Bishop Steven Raica of Birmingham, Alabama, presented EWTN’s vice president of theology, Colin Donovan, with the Pontifical International Marian Academy’s Letter of Appointment and Diploma during a Mass on Aug, 9. / EWTN
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 10, 2023 / 20:11 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis appointed Colin Donovan, vice president of theology at EWTN Global Catholic Network, to the Pontifical International Marian Academy, which is tasked with promoting theological understanding and devotion to the Mother of God, the network announced Wednesday.
Donovan was presented with the Marian Academy’s Letter of Appointment and Diploma by Birmingham Bishop Steven J. Raica during an Aug. 9 televised Mass.
The appointment honors Donovan for his contributions to the field of Mariology and his commitment to spreading devotion to Mary.
In an interview with CNA on Thursday, Donovan called his appointment “a great privilege,” adding that it wasn’t something he was expecting, but a task that he is excited to take on.
EWTN is the parent company of Catholic News Agency.
Donovan said that the academy promotes “Mariological science,” the division of theology that studies Mary. The academy, founded in 1946, organizes International Marian Congresses and publishes a journal of their work called Marianum.
“The academy is there at the service of the Church and specifically at the service of the Roman Pontiff so that he can throw questions to them if he wants,” Donovan said.
Donovan is approaching his 27th year working at EWTN, where he serves as a theologian and on-air commentator, often answering questions about Mariology.
Part of Donovan’s role at EWTN requires him to review materials for broadcast or print, as well as answer questions on the radio during the show Open Live, which he has hosted for almost 20 years.
Donovan said that his appointment is an opportunity for him to continue his research and study of Mariology, which makes it “quite exciting,” apart from “the great honor that is represented simply by being appointed to it.”
Donovan told CNA he has always had a devotion to Mary, a relationship that began when he was a child with the recitation of the Rosary and Marian formation in Canada from his school teachers, the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion.
His first encounter with in-depth theological study began his freshman year of college while studying biology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, when someone asked him his thoughts on Humane Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter on birth control.
He went to read the encyclical to form an opinion and said that “the clarity of what the pope wrote about in the natural order of marriage and family just struck me immediately.”
Donovan, a Navy veteran, went on to study theology and philosophy at the Seminary of Christ the King in Mission, British Columbia, Canada. He then earned a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
In the early 1990s, before joining EWTN, he was a professor at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2017, Donovan was invited to speak at the Pontifical Marian Academy’s conference in Ireland, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions. He also participated in the academy’s 2021 conference which was held on Zoom because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Mother Elvira, the founder of the Comunità Cenacolo, based her efforts to help young people struggling with addiction around the concept of radical trust in God’s mercy and providence. / Courtesy of the Comunità Cenacolo
National Catholic Register, Aug 5, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
Mother Elvira Petrozzi, who founded Comunità Cenacolo in 1983 to provide hope and healing to those suffering from addiction, died on Aug. 3 in the formation house and residence of her congregation in Saluzzo, Italy. She was 86.
Her death, following a long illness, came just weeks after thousands of people gathered in Saluzzo, a hilltop town in Italy’s northwest Piedmont region about an hour’s drive south of Turin, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Cenacolo Community’s founding there in an abandoned home on July 16, 1983.
In the decades since, the community has grown to encompass 72 Cenacolo houses in 20 countries, including four in the United States.
Mother Elvira called the Cenacolo a “School of Life” because it took people off the streets and gave them a “rebirth” that was “based on a simple, family-oriented, orderly life” with the foundation of prayer, physical labor, discipline, and fraternal sharing.
“How could I invent a story like this? Everything happened without me even realizing it,” she once remarked.
“I dove into God’s mercy and I rolled up my sleeves to love, love, love … and serve!” she said. “I am the first to surprise myself with what has happened and what is happening in the life of the Cenacolo Community. It’s a work of God, the Holy Spirit, and of Mary.”
Bishop Robert Baker, bishop emeritus of Birmingham, Alabama, first met Mother Elvira in 1991. The two developed a close friendship and together they co-founded four Comunità Cenacolos in the U.S. Southwest, including one near Hanceville, Alabama.
Baker was among Mother Elvira’s many friends, supporters, and community members who were able to visit with her in her final days.
“I had the blessing of being invited to come to be at her bedside,” he told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s partner news outlet. “I was with her and I was able to give her a blessing.”
Humble beginnings
Born Rita Petrozzi, Mother Elvira was born in Sora, Italy, in 1937 and grew up in a poor family, taking the name Elvira upon entering the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne Antide Thouret as a teenager.
