Chapel House spawned rare set of active Catholics

Question: What do a priest, two Catholic Workers, a Formation for Ministry Program graduate and a seminarian have in common?

Answer: Chapel House at the University at Albany.

All of the above persons are alumni of the campus ministry program there, known informally as "Chapel House" after a former campus building. And along with several other SUNY grads, all of them claim that Chapel House influenced them to dedicate their lives to ministry.

Hearing a call

Rev. Mark Allman, associate pastor at Christ the King parish in Westmere, is one of the group of friends who met through Chapel House in the late 1980s. He still waxes poetic over the program's effect on his life.

Growing up, he told The Evangelist, "I had gone to church, but I wasn't overly religious." Then, during his time at SUNY, he began to feel a call toward the priesthood: "I started going to daily Mass for reasons of discernment. That catches a number of people's attention!"

Two of those people were Rev. Jack Molyn and Sister Nancy Langhart, OSF, campus ministers at the time. The pair urged Mark to attend an Emmaus retreat (based on the Cursillo movement), sponsored by the campus ministry department.

Community feeling

Among the students and campus ministers involved in the program, the future priest found a sense of community he had never known before.

"It was the first experience of my life of true Christian community," Father Allman stated. "It leaves you hungering for it forever -- being in community with people who truly live out their lives in Jesus Christ's example."

The student was impressed that his peers in the program "weren't geeky; they were normal. We all went out to parties." Even the campus ministers "presented themselves as perfectly human. They seemed so happy and enjoying what they were doing, and shared their own struggle."

Soon, Father Allman found himself serving as a lector and Eucharistic minister at Mass, then giving talks and acting as a table leader on Emmaus retreats.

"If it was just a traditional parish setting, I probably wouldn't have gone to Mass every Sunday," he said. "But I was so welcomed. There was such attentiveness."

Advantages

Chapel House was popular with the group of alumni who spoke to The Evangelist for several of its activities:

* the aforementioned Emmaus retreats, which were peer-led and designed to promote leadership among college students;

* Wednesday-night community suppers with guest speakers on topics like social justice; and

* the Roman Catholic Community Council, a student group that sponsored discussions of such issues as the nuclear test ban treaty, the California table grape boycott and Bishop Howard J. Hubbard's pastoral letter on economic justice.

Everyday faith

Being seen as a leader was one of the biggest draws of Chapel House for alumnus Fred Boehrer.

"I had grown up thinking that beyond college, the only way of integrating my faith as a layperson was one hour a week on Sunday, and maybe volunteering on a parish committee," he said. "What I learned from Nancy and Jack and the many people they introduced us to was that ministry can be a vocation in the Church. It was through the campus ministry program that we really understood ministry could be a lifelong commitment."

Having been a campus minister at Syracuse University himself, Mr. Boehrer can state firsthand that not all programs treat students as fellow leaders.

"Many programs have the notion that the people in charge have `the stuff,' and the people coming to the program are empty vessels that need to be filled," he explained. "SUNY used a program model that we all had experiences and gifts to share. Jack and Nancy weren't the only campus ministers there. I was a campus minister."

Today, Mr. Boehrer and his wife, Diana Conroy -- another Chapel House alumnus -- have opened Emmaus House, Albany's first Catholic Worker house. Mr. Boehrer explained their decision to live in solidarity with the poor simply: "Jack and Nancy set us up to be leaders."

Mass attraction

Joyful liturgies were another of Chapel House's attractions. At times, more than 500 people packed the room for Sunday Mass, sitting on the floor in the hallway when there wasn't room inside. Father Allman recalled campus ministers' "turning it over to the students -- they challenged us to go and evangelize and bring people in."

Even daily Mass, not usually popular among college students, was an event.

"A friend of the family was really sick, so I decided to go to daily Mass one day," remembered Robert Longobucco, a seminarian for the Albany Diocese who will be ordained next year. "I had never been to a daily Mass like it before!"

'Hooked' on Church

Mr. Longobucco was surprised to find that the friendly, casually dressed people who shook his hand and welcomed him were Rev. Bill Ryan (Father Molyn's predecessor, now deceased) and Sister Nancy. When Father Ryan offered a dialogue homily with the students during Mass, Mr. Longobucco was hooked.

"I was lonely my freshman year," the seminarian told The Evangelist. "Chapel House became my refuge. It was an experience of community I had never had before. People would go out of their way to get to know me as a freshman."

Although Chapel House didn't push him directly toward the priesthood, Mr. Longobucco was intrigued upon meeting other students in the program: "I thought I was the only 18-year-old in the world who faith was important to! [Chapel House] shaped the way we do ministry. My goal in life was not that I would be a priest come hell or high water; I wanted to be a certain kind of minister that learned to respect how other people come to know God, that placed a high value on social justice. That's the kind of ministry we've been pulled toward."

Growing up

For some Chapel House alumni, the campus ministry leaders themselves were the ones who piqued students' interest in the Church.

"In high school, I had been supportive of nuclear weapons, a strong military and the death penalty," stated Mr. Boehrer. "Nancy, as a Franciscan and a person who's committed to peace, had a great influence on me in terms of coming to a position closer to Jesus'. Nancy had a very simple lifestyle, which had a profound influence on us in terms of living a simple life."

