classes of every grade level.

As the classes grew, so did the campus. Eleven classrooms, as well as space for administrative offices were added in 1985. A cafetorium and regulation-size gymnasium were also constructed and brought the campus’ size to where it currently stands today.

A new entryway to the school also has been added and fundraising is already underway with the goal of purchasing a new indoor/outdoor communications system, as well as upgrades to the cafetorium’s stage, curtain, lighting, and sound system.

“The celebration of our 30th anniversary pays tribute to all of those that came before us,” said Jenee Richey, the school’s director of development. “St. Mark has just been so blessed with so many incredibly giving, talented parishioners and parents. It really pays tribute to remembering those that came before us and establishing our school. It also pays tribute to those here with us right now sitting in the seats, while at the same time building for the future.”

Shelly Hoke is one of the many alumni who now entrust the education of their children to the very school in which she was formed.

“When I was there, I felt like it really prepared me for life,” said Hoke, whose children Jackson and Mason are currently students, while daughter Brooklyn will start the pre-kindergarten program next year.

“I never struggled in high school and college,” she said. “I felt like I was really prepared for the challenges that you’re going to face at those levels. It gave me a confidence that I could do anything. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to send my kids there.”

Hoke’s son Jackson is a student in Carolyn Eisele’s second grade class. Eisele, whose own children, Monica and Brian, graduated from St. Mark, said the strength of the school isn’t so much what it teaches, but how it lives.

“We believe in continuously building and strengthening our academics, faith and community service,” Eisele said. “It’s wonderful being a part of this celebration as both a teacher and former parent.”

As the school’s longest-tenured teacher, Janet Gerwer has welcomed hundreds, if not thousands, of students into her classroom over the last 29 years, including Shelly Hoke.

“It is grand to see children of my former students attending St. Mark,” Gerwer said.  “I marvel at what we have become and wonder at where we are going. It boggles my mind to think of all the productive Catholic citizens that have graduated from St. Mark.”

One of her students, Kenny Cooper, is now a forward for FC Dallas, plying his trade as a professional soccer player. Cooper recalled his one and only year at St. Mark, which came after his family relocated to Dallas from Florida. Gerwer was Cooper’s homeroom teacher.

“It was never easy to move at a young age, but my time at St. Mark made that transition so much easier,” said Cooper, who entered the school as an eighth-grader and graduated in 1999. “The friendships I made there even helped me transition into high school, since a few of my friends ended up attending Jesuit Preparatory School with me.”

For Father Smith—who recently received a national Distinguished Pastor Award from the National Catholic Educational Association for his support of Catholic elementary education—the best indicator that the school is on the right track might be seen in the graduates who send their own children to St. Mark.

“It’s part of their family history,” Father Smith said. “Some families are on their third generation of sending their kids here. I’m pleased with what we are doing.”

Diocese of Dallas Black Catholics Come Home Committee reception and essay contest awards were held April 13 at Bishop Dunne Catholic School. Award winners included, front from left, Emily Fordan, Thomas Fordan, Brandy Hayes Briana Roy, Whitney Roy, Lyrix Howard, back from left, Alex Small, Lauren Rodgers and Alyssa Anderson. (DON JOHNSON/Special Contributor)

Highlighted by readings of winning essays, the inaugural “Taste of Home” community reception and essay contest awards on April 13 was an unqualified success, organizers said.

Bishop Dunne choir soloist Alyssa Anderson (left) sings as Walter Johnson leads the choir during the reception.

The awards reception, held at Bishop Dunne Catholic School, included a performance by the school’s choir and a panel discussion on why Black Catholics leave the Catholic Church for other denominations. Panelists included Father Timothy Gollob of Holy Cross Catholic Church, Deacon Charles Osborne, Daryl Avery, Dr. Myrna Dartson and Faith Ndifornyen.

