FAYETTEVILLE — The welcoming committee when students returned to St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish this fall included two new campus ministers: Kasey Miller and Lance DuFour.
Both are new to the parish and neither attended the University of Arkansas — but it’s difficult to imagine anyone exhibiting more enthusiasm than the parish’s newest staff members.
St. Thomas has served UA students, faculty and staff for more than 50 years, but in recent years, it shared a priest with one or another of the other area parishes. That changed last December when Father Joe Marconi was assigned to the parish fulltime.
Over the summer, however, the parish lost both its campus ministers. Laurie Schuler left first because of family needs and Jay Carney accepted a position at Creighton University after completing his doctorate last spring.
That left St. Thomas with two vacant campus minister positions.
DuFour is a Louisiana native who graduated from Rogers High School. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theology from University of Dallas and returned home three years ago to serve as one of three youth ministers at his home parish, St. Vincent de Paul.
“I knew I wanted to do something in the ministry or (to) teach theology, something along those lines,” DuFour said. “When the job opened up at my home parish, I just had to go for it.”
He said working at St. Vincent de Paul Parish was good experience, “I realized how much I had to learn.”
“It was really great to work on a team, especially for my first (ministry) job,” DuFour said. “I didn’t really know what to expect. I learned a lot about the ministry and what it means to work in the Church.”
Miller grew up in a military family (her father is a Navy veteran) and the family lived in states throughout the Southeast while she was growing up. She’s a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where she had intended to major in dentistry. But during her junior year, she converted to Catholicism. Two years later, she graduated with a degree in Catholic studies.
Pressed for details about her conversion, Miller makes it sound like a natural progression.
“I had grown up with Catholic friends and (friends of other) denominations,” she said.
In college, she and a friend enrolled in an intensive writing course, “Catholicism and Culture.” Only two students out of 30 were Catholic, and Miller found herself defending and siding with the Catholics during intense class discussions.
The friend invited her to Mass. “That was kind of it,” Miller said. “Six months later, I became Catholic.”
Neither of the new St. Thomas campus ministers arrived much before the returning students did, but they say things were in good shape. “Father Joe and Nora (Bryant, parish administrative assistant) and Jay and Laurie made sure things were in place” for returning students, DuFour said. “Nothing had to be rebuilt.”
Just a few weeks into the term, they’re complimentary of the student leaders in the parish.
“They’ve told us, ‘We’re supposed to do it this way,’” Miller laughed.
DuFour hopes to rejuvenate the parish’s Knights of Columbus council and Miller wants to add activities with an ecumenical spin.
Miller kicked off one of the early discussions with students with a talk about the Church’s stand on tattoos. The Church has a position on tattoos? “It’s kind of a gray area,” she said, but, it was a hot topic for the evening discussion.
St. Thomas once again has three Masses on Sunday, and the pair said the Sunday morning and 5 p.m. Masses are both standing room only while the last Mass at 8 p.m. on Sundays draws another 100 people or so. About 15 people have begun attending RCIA classes.
“We want to make this a student parish,” Dufour said.
Father Joe, he added, has added a parish council as well as a finance committee this fall, both made of students and faculty members.
“I see this as a step between a child (attending church with parents) and an adult in a parish.”
By the time the students graduate, they should be ready to participate in a family parish, DuFour added.
