Scouts’ honors include St. Paul

Nearly 300 Boy and Girl Scouts earn new patch created to teach them about St. Paul during the Pauline Year.

FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF REPORT

Posted: 06.18.09

Hunter Marquardt, left, and Michael Pena of Cub Scout Pack 183 from Weston, proudly display one of the new religious patches they earned during the past year. The Mass and award ceremony for Catholic Scouts in Broward County took place May 30 at All Saints Church in Sunrise. A similar Mass, also sponsored by the archdiocese’s Catholic Committee on Scouting, took place a week earlier in Miami–Dade County.
JONATHAN MARTINEZ | FC

SUNRISE | The Year of St. Paul was not lost on Catholic Boy and Girl Scouts in the Archdiocese of Miami.

To mark the bimillennial of the saint’s birth – a worldwide celebration that concludes June 29 – the archdiocese’s Catholic Committee on Scouting created a new St. Paul patch that Scouts could earn by learning about Christianity’s great evangelizer.

“What is so unique about this patch is that Deacon Tom Franklin, our chaplain, has opened this patch up to all laypeople that are interested in St. Paul, not just for the Scouts,” said Gail Coniglio, a religious counselor with the Catholic Committee on Scouting.

She said nearly 300 Scouts earned the patch this year, about 90 of them at a retreat held in March at the Madonna Pastoral Center in Hollywood, and 200 more at a day of recollection held in Miami in April.

The patch is also special, Coniglio said, because it was designed by her mother, Palma Theresa Poochigian, an artist based in Palm Beach.

“I guess you can say this was a ‘Catholic family’ effort,” said Coniglio, whose three children are Scouts.

According to Hilda Mendez of the archdiocese’s Catholic Committee on Scouting, more than 300 Girl and Boy Scouts in Miami-Dade and Broward counties participated in Catholic Scouting this year.

Of those, 90 attended the March retreat for Scouts in grades six through 12. In addition to earning the St. Paul patch, these Scouts also fulfilled the requirement for various religious emblems, including My Faith and Promise, a coed award created by the Catholic Committee on Scouting; Marian and Spirit Alive, which are national awards for Girl Scouts; and Ad Altare Dei and Pope Pius XII, which are national emblems for Boy Scouts.

At the April day of recollection, Scouts in first through fifth grades participated in a half-day of activities that fulfilled their requirements for another set of religious emblems: the Mother Mary patch, created by the Catholic Committee on Scouting; Family of God and I Live My Faith, which are national awards for Girl Scouts; Brother Francis Adan, created by the Catholic Committee on Scouting; and Light of Christ and Parvuli Dei, which are national emblems for Boy Scouts.

The final events of the year were the annual Scouting Mass and awards ceremony, held May 23 in Miami-Dade and May 30 in Broward, where the Scouts and their troop leaders received their awards.

Plans also are underway for a patch to commemorate the Year for Priests, which begins June 19.

“We are excited that already we are starting to plan to have a St. John Vianney Patch for the Year for Priests,” Coniglio said. “Again, we are going to plan on opening it to all laity and Scouts alike.”

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