It wasn’t until 27 years later that she felt inspired to help young addicts and other youth to change their lives. Rooted in her Catholic faith and God’s love for every person, her methods were so effective that they led to others wanting a Comunità Cenacolo established in their region.
Prior to meeting her, Baker founded a drug addiction center called Our Lady of Hope Community in St. Augustine, Florida. Then visiting Rome when he was rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, he learned of Mother Elvira, spoke with her, and at his invitation agreed to establish a Cenacolo community with her entire program at Our Lady of Hope in 1992. The two friends went on to co-found two other houses in the St. Augustine area and a fourth house in Alabama.
Baker celebrated one of the Masses for the thousands of people attending the 40th anniversary celebration in Saluzzo. In his homily, he reflected on the time when he arranged to use an ornamental nursery to raise funds for the Cenacolo program in Florida, but when community members arrived from Italy they explained that Mother Elvira had instructed them to rely instead on divine providence.
“It was the result of her own closeness to the Lord in the Eucharist, which enabled her to see the immensity of God’s love. And if God loves us so immensely, he will provide for us,” he said.
After 30 years, no one has gone hungry in that Florida house or any of the community’s houses. “The point being, she was right,” Baker said.
Mother Elvira, who died on Aug. 3, 2023, at age 86, was beloved for her infectious trust in God’s providence, her devotion to the Eucharist, and her burning desire to share God’s boundless love with those struggling in life. Courtesy of the Comunità Cenacolo
The daily schedule at these houses includes Mass, eucharistic adoration, Marian devotion with three rosaries minimum a day, and devotion to St. Joseph. Every day members pray simply: “St. Joseph, provide for us.”
“The heart of it is, of course, the Eucharist,” Baker explained.
“Part of Elvira’s training is to divest to get rid of the stuff you don’t need,” he said. “So, the divesting, the trust in divine providence, and then … the Eucharist, praying before the Lord. That’s where her greatest strength was — the Eucharist, where she had all these insights. [You] have to have the sense of God’s immense love, which she had from praying before the Eucharist. And then because you know God loves you immensely, he will provide for you.”
When Baker visited Mother Elvira shortly before her death, he noted upon entering the house a mosaic on the floor that spells out the words “Dio Provvede” (God Provides).
‘Consumed with God’s love’
Florida residents Sean and Elaine Corrigan, who met Mother Elvira in 2000, lived in her community for some time and served in its missions in Brazil.
The couple credits her for saving their marriage.
“She had an extraordinary impact on our lives and on our marriage,” Elaine Corrigan told the Register. “Mother Elvira was a person fully in love with her Savior. She knew, she accepted, and she believed completely in his merciful love, and her great desire was to share him with others.
“I wanted to run after her and soak up all that she had,” she continued. “When we met Mother Elvira, we knew we had encountered a woman completely consumed with the love of God. She knew in the core of her being that he could and would heal people. She shared this hope and mercy with everyone she met.”
Albino Aragno, who started with the Cenacolo more than 30 years ago and today is the director of Comunità Cenacolo America, said Mother Elvira taught him many valuable lessons.
“Mother Elvira always encouraged me. She reminded me that life is precious and that life needs to be lived fully … to never be afraid to do God’s will, and always trust in him,” he said.
“Because of this, I can say that in all these years I can see that our community has kept on going even through so many difficulties, because good always prevails!”
Albino’s wife, Joyce, said Mother Elvira had a profound effect on her from the very beginning.
“Mother Elvira said, ‘Lord, let me know your will in the moment you want me to do it.’ This pierced my heart the first time I heard it and moved me to try to live every moment of my life in surrender and abandonment to his will, as Jesus reveals it at that moment,” she explained.
“It’s so radically opposed to control and trusting ‘in my own understanding,’ as the Psalmist says — my own intellect, perception, and analysis. Jesus calls me to live totally in the moment, not depending on myself.”
Pope Francis paid tribute to the Comunità Cenacolo on its 40th anniversary following his July 16 Angelus reflection.
“I send my heartfelt greeting to the Cenacolo Community, which has been a place of hospitality and human promotion for 40 years,” the pope said. “I bless Mother Elvira, the bishop of Saluzzo, and all the fraternity and friends. What you do is good, and it is good that you exist! Thank you!”
Baker said he observed during a recent Mass how “in periods of the Church there are great saints that get us through the eras in which we live.”
He pointed to St. Benedict in the fourth century, the Dominicans and Franciscans in the 13th century during the Albigensian heresy, and St. Ignatius and the Jesuits in the 16th century at the time of the Reformation.
Rome Newsroom, Nov 10, 2023 / 09:23 am (CNA).
The Vatican Museums have announced a series of novelties beginning both this month and after the new year, in anticipation of the 2025 Jubilee Year.B… […]
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