Find the story in the April 26 print edition of The Texas Catholic

Members of the Jesuit College Preparatory School hockey team celebrate after winning the program’s third state championship. (JACK WHITE/Jesuit College Preparatory School)

Jesuit College Preparatory School first-year head hockey coach Kevin Smith said that seniors share the knowledge all season that, sooner or later, they will play their final high school game.

“Eventually, it’s coming,” Smith said. “The senior group we had this year took ownership of what they were doing. We kept rolling along.”

The Rangers had not predicted that they would play their final game in Coral Springs, Fla., to conclude their first trip to the USA Hockey High School National Championships, Smith said.

The trip to nationals capped a season in which Jesuit compiled a school-record 24 victories, won its third state championship (first for this set of players), and won two of its three pool-play games at the national championships.

“The last game was by far the most fun game I played in,” said Jesuit senior captain Hayden Meshell, the Rangers’ all-time scoring leader in goals and points. “There were a lot of question marks entering the season.”

On March 22, the Rangers finished their season by beating East Lake (Fla.), 3-2, after topping John Jay (N.Y.) in a shootout, 6-5, on March 21. Jesuit opened the tournament on March 20 with a 4-3 loss to Santa Margarita (Calif.)—which went on to win the national championship.

“All the teams at nationals were proud to play for their high schools, and it showed,” said Smith, who directs an ice training center in Richardson. “It was fantastic…We played teams from California, New York and Florida, so you could say we played coast-to-coast. I was excited for the kids, especially the seniors.”
Smith and Meshell said that freshman goalie George McBey impressed them. “The team in front of him was special, too,” Smith said.

Meshell said that he did not think the team would have a successful post-season run.
Keyed by senior Alex Mersch’s hat trick, Jesuit defeated two-time defending state champion Plano West, 4-2, to win the Texas title on March 7 at the Dr Pepper StarCenter in Farmers Branch. The Rangers also won this season’s AT&T Metroplex High School Hockey League championship.

“Our last loss had been in November,” Meshell said. “Then we had a 17-game winning streak. We won the state championship and had to turn right around and go to nationals. I expected to be blown out.”
But winning two games, especially the last of his career, made the season exceptionally rewarding, he said.
“It was crazy—the contributions we got from our seniors,” Meshell said. “It’s a lot of weird emotions.”

Stations of the Cross done by the elementary students at St. Rita Catholic School, on March 28 at St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas. (BEN TORRES/Special Contributor)

Look for more scenes from Holy Week 2013 in the April 12 print edition of The Texas Catholic.

The Bishop Lynch A Capella Choir touched down in Rome this past Saturday. Here’s a video of their arrival!

Joey Pintuci, far left, and Gabby Gomez, middle, during an opening school prayer at Holy Trinity Catholic School on Feb. 11, the day Pope Benedict XVI announced he would resign at the end of the month. (JENNA TETER/The Texas Catholic)

As students arrived at Catholic schools across the Dallas area Monday morning, they learned the news that Pope Benedict XVI had announced his retirement. Students, faculty and family members responded with prayer and reflection.

Saying he no longer has the strength to exercise ministry over the universal church, Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he would be resigning at the end of the month.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Saying he no longer has the strength to exercise ministry over the universal church, Pope Benedict XVI announced Feb. 11 that he would be resigning at the end of the month.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the pope told cardinals gathered for an ordinary public consistory to approve the canonization of new saints.

Pope Benedict, who was elected in April 2005, will be the first pope to resign in almost 600 years.

He told the cardinals, “In today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

The pope has had increasingly trouble walking in the past year, often using a cane and always being assisted getting up and down steps. However, the Vatican has never released medical information that would make it appear the pope suffers from anything other than joint pain connected to his age.

The option of a pope to resign is explicitly written into the Code of Canon Law. It says a pope may step down, but stipulates that the decision must be made freely and “duly manifested.”

Fulfilling the canonical requirement, Pope Benedict solemnly declared to the cardinals, “Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter, entrusted to me by the cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new supreme pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”

It is up to the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, to make preparations for a conclave to elect a new pope.

