UD holds special Mass for Marianists and quake victims in Haiti

Save Haiti: Donate now At american.redcross.org

Kasich wants 100 gigabits per second state network, smarter smartphones
Updated 17 min. ago
Cracker Barrel manager accused of embezzling $2K
New 17 min. ago
Benefit dinner held for girl who died in car accident
Updated 24 min. ago
Wright-Patterson relatively unscathed in Obama defense budget
1:46 p.m.
Dayton Mall shoe store moving
1:00 p.m.
> More headlines

By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer Updated 1:03 PM Saturday, January 16, 2010

DAYTON — The University of Dayton is offering prayers and support for the people of Haiti.

UD held a special Mass on Friday in the Immaculate Conception Chapel in memory of the victims of the earthquake on Tuesday, Jan. 12, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and in support of the reconstruction efforts.

The university has connections in Haiti though the Society of Mary.

UD students made service trips to Haiti sponsored by Campus Ministry from 1996 through 2004, said Nick Cardilino, director of the university’s Center for Social Concern. The trips were stopped in 2005 because of safety concerns, he said.

UD students in Port-au-Prince would visit hospitals, an AIDs hospice and an orphanage to help comfort people. A number of students returned to Haiti after graduation to continue work there, Cardilino said.

A Marianist community in Port-au-Prince suffered extensive damage from the earthquake.

The community was started in recent years by Canadian Marianists. UD doesn’t have any Marianist brothers in Haiti, Cardilino said.

The earthquake destroyed the Marianists’ novitiate building, but no brothers, novices or prenovices were killed or seriously injured, according to a Society of Mary news release.

Some of the Marianists were forced to jump off a balcony to escape from the building, the release said.

The community’s recently acquired prenovitiate building is now inaccessible, but its “large building” remains standing.

A second collection at all UD chapel Masses on Sunday will be directed toward the Haiti earthquake relief effort. In addition, 10 percent of all donations from regular Mass collections in January will be donated to the effort, officials said.

“Half of the funds we’re planning to send to Catholic Relief Services for the immediate relief and rescue effort that CRS is doing there, and then the other half of the money we raise is going to go to that Marianist community,” Cardilino said.

UD’s Center for Social Concern has created a Web site with information about university students, faculty and staff can help with the effort. Visit www.udayton.edu/ministry/csc/Haiti.php .

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2419 or dlarsen@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Share this article