Multicultural approach a growing campus ministry need: Catholic ministers take on challenge of diverse student population

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 29, 2004 by Patricia Lefevere

"God is so happy. We're all here on Washington Square worshiping him," said Fr. John McGuire. The Dominican priest and native New Yorker has directed Catholic campus ministry at New York University for nine years, during which he has seen a growing diversification of population on the 42,000-student urban campus.

When McGuire says "all," he's not just talking about Catholics. The spacious Catholic Center becomes a mosque on Friday for some 400 Islamic students. Orthodox Jews attend Friday evening Sabbath services at the center and use it for Saturday morning prayers during the high holidays. Last month Conservative Jewish students held Rosh Hashanah services at the Catholic Center for the first time.

McGuire, along with a rabbi And a Protestant minister, serves on the university's Spiritual Life Advisory Team. During the past academic year, he worked with Catholic, Protestant and Muslim students presenting five evenings of interfaith sharing.

The face of Catholic campus ministry is changing around the country as more and more Asian, African, Latin American and Eastern European students join U.S. Catholics at campus liturgies, work in soup kitchens and shelters, and participate in intellectual and social events. Although foreign students have long been part of campus ministry, their numbers have risen in recent years, especially at New York University, Columbia, St. John's, Georgetown, the University of Colorado and the University of California-Berkley, whose graduate programs attract the creme de la creme of overseas students. To be a part of Catholic campus ministry today requires having a multicultural consciousness and being a student of the world, in the view of several campus ministers who spoke with NCR.

At New York University, "the campus minister's challenge is in trying to integrate Americans with those from overseas," McGuire said. Sharing social justice concerns and giving foreign students a "sense of our diversity," are important elements of the ministry, he said.

But differences abound. American students are more vocal and less deferential to authority figures than are Asians, he said. Moreover, many U.S. students are children of divorced parents, a situation quite rare in many foreign cultures.

While about 18,000 enrollees checked "Catholic," when they were presented with the optional "religion" question on the university's matriculation form, about 1,200 Catholics are active in campus ministry as measured by attendance at three weekly and four weekend Masses, which are held on campus and at the University Parish of St. Joseph, two blocks away.

While many foreign and fast-generation American students come from families in which they have been "churched," another large group wander into campus ministry "because they're giving religion a second look," McGuire said.

Some enroll in the catechumenate program, which received 22 into the church at this year's Easter vigil and saw another eight baptized. Each year McGuire prepares 50-60 couples for marriage, while a lot of the weddings occur in India, South Korea and the Philippines, the priest still officemates at 10-20 nuptials in New York.

United at Mass

Uptown at Columbia University, Dominican Fr. Jacek Buda, director of campus ministry, said the challenge for campus ministry extends especially to the liturgy, where Buda seeks a way to be united at Mass. The Polish priest tries not to present "a lot of national-looking liturgies. That would be too confusing," he said.

Given many international students and a transient population, Buda explains the liturgy a few times each year. He also has a student liturgy group that meets regularly, reads church documents on worship and "gets their voice heard," he said.

Buda estimates that there are 5,000 Catholics at Columbia. Like many campus ministers, Buda finds a "very uneven catechesis" among today's college Catholics.

"Christianity is not that deep in students," Buda said. "They don't care that much about liberal and conservative issues.... Their big question is: 'What is the church?' They're interested in Catholic theology and want to know what the church has to say about this and that."

Not knowing the fundamentals of the faith is hardly unique to Catholics. Jewish, Muslim and Protestant chaplains at Georgetown University in Washington report scant knowledge of the faith among their self-identified religious students. The need for campus ministers to design religious education programs remains a talking point on secular and Catholic campuses.

Jesuit Fr. Phil Boroughs, vice president for mission and ministry at Georgetown, said he finds evidence of a resurgence of religious interest on U.S. campuses. More than 2,000 students this year attended the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit that launches Georgetown's academic year.

"I suspect it's happening all over," Boroughs said. "They're looking for a way to belong and to identify as a believer. When they hear Jews or Muslims talk articulately about their faith, they discover things about their own faith and want to understand it better."