Directors recognized at national conference

Courtesy photo

+ Enlarge

(From left) Susan Northway and Maria Cruz Gray display the plaque recognizing them as winners of the 2013 Juan Diego Award. 

LAS VEGAS — Susan Northway, director of the Office of Religious Education for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, and Maria Cruz Gray, director of the diocesan Office of Hispanic Ministry, were recognized at the 2013 National Association for Lay Ministries.

NALM is a professional organization that supports, educates and advocates for lay ministers and promotes the development of lay ministry in the Catholic Church. Formed in 1981, it has 1,000 members across the country.

Northway and Gray were honored with the 2013 Juan Diego Award, which reflects the spirit of Juan Diego as a lay person spreading the Gospel.

The recognitions were presented in the form of a plaque during the NALM Awards Banquet.

Gray accepted the award "in the name of all the Hispanic people of Utah in the Emaus program, who are my heroes" and Northway "in the name of all the people that have submitted themselves to the training and embraced the idea of lay ecclesial ministry," they said.

Part of the wording on the Juan Diego Award reads: "The National Association for Lay Ministry proudly bestows its Juan Diego Award … for outstanding witness to the spirit and values embodied in the life of the lay minister, Juan Diego, the first saint of the Americas."

In her official capacity, Gray serves the Church in the most remote mission areas in Utah, an area encompassing 85,000 square miles.

In the past several years, Gray has spearheaded several significant programs: In September 2010, together with the Congar Institute, she began the lay ecclesial ministry program in Spanish, Emaus, to form ecclesial leaders who could serve the Hispanic community.

The next year, she worked with the Mexican American Cultural Center and the Catholic Migrant Farmworker Network to visit several rural Utah missions to offer leadership formation to farm workers in those areas. Last year, Gray supported the Catholic Relief Services program "Comercio Justo."

For many years Gray, who is from Spain, has served the Hispanic Catholics of Utah, who comprise approximately 80 percent of Utah Catholics.

Northway has been the diocesan director of religious education since 2005; prior to that she was theology department chairwoman at Juan Diego Catholic High School.

A resident of Utah since 1976, Northway graduated from Drake University and earned a master’s degree in religious education from Loyola University of New Orleans.

She sits on a number of commissions with the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake, among others the Catholic Foundation of Utah. Northway is also a founding member of the Friends of St. Joseph Villa, a group that provides charity services for nursing home residents.