St. Ignatius Institute marks 50 years of Catholic formation
The program was founded on prayer, pilgrimage, and devotion to the Blessed Mother.
More than 200 people gathered in San Francisco earlier this month to celebrate the St. Ignatius Institute’s 50-year legacy of Catholic education and formation, according to an Aug. 27 report from the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
The institute is the University of San Francisco’s oldest living-learning community, combining Catholic liberal arts studies with four years of community, service, and spiritual formation.
The anniversary Mass was celebrated Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary — the same feast on which the institute’s founders began the pilgrimage that led to its establishment in 1976, and Institute founder Father Joseph Fessio reflected on those Marian beginnings in his homily.
Father Fessio said the group reached the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the Aug. 22 Feast of the Queenship of Mary, where they entrusted the proposed institute to the Blessed Mother’s intercession.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone reflected on the cultural climate surrounding the institute’s founding.
“It seemed like a time when all the lights were being switched off in Western Civilization,” he said. “But there are few people with really keen vision who were turning lights on when others were turning them off — that’s Father Fessio and John Galten.”
Galten, who later served as the institute’s director, called on those gathered to carry its Catholic mission into the future.
“The institute is not dead. You are the institute!” Galten said. “The Church enjoins us to be the light of the world. You are the light of the world. Be the light of the world!”
