The Dialog

By Mike Lang

Staff reporter

Dover parishioner who entered church at Easter Vigil appreciates the tangible nature of the sacraments

DOVER — Unlike some converts, Eleanor La Prade was well-acquainted with the Catholic faith long before she decided to join it. She grew up in Salisbury, Md., with Catholic friends, had an intellectual curiosity and graduated last year from the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, a small Catholic institution in New Hampshire.

La Prade, a reporter at the Delaware State News in Dover, said her parents became Christians when she was 14 or 15, and she was baptized as a Baptist. It was her choice to join that denomination.

“That was something I wanted to do,” she said last month. “I don’t think I ever really not believed that God was there. I was totally excited about being baptized, and my baptism was awesome.

“I wanted to be a Christian. I was ready.” Read more »

By Mike Lang

Dialog reporter

SALISBURY, Md. — Greg Whittaker’s arms tell the story of two lives.

On his right arm, and elsewhere on his body, he has tattoos of skulls and other symbols from his decades of addiction and drifting. His left inner forearm contains an ink portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe, stretching nearly from elbow to wrist.

The second chapter of Whittaker’s life, which comes after spending nights in a homeless shelter in the basement of St. Francis de Sales Church on and off for four years, will continue when he formally joins the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil on March 30. Read more »

By Joseph Ryan

Dialog editor

Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion rite in Dover gives ‘sense of vitality of the church’

Thirty-seven parishes of the 57 in the Diocese of Wilmington sent 253 people, candidates and catechumens, to Holy Cross Church in Dover Feb. 16 to mark their Lenten journey toward full communion with the Catholic Church at Easter.

Bishop Malooly welcomed the packed congregation by calling the annual rites “one of my favorite days of the year.” Read more »

By Mike Lang

Staff reporter

DOVER – Years of spiritual seeking ended at the Easter vigil April 7 at Holy Cross Church as Michel and Lisa Kasday entered the Catholic Church. For the Camden-Wyoming couple, it wasn’t really that simple. In their lives, few things are.

Like many couples in this part of Kent County, the Kasdays are a military family. Mike, 40, is a staff sergeant and an engine mechanic at Dover Air Force Base, and his wife is studying nursing at Delaware Technical Community College. They have dealt with deployments and work schedules that are anything but 9-to-5.

Read more »