Campus Ministers: What are they?

[CollegeKid]

In the past few months I’ve become increasingly aware of people serving as Catholic campus ministers (with groups such as FOCUS-Fellowship of Catholic University Students), or as ministers in prisons, to the elderly, AIDS patients, etc., etc. They are not priests, nor are they religious brothers or sisters, nor are they monks or nuns. I’ve also noticed that on the websites for some dioceses, these ministries are referred to as the “consecrated life.” What is their status within the Church? Have they been consecrated in any way? I thought that was reserved for those who join religious orders such as the Franciscans.

 

[asquared]

many denominations have campus ministers and I can’t speak for them but Catholic Campus Ministers usually serve on a campus of a public or other non-CAtholic university, staff a Catholic Student Center which offers various services. Here at the local campus that involves a Sunday evening Mass, weekly bible study, daily LOTH and other prayer groups, RCIA and adult confirmation class, drop-in center, meeting rooms, lounge and study areas, pastoral counselling by qualified counsellors, regularly scheduled confessions, and several service projects and social concerns type outreach programs. The diocese has hired campus ministers who have degrees in YM/YA ministry for each of the college campuses in the diocese and an overall diocesan director of YM/YAM who is degreed and has excellent experience including credentials in working within the Hispanic community. There used to be a priest assigned as chaplain but now priests from neighboring parishes rotate for Sunday Mass and confessions.

 

[Rand_Al_Thor]

Pax vobiscum!

The campus minister for my Newman Club is a brother, technically, because he’s part of a religious brotherhood and has taken vows. It’s not an order, like the Franciscans or Dominicans, or a society, like the Jesuits, but it is a religious brotherhood that was recognized by Cardinal George, so technically I believe that makes my campus minister a brother, but he doesn’t refer to himself as one.

In Christ,
Rand