CSA funds help students at seminary
Kristin Lukowski of The Michigan Catholic
Published April 28, 2006
Woodhaven — Combining his love of both music and the Catholic Church seemed a natural career fit for Mario Amore.
Amore, 19, is music minister at Our Lady of the Woods Parish in Woodhaven, and is also a full-time student at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit in the music ministry program.
He's one of many students who receive tuition grants made possible by the annual Catholic Services Appeal. The financial assistance helps relieve some of the stress that comes with funding expensive college studies.
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Mario Amore, music minister at Our Lady of the Woods Parish in Woodhaven and full-time student at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, is one of many students who receives tuition assistance through Catholic Services Appeal funds. | "College is not cheap," Amore said. "Seminary is no different from any other college."
Amore, who plays the piano and organ, has been at Sacred Heart for about a year and a half after graduating from Gabriel Richard High School in Riverview. He received a scholarship that covers 75 percent of his tuition, which "helps take some of the burden off" and gives him a bit more freedom to study what he wants, he said.
Money's not everything, he said, but it does come in handy, and sometimes you need a bit extra to get by – and that is how his tuition assistance helps.
The CSA funds the operating budget for the seminary, as it does for most of the ministries of the Archdiocese of Detroit. But CSA funds also make possible other benefits for seminarians and lay students at Sacred Heart.
Undergraduate seminarians and lay students may receive grants, and graduate seminarians have their tuition entirely covered by CSA funds, a policy put into place in the 1980s by Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka after he became concerned that time spent working at outside jobs was distracting seminarians too much from their studies.
In May, Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit are asked to pledge a particular amount to help their parish meet its CSA goal. And any money that is raised over and above the parish's goal goes back to the parish.
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