Youth ministry director becomes campus minister

Intermountain Catholic

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Mary Fasig is excited and looking forward to a new career as campus minister at Juan Diego Catholic High School.IC photo by Chris Young

DRAPER — After 10 years as director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, Mary Fasig has accepted the position of director of campus ministry and student activities at Juan Diego Catholic High School, Draper.

Fasig will still be working with youth and young adults, it will just be in a high school setting. She will be working with the Juan Diego peer ministry group and with the student body officers planning activities such as homecoming, school proms, retreats, school Masses, and she will be involved in the faith life of the campus.

"I am sad to be leaving the Pastoral Center and the people with whom I have worked," said Fasig. "I have met a lot of spectacular parents and kids, and people involved in other diocesan ministries. But I am excited about this new opportunity at Juan Diego. There will be new challenges, and it is a good time for a change."

Fasig attended public school until the ninth grade when she transferred to St. Joseph Catholic High School, Ogden. She went on to graduate from Utah State University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Sociology.

"I am a people watcher," said Fasig. "I enjoy watching how groups form and the dynamics of groups."

Fasig was also involved with the Newman Center at Utah State University. She said her involvement with youth groups actually began when she was a child.

"I spent a lot of time at St. Mary Parish addressing and stuffing envelopes for bulk mailings, and helping out with parish carnivals, bingo, and bazaars," said Fasig. ?My involvement in a youth group helped form me as a youth leader. When my father died in 1972, the people in the parish were very kind to my mother and looked out for us. There were six of us. The priests also kept us on the straight and narrow. The parish became a great safety net."

Fasig became the Diocesan Youth and Young Adult Ministry director in January 1996. She started working in the ministry as a volunteer youth commissioner in 1990 on the diocesan planning team. She was also a youth minister at St. Mary Parish, Ogden. She said the late Jesuit Father Neale Herrlich from St. Mary Parish asked her to help with the youth group, but she was soon in charge of the program, which lasted until 1994, when she started teaching Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes for two years before working for the diocese.

Prior to working for the diocese, Fasig worked for the State of Utah in human resources at Workforce Services. In April 1995, she quit her job, moved out of her condominium, and moved back home because she was going to apply to graduate school. But the night before the application was due, she said she just could not submit it.

"I don't know why," said Fasig. "So I was wondering what I should do. In December 1995, the director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry position came open, and I applied. It all worked out well."

During the past 10 years Fasig has been instrumental in implementing new activities and building a strong youth ministry program for the diocese.

"We really tried to work on getting people involved in leadership," said Fasig. "There are not a lot of people in this diocese who have had experience with youth ministry on that level. We worked with the teenagers to help them grow into adults who would be leaders for future youth groups.

"People take ownership in the youth ministry and in serving the youth, and they want it to be successful," said Fasig. "It is not about being noticed, it is about doing good things behind the scenes, and they work hard.

"About eight years ago, we implemented the Diocesan Youth Leadership Weekend and the Junior High Spring Fest," said Fasig. "We started the volunteer Catholic staff who are youth who help out with Catholic Summer Camp. The youth involved are those who have been peer ministers and those who need service hours or have friends who have served. Some attend camp for several years and then become camp counselors. Part of the qualifications for youth leadership are understanding the rules, being able to have fun as a group, and being able to separate from friends into new groups. Their faith life is also important, because that is what we are about. They need to believe in God and in right and wrong because it does not work if they are not faithful, and that is something they cannot fake.

"Church is more than Mass on Sunday," said Fasig. "As leaders in the church, we need to provide a safe place for the youth to go and adults they can trust. Family situations are changing, and extended relatives do not always live nearby. The youth need adults who can help take care of them."

Fasig also attended World Youth Day three times with the diocese. In 1993 she was a parish coordinator when World Youth day was in Denver, Colo. As director, she went to Rome, Italy, in 2000, and Cologne, Germany, in 2005.

"World Youth Day brings a lot of excitement and fun," said Fasig. "The youth in Utah see the church as basically Anglo-American and Hispanic. But when you go to World Youth Day you see every nationality and the church as universal. The youth see various languages and cultures, the stress of being in crowds, different foods, walking and not really knowing where they are going, and it is always exciting to see the pope, whether it is Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI. All of these things become part of an experience they will never forget."