By Gretchen Keiser

A newly remodeled Catholic Center at Emory University welcomed a full house Thursday, Oct. 14, for a liturgy of dedication and a student-organized buffet supper to celebrate the reopening of the facility.

For the liturgy, normal seating arrangements in the open, L-shaped living area on the first floor were rearranged to accommodate some 50 to 60 students, faculty members, staff and friends of the Center. Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan celebrated the Mass with two priests from the Dominican order who are in residence at the Center.

Father George Reynolds, OP, who came to the Center a year ago from campus ministry at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, was joined in the last week by Father Victor Brown, OP. Susan Sendelbach, a layperson with an M.A. in theology from Catholic University, had worked as a campus minister with Father Joe Cavallo and continued at the Center when leadership was transferred from the diocese to a team from the Dominican order.

At one time a private residence, the two-story, white building on North Decatur Road was purchased by the archdiocese in 1967 under Archbishop Paul Hallinan and was used initially as a residence for those in campus ministry. It was also a center for the faith and education of Catholics who were on the faculty and staff at Emory, recalled Dr. John Manning. Now a professor of physiology at Emory Medical School, Dr. Manning came to Emory in 1958 with his wife to complete post-doctoral studies. They became deeply attached to the region and stayed, providing a nucleus, with other couples, of a Catholic community at Emory. At that time, the number of new Catholics in the freshman class at Emory and its graduate schools was under 30, he said. This year it is estimated to be around 300.

In addition to the changing size of the Center, the community it serves has expanded. Besides students, faculty and staff at Emory, the Center serves Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta and, most recently, has begun serving the Oxford campus of Emory near Conyers.

Mass is celebrated Monday and Thursday evenings at 5:30 at the Center and Monday and Thursday mornings at 10 at G.S.U. Mass is celebrated at Agnes Scott College at 5:30 p.m. each Tuesday.

On Sunday a 9:45 a.m. Mass and a 6 p.m. Mass are celebrated in the Cannon Chapel on the Emory campus, with different student groups providing music for the morning and evening liturgies.

While the Center embraces different age groups and communities the central focus is upon the undergraduate student, Father Reynolds said. "It is basically a place for students and whatever students need," he said, emphasizing that in the broader perspective of parishes, everybody else in the Church "has a place to go." The student, who is often away from home for the first time and typically, experiencing a period questioning of much, including faith, needs particular ministering and a certain type of Center, Father Reynolds said.

Among the needs are flexibility and informality, aspects that are clearly reflected in the remodeling that has taken place under the guidance of the architectural firm of Deckbar-McCormick and contractors Carter-Degolian.

On the first floor, small rooms were combined to create a large living room space, which captures the late afternoon sun. Students are free to drop in at any time, around the clock, and any day of the week, except when the university is closed. To the left, a small chapel and meditation room is inviting. Off the living room to the back, the architect created a serving opening between the kitchen and living room, permitting students to pass food easily between the two for the dedication supper or the regular Thursday-night pot luck dinners following Mass.

At the back of the building, space was added for offices for the campus ministers and upstairs living quarters were remodeled for the Dominican team and provide a small living room, kitchen area and sleeping quarters.

The team of campus ministers emphasizes that the Center is open to students and that the activities and programs reflect their concerns. Work at the Center includes a liturgy planning committee, co-chaired by a student and by a staff member at Emory, Martin Isganitis, who works at the university credit union. Students work with members of Atlanta Clergy and Laity Concerned on issues of social justice and have a ministry to the sick at local nursing homes. Last year people from the Catholic Center at Emory were among those volunteering to work at night shelters housing Atlanta's street people in downtown churches.

A monthly community meeting provides a chance to exchange ideas and to keep the needs of the house and the community in mind.

Perhaps a special aspect of the Center is its adaptability, said Father Reynolds, who has been involved in campus ministry in the South and Southwest for 17 of his 23 years as a priest. Because of the age group, last year's "howling success" can be this year's dismal failure, he said. The students' needs are "immediate" and widely differing, so the stability of the Center must rest in its ability to respond quickly and with flexibility, rather than in a formal structure, he said.

Father Reynolds also said that the Center must be a place open to the students' questions about faith. Asked whether he sees more acceptance and less rebellion among 1980s' students, he said that changes are visible among students from one year to the next and that over a three-year period, the changes are dramatic, as if a mini-generation, with all its attitudes and tastes, had been replaced by another.

An Emory junior, Donna Saliter, said the Center and its community had helped her grow in faith to the point where she wants to share it with other people. She organized, with other students, a new program this year to pair incoming Catholic freshmen with upperclassmen from the Center. The older students wrote letters, struck up friendships and invited freshmen to the center and its events.

"When you're a freshmen you're really pressured by your peers," she observed. "We want to get people who are in here together with people who are potential members and let them see what we're all about."

(The Catholic Center is open seven days a week and can be reached by calling 404-636-7237. It is located on North Decatur Road near Emory Drive and the University Inn.)