ORDER OF MALTA MOMENT

Hundreds of members along with their families and friends enjoyed a wonderful investiture weekend late last month. Fifty candidates and two chaplains were invested as new members at the Investiture Mass and ceremony at St. Matthew's Cathedral. Donald Cardinal Wuerl was the principal celebrant and homilist. To view a list of the new members, please click here and to view a photo gallery of the weekend activities, please click here.

The Federal Association’s October investiture weekend ended on Sunday with the Taste of Haiti Brunch at Georgetown Visitation Convent School in Washington, DC.
The Visitation sisters welcomed members at a mass and brunch held to benefit the Crudem Foundation’s Hopital Sacré Coeur in Milot, Haiti. Monies from the event will be used for the building of an earthquake proof, hurricane proof, duplex unit for the families of key hospital medical professionals essential to providing Hospital Sacre Coeur’s high quality care.

Crudem foundation’s president Mike Maron acknowledged that Haiti had many problems, but he strongly believed that they could be solved by building trust and accountability between Haitians and their benefactors. Mr. Maron said that the Crudem Foundation expects that in the coming years the 347 employees of Hospital Sacré Coeur will transition to being hosts and the current volunteers from the U.S. and other nations “would become their invited guests.”

Mr. Maron also announced that the Hospital Sacre Coeur plans to construct a new 200-bed facility closer to Haiti’s second town Cap Haitian and to the U.S. sponsored Caracol Industrial Park on a 22 acre site deeded by the government of Haiti.

Belmont Abbey College's campus was the venue for an Order of Malta Fall Retreat, hosted by the Federal Association's Charlotte Region on October 25 and 26.

Rt. Rev. Placid Solari, O.S.B., Abbot of Belmont Abbey and Conventual Chaplain adhonorem of the Order, directed the retreat using the theme, The Year of Faith: The Foundations of Catholic Doctrine and Faith in the First 500 Years.
On Friday evening retreat participants joined the Benedictine monks of Belmont Abbey for Vespers and then remained at the Abbey's Mary Help of Christians Basilica for the retreat's first conference, presented by Dr. Ron Thomas, PhD, Assistant Professor of Theology at Belmont Abbey College.

Saturday's sessions included topical lectures and discussions led by Abbot Placid, and Rev. David Brown, O.S.B., mid-day prayers with the monks, opportunities for private prayer, meditation, confession, as well as praying the rosary at the Lourdes grotto shrine. The retreat concluded with Mass concelebrated by the Order's Charlotte Region Chaplains, Abbot Placid and Most Rev. William Curlin, Bishop Emeritus of Charlotte.