To provide in the Catholic Center for Lay Action an Information Bureau, a gift of $25,000 from the Frank J. Lewis Foundation has just been received by Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan. The check was presented to the archbishop by Philip D. Lewis, son of the renowned Catholic benefactor, during the recent convention of Serra International in Miami.

“The perspective of the proposed lay center,” said the archbishop, “is the formation of the layman. This has its spiritual, educational, cultural and organizational aspects. From the start of planning, two projects were considered vital parts of the complex. Both are now possible.”

The Lewis gift will provide for a modern information center with a good library, available pamphlets and journals, with a priest for consultation. It is not a “Convert Bureau” -- rather it is a place where Catholic questions may be asked by anyone, and Catholic answers given by priests and laymen trained to do it.

The other project of the center is the ecumenical library made possible by the large gift of Mr. James Dickey to be named for him and his deceased wife. Here the emphasis will be on the meeting of persons of different faiths with definitive books and journals on the various churches.

“The generous Lewis Foundation grant comes from a residuary trust estate established under the will of the late Frank J. Lewis of Chicago. In his lifetime -- a tireless pioneer in the American missionary field, he set up this fund ‘for charitable and educational purposes and objects as are designed to foster, preserve and extend the Catholic faith.’ The trustees considered the Atlanta project a good instrument in our times for this educational and ecumenical work,” said Archbishop Hallinan.