By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer

Bob Henderson, a retired software executive, has a rich background of experience regarding the benefits of employee training and development. The St. Lawrence O’Toole parishioner worked for many years at a San Rafael company.
Henderson is frequently reminded of past trainings during his classes at the School of Pastoral Ministry at Holy Names University in Oakland.

“In private industry, this kind of program would be welcomed,” said Henderson. The pastoral ministry program, a collaborative effort by the Dioceses of Oakland and Fresno and Holy Names, offers a “well balanced program” not only in theology, Church history, and Biblical studies, but also in administrative issues and the psychology of managing people, he said.

Combined together, these classes are well suited to helping lay people become better parish leaders, said Henderson. “Let’s face it, religious vocations are not an attractive option for today’s young people,” he said. Therefore, the laity are going to have to jump in to keep the Church running smoothly. “That is a given,” he believes.
Whether it is private industry or the Church community, professional training helps people become better at what they do, he added.

Put courses to work
Cassilda Gabbadon, a retired parole officer, praised the program as well. “If you want to be a parish leader, you should take advantage of all that it offers,” she said, adding that “you can take all of the courses and put them to work in your ministry.”

Gabbadon, a parishioner at St. Patrick Parish in Oakland, began her studies in 2007 but is taking a break after having suffered a stroke. Before her illness, she had been active as a Eucharistic minister and in sacramental preparation for children. She plans to return in September to her Holy Names classes.

A convert to Catholicism when she was 12, Gabbadon was baptized as an Episcopalian, but after going to live with a Catholic aunt, “I kind of absorbed her religion,” she said.

Before retiring in 2007, she served as a long-time supervisor for a parole unit in Redwood City for the California Department of Corrections. She also had worked in Santa Clara County as a group counselor for juveniles in custody.

When Gabbadon learned about the pastoral ministry program, “I jumped right on in. It makes valid all the things I have been doing in my Church,” she said.

When she is strong enough to resume her Church work, Gabbadon looks forward to “serving my parish any way that I can.”

For Bob Henderson, a lifelong Catholic, working as a future parish minister is a possible option, but for now, he is enrolled in the pastoral ministry program “for personal enrichment.”

Besides Henderson and Gabbadon, there are a diverse mix of students, hailing from both Oakland and Fresno. The Central Valley diocese joined the Pastoral Ministry program this past January.

Videoconferencing, not commuting
Students do not have to commute the 175 miles to the Holy Names campus. Instead, classes are offered via state-of-the-art, face to face video-conferencing between students gathered at Saint Agnes Medical Center in Fresno and instructors and students in the HNU classroom, according to Robert Lassalle-Klein, director of the program.

This semester’s students from Fresno include six teachers, a school district program director whose husband is currently studying for the diaconate, two nurses, one doctor, a parish youth minister, two retired business professionals, and a former farm laborer from El Salvador who now teaches second grade in a dual immersion program. Three students are involved as associates in religious orders; two converted to Catholicism as adults. All of them are involved in at least one parish ministry, said Mary Turowski, director of program development at HNU.

Oakland students include three business professionals, an adult ed teacher, two parish directors of religious education, a college campus minister, a parish youth minister, a retired business professional, an associate in a religious order, and a Graduate Theological Union student who will be ordained as an Episcopal minister in 2010.

HNU’s three-year lay graduate ministry program got underway in 2000. Two groups have successfully completed the program. Classes are scheduled to accommodate the lives of full-time working individuals by offering a single, four-hour class every Tuesday night. Both master’s degrees and graduate certificates are available.

Individuals who would like to apply for the new September class can contact Mary Turowski at (510) 436-1139 or e-mail her at Turowski@hnu.edu.

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