Published In:
Ann Arbor News, March 20, 1978
Caption:
'Overwhelming' - More than 2,500 Catholics attended a special reconciliation service Sunday at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Ann Arbor, filling the main hall, then the gymnasium, and finally the social hall. The service was intended for Catholics alienated, for one reason or other, from their church. The Most Rev. Kenneth J. Povich (above), bishop of the Lansing diocese, granted general absolution from sins because of the impossibility of hearing individual confessions. The Rev. Patrick Jackson, pastor of St. Patrick's Catholic Church near Whitmore Lake, called the turnout "simply overwhelming." He explained it partly by the season of the year (yesterday was Palm Sunday) and because "it met a deeply felt need."