Aquinas Institute gets $1.7 million for project on lay Catholics

Published: 2004-09-17

ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- The Aquinas Institute of Theology has received a $1.7 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to launch a five-year initiative to raise awareness about the state of the Catholic Church today and call upon lay Catholics to recognize their role in sustaining the church. Aquinas' Apollos Project will connect the graduate school of theology to 35 parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the dioceses of Belleville and Springfield, Ill., and Jefferson City and Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo. It will set up models of ministry in which pastors and professionally trained lay people form a team to meet the needs of Catholic parishes. "Catholics in the pew have become passive," said Dominican Father Charles Bouchard, president of the institute. "They are accustomed to having priests provided for them. This project should remind each of us that the church belongs to every Catholics and needs leaders to emerge from among its ranks."

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