Franciscan award

WWME Selected to Receive 2006 Franciscan International Award
Each year since 1957, Franciscan Retreats, in the name of the entire Conventual Franciscan Order, has presented the Franciscan International Award to men, women and organizations that represent the best values of Catholic tradition.
On May 11, Franciscan Retreats presented the 2006 award to Worldwide Marriage Encounter.  Fr. Ken Bartsch, OFM Conv., Director of Franciscan Retreats in Prior Lake, MN noted, “Worldwide Marriage Encounter is one marvelous Christian response to the pressures of the modern world on marriage.  It is a movement, summoned by the Holy Spirit, that calls husbands and wives to reflect on their experience, remember their personal histories, renew their commitments, develop their vocabulary and enhance their communication.”  He continued, “The couples and priests involved in Worldwide Marriage Encounter are generating a thorough reexamination of our theological and ethical doctrines as they bring new experience, thought, words, and awareness of the concept and value of marriage.  Worldwide Marriage Encounter reveals the Sacrament of Marriage as more liberating, joyous and wise than celibate preachers, teachers and counselors could ever imagine, much less describe. …”
Accepting the Franciscan International Award on behalf of Worldwide Marriage Encounter (WWME) were Bob & Joy Hernandez and Fr Mark Willenbring, The United States Secretariat Team.  They said, “We sincerely thank Franciscan Retreats, as well as the Conventual Franciscan Order, for honoring Worldwide Marriage Encounter with the 2006 Franciscan International Award.  … We gratefully accept the award on behalf of the many English, Hispanic and Korean couples and priests who serve our ministry and who are dedicated to the mission of our worldwide movement, which is to renew our Catholic Church through the Sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders.”
Some of the previous recipients of the annual Franciscan Award were: Dr. Charles Mayo (1964), Alcoholics Anonymous (1967), Dr. Billy Graham (1972), Dr. Mildred Jefferson (1978), John Michael Talbot (1985), Rabbi Max Shapiro (1989), Sisters of St. Clare (1993), Archbishop John Roach (1996), Habitat for Humanity (1999) and Sister Helen Prejean (2003).