The Brotherhood of Hope will be leaving the Catholic Center at Boston University at the end of the semester to launch a new evangelistic program, titled “Hope for Undergraduates in Boston,” that aims to reach out to college students in the Fenway area.
The Brotherhood, which has served for 11 years at the BU Catholic Center, is a group that focuses on recruiting students from secular universities. The Brotherhood plans to expand the church’s outreach to about 60,000 students at ten campuses in the Back Bay, most of which have no Catholic center for their students, according to a letter from Brother Rahl Bunsa, General Superior of the Brotherhood.
The project, which is still in the planning stages of development, will be centered at the Northeastern University Catholic Center.
“We plan on working with students to equip them to work within the ministry on their own within the Northeastern community,” said Brother Sam Gunn, of BU. “I’m really excited to reach out and talk to students about how they can contribute more to the Catholic society.”
The project was inspired by Father Richard Clancy, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who felt strongly about expanding the church’s outreach to students for years, Brother Gunn said.
“We hope to reach out to undergraduates who are not being reached and connect them with the sacraments and hand out invitations to be more involved within the church,” Brother Gunn said.
Cardinal Seán O`Malley, who is the Archbishop of the Boston Roman Catholic Diocese, has also hoped to expand outreach to college students and “watch the campus ministry grow” ever since his arrival to Boston in 2006.
“I am profoundly grateful for all the Brotherhood has done during the past eleven years, promoting the evangelization and spiritual formation of countless students, training interns and lay ministers, witnessing the virtues of community life and encouraging vocations to the priesthood and religious life,” Cardinal O’Malley said in a letter to Brother Bunsa.
Javier Meléndez, a BU senior in the College of Communication and member of the Catholic Center, said that he is sad that the Brotherhood is leaving the BU community.
“Their work in our community is invaluable and I am eternally grateful for their service to us, he said. “I am sad to see them leave because how close I have grown to them and how much of an impact their service has done in my own life.”
However, Meléndez said that he is excited about the prospect of them reaching out to other campuses.
“I am extremely excited for the work they are about to undertake…They are now being called to serve the greater Boston community and to think that they will be serving so many other students in the same way that they served us and I can only say that I am excited for those students that will encounter them.”
To replace the Brothers leaving BU’s Catholic Center, Cardinal O’Malley is appointing Reverend John McLaughlin as Director of the Catholic Center and Priest Campus Minister starting in July, according to Cardinal O’Malley’s letter.
“We have had something so good for so many years that it would be selfish of us to keep them here,” Meléndez said.
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