Mr. Boehrer remarked that Father Molyn was responsible for his changing his field of study as well: "I started off a math and computer science major, and ended up in philosophy and religious studies. Jack showed me I could be a faith-based person who could also ask very serious questions about our faith. His love of theology was contagious."

Rev. Joe Cotugno, Father Molyn's successor, and Father Molyn himself each served as spiritual director to Father Allman as he discerned his call to the priesthood.

"Jack gave me the number of the director of the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless and said, `If you want to be a priest, go work in a homeless shelter,'" Father Allman recalled with a laugh. "When you're an energetic 18-year-old, that's great. Joe is the most affective person I've ever met in my life; to this day, he's my mentor."

Something special

Many campus ministry programs have caring leaders and participatory liturgies, but the Chapel House alumni agreed that there was something different about SUNY's program.

"People who have gone through campus ministry in other places don't necessarily have the same feeling I have," declared Gus Ribiero, whose undergraduate and grad-school years at SUNY covered the tenures of several campus ministers. "There was a sense of community that we developed there. We saw each other on campus, and there was a sense that these people are your friends, not just that we're thrown together."

"Not everyone who went to college is worrying about how they can make their monthly prayer meetings better!" added Mr. Longobucco, who still gathers with former Chapel House members. "Faith seems to be the last thing people share with each other in terms of friendships. We started off with faith."

Leadership

Leaders were created through the SUNY program, Mr. Ribiero told The Evangelist, noting: "My involvement at Chapel House set a precedent that my life wouldn't be complete without some sort of ministry."

The SUNY grad is also a recent alumnus of the diocesan Formation for Ministry Program, and has founded a "young adult single professionals" group at his parish, St. Vincent de Paul in Albany.

Of course, most Chapel House alumni refer to the program as their "real parish."

"For a whole bunch of us, our home parish in this Diocese is Chapel House," stated Mr. Longobucco. "We really define community with each other, not with a church building. There's a care and connection we have for each other."

No regrets

During his time at Chapel House, the seminarian remembered jokingly telling another SUNY campus minister, Sister Danielle Bonetti, CSJ, "I've given my entire life to you."

"And you'll never regret it, Bob," the nun retorted.

"I never have," Mr. Longobucco told The Evangelist.

All of the Chapel House alums expressed the hope that other colleges and universities will emulate what made their campus ministry experience successful.

"People in college are developing habits that are going to last forever," said Mr. Ribiero. "They can either develop good habits or bad habits. Whatever efforts we have in faith formation are worth it."

Continuing

In the meantime, the group takes pride in their efforts to continue the ministry Chapel House began.

"We got a lot out of being in ministry at Chapel House, and we wanted to continue to do that outside," Mr. Ribiero explained. "The need is still there, and we're trying to fulfill it. Very few of us go to the same church now, but we all do things in our own parish, and we keep in touch with the `core community.'"

The fact that a disproportionate number of SUNY grads who were Chapel House enthusiasts now work in "helping professions" is no coincidence, the alumni stated firmly: "Chapel House had a profound effect on how to think of the Church -- not as an institution, but as a community, as people of God," said Mr. Boehrer. "There were tremendous opportunities for us to take ownership as Church."

'Thrill' for priest

Recently, Father Allman returned to Chapel House -- this time, to celebrate the Eucharist as a priest.

"It was a thrill for me," he told The Evangelist. "I would not be a priest if it was not for the Catholic community at SUNY-Albany. It's like the old Scriptural thing, `The fruit that it bears....' That community has borne great fruit. It has produced a hundredfold."

Out of the fire came recognition

For Rev. Jack Molyn, the fire that destroyed the original Chapel House building in 1985 was the best thing that ever happened to the University at Albany's campus ministry program.

"It gave us a lot of publicity, so people knew we were there," remembered the former campus minister, who is now director of vocations for the Albany Diocese. "We moved into temporary quarters in the campus center, which gave us higher visibility."

Father Molyn credits the enthusiasm of the SUNY students with the successful program that followed.

"It was a peer-to-peer program," he said of Chapel House. "Everything we [as campus ministers] did encouraged them to take responsibility for their faith. The students became the best conveyors of the message."

Retreat spurs

The priest called Emmaus retreats the impetus for student leadership in the program.

"People who came there were encouraged by their classmates, and they walked away with a vision of what they could do," he stated. "A lot of them joined campus ministry and became leaders."

Another part of Chapel House's success stemmed from the spirit of cooperation among campus ministers of various faiths, he said, adding: "We were happy together as a staff, and a lot of that had to spill over."

Voice of God

Father Molyn looked at the members of Chapel House with pride. "They were listening to the voice of God in their own hearts, and they created something that was an atmosphere that was welcoming," he remembered. "People were encouraged to look at `Who am I; what am I doing; what's important to me?'"

On hearing the Chapel House alumni's comments on his own role, the priest smiled: "It's nice to hear. As you progress in ministry, you hope to look back and say that something you did had some kind of fruit."

Although he enjoys his present position, Father Molyn added that his time at Chapel House was "five of the most enjoyable years of my ministry. If I could do it all over again, I'd start tomorrow." (KB)

(09-04-97) [[In-content Ad]]