Before ending his remarks, Pope Benedict told the cardinals, “I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the holy church to the care of our supreme pastor, our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the cardinal fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new supreme pontiff.”

The pope made no mention of his future plans, other than to say, “I wish to also devotedly serve the holy church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”

Look for continuing coverage on www.texascatholic.com and in the Feb. 15 edition of The Texas Catholic.

Cardinals watch as the Italian rock group The Sun performs during a concert opening the plenary meeting of the Pontifical Council for Culture in Rome Feb. 6. Pictured are Francesco Lorenzi, guitarist and vocalist, Matteo Reghelin, bassist, and Ricky Rossi, drummer. (CNS photo)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture said he wanted to listen to what today’s young people had to say, he wasn’t afraid to hear it belted out at 100 decibels.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi invited members of the Italian rock group, The Sun, to speak their minds through music to the cardinals, bishops, lay members and advisers of the council, as well as to a large contingent of foot-stomping, cheering young fans.

The band’s 30-year-old lead lyricist and singer, Francesco Lorenzi, confessed that despite being used to playing stadiums with tens of thousands in the audience, knowing “we’d be playing for cardinals, bishops, ambassadors and journalists, we didn’t get any sleep last night.”

It was the first time a Vatican dicastery had a rock group as the “opening act” of its plenary assembly — usually a routine, speech-filled, sit-down affair where members come together a few days days to discuss a relevant theme.

But if the culture council was going to discuss “Emerging Youth Cultures” for their plenary at the Vatican Feb. 6-9, then what better way to get a feel for the subject than by inviting young people in, the cardinal

“We adults, older generations, and we priests have to make an effort to not put (young people) under a sort of microscope, but go to their level and begin to listen a little to what the rhythm of their mind, their heart is like,” Cardinal Ravasi told Vatican Radio.

The Sun’s rhythm, created by two guitarists, a bass player and drummer, shook the walls of Rome’s LUMSA University Feb. 6 as the group delivered songs about their Catholic faith such as “Onda Perfetta” (“Perfect Wave”) that says: “I have a whole world full of hopes and dreams, they’re illusions only if you don’t believe.”

While Vatican VIPs weren’t dancing in the aisles, many read through the lyrics and applauded with smiles.

In between songs, Lorenzi explained the band’s evolution from its birth in 1997 as Sun Eats Hours, which is an Italian saying equivalent to “time is fleeting, so get as much out of life as possible,” to being voted the “best Italian punk band in the world” in 2004.

They lived up their name, he said, traveling the globe, opening for world-famous acts like The Cure and Ok Go and experiencing enormous success.

But instead of feeling happy, the band members were angry and barely spoke to one another, Lorenzi said, losing themselves and each other in a nonstop revelry of “alcohol, drugs and women.”

Lorenzi started to turn his life around in 2007 when a night out with friends fell through and his mother suggested he instead go to a faith formation course being held that week at the local parish.

“I know you love me,” he said he told his mother, “but I want to be happy and I don’t go to church to be happy.”

But he agreed to just see what it was like, even though he was certain it would be miserable and they’d make him “sing awful songs.”

Instead, the warm welcome and genuine joy he saw on people’s faces “really struck me.”

“I saw a joy I never saw before and at a place I thought was for nerds. But it was the kind of joy I needed more than ever,” he said.

Bolstered by a new community, prayer, Mass and eucharistic adoration, Lorenzi’s life changed completely, he said. The other band members saw the transformation and slowly — over a period of five years — followed suit, wanting to discover the source of Lorenzi’s contagious happiness.

The band members had a new mission in life and on stage, Lorenzi said; they cut the band name down to The Sun “because it shines forever” and focused the lyrics on “what matters most in life,” like love, friendship, “life after life” and faith in God.

He told Catholic News Service that people don’t need to “hit bottom” before they discover the beauty of salvation.

