Franciscan Lay Apprentice Elected President of National Organization

August 19 , 2003. Cloquet, Minnesota

Mrs. Katherine Blascyk of Cloquet, Minnesota, was elected by the American Academy of FertilityCare Professionals to serve as President of the organization and was installed at the Academy's 22nd annual meeting held in Toronto in July, 2003. Mrs. Blascyk has been a member of the Academy for the past 10 years and is a certified FertilityCare Practitioner. The purpose of the Academy is "to foster, advance and promote the Creighton Model FertilityCare System, NaPro Technology and allied fields through service, education, leadership and research." It was formerly known as the American Academy of Natural Family Planning.

Mrs. Blascyk is also a Franciscan Apprentice of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist. As a Christian lay woman committed to living the spirituality of St. Francis, she and her husband, Ed Blascyk, have been members of the Apprenticeship program for several years. In her acceptance speech, Katherine acknowledged that her journey toward this phase "began with encouragement from my family, my office and the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist."

She also placed her new mission within the context of the writings of Pope John Paul II "On the Lay Members of Christ's Faithful People":

"He uses the parable of the vineyard from the book of Matthew in this document. (I know for some of you, you may be surprised I know and have read this document. I encourage all to read this no matter what faith, etc as it is excellent for all of us and our mission as people of God.) After the first people are commissioned to go out to the vineyard then Jesus comes across workers later on the morning and he states the command, 'You too go into the vineyard.' I see us also being given this commission, I see us too being told to go out. We must answer that call and go. I see the teaching of FertilityCare and the Academy as a way of answering that call.

"One of the quotes from that document goes like this, 'And behold a wonderful scene that of countless number of lay people both men and women busy at work in their daily life and activity oftentimes far from view and quite unclaimed by the world, unknown to the worlds great personages but nonetheless looked upon in love by the Father, untiring laborers who work in the Lord's vineyard, confident and steadfast through the power of Gods grace, these are the humble yet great builders of the kingdom of God.' This is our gentle nudge, we the people of the Academy, to go out and do the work we were asked to do, untiring laborers through the power of God's grace."