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The
History of the Sheil Catholic Center
The
First 50 Years
When the Sheil
Catholic Center celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1989, a group
of talented and dedicated associates researched and wrote
a history of the first 50 years. We are reprinting that history
here.
New Spaces,
New Faces
For some 10 years
before the opening of the new center, Father Mac had been
quietly urging the Chicago archbishop to consider appointing
another chaplain to help meet the challenges of the ever-extending
ministry at Sheil. In 1968 Father Richard J. Mueller was appointed
associate chaplain. Ordained in 1963, he had served earlier
in two parishes, and he brought to Sheil a special interest
in relating the insights of a modern psychology to the development
of Christian spirituality.
The new Sheil now
offered to the students, faculty and staff an ampler and more
comfortable environment. But the new space also offered new
opportunities and implicitly invited others to join Sheil's
university community in worship and other faith-building activities.
At a time when
the Church was undergoing startling and invigorating changes
as a result of the Second Vatican Council, the new center
offered a place to experience these changes in a heightened
way, both liturgically and intellectually. Here was a chapel
that had been designed with the liturgy in mind, where even
in a crowded Mass one could share the experience of standing
around the table of the Lord and where the musical idiom of
the young could comfortably blend into age-old rituals. Here,
too, was a place where the diversity and the challenges of
the post-conciliar Church could be addressed in a climate
on intelligence and tolerance.
Soon there were
many new faces at Sheil, and in time that led to the exploration
of new boundaries and the discovery of new resources.
One new face was
that of Father John Krump, who was appointed to succeed Father
Mac as director of Sheil in the spring of 1969. Born and raised
on the South Side of Chicago, Father John was ordained in
1954 and served 10 years in a parish on Chicago's Far South
Side and, beginning in 1964, at St. Paschal's parish on the
Northwest Side. He brought to Northwestern a set of broad
sympathies and interests: a love of music, an intellectual
commitment to the sociology of religion and to pastoral psychology,
a disarming sense of humor that found its regular way into
his homilies and, above all, a personal friendliness and openness
that made him an appropriate successor to Father Mac. Along
with his chaplain's activities at Northwestern, he has written
essays on religion for Today, Worship and Apostolate magazines
and authored two books: What a Modern Catholic Believes about
the Eucharist (1974) and Hope for the World: Youth and the
Church (1979).
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