Cadets at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the early 1900s were required to attend religious services on Sunday. Protestants could march to churches in Blacksburg. Catholics had no local parish. So, Catholic cadets stayed in their rooms and prayed. Priests from St. Mary the Mother of God, Wytheville, would visit from time to time but only during the week.
By 1911, the priests had a chapel they could use for Sunday Mass. And by 1924, the Diocese of Wheeling had built a church in Blacksburg, also named for the Blessed Virgin. That same year, Virginia Tech joined the growing number of colleges with an association of Catholic students, a Newman Club, named after St. John Henry Newman.
On Sunday, Oct. 20, Catholic Hokies marked 100 years of living the faith and the growth of campus ministry at Virginia Tech, with more than 500 people attending Mass in Burruss Hall, led by Bishop Barry C. Knestout and two fellow bishops who went to Virginia Tech, Bishop Bernard E. Shlesinger III, auxiliary bishop of Atlanta, and Bishop Adam J. Parker, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore.
“We ask the Lord today to bless and continue to bless this campus ministry here at Virginia Tech,” Bishop Knestout said in his homily, “and that each of you become an example in your own discernment, profession, vocation as you move further along in those choices that are made at this point in life, to see as the overarching pattern of your life, our Lord Jesus Christ.”
From Newman to seminary
According to research compiled by senior Tyler Herod for his 35-page history of the Newman Community, at least 20 men who were involved in it discerned a vocation to the priesthood. A 1983 graduate, Bishop Shlesinger recounted that he never used his degree in agriculture engineering. He joined the Air Force, and after military service, entered the seminary.
“I want to thank our priests and all who are involved in campus ministry,” said Bishop Shlesinger. “You don’t really know how important your role is in forming the hearts and minds of the next generation.”
Bishop Parker said that during the two semesters he spent in Blacksburg, he started attending weekday Mass in the War Memorial Chapel and met the campus chaplain, Father Richard Mooney.
“Father Rich taught me so much about priesthood in that one year of life that it was through his ministry and the ministry of the Newman Center that I began to really feel in a very strong way that the Holy Spirit was calling me to serve the Lord in his Church,” the bishop said.
The Easter Vigil he attended in his spring semester was celebrated in the same auditorium as the centennial Mass. “I could never have fathomed that the next time I would be participating at Mass there would be with you, Father Rich,” the bishop noted.
Father Mooney, a history major at Virginia Tech, graduated right around the time that southwest Virginia shifted to the Richmond diocese in 1974, which supervises Catholic campus ministry to this day.
He said he was reluctant to talk much about his two separate assignments as Virginia Tech campus chaplain, for fear of leaving someone out.
“It was always a group effort,” said Father Mooney. “It was always a community thing. We have so much to offer and the whole point is … just spread it around. You just give it away and give it away. That’s the most important thing. I was never interested in doing anything other than that.”
Lay ministers arrive
Sharing a table with Father Mooney at lunch was a married couple whom he hired to be the first lay campus ministers at Virginia Tech, Chris Barrett and Anne Gibbons.
The recent graduates of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago were expecting their first child, and hoping to get into campus ministry, even if it meant sharing a salary. Virginia Tech students loved the idea of having them and their baby around the Newman House, Anne said. They stayed four years. Chris later became a deacon. Anne ended up working 30 years in campus ministry.
“It’s such a key season in a person’s life, when they’re figuring out who they are and want to be,” she said. “To accompany people at that stage of their life is really a privilege and a gift.”
The current campus ministry director, Chris Hitzelberger, would agree. “There is a great joy in bringing the Gospel to people,” he said, near the end of the program after Mass.
Anne and Chris had moved on by the time Father Jim Griffin became campus chaplain in 1998. His four years included the new millennium, the Sept. 11 attacks and completion of renovations to the Newman House, where generations of Catholic Hokies have gathered.
“I remember thinking that this isn’t the future of the Catholic Church as many like to say it is,” said Father Griffin. “It IS the Catholic Church, and Newman, to me, was part of the reality, not just the training ground. That’s the one thing I think I learned when I was here.”
Newman ‘brought Jesus to me’
Among the former students who attended the celebration was John Schneider, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1981. A required course in computers his senior year led to a 40-year career in advanced technology. The two years he was in the corps of cadets, he recalled that he would attend Mass at St. Mary’s, Blacksburg, to escape Sunday morning formation. But he also was an altar server and lector at many Newman Community liturgies.
“It kept me glued together because I was not the world’s greatest student,” he said. “And coming to Mass on Sunday was critical to me. It was something that kept my soul, my feet on the ground and said no matter how you’re struggling, everything’s going to be fine. Keep trying, keep working. And then there was a little peace there and some joy.”
Recent graduates and current students say they get great joy and strength from this Catholic fellowship. Architect Sarah Zaso, a 2022 graduate, recounted how the campus ministry program was one of the main reasons she wanted to come to Virginia Tech.
“Jesus is the one who has impacted my life the most,” she said. “But this community has brought him to me.”
Taking time out from choir rehearsal before the centennial Mass, Sabrina Whearty and Michael Albrigo said the Catholic community at Virginia Tech has played a big part in their lives. A senior majoring in computational modeling and data analytics, Albrigo said his older brother, who was two years ahead of him when he was a freshman, prodded him to spend time at the Newman House. So, he started doing his homework there instead of in his room.
“You just keep meeting great person after great person,” Michael said. “It’s a great community. You can find people to do pretty much anything … anything holy with.”
Whearty is also a senior, double majoring in animal and dairy sciences. She also got involved her freshman year and is now a student team leader. “Growing closer to the Lord was really helping me see where I wanted to go in other areas of my life,” she said.
“There’s a good women’s community at Newman that has been so influential,” Whearty added. “Having strong women who I can look up to in my faith and help push me, and that I can help push to grow as well, has been amazing.”
As the event ended, the current chaplain, Father Tom Yehl, a Youth Apostle priest, reminded everyone that there is still time to contribute to the latest fundraising effort to add staff and expand the house on Otey Street. A short walk from the main campus, the building was donated by the Newman Club’s first sponsor, Ella Russell.
For many years, it has had a chapel where people can pray 24 hours a day, unlike those early 20th century Catholic cadets who had no sacred space to call their own.