{"id":357155,"date":"2021-12-07T06:01:03","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T20:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=357155"},"modified":"2021-12-07T06:01:03","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T20:01:03","slug":"extending-the-reach-of-fordhams-graduate-programs-in-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/extending-the-reach-of-fordhams-graduate-programs-in-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Extending the reach of Fordham\u2019s graduate programs in ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the course of the past 20 years, the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education has partnered with the\u00a0Catholic Extension Society\u2019s Young Adult Leadership Initiative\u00a0to reach master\u2019s and doctoral candidates serving as leaders in hard-to-reach Catholic communities.<\/p>\n

In the society\u2019s early days, it provided funds for priests to celebrate Mass from remote places, like the backs of rail and motor cars in\u00a0isolated rural towns. Today, GRE helps the society reach far-flung parishes through technology, said Patrick Holt, Ph.D., assistant dean at GRE.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese church leaders work in locations where they could not afford to leave their ministry to go and get the kind of schooling we offer,\u201d said Holt. \u201cMost of the ministry schools are in Northeast, the Midwest or California, but the\u00a0 Catholic population is growing in the rural South and the borderlands of the Southwest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bishop Ryan Jimenez of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa takes part in the recent Chicago Marathon. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As GRE has one of the most established online ministry programs in the country, they became a natural fit for the program\u2019s mission, he said. The two-year program also hosts students in person at the Rose Hill campus twice for two weeks over the summer. Once there, they stay in campus housing, share meals, and bridge their online learning with real-world fellowship, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s here that they get to meet our faculty and create community and learn together outside of the classroom,\u201d he said. \u201cThey then take those connections back to the disparate places that they work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holt added the program has had great success, with many graduates going on to hold senior positions in dioceses and churches from as far away as the Asia Pacific region. Some also come to the Catholic Extension Society program having already achieved great success, such as Ryan Jimenez, bishop of the mission diocese of Chalan Kanoa in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n

Learning in the Western Pacific<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bishop Jimenez is a doctoral student who immigrated to the U.S. to teach religion to high school students after several years of teaching in remote areas of the Philippines. He said that youth ministry remains close to his heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of our youth are \u2018nones\u2019 and it\u2019s really important for me to meet them where they\u2019re at and think about where our young people are coming from,\u201d Bishop Jimenez said in a phone interview. \u201cGone are the days of the strict reward-and-punishment model of religious education that says, \u2018Do this; Do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bishop Jimenez said that GRE professors working with the Catholic Extension Society have encouraged him to reflect and keep himself open to the realities his congregations face. He said that many in his mission are migrants to the U.S. who were born and bred as Catholics. But the unrooted circumstances of migration do not allow for regular access to the sacraments, forcing many to live outside of church doctrine.<\/p>\n

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Edgar Guzman with students in Fresno. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMany feel they cannot receive the sacraments and so they feel unwelcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said that while much of the Commonwealth is Catholic, not all worship or believe in the same manner. Part of the challenge is to connect with divergent constituencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the community I\u2019m in, one challenge is accepting and welcoming LGBTQ people,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cHow do we find the balance between accepting and non-judgment as Jesus would and address pastoral issues even as I\u2019m bound to follow rules? I can\u2019t change church structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just shy of 50 years of age, Bishop Jimenez said that it has been 17 years since he was last in school. He said that he chose to go to Fordham to become a more effective leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t give what you don\u2019t have,\u201d he said. \u201cI need to update myself with recent studies and different approaches to the practice of service so that I can inspire others. I think Fordham keeps my mind changing, growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meeting Mexican American students where they are<\/p>\n

Edgar Guzman became a master\u2019s candidate in the summer of 2019 thanks to the program. He is the campus ministry director at St. Paul Catholic Newman Center in Fresno, California. He\u2019s the only youth minister in an office that serves four campuses. His thesis focuses on ministering to second-generation Mexican Americans who have grown up in the U.S., but don\u2019t necessarily feel as though they belong. Like Bishop Jimenez, Guzman is trying to meet the student population he serves where they\u2019re at.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young people that I administer to are the sons and daughters of farmworkers,\u201d said Guzman. \u201cI try my best to relate to them as a Mexican American and as someone kind of living in two worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guzman cited a scene from the movie \u201cSelena,\u201d where a Mexican American father complains to his son and daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe father says, \u2018We\u2019re not Mexican enough for the Mexicans and we\u2019re not American enough for the Americans.\u2019 That is definitely true. That is definitely something we relate with,\u201d said Guzman.<\/p>\n

But Guzman noted that being Mexican is far from being part of a monolithic identity. There\u2019s a great difference between regions, as well as different perspectives on gender roles, sexual identity, class, and age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 33 years old and the majority of the students that I work with are about 10 years younger than me. So, there is definitely a generational gap,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t have all the answers, but I have some suggestions and some insights that maybe they do not have right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that in addition to practical theology, GRE has given him a sounding board of peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I feel very isolated and very alone just because there\u2019s no other Newman Center [Catholic ministries at secular universities] \u00a0in the Diocese of Fresno. We\u2019re the only one and I\u2019m the only campus minister that\u2019s full time,\u201d he said. \u201cBut with my classmates who work with other young adults or in campus ministry, I\u2019ve definitely been able to peek behind the curtain, if you will, of other ministries and specifically on the East Coast. So that\u2019s been very helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the program has given him the vocabulary to express himself and tools for insight. He also noted that some of the classes he\u2019s taking were unexpected, like those on sociology and child behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat threw me off at first, because I said, \u2018What does this have to do with religious education?\u2019 When in reality, if I\u2019m a minister, if I\u2019m someone who\u2019s going to be pastoring to young people, I have to learn how to walk with them, with all their baggage, which we all have,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, the courses have taught me how to love in a more holistic way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original article was published by Fordham News on Dec. 3, 2021: https:\/\/news.fordham.edu\/university-news\/extending-the-reach-of-fordhams-graduate-religion-education\/<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: Republished with permission. Over the course of the past 20 years, the Graduate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":357156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-357155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-education-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}