KELSO PARISH DISPLAYS FAITH IN DEDICATION OF PEACE POLE

KELSO -- May peace prevail on earth.

That was the message that dozens of parishioners of the St. Augustine Catholic Church in Kelso conveyed in a special service Monday morning. The group dedicated a peace pole on the church grounds.

"In dedicating this pole today, we are reminding ourselves and others that we want to do our best for a peaceful, loving community," said Msgr. John Westhues, who dedicated the pole by leading the parish in a prayer for peace. "This is a symbol of peace on earth.

"We are one people," he said. "We belong to the family of God."

Sister Dorothy Reinhold, who saw a similar pole dedicated at the Newman Center in Cape Girardeau this spring, believed her parish needed the good will inspired by such a symbol.

"I just thought that the way the people in this parish pray and get behind things they believe in, something like this would be perfect here," said Reinhold. "Poles like this one represent something wonderful, all over the world."

The pole, which stands a little more than six feet tall, has the words "May Peace Prevail On Earth," inscribed in four languages -- English, French, German and Spanish.

"The languages on the pole represent the ethnic backgrounds of people in this parish and this community," said Reinhold. "Although I must admit, we had trouble finding someone to read the French inscription.

"The French in this area have kept their names and heritage, but have lost the language," she said. "So we had a student from the high school read the French. Finding someone for the other languages -- especially the German -- was not a problem."

After the brief ceremony concluded, children walked up to the pole, running their hands over the words, trying to pronounce the sentences as written in foreign languages.

"This is something that is good for the children," said Reinhold. "For the future to be one of peace, it has to start with them."

The Peace Pole Project was started in post-war Japan in 1955 by the World Peace Prayer Society. The project was launched with a dedication to direct humanity toward harmony rather than conflict.

The society elected to show its commitment to the ideas it was founded on through peace prayer poles -- handcrafted obelisks erected the world over as an international symbol of peace.

To date, more than 100,000 poles have been dedicated in about 100 countries worldwide.

"We wanted to dedicate our pole on the Fourth of July, because we thought the message would go well with the holiday," said Reinhold. "Today in our service we were praying for the land, this country and peace on earth.

"The idea behind the whole thing was to get the message of peace and tranquility out in the community," she added. "If people see the pole and read its message, they will be more likely to have peaceful thoughts. Then those thoughts can then be taken out in to the world and spread.

"Like the song says, `It starts with me.'"