Thursday, 16 February 2012 14:43

Father John Hay wants more students involved with the Wichita State University’s Catholic community and is looking for Catholic Shocker alums so that he can stay in contact with them.
To that end he has initiated a weekly YouTube upload called the Catholic Consumer, located at www.wsunewmancenter.com, to stay in touch with students and alums, as well as to teach a little about the faith.
One of the challenges the young pastor faces is that his parish is frequently and mistakenly connected to another university across town.
“We constantly get confused with Newman University and we are trying to create an identity that is truly our own,” he said. “We are trying to be known as the CSC, the Catholic Student Center.”
To clarify that the WSU Catholic ministry is not directly connected to Newman University, the WSU parish has begun using the name St. Paul University Parish and Catholic Student Center, instead of St. Paul Newman Center.
“We have over 2,000 students on campus and they don’t know what the Newman Center is,” Fr. Hay said, “but if you say the Catholic Student Center, they know.”
The WSU Catholic Student Center serves students and non-students from throughout Wichita – especially on Sundays, because the parish hosts one of the “last chance” Masses at 7 p.m.
“We have a lot of alumni out there, some we know and some we don’t know. We’re trying to build up our alumni database and we’re trying to dream up ways to get people to our website more frequently.”
Fr. Hay said he came up with the idea of a video series, “Catholic Consumer” that is updated on Mondays at the center’s website www.wsunewmancenter.com to generate regular visitor’s to the site.
“Basically it will be about books and movies that will help us understand our faith better,” he said. “I am really marketing it towards college students because that’s who we serve primarily, but it’s a way of helping others come to know about movies and books that will help us understand our faith better and will build up our spiritual lives.”
The latest video is always available at the Center’s website. Previous videos are available by clicking on the link in the video window.