As University of Minnesota senior Quinn Courteau wrestled with life decisions during the past year, he appreciated the wisdom and guidance of a few “older brothers.”
Members of the religious community, the Brotherhood of Hope, who serve in campus ministry at the university’s Twin Cities campus, have listened and helped Courteau, 21, as he’s discerned his vocation and whether to work another job while taking classes and doing Catholic outreach.
“I would be lying if I said the influence that Brother Ken (Apuzzo) and Brother Matthew (Warnez) have had in my life hasn’t completely changed it,” said Courteau, a microbiology major from Maple Plain who is exploring becoming a brother in the community. “They’ve really helped me grow in Christian maturity.”
For more than six years, the Brotherhood of Hope has played an active role in helping University of Minnesota students like Courteau meet Christ and mature in the Catholic faith. Campus ministry is part of the Brotherhood’s overall ministry at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center in Minneapolis. The Brotherhood also serves with the college ministry of St. Paul’s Outreach.
As the Brotherhood celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, leaders are reflecting on the community’s beginnings, its dedication to evangelization in the Twin Cities and nationwide, and its joy and witness of religious life.
The Brotherhood of Hope formed in 1980 after Father Philip Merdinger — then a diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey — was inspired to found a Catholic community modeled after an ecumenical men’s community in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In Newark, Father Merdinger and five laymen made private vows. Membership has grown to 25 brothers, three priests and 13 associates (men considering membership), including Courteau and another Minnesota man.
Built on a commitment to personal relationships with Christ, witnessing the joy of brotherhood and the Holy Spirit’s gifts and promptings, the community found its primary mission in evangelizing on secular college campuses.
Six community members serve the University of Minnesota and live in the St. Lawrence parish rectory. Members of the Brotherhood also work on the campuses of Florida State University, the University of Central Florida, Northeastern University in Massachusetts and Rutgers University in New Jersey, and are developing missions at 12 schools near their Boston motherhouse, said Brother Apuzzo, the Brotherhood’s general superior.
Three community members arrived in Minnesota in 2014 to partner with the Inver Grove Heights-based St. Paul’s Outreach, Brother Apuzzo said, adding that both organizations evangelize through building relationships as they minister to some of the roughly 13,000 Catholics on campus.
The brothers reach many students by maintaining a presence at campus events and helping students grow in faith, he said. Their efforts complement SPO’s work of forming students and bringing them to spiritual maturity. Students from different backgrounds, frequently with little faith connection, often enter a college environment that largely rejects faith and traditional values, he said.
“We see ourselves as kind of spiritual Navy Seals — that model of a small group of men that are very trained for a certain kind of role and are able to be in a certain way dropped behind the lines, but be together in the mission,” Brother Apuzzo said.
Before students enter a vocation, the brothers want to equip them to live the Catholic life, said Father Merdinger, who serves in Minneapolis and before stepping down recently, served four years as SPO national chaplain.
“It’s a very particular and narrow time in their lives when they can be open to coming into relationship with Jesus Christ as the bedrock of their existence,” he said.
Fruit of all the brothers’ ministry includes Catholic marriages and priestly and religious vocations, said Father Merdinger, who also offers spiritual direction at The St. Paul Seminary.
Along with evangelizing college students, the brothers participate in a Catholic covenant community called the Community of Christ the Redeemer in West St. Paul.
Though the Brotherhood has several priests, men now enter to become celibate brothers, because without the responsibility of administering sacraments, they can focus on mission work, Brother Apuzzo said.
Campus ministry with the Brotherhood is a joy, partly because of its straightforward mission, said Father Jake Anderson, pastor and director of St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center.
“They’re very single-hearted about the mission of spreading the good news and really forming young people, especially by raising up the laity in small groups and Bible studies,” said Father Anderson, who has worked with the Brothers on campus for about a year.
In 40 years, the Brotherhood has helped many college students find Christ. But what most characterizes the men is their life together, at a time when religious brotherhood has declined significantly, Father Merdinger said.
“We find ourselves in the position of trying to say something new about religious life to the young and then having a mission that obviously must involve the young at some point at least,” he said. “I think that has been the great joy, to see how this ideal, which the Church has held up for centuries, finds new expression in our life.”
