DDD helps shape diocesan religious education

Friday, Jan. 20, 2017

SALT LAKE CITY — The annual Diocesan Development Drive funds 30 ministries throughout Utah, from supporting remote missions to paying for seminarians’ education. Through the diocesan Office of Religious Education, the DDD also makes it possible for parishes to offer religious education to people entering the Church as well as to lay ministers. 

“We help train leaders to assist in the running of the parish,” said Susan Northway, director of the religious education office. “[These leaders] are involved in bringing the Christian message to others who are living on the margins.”

The Lay Ecclesial Minister Formation Program, funded by the DDD, provides laypeople from throughout the diocese theology training, in order to better teach others.  Currently, the diocese is training its third class of English-speaking LEMs and its second class of those who speak Spanish. The four-year program results in certification. 

“Without the DDD’s funding, we couldn’t do what we need to do,” said Northway. Thanks to the DDD, “we have a highly trained core of lay people commissioned.”

One of those who has benefited from the LEM program is Dorothy Simpson, who teaches religious education and assists in a Bible study at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Magna and Saints Peter and Paul Parish in Salt Lake City.

Simpson has worked for more than 30 years to train people in theology and catechism.

“[The DDD] benefits me because it sends so many catechists to me to be trained,” she said. “Without the DDD, I wouldn’t have been so fortunate.”

Her work with the Diocese of Salt Lake City began in 1985 and slowly grew over the years. From 1989-1992, she participated in a program held at Salt Lake Community College called EDNET (Utah Education Network). She was instructed in theology by several religious figures in the diocese, including Monsignor Colin F. Bircumshaw, who is now the diocesan administrator. 

In 2006 Simpson was a member of the diocese’s first LEM formation program and was certified in 2010. Her religious education ministry took her from working in the private sector and occasionally volunteering at her parish to devoting her career to religious education full time. 

Religious education teachers are important to bring understanding of the Catholic Church’s doctrine to everyone, she said. “We have to teach what the Church teaches. We have to be grounded in what we do.”

From 1985-1990, Simpson worked as the religious director of St. Martin De Porres Parish in Taylorsville. In 1994, she became the director of religious education and secretary at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, where she worked until 2009. 

Providing religious education to her friends and neighbors makes it all worthwhile, she said. 

“[Teaching] opened the doors to expand the gifts I had been given … to minister to people,” Simpson said.

 Studying and learning more about Catholic doctrine is what made her pursue religious education in the first place and are the reasons why she pursues it to this day. 

She is grateful to the Diocese of Salt Lake City and the LEM program, she said, because “it gave me confidence. When I put on my little name tag that says ‘Dorothy Simpson, Lay Ecclesial Minister,’ I feel good. It makes me feel good.”

 She still can’t get enough of one moment that she often sees when she’s teaching: “The response from an individual, when they say, ‘Aha! I’ve got it!’ The expression on their face when you know they understand; that’s the joy I get out of it,” she said. “[The LEM formation program] gave me a sense that lay people do have something to offer. I’d do it all again, if given the chance.”

What is the DDD? 

The Diocesan Development Drive is a yearly fundraiser that gathers money to be used all across the diocese. The 2017 DDD begins Jan. 29 and will help fund 30 different ministries provided to individual parishes and people in need in Utah. 

Among the ministries funded by the DDD are refugee resettlement and Utah Catholic schools. It also enhances the ministry of religious education by covering the cost of bringing in guest speakers, like Brother Loughlan Sofield, who will present the Jan. 28 Collaborative Ministry Workshop.

DDD funds are used to purchase land for the construction of new churches, as well. 

“Through the DDD, many valuable ministries are funded,” said John Kaloudis, the director of the DDD, adding that the DDD fosters growth and improves the Catholic community at both the parish and diocesan level.