Hi Chris, Tanya & Life on Fire Listeners!
This is Allie again, writing to you about my “Catholic Life on Campus.” I realize my last post was a bit lengthy so I’ll try to keep this one from rambling (the key word being “TRY”).
I’m in the University library once again since my computer now hates me and is deciding not to work. Hopefully, our IT department can help me because I have a bunch of papers to write & research to do in the next few weeks. I guess that means I’ll be here a lot. Anyways, I just came from the student union, where I was “table-ing” with two other SFL members about suicide awareness and prevention. This was the last day of our “Respect Life Week” and I have to say that it went okay. Unfortunately, we didn’t do nearly as much as we planned since the end of the semester caught up to us. Our club president decided not to table about abortion, so we just had the National Pro-Life T-shirt Day suffice instead. That, by the way, went very well and I noticed many people not in the club who apparently ordered shirts on their own! YAY for more pro-life college students! She pointed out that every time we try to defend the pre-born, students come up to us not to learn more about the evils of abortion, but rather to fight with us and justify why abortion is okay. I personally was disappointed in her decision, but hopefully we can come up with better ways to approach the topic and make more of a positive impact next year. I found a lot of new facts today for the suicide table especially pertaining to college students. Suicide happens to be the second leading cause of death among college students, which is why it is so important to raise awareness about it on campuses. We also had a lot of facts and statistics on display for everyone to see how tragic this issue really is. One such fact is that more Caucasians commit suicide than African-Americans, Asians or Hispanics in the United States. One student asked us why this was so, but we didn’t know, so that gives us something else interesting to look into. As the Events Chair for next year, I’m hoping to plan “Education Days” for the members since we can’t effectively give others the facts if we don’t know them ourselves.
And yes, you heard me right. I was elected as next year’s Students for Life Events Chair! I also somehow won the Presidential election for the Newman Club! I’m truly excited and flattered to hold these positions and hopefully can use them to create some new collaboration between the two clubs. Newman hasn’t been particularly pro-life this year, but I’m hoping to change that. Since Newman is in much better standing than SFL right now, they really could stand to lend a hand to promote the importance of these issues. Please keep me and these organizations in your prayers because I know that I’ll need His guidance to effectively assist the clubs, their members and what we stand for.
And now, onto a question I received but was unable to answer last week. It comes from Scott, host of “The Mission: Artist Podcast” at www.missionartist.com. He writes,
“I would be interested to know if the hurdles to spreading the gospel on campuses come from lack of administration support or lack of student interest.”
That’s a very good question, Scott, one that I hope I can answer. I think it greatly depends on the individual campus. My campus is extremely lucky in this respect. We have had our Catholic campus ministry for at least four years now, maybe longer. The university also has a Protestant & Jewish campus ministry, as well as many other student run faith organizations. They range from a Muslim group, to United Unitarian, and some of my peers have just started a group for Wiccans. Students here are allowed to start clubs for pretty much anything if they have enough people, have a clear mission statement and are approved by student government. We actually had a different campus minister the fall of my freshman year, an amazing Catholic man. However, he left that spring to start up Catholic ministries at two community colleges that had no faith organizations whatsoever. We all miss him dearly, but are glad that other college students have the opportunity to experience their Catholic faith as we are. We have been fighting for quite a while to have some kind of campus chapel that could be shared between the faith organizations so we can actually have a place to worship besides our tiny office. But that may have to wait a few more years unfortunately since there are other “more urgent” building projects right now. Our administration is tolerant and appreciative of our ministry & organization, but I feel they could do more for us sometimes. Now, students, on the other hand, are a very different story. There’s the very active Catholics, like me, who attend mass regularly and are core members of the Newman Club and its activities. There are others who are just happy to have the opportunity to attend worship on campus, especially the younger students who don’t have cars. Then there’s the many who barely practice but swarmed into the office to receive their ashes for Ash Wednesday, both students AND faculty. Many do approve of the Newman Club & campus ministry, whether our efforts are seen as vital or just semi-appreciated. Some students, however, do not hold the same respect. For example, many homosexual students pick fights with us, saying that Catholics hate them and don’t have the right to prevent them for marrying. Some of my own friends challenge or chastise me for my beliefs, because they are Wiccan, atheist or whatnot. But I think this is true everywhere you go, and for me personally, it prepares me for these same fights in the real world outside of campus grounds. Keep in mind that most of these problems come from individual students and not organizations as a whole. Usually, it’s only those who like to start trouble that give us any grief.
I hope I at least semi-enlightened you, Scott. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I do have one piece of advice though – if you are a college student and do not have a faith organization on your campus, don’t be afraid to start your own. Students need to speak up and tell the school what they need, so it might as well be you. Contact your student government or the head of student activities to see what steps you need to take. If anyone else has any questions or comments for me, you can email me or post a comment. I’d really like your ideas of what else to address on the show. Prayers to my fellow college students – we’re almost done! God Bless everyone!