St. Catherine of Sienna Newman Center welcomes the new campus minister

Friday, Sep. 05, 2014

June 15 marked the beginning of a new journey in the life of Katie Quinlivan as she became the campus minister at Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Newman Center in Salt Lake City.

As part of her ministry, Quinlivan works with the students at the University of Utah, Westminster College and Salt Lake Community College.

“We are really excited to have her here, and we want her to know that she is welcome,” said Dominican Father Carl Schlichte, pastor of St. Catherine, at the annual Mass on the Grass, which this year was held on Aug. 24. At that Mass, Quinlivan was formally introduced to the community.

Quinlivan has a Master of Divinity from Notre Dame University. She was raised in Utah but moved to Oregon to pursue an undergraduate degree at the University of Portland.

“I knew that I was going to work in campus ministry somewhere; I didn’t know exactly where, but I was sure that is what I was going to do,” she said.

She explained that campus ministry is rooted in the Catholic and Jesuit identity as a welcoming place for students to explore, enrich and engage their spiritual lives.

“We do a program through The Evangelical Catholic [an organization that provides ministry formation and other resources for the evangelization and catechization of college students and recent graduates], which is basically a simple church program so we don’t have all these different committees and programs for students. We basically have small groups and retreats, and the students feel Christ’s love through the people that they meet there and through some of the different passages of the Bible,” said Quinlivan.

When the opportunity came available for a job in Utah, she didn’t hesitate for a moment, she said.

“I came here with my fiancée, who is now the new theology teacher at Judge [Memorial Catholic High School],” said Quinlivan.

She is very excited and has a variety of plans for her ministry.

“I would like to build up more and more the out-of-state students that start coming to the University of Utah and Westminster. I ‘d like to build up our program so we have more students that can encounter Christ and continue with their faith or even start for the first time,” said Quinlivan. “I plan on just a ministry of presence. … I am going to be there for the small group leaders; but they are really the ones that are there [on the campuses] all the time.”

Her perspective about the way she looks at the campus ministry is “when students are in college they are in a crossroads and especially if they grow up Catholic they kind of choose one of two paths: … They can choose to engage in their faith and they can chose to have a relationship with Christ or even start one for the first time; or they can get involved in all the glamor and the glitz that the secular world kind of presents to them,” said Quinlivan.

She thinks that campus ministry is almost the last chance that Catholic leaders have to provide opportunities for college students to encounter Christ and have a relationship with Him.

“Once people graduate they don’t have the community of people there who are still willing to hold their hands to offer them a relationship and offer them community; that kind of goes away when you graduate,” said Quinlivan.

She is available to support others who are ministering to the universities and colleges to facilitate the tools necessary for their ministry.

“They have really a great relationship with Jesus and they are really excited about their faith. I will be making sure that they are growing in their faith and in their relationship with God so they can go out and minister,” said Quinlivan. “I am going to make sure that they are spiritually nourished and I will provide them opportunities to nourish their faith live so they can go out and share Jesus love with the students that they meet every single day.”