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The Rev. Bartholomew Hutcherson, new director of the Catholic Newman Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, celebrates the first Mass of the school year. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett. The priest that UNLV students will come to know as Father Bart, top right, works on a banner with, clockwise from left, Nicole Brower, Nicolle Quick, Mauricio Gramajo and Andrea Azzara. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett. The Rev. Bartholomew Hutcherson and peer minister Nicolle Quick take a break from readying the Catholic Newman Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for fall semester. Photo by Amy Beth Bennett.

Tuesday, September 04, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

RELIGION: BUILDING ON FAITH

Priest encourages Catholic students at UNLV to take a broader look at their beliefs

The Rev. Bartholomew Hutcherson greets visitors in his office at the Interfaith Student Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas wearing the decidedly nonpriestly garb of polo shirt and khakis.

Hutcherson, who students will come to know simply as Father Bart, the new director of the Catholic Newman Center at UNLV, concedes it's not the outfit he usually wears in his campus ministry gig.

Usually, Hutcherson says, he wears a polo shirt and short pants.

Hutcherson, 39, arrived in Las Vegas about three weeks ago and immediately set to work planning the coming school year for the Newman Center, which shares space at the Interfaith Student Center with UNLV's Protestant and Jewish student organizations.

Hutcherson's office shows signs of a move-in. Books, papers and posters sit in what presumably are only temporary homes. A few Creed CDs are fanned out on his desk. On a nearby table is a poster parodying the movie "Men in Black" that features Hutcherson and a colleague from his former assignment at the University of Utah standing in classic Tommy Lee Jones/Will Smith pose under the blurb: "Protecting Earth for the God of the Universe."

"We got a lot of press (on the poster) that year," a smiling Hutcherson says.

But the poster does characterize Hutcherson's passionate but upbeat, intellectual and irreverent approach to campus ministry.

Hutcherson was born in Memphis, Tenn., and grew up in what he says was a Protestant family.

But it wasn't a devoutly religious family, he notes. "My parents didn't take me to church."

The childhood religious training Hutcherson did receive came via a grandmother. Partly through her influence, Hutcherson became a Baptist at the age of 13.

"So, from the time I was 13, faith has always been a part of my life," he says. "It was a choice I made, and my parents were always supportive of that."

In his junior year of high school, Hutcherson left his Baptist roots and began to attend an Episcopal church. Over the next several years, he earned a degree in history, worked for three years in a corporate job at a textile company in South Carolina, married at 21 and divorced at 25.

Hutcherson also continued his work in youth ministry, a love he began to pursue while still a high school student. Before his marriage ended, Hutcherson even had landed a full-time job in youth ministry in California.

Then, at the age of 25, Hutcherson converted to Catholicism.

A primary reason was "Catholic spirituality," Hutcherson says, "a spirituality that was rooted in history, a spirituality that was rooted in earthiness, a spirituality that was rooted in humanity and that has a very positive outlook on the human person.

"As I grew up, my original religious training ‹ although I certainly don't pooh-pooh it ‹ had a more pessimistic look at the human person. So I was brought in by that optimistic humanity of Catholic theology."

He began to explore ordination. Hutcherson was drawn to the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, in part because of its centuries-old involvement with institutions of higher learning and intellectual tradition. He also found it appealing that the Western Dominican Province, of which he is a member, staffs not only parishes, hospices and other such institutions, but 13 campus ministries throughout the West as well.

After his ordination in 1997, Hutcherson was assigned to the Newman Center at the University of Utah. There, and now here, Hutcherson sees it as his responsibility to "create an atmosphere in which (students) feel invited."

Young people "want to be treated like human beings," Hutcherson says. "They want people who understand their experiences are valid, their experiences are to be respected.

"So much of young life, whether you're talking about high school or college students, is discounted by the adult world as, ŒOh, that's just your kid experience.¹ "

It's important that young people also understand that "the student who is in a place of doubt or a place of wondering about faith is as welcome as a person who is absolutely secure in their faith," Hutcherson says.

"And that welcome can't just come from me. Most campus ministry is not done by a professional campus minster, most campus ministry is done by students. Survey after survey after survey tells you the single biggest influence in the life of a college student is other college students."

As he did in Salt Lake City, Hutcherson will depend on the UNLV Newman Center's student leaders to serve as ministers.

"Ministry is the responsibility of every single baptized person," he explains. "And it's just exciting to watch students realize that."

"The challenge is for me to offer a place where students can find the richness of their tradition," Hutcherson says. "Very often, they come here having grown up in the same parish, having had one experience of Catholicism their entire lives and maybe even the same pastor their entire lives."

Now, he says, the objective is to help the students realize "there is a whole broader Catholic world out there. And when they do engage (their faith) on an adult level, it's an amazing experience." Toward that end, Hutcherson plans to offer programs through which UNLV students can examine the Catholic faith. Fall semester's offerings will include a Thursday evening course on principles of moral theology that will run Sept. 20 to Nov. 15.

"That's always very fun," Hutcherson says. "You can talk about real basic everyday stuff like tax cheating and, here, gambling. You can even talk about downloading music from the Internet."

Hutcherson says he believes downloading music is wrong if the artist and record company aren't compensated for it. But, he adds with a laugh, "I have a CD a student burned for me. He wrote on it, ŒImmoral, illegal download for Father Bart.¹ "

In the spring, Hutcherson plans to offer a course on sexual morality. "So, at heart, I'm a teacher, and I've always enjoyed the opportunity to offer classes," he says.

Assignments in Hutcherson's order typically last at least three years. During his tenure here, another of Hutcherson's goals will be to build a new worship space for UNLV's Catholics.

"We have outgrown this space," he explains. "We are reaching a small portion of the student community at this point, and having a larger space that's specifically a Catholic space will send the message that this is an important part of college life, this is an important part of our ministry in the diocese, and we want to reach out to more Catholic college students."

The new worship space would be located adjacent to the Interfaith Student Center, which itself sits on land owned by the Diocese of Las Vegas.

"We're not pulling out of our involvement with the interfaith ministry here," Hutcherson adds. "As a matter of fact, discussions we've been having now are (for) just a building to worship in, a Catholic worship space, so my office will continue to be here. But I'm committed to that as an idea."

Hutcherson says he hopes to meet with architects after the crush of first-day-of-school preparations ease a bit. Then, he says, smiling, "We'll have to look at ways of separating some Catholics from their money."