BY SUSAN STEVENOT SULLIVAN

Staff Writer

ATHENS--Father Steven Pavignano, OFM, director of campus ministry at the University of Georgia in Athens is trying to help Catholics there connect.

He has been giving away low-profile bumper stickers at the campus Catholic Center and mailing them to prospective new students.

The small, square stickers display the Vatican insignia of the pope's beehive-like tiara and the crossed keys of the kingdom. Father Pavignano describes the sticker as "a simple thing for Catholics in the area, to help them find each other."

Msgr. Peter Dora, pastor of St. Joseph's Parish in Athens, has distributed the stickers to his congregation as well. St. Joseph ministers to approximately 1,200 families, while the Catholic population of the university includes 2,400 undergraduates, 200 graduate students and 300 families.

"There's a lot of people who think we are a very small minority," Father Pavignano said of the north Georgia community. "This is a quiet way of saying there are other Catholic people around. This is a way to meet one another."

Father Pavignano had 8,000 of the yellow stickers printed. More than 3,500 were mailed to prospective new students who declared themselves Catholic on their admission application. Parishioners at the university Catholic Center have picked theirs up in the vestibule, where hundreds more are available for display.

"One of the professors has one tacked up in her classroom," Father Pavignano said. "Over at the administration building I saw three parked cars in a row with stickers."

"If we can get more Catholic students comfortable and proud of who they are -- that's all I'm looking for," he said.