United States cardinals to gather in Twin Cities public Mass and fundraiser set for April

Most, if not all of America’s thirteen Catholic cardinals will visit the Twin Cities this spring for a fundraising dinner to benefit The Catholic University of America located in Washington, D.C.

The event, brought to Minnesota by Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, D.D., Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, will provide people in the upper midwest a rare opportunity to see some of the Cardinals who were chosen by Pope John Paul II.

"Other than meetings of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, this is really the only time of year they (the cardinals) all get together in the U.S.," said Victor Nakas, spokesman for the Catholic University of America.

A special Mass will be held on April 23, 2004, at 3:30 p.m. at the Saint Paul Cathedral, St. Paul, MN, and will be open to the public. Admission tickets to the American cardinals dinner later that day at the Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis will range from $1,000 per individual to $25,000 for a "Leadership Circle Table seating 12.

Receipts from the dinner, expected to total more than $1 million, will fund scholarships to the university.

The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. was founded by the Bishops of the United States in 1887. It has 5,600 students from all over the country.

The American cardinals dinner, in its 15th year, is the school’s biggest annual event to raise scholarship funds, Nakas said.

Also expected to attend the dinner are the Pope’s ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, and Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faithbased and Community Initiatives.