By Gretchen Keiser

Father Mario DiLella tried Sunday to fight back both his tears and insatiable need to jolly funds for his beloved Catholic Center out of any audience.

He wasn’t successful in fighting off either urge, but those listening simply warmed to his failings. As the Franciscan priest, who has been campus minister at Georgia Tech for 15 years, spoke at the dedication Mass of the gleaming new Catholic Center Oct. 20, his voice broke more than once. He told the audience, which filled the sanctuary to capacity and lined the periphery of the semicircular, sun-dappled room, that the simple walls would be adorned with the words from the psalm: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice.”

“Because we are a resurrection community, this has been the theme during the construction and will continue to be our theme as we enjoy our beautiful new Catholic Center,” Father Mario said. “That is why we chose the figure of the Risen Christ to dominate not only this room, but the entire center.”

In addition to the Risen Christ figure, the sanctuary has carved statues of Mary as Our Lady of Grace, and St. Joseph the Worker who, Father Mario said, Tech students were fond of recalling as an “early engineer.”

The sanctuary, open through two stories, seats 300 people and was filled to overflowing with Tech students and former students, faculty members and supporters throughout the archdiocese, many of whom had contributed to the building fund.

This dedication day of the new Center, to serve some 2,000 Catholic undergraduate and graduate students at Tech, came after years of effort both by Father Mario and Tech students who watched as the Catholic population on campus simply outgrew the bungalow on Third Street where Masses and all activities were once held and where the chaplain lived. They brought the needs of the campus to the attention of the archdiocese. Eventually a new Center for Tech, which cost over $1 million, became one of the four projects funded by a three-year Capital Funds Drive in the archdiocese.

“It’s a glorious day,” said Father Mario simply after the Mass and reception had wrung everything that could be said about it out of him.

The three-level building is colored in muted shades of gray and green, strikingly modern and designed to take advantage of every inch of space in a lot, which makes up the triangular corner of Fourth Street and Brittain Drive in the middle of the Tech campus. One of the architects, Dale Durfee, said after the dedication Mass that the project was special to him and his fellow architect, Rufus Hughes, II, both because they teach at Georgia Tech and because of the nature of the Center. “We were building in our own front yard,” he said, adding that the fact that it was a religious facility affected their dedication also. Both Father Mario and the architects noted that a tremendous amount of donated labor and gifts are reflected in the building. While it took the chaplain some 20 minutes to mention as many of the special contributions as possible, some of them included the donation of labor by stained glass artists, by the woodwork craftsman who built the liturgical pieces, and even the donation of funds and labor to pay for the striking portico beam which identifies the building as the Catholic Center, and the donation of labor by a construction company to reinforce the columns holding up the portico. Georgia Tech students, under the direction of the architects, created the textured wall behind the Risen Christ figure which dominates the sanctuary.

“This is the kind of building it is. People poured their hearts into it,” Father Mario said.

In addition to current Georgia Tech students, both undergraduate and graduate took part in the Mass and gave tours of the building afterward, several former students returned for the dedication, from as far away as Colorado, Missouri, Connecticut and Virginia.

Cherise Fage, the wife of a 1980 Georgia Tech graduate, and Mike Furman, a 1982 Tech graduate, now working at the Tech Research Institute, said those who came back for the dedication were the nucleus of a group who instigated the new Catholic Center project. Mrs. Fage and Mr. Furman drafted the original letter of need to the archdiocese and recalled Sunday that it took them six months to perfect every word in the letter leading to the Capital Funds project.

In his remarks, Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan pointed out that Father Mario DiLella was like the “father of the bride” at a wedding who might fade into the background, but whose presence was critical to the day. He also noted the significance of the day was not the building which was dedicated but the lives of those who would use the building and their dedication to the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Over the years Catholics have grown to be the single largest denomination on the Tech campus, representing one fifth of the student body.