Father Jake Anderson, pastor of St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center on the campus of the University of Minnesota, joked that the Newman Center isn’t a city on a hill, but more like Nazareth.
“You would never know the Son of God is living and abiding and working there,” he said. “People can walk right past it and not even know it’s a church. In order for this vehicle to go, there has to be a deep culture of mission.”
Every day, staff and students go out onto campus. Father Anderson calls it salmon fishing. More often than not, the building is relatively empty because everyone is out on campus evangelizing. Events like these, tailgate parties, Bible studies and ice cream socials are creating connections on a bustling campus.
Newman Centers across the country are in a golden age, said Father Anderson, also director of Gopher Catholic, the University of Minnesota’s Catholic campus ministry.
There is something of God that is “very much at work at Newman Centers,” Father Anderson said.
“There is most definitely something of the Holy Spirit going on,” Father Anderson said. “Certainly, perhaps, the biggest one that gets the most fanfare is just the number of people coming into the Church by way of OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults). At this particular moment in time, Sept. 3, classes don’t begin until after Labor Day. But right now, we have (50) people signed up for OCIA, and we haven’t even met the new students. It’s … been going up almost every year. This is my eighth year at St. Lawrence Student (Newman) Center. It’s been going up every year.”
Father Anderson explained that to attract souls, “you have to have people to get them.” Staff at St. Lawrence is a big expenditure, but it has led to a bold move to have several different charisms working in campus ministry at one time.
The Brotherhood of Hope, a religious community based in Boston that serves in college campus ministry, has been a mission partner with Gopher Catholic since 2014. SPO, based in Mendota Heights, is also engaged in campus ministry and was a partner before then, and in 2019, was completely integrated into Gopher Catholic.
“We really are one team, one family, driving together,” Father Anderson said. “Then of course this year we’ve added this massive, colossal, big step (by) bringing in FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students). We are the only campus ministry … certainly in the country, to have three different groups working together: The Brotherhood of Hope, SPO and FOCUS.”
FOCUS is based in Denver and provides Catholic evangelization through on-campus ministry.
Father Anderson said his job is to “direct traffic” under one roof, so that everyone is not just “cohabiting, but really working in communion and deep collaboration. Unity is the clarion call. For all of us to work together with different charisms, we have to become very humble and not fly our respective flags, but the banner of Christ and the Catholic Church at the Newman Center.”
A long street near the University of Minnesota campus was alive with people the evening of Sept. 3 for the Gopher’s first football game of the season. The sidewalks brimmed with fallen leaves and students wearing similar reds and yellows — overalls, jerseys and shirts showing school spirit.
A new residence is on the corner of that street. On the front lawn, students in red and yellow gameday attire played lawn games, mingled and listened to music.
This student housing might appear to be just another fraternity or sorority in a long line of Greek-life houses. But there are no Greek letters above the door. Instead, there is a sign out front. It reads: Gopher Catholic.
The new Saint Paul’s Outreach (SPO) residence will soon house 48 to 50 Catholic men. It hosted a tailgate party that night. All were welcome, Catholic or not.
Father Anderson played games with the students.
“At what other house would you see a priest?” a student laughed.
Among those mingling with students was Brother Austin Riordan, a young man whose attire stood out from the rest of the gameday gear. He wore a grey button-down shirt with a closed collar. On the shirt was an anchor with the word “Hope.”
Brother Austin is a member of the Brotherhood of Hope. He is also the managing director of campus ministry for Gopher Catholic.
Like Father Anderson, Brother Austin said having three different groups working on campus is not an issue, but a blessing.
“As a religious brother, we have a particular heart for unity in the sense that we live a fraternal common life,” Brother Austin said. “I think it flows from our vows that we, in our ministry, desire to build a deep communal life in our community.”
Brother Austin said he considers the Brotherhood of Hope older brothers to the community who can provide “wisdom and experience of campus ministries,” but they are not just campus ministers.
“We’re really consecrated men who can bring the unity, the body of God, the body of Christ, and try to foster that in the people of God in this particular location,” Brother Austin said.
With new people comes an added richness “of their own witness to Christ, their own life in Christ,” Brother Austin said.
“They’re first disciples of God,” Brother Austin said. “Our team life, our whole staff life, just got four times richer because four more people came in (FOCUS coming to the University of Minnesota). But also, you know, very practically, they have great expertise in fraternities, with sororities and athletes. It’s been a joy for me to see them have the time, capacity, knowledge, connections to be able to get into doors where we’ve never got into. In the first week, they’ve already made it into places we’ve never made it into before.”
Father Anderson said FOCUS missionaries have also been getting a foot in the door with sororities, fraternities and sports teams.
“We’ve got some Bible studies now with different sports teams,” Father Anderson said. “We’re just trying to create inroads however we can.”
Carlos Cerda, the Catholic Men’s Residence Coordinator for SPO, said the house and what God is doing at the University of Minnesota are the beginning of something big.
Father Anderson is passionate about intentional Christian living. Most of life is not spent in a church; it’s “with your roommate,” he said.
“How do we become a transformative environment that the air you’re breathing is conducive to a deeper life, both conversion and life in Christ?” Father Anderson said.
“That transition to college is already so tumultuous for guys,” Cerda said.
Many questions arise for young men leaving home for the first time. Questions like, “Who am I? Where do I belong? And what kind of man am I going to be?” Cerda said.
When young men seek a place of belonging before asking, “What kind of man do I want to be?” they may find themselves living outside of God’s will.
