Master's students make a difference in the Utah Church

Photo by Peter Ringenberg/University of Notre Dame

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Three Echo students are teaching at St. Joseph schools in Ogden. They are, from left, Daniel Perez, Will Kerschen and Grace Huegel.

SALT LAKE CITY — In a mission diocese like the Diocese of Salt Lake City, finding people to help in the ministry can be a challenge, but aid comes from many quarters. For example, for the last several years the diocese has benefited from a work/study program of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame University for students studying for a master’s degree in theology. This year, four students from the institute’s Echo Graduate Service Program are working in the diocese as theology teachers. Two more are serving as apprentices in parishes.

 Echo is a two-year service-learning formation program that leads to a Master of Arts degree in theology. After a summer studying at Notre Dame, participants in the program serve in one of 16 dioceses in the United States, or one diocese in Meath, Ireland for two years.

“By the time a student graduates from Echo they will have completed a master’s degree through Notre Dame’s theology department, in addition to having two years’ work experience for the Church,” said Echo Associate Director Geoffrey Burdell. “It’s a great hybrid program between a service program and a professional program. It allows for both the accrual of certain professional skills and a master’s degree, but it’s also oriented towards service in the Catholic Church.”

The program’s mission “is really to form catechetical leaders in the Church,” Burdell said. “The goal is to create real leaders for the Church of tomorrow. It’s the best of all worlds in that we’re trying to form really intentional disciples but also really intentional witnesses who can be professional leaders in the Church.”

This year’s participants in the diocese are serving in both the Salt Lake City area and Ogden. In Salt Lake City, Simon Falk is an apprentice at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Elise Flick is an apprentice at St. John the Baptist Church and Teddy Whiteman is a theology teacher at Juan Diego Catholic High School. The three live together in community.

At the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Falk, who is from Columbia, S.C., serves as youth minister and young adult coordinator. He helps organize young adult events, gives talks for some of those events and runs the youth group each Sunday with the help of volunteers. He hopes to begin a street ministry, feeding the homeless and sharing the Gospel message with them. He appreciates the program’s opportunity for higher education as well as job experience working in ministry. Falk said that he has been involved in youth groups in the past, but being the leader of a group has been initially challenging.

“It’s getting easier now,” he said. Utah is similar to South Carolina in that Catholics are in the minority, he said.

“I hope to motivate the young adults to do more and be more involved, and I hope to teach the youth what they need to know for Confirmation and First Communion, also to engage them as disciples of Jesus,” he said of his work in the parish.

Falk earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and theology from the Catholic University of America before enrolling in the Echo program.

In Ogden, Grace Huegel is a teacher at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School, while Will Kerschen and Daniel Perez teach at Saint Joseph Catholic High School. They also live in community. Perez, who is from Guayaquil, Ecuador, completed his undergraduate degree in theology at Notre Dame before joining the program.

“It’s a very hands-on experience,” he said of Echo. “On the one hand, the education we get is just stellar. Then, when we are sent out to our placements during the school year, it’s an amazing opportunity to do service and to learn how to do the job as a teacher.”

Perez said he felt called to the program to help draw young people back to the Church.

“The Church is suffering a little bit, and that’s a global reality,” he said. “I think there’s a real necessity for the kinds of hands-on ministry that Echo allows us to do. I’m very grateful to be here. We have been given this opportunity to do service for the Church in ways I could never do on my own.”

Kerschen, who is from Wichita, Kan., completed an undergraduate degree in psychology with a minor in journalism at the University of Kansas before applying for the Echo program. He also appreciates the service aspect of the program, he said.

“That was what I was drawn to: the opportunity to serve, to share the faith with others even as I’m studying, seeking to help form and help grow the entire person across all the pillars of formation and not just merely the academic or intellectual side,” he said.

His experience to date has been positive, he said.

“Since this is my first time teaching in a formal high school classroom setting, I’m definitely learning the ins and outs and some of the challenges just of being a first-year teacher, but alongside that I’ve really enjoyed my fellow faculty here and the students and getting to dive into theology with them,” he said.

Although Catholics share many of the same experiences regardless of where they live, he has observed that in Utah the schools and parishes have to work harder “to keep that faith alive,” he said. “I’ve seen some ways in which there is that added struggle.”

Having Echo students working at the school has been a positive experience, SJCHS Principal Clay Jones said.

“St. Joseph Catholic High School loves the Echo program,” Jones said. “We have participated in the program for the past nine years, and we love what it brings to our students and community. The Echo students bring a knowledge of our faith from a youth perspective, which allows our students to relate and gain understanding about our Catholic faith that may otherwise be more difficult. Echo students have connected with our students and bring a youthful excitement that meets them where they are in order to ignite a fire about the Catholic faith.”

Burdell recently visited the program’s students in Utah. “The students are doing great,” he said. “I think it has been great to see all the work that they are doing, and they are certainly being used and utilized in the diocese.”

As a mission diocese, the Diocese of Salt Lake is “a passionate ministry but it’s also in need of as many hands as it can get, and competent hands,” he added.