“Jesus will come and get you, trying up until the very end, but that doesn’t mean you have to hit bottom, because he’ll take you even when you’re doing fine,” he said.

Telling council members The Sun wanted to help the church bridge the gap with young people, Lorenzi offered a booklet summarizing the results of an informal survey he took with readers of his blog, www.francescolorenzi.it. Over two weeks, some 25,000 people read the post, and hundreds sent responses to his three questions.

Asked “what helps attract young people to the church?” the responses included, “credible and enthusiastic witnesses,” but also pilgrimages to the Holy Land, a chance to have a personal spiritual guide and outlets for artistic expression, the booklet said.

“What do you want from the church?” evoked responses like greater trust in laypeople, putting the great questions of life front and center, and clear, sincere honest dialogue where formality and abstract ideas get set aside now and then, it said.

“What keeps the church and young people apart?” elicited replies like not understanding the reasons behind positions the church takes, “ostentatious wealth,” a lack of answers to people’s questions and poor communication skills.

“The church has lots of beautiful things to say” about things young people care about, “but it needs to find a way to say it” and have that message reach young men and women everywhere, Lorenzi said.

But even the most stirring speech or web post can’t answer people’s hunger for human contact and understanding, Lorenzi told CNS.

“A great speech without contact is at risk” of going nowhere, he said, while if it’s coupled with warm and genuine outreach, “the incredible can happen.”

J.J. Gustafson, from left, J.D. Waggoner, Jordan Mastrogiovanni, Jake Oliver and Porter Huntley pose for a group picture after signing letter of intent to play football at their college of choice on National Signing Day Feb. 6

Jesuit College Preparatory School

Five members of the Jesuit College Preparatory football team signed letters of intent including wide receiver Jake Oliver, University of Texas; Jordan Mastrogiovanni, Texas A&M University; defensive end J.D. Waggoner, Iowa State University; offensive tackle J.J. Gustafson, Texas A&M University; and cornerback Porter Huntley, Georgetown University.

Bishop Dunne Catholic School’s, from left, Justin Hawthorne, Ishmael Wilson, Chelsea Billups, Deyleon William and Michael Andrews pose for a group picture after signing letters of intent to play football and soccer at their college of choice on National Signing Day. (MICHAEL GRESHAM/The Texas Catholic)

Bishop Dunne Catholic School

At Bishop Dunne, Ishmael Wilson, a six-foot five-inch, 300-pound lineman, signed with Texas A&M University while Chelsea Billups committed to Louisiana Tech as a soccer player.

Meanwhile four other Bishop Dunne football players signed with smaller colleges including Michael Andrews, Tabor College in Kansas; Deyleon Williams, Midwestern State University; Justin Hawthorne, William Jewell College in Missouri; and Collin Horner, Crown College in Minnesota.

Bishop Lynch High School student-athletes participate in a National Signing Day ceremony at the school.

Bishop Lynch High School

Several Bishop Lynch football players picked their colleges including linebacker J.D. Bornstad, Southwestern University in Texas; safety Luke Packard – Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania; cornerback Jeremiah Mask, Saint Mary’s University in Kansas; offensive tackle Jose Escuadra, Ottawa University in Kansas; receiver Anthony Mullins, William Jewell College in Missouri; running back Ira Nunly, Doane College in Nebraska; defensive end Charles Miller, Ottawa University in Kansas; and defensive tackle Yoojin Park, Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

Also Bishop Lynch outfielder Brittani Young is headed to Mary Hardin Baylor to play softball while soccer players Analiese Florkowski and Alisa Velasquez chose Texas Woman’s University.

Ursuline Academy’s Cami Pham, with parents, Belinda and C.J., signs a letter or intent to play soccer at Northwestern University on National Signing Day Feb. 6. (JENNA TETER/The Texas Catholic)

Ursuline Academy

Ursuline Academy senior Cami Pham signed a letter of intent to play soccer for Northwestern University in Illinois.