‘The God-reminder on campus’: Catholic priest makes a difference in college students’ lives

Father Jeff Godecker, right, shares a laugh with Butler University students before a Mass to celebrate the beginning of the school year on campus. As the chaplain of the Butler Catholic community, Father Godecker is a daily presence at the Indianapolis college, reaching out to the Catholic students there and helping them make the Catholic faith their own. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

After years of listening to college students talk about their lives and their faith, Father Jeff Godecker knows the concerns that challenge and affect them.

“The issues for young adults haven’t changed,” says Father Godecker, the chaplain of the Catholic community at Butler University in Indianapolis. “They’re dealing with intimate relationships, sexuality, ‘What do I want to do with my life?’, ‘Do I still want to be Catholic?’, ‘Where am I with my faith?’ ”

He also knows the difference that a Catholic priest can make to students struggling with these realities and questions. Still, he was surprised by the comment that a student once made when they crossed paths on the Butler campus.

“This campus is a very secular place. One student said to me, ‘You’re the God-reminder on campus,’ ” Father Godecker recalls with a smile.

For the past 16 months, Father Godecker has been a daily presence on the Butler campus, reaching out to the Catholic students there and helping draw them closer to their faith—just as he did in the 1980s at Marian College, Butler and Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

His return to Butler coincides with a renewed archdiocesan effort to connect with young adults in college—a critical time in their faith development.

“Before college, their faith has been given to them but it’s largely external,” Father Godecker says. “Now, they’re trying to internalize it and sometimes they struggle with it. If you have a priest on campus, they’ll come and talk to you if you’re open. It gives them a chance to be more reflective. It gives them a chance to connect with the Catholic Church. For students who are struggling with their faith, who want to grow with their faith, there’s someone here to listen to them without judging them.”

The influence of a priest on a college campus makes a major difference, says Missy Hintmann, the student president of the Butler Catholic community.

In her fifth year of the six-year pharmacy program at Butler, Hintmann remembers when the Catholic presence on campus only surfaced once a week for Mass, with a different priest each Sunday.

“You didn’t have a community or support from people,” Hintmann, 23, says. “Having a priest on campus, there’s a huge presence. You can go to confession. You can talk to him. There’s a family environment. It’s extremely important.

“Once you graduate from high school and go to college, you have a chip on your shoulder: ‘I’m on my own. My parents aren’t here.’ You’re trying new things. You’re deciding on who you want to become. You’re shaping the independent version of you. If you don’t have someone to guide you in your faith or someone to lean on for support, you can be lost.”

Lauren Indiano had that feeling in her first year at Butler, especially when she was

taking a course that challenged belief in God and religion. The Butler sophomore came to Father Godecker for help.

“Before I came here, I never had to think for myself about my faith,” says Indiano, a member of St. Lawrence Parish in Lafayette, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese. “When I came here and took that class, I really had to think about the things [that] I believe. I came to Father Jeff with my questions and problems. I learned to really fight for what I believe.”

Father Godecker’s efforts at Butler have also had an impact on the renewed archdiocesan effort to connect with college students.

As the director of young adult ministry for the archdiocese since June, Father Rick Nagel visited Father Godecker at Butler to tap into his insights.

“He said to me, ‘Welcome to mission territory,’ ” recalled Father Nagel, who is also the associate director of vocations for the archdiocese and the associate pastor of Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish in Greenwood. “I said, ‘Why did you say that?’ He said, ‘At your parish, the people come to you. Here, you have to come to them.’

“It changed everything I thought about campus ministry. I thought about what we do and how we can provide the beauty of our faith—the sacraments—to thousands of them.”

Father Godecker experiences an added dimension of the beauty of the Catholic faith when he celebrates Mass every Sunday at 1:30 p.m. with the Butler Catholic community.

“I love to celebrate Eucharist with the young people because they all want to be here,” says the priest, who is also a sacramental minister at Good Shepherd Parish in Indianapolis. “That Mass is always my third Mass of the day. I’m always tired going in, and I often come out with more energy. I like the can-do attitude of this age group. A lot of the things they hear from me in my homilies are, ‘How are you going to take your faith and make the world a better place?’ ”

The 66-year-old priest has helped the students answer that question by directing them to service projects that feed the poor and build homes for low-income families. He also hears confessions on Saturday afternoon, leads faith-sharing groups on Wednesday evenings and celebrates a

mid-week Mass on Wednesdays at 12:10 p.m.

‘There are 1,000 Catholics here, about 30 percent of the student body,” Father Godecker says about Butler. “Butler recruits from heavily Catholic regions—Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis—and private schools.”

Still, connecting with the students who are Catholic is a challenge.

“One of the strengths of Catholicism is its strength of community,” he says. “Creating that sense of Catholic identity here is challenging because their lives are pulled in so many directions. Their lives are extraordinarily filled. The culture in which they live is swift, fast, moving, let’s-get-it-done. Their first priority is performing and doing well. The need to succeed, the need for external success, gets to the point where the inside gets muddled.

“Also, as one student said, ‘There’s a lot of temptation out there.’ Alcohol is a piece of that. Sexuality is an issue. That’s why it’s always important to have a campus ministry.”

Father Godecker savors being part of that ministry.

“I love being part of people’s lives when they’re growing up,” he says. “They’re bright. They’re the leaders of the Church now and to come. What I try to do as a minister is stay open to all of them. When I do, they stay open to me. I find I can learn from them. That’s an exciting thing for being 66 years old. It’s a younger man’s job, but I’m happy to have it.” †