By Sharon Abercrombie
Staff writer

It has been over 10 years since Catholic students at the California State University East Bay at Hayward had the opportunity to attend an Ash Wednesday liturgy on their campus. Ever since July 1999, when the Oakland Diocese discontinued its 26-year ministry there because of poor attendance at Masses and lack of staffing, an official Catholic presence at the school has been absent.

This presence returned Feb. 17 when Father Tony Herrera, parochial vicar of All Saints Parish in Hayward, celebrated a noon Ash Wednesday liturgy at the University Union to officially mark the beginning of Lent.

Steve Mullin, parish life director at All Saints, hailed the liturgy as the first in an ongoing series of Catholic outreach events envisioned for the campus. The parish recently received a $30,000 start-up grant from the Soda Foundation for leadership training, conference speaker fees, and travelling expenses to help grow the newly revived campus ministry, Mullin said.

Several factors prompted Mullin to pursue the grant. The campus is growing, with a current population of 14,000 students, plus faculty and staff. Fifteen hundred students now live on campus in the Hayward hills. National statistics put 30 percent of them in the Catholic category.

Mullin said he’s also seen more CSU resident students showing up at the parish doors. Some ride the bus from campus to attend the weekend liturgies. One of them is sophomore communications major Anne Bartlett, 19, a Modesto native. Bartlett said that in talking to the other students heading to All Saints on the bus, she discovered that they, like herself, would welcome Catholic events on campus.

When the small group contacted more of their Catholic friends, they found they were not alone. Encouraged, they organized a Catholic Club that was formally recognized on campus last fall. The club sponsors occasional get-togethers where members talk about their faith. The evening of Feb. 17, they met to study the origins of Ash Wednesday and its relevancy for today.

The Catholic Club, headed by Bartlett, “is small but growing – with about eight strong regulars,” she said, but its e-mail contact list has jumped to 40.

Besides the Ash Wednesday Mass and discussion, club members recently took part in the San Francisco Walk for Life. In March they will attend the annual Religious Education Congress in Anaheim.

Bartlett said she was excited when she learned about the $30,000 grant. “It will open up our horizons so much,” she said. She hopes the new campus ministry will help make Catholicism “more transparent” for students. Many of her friends do not go to church, identifying themselves as “half Catholics,” but are open to changing their status, she said.

Bartlett herself went to CCD classes in Modesto, but much of what she learned then didn’t always stick. “You know, I was a teenager,” she laughed. But she has continued to go to Mass each Sunday. She frequently prays the rosary and said her next step is to go more deeply into the background of her faith.

Robert Lara, associate executive director of the Associated Students Inc., the student services office on campus, is also pleased with the campus ministry potential.

Himself a parishioner at All Saints, Lara said the grant will function as “an amazing opportunity to reach out to young students, to give them the chance to share and to celebrate their faith.” It couldn’t have come at a better time, he added.

Lara said that a recent UCLA study sponsored by the Higher Education Research Institute revealed that Catholic college students move away from their faith if they don’t have opportunities on campus to participate in religious celebrations, discussions and other supportive events.

“I’m anxious to be here for the students and I’m here to support Catholic faculty and staff as well,” he said.

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