“(Young men) are so vulnerable at that moment,” Cerda said. “These kids are just leaving the good structure of home, and maybe (having) that excitement for the college experience, and then they just find themselves doing stuff that they don’t even really want to do, but (do it) just to belong.”
Father Anderson said there is an increasingly complicated nature of Newman Centers because of the experiences many students carry with them as they enter campus.
“Many parishes are really on the front lines, but specifically Newman Centers, because we’re seeing … most clearly … what the secular culture is feeding students,” Father Anderson said. “Students are starving for a relationship.”
Cerda believes that in SPO households and in the community of Gopher Catholic, students can have a better college experience and a “better depth of relationship.”
Father Anderson said the response to this complicated reality is through the beauty of Catholicism, especially in the dimension of healing. However, there is a second reality, Father Anderson said, that Gen-Z is deeply comfortable and needs to be deeply challenged.
“We need the Church to have a backbone and to stand for something, and that’s actually what’s making it attractive for people coming into the Church because the Church is not caving,” Father Anderson said. “We stand for something. We stand in the power of the cross. We stand to proclaim Jesus. We also stand to proclaim what sin is.”
Hospitality is taken seriously, Father Anderson said.
“I say, ‘You belong here even if you don’t feel like you do,’” he explained. “Plenty of people are questioning, ‘Can I belong if I still have questions about Catholicism? Can I belong if I still have habitual sin and have addictions?’”
The answer, Father Anderson said, is a resounding, “Yes.”
The tailgate party, which had a DJ and a young man grilling hamburgers, was a “good, holy party” before kickoff, Cerda said. At the tailgate party were missionaries with SPO and FOCUS. Men and women were greeting strangers and making connections, especially incoming freshmen.
Four years ago, one of the incoming freshmen was Gwen Herbst. Her older sister was involved in Gopher Catholic. When Herbst made it to campus, her sister and other senior girls invited her to dinner or Mass.
“I wanted to join the Catholic community when I was coming to college, and I heard my sibling talk about it, but I did not expect to be this involved,” Herbst said.
She came from St. Michael, a “pretty Catholic town,” she said, but her faith was not her own. Her faith is growing, and now she has a more personal relationship with the Lord, she said.
As a student leader, she and other leaders go to freshmen’s dorms to hold fun events. As a freshman and sophomore, she wouldn’t go out onto campus to talk to people about faith. Now, she’s more receptive to talking about it with others.
“I wouldn’t just go talk to people,” Herbst said. “I’ll tell (people) about the events that we have. It built confidence spreading the faith.”
In training students to do outreach, Cerda said, there are steps. At first, students are scared to do it. Then, they look at successful missionaries and try to imitate them.
“I gotta dress like them, I gotta start talking like them, and then what they learn is … God has made you a mission to the world. For Christ, his identity and his mission were identical,” Cerda said.
The Lord has equipped each student with the talents to be on mission, Cerda said. Mission is all about being authentic and “caring for each person in front of you.”
During Gopher Catholic Leadership Week before freshmen students moved onto campus, Father Anderson quoted Abe Gross, the music director for SPO, saying, “The secret of not caring what people think is caring for them.”
“Yes, we put on events. Yes, we do a lot of things. We send a lot of emails, but people have to know we care about them, or else we’re just another group trying to get numbers,” Brother Austin said. “One of the things we preach to the students is it can’t just be an obligation. It can’t just be something like a checkbox. We really have to have a heart for these people, that they are people looking for God, and that every human heart, the Catechism (of the Catholic Church) says, was made for God. And so, praying on that, really understanding and believing that in my heart gives me the courage to go out, and really the perseverance, the endurance. It’s not only courage, but at least endurance to keep having that.”
Cerda believes that Gopher Catholic students get to be in the world but not of the world. He also believes people need to expand their vision of what this season of life can look like. Rather than simply keeping the faith, this is an opportunity to grow closer to the Lord, he said.
“(Students) are experiencing an excellent formation in Gopher Catholic programs, and they’re actually able to orient it towards evangelization and actually bring people who are very far away from God into an encounter with him. … My commitment this year is to develop the best place for a freshman to live.”
Slowly, over the years, Herbst became more involved. For any high schooler coming to the University of Minnesota for their freshman year, Herbst suggested they come to Gopher Catholic events. She even said it might not feel like a fit at first.
“(That’s) any new environment or situation,” Herbst said. “Give it at least five or six times so you can meet people. When you come back, you’ll see faces that you’ve seen before, and that’ll just make it so much easier. I remember as a freshman, it just felt kind of weird. Like I don’t know these people that well.”
Now a senior looking to graduate with a degree in chemical engineering, Herbst said when she walks into a room, she knows so many faces.
“What I tell some of these incoming freshmen is, ‘Hey, if you want to grow, you have no excuse not to grow if you live here,’” Cerda said. “You are walking distance to the Eucharist. You’ll probably never live closer to the Eucharist if you live here.”
On the gridiron Sept. 3 following the tailgate party, the Gophers drubbed Eastern Illinois 59-7. But to Cerda as well as Gopher Catholic, SPO, FOCUS, the Brotherhood of Hope college ministry and Father Anderson, the real victory happened on a street corner less than a mile from and just before the game was played at Huntington Bank Stadium, when many gathered in Christ’s name.
Editor’s note: A version of this story was first posted Sept. 4. This expands the coverage to include the growing college campus ministry at the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus.
