By Bill Kurtz
Catholic Herald

Campus Newman Centers minister to students

SUPERIOR -- Reflecting on his intermittent service in campus ministry through portions of five decades, Fr. Edward Beutner said that the core philosophy changed after the Second Vatican Council, and a 1985 pastoral letter by U.S. bishops ratified that change.

"The bishops threw out the old understanding of protecting the fragile faith of the young from a supposedly hostile atmosphere," said Beutner, who returned last summer for his second stint as chaplain at the Thomas More Newman Center in River Falls.

Instead of the defensive attitude often found two generations ago, Beutner explained, campus ministry on non-Catholic campuses actively engages the campus community. Campus ministry is also "a ministry of presence," Beutner added. "Some of the best contacts are made by hanging out."

Campus ministry at the diocese's two University of Wisconsin campuses, here and in River Falls, varies as much as the campuses themselves. But at both campuses, and at Mount Senario College in Ladysmith, "to meet young adults where they are and support their faith is a mission the church must take seriously," said Dick Lyons, diocesan director of pastoral services and planning.

In Superior, the UW-Superior Newman Center became the Newman Center for Ministry to Young Adults three years ago, symbolizing a goal to "intentionally broaden the focus so it wasn't strictly ministry to traditional university students," Lyons explained.

Besides students at UW-Superior -- by far the smallest four-year UW campus with less than 3,000 students -- the Newman Center is "ministering to a wider population," Lyons said. "I'm really pleased to see the networking going on there, college students, technical college students, students on hiatus from school, young adults with careers."

"We're a campus ministry, but it's not just for students," said Jenny Schilling, a UW-Superior junior from Shell Lake. The center has an e-mail list of more than 100 students and young adults. "One thing we all have in common is that we're in transition in our lives," she added.

Superior's Newman Center does not offer Sunday Masses. There is a regular Thursday night Mass, followed by a dinner and a speaker or a program of volunteer activity. Volunteer activities have included visiting seniors and making Christmas cards for nursing home residents. Speakers have included Bishop Raphael M. Fliss; Benedictine Fr. Gabriel Baltes, diocesan director of worship; and Tricia Duhaime, of the diocesan Office of Social Justice. (There is also a Web site, www2.uwsuper.edu/newman.)

"A lot of us are out in the community, and we persuade people to come over," said interim coordinator Nicole Johnson. "A lot of us come here because we don't feel welcome in other churches," where liturgies and other programs seem geared to families and older adults. Groups from the Newman Center sometimes attend Masses together at the Cathedral of Christ the King, and socialize together.

"Here you see a whole other side of the church," said Ben Hiber, a student at Lake Superior College in Duluth, Minn., a non-Catholic participating in RCIA. "You could ask questions, get answers and understand them."

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2002