Sue Paterno was hesitant to have the new Catholic student center carry her name, but her enduring presence at the building — on East Park Avenue — will bear an important example for future generations, church leaders said Monday morning.
For years to come, Catholic students at Penn State will see in Paterno an illustration “that you can make inroads into the culture of today with the culture of God,” said the Most Rev. Joseph V. Adamec, bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.
He was one of several speakers at a cornerstone- and steeple-blessing ceremony held at the under-construction Suzanne Pohland Paterno Faith Center, near East Park Avenue and North Allen Street in State College. (Click on the large image above to open a photo gallery from the event; more photos will be added to the gallery later Monday.)
Roughly 100 people attended the ceremony, held in a still-unfinished interior room that will become the center’s chapel. The Rev. Matthew T. Laffey, the Catholic Campus Ministry director at Penn State, called the celebration the latest step toward completion of a dream.
That dream, he and other church leaders said, will bring Catholic Penn State students a permanent home, rich in their religious symbols, where they can work to find their own identities “in the eyes of God.”
The faith-center project, the target of a $6.5 million fundraising campaign, has been a dream of Paterno’s for nearly a generation, said her daughter Mary Kay Hort. Hort spoke on behalf of the Paterno family at the Monday ceremony.
She said her mother is “almost comical” in her unrelenting pursuit of her chosen goals. Sue Paterno has been instrumental in working with church leaders, private donors and community figures to bring the new facility to fruition.
“Come hell or high –,” Hort said, catching herself, pausing, and setting off laughter in the room.
“No matter what,” she went on, her mother has put a premium on faith.
In fact, Hort said, Paterno has seen her faith as a gift that must be shared with others.
Hort said she sees the Catholic student center as a destination to help foster the next generations of Catholic leaders, assisting them as they’re faced with competing values and tempting diversions.
And while her parents — her father is Penn State football Coach Joe Paterno — have received a lot of accolades, Hort added, she has a hard time imagining any honor more fitting and appropriate than the Catholic-center naming.
A number of Paterno family members — including grandchildren of Joe and Sue Paterno — attended the Monday event. Joe Paterno was not present, but Hort said he was very sorry for his absence and very proud of his wife.
Sue Paterno and church leaders placed several religious medals — each honoring a saint — atop the center’s cornerstone, which has yet to be fitted into the building foundation. The audience listened solemnly as the Most Rev. Mark L. Bartchak, current bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, blessed the steeple, already placed atop the structure. (Construction began last year.)
Fred and Patty Fernsler donated the steeple, which is modeled after the one at St. Vincent Basilica in Latrobe.
The 22,000-square-foot facility, to include space for fellowship, studying, meditation and prayer, is expected to open in time for the Catholic Campus Ministry’s 50th anniversary in 2012.
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