By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

ATLANTA — Two senior staff of the archdiocesan Department of Religious Education and Faith Formation will be leaving in December.

Kathy Wolf, executive director of the department, will leave Dec. 7 to assume a position with Resources for Christian Living, a Catholic publishing company that produces school and parish curriculum. Also Carol Hamill, director of adult faith formation and Christian initiation, will retire Dec. 31, although she will continue to serve as a consultant to the department for 20 rural parishes in the eastern section of the archdiocese and in other consulting capacities.

Deacon Lloyd Sutter, senior administrator of the department, expressed his respect and gratitude for the contributions made by both professional catechetical leaders.

“Kathy Wolf is irreplaceable,” Deacon Sutter said, “and subject to her professional commitments to her new employer will continue to work for the department in targeted consulting roles. Personally it’s been a delight to work with her and, frankly, I hope after she’s made some money in her new profession, she might be available to take my position when I retire.”

Deacon Sutter said that the position of executive director would not be filled by the archdiocese. He said that he would assume some of the administrative duties, and other areas of responsibility would be distributed among the senior staff.

The religious education staff reported to the executive director, he said, while he contributed personnel management, budgeting and administrative skills to complement Wolf’s catechetical experience. “I wasn’t adding anything to her theological knowledge basis.”

Wolf, who was recruited by RCL this fall, will become their Southeast sales representative and will continue to live and work in Atlanta. She will cover Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Birmingham, Ala.

RCL has a new K-8 school and parish curriculum called “Faith First,” Wolf said, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with an interactive web page for each grade, parental involvement and a junior high chat room. “Echoes of Faith,” their catechist certification program, is used in the Atlanta Archdiocese “as part of our basic certification for catechists,” she said. “Foundations in Faith” is their Christian initiation program. Thomas More Publishing is an arm of RCL.

Wolf, who has a master’s degree in pastoral studies, said she will continue as a Covey facilitator for the archdiocese and as a master catechist, can still assist as a speaker and in other ways. Part of her new position will be to provide training and in-services for parishes and schools utilizing RCL curriculum.

“What has attracted me to the job is to go back to the parishes and schools and be with the communities that are passing on the faith,” Wolf said.

She spent six years in youth ministry at St. Jude the Apostle Church, Atlanta, and Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Atlanta, four years as archdiocesan director of youth ministry, and three and a half years as executive director of the religious education department.

“The thing that I will miss the most about the diocese is the staff of the Religious Education and Faith Formation Department. They are a quality group of people. It’s been an honor to work with them,” Wolf said. “I hope in the future I will be available to help continue to support them in the work they are doing. Their work is very close to my heart.”

Hamill, who is retiring after 30 years in church ministry, will work as a consultant in adult faith formation and Christian initiation with Deacon Sutter, and will be the department’s rural consultant for 20 parishes in the northeast and southeast. Retirement will give her time to spend with her husband, Tom, who recently retired, and with their two newly married children both of whom live in California, she said.

Deacon Sutter said she was the first person he and his wife, Jill, met when they became active in initiation ministry.

“Carol is a friend,” Deacon Sutter said, “both through her parish, and she was the first person professionally with whom Jill and I worked when we started in Christian initiation 16 years ago.”

Her work in religious education began at Sacred Heart Church in Griffin, where she was a catechist and coordinator of elementary religious education. In 1978 she went to St. Philip Benizi Church in Jonesboro, where she spent 10 years as coordinator of elementary religious education, two as youth minister and five as director of religious education and adult faith formation and Christian initiation.

She joined the religious education staff of the archdiocese in 1989 under Sister Roberta Schmidt, CSJ, and then under Msgr. Terry Young. She worked in adult faith formation along with superintendent of schools Maureen Kane, children’s catechist Annetta Kulasa and Wolf.

“Terry Young’s incredible intelligence and humor were wonderful. He made the complexity and the challenges of the job easier. He supported us and he trusted us and so did Roberta,” Hamill said. “Working with Annette Kulasa and Maureen Kane and Kathy Wolf, when she was youth minister, was a joy and a privilege.”

After enduring the death of her son, Ed, in June 1995 by suicide and the grief that followed, Hamill left the staff of the archdiocese in June 1996. For the next two years she worked for RUAH, a spiritual direction formation program named for the Hebrew word “Spirit of God.” She also worked in crisis counseling with mental health patients, with families dealing with suicide and with those who attempted suicide. “Actually I think it was my son’s ministry,” Hamill said.

From 1998-2000 she served as a pastoral associate at St. Jude’s Church, working in young adult ministry, RENEW 2000, Rainbows, separated, widowed and divorced, and adult education. She came back to the archdiocesan offices in July 2000 at the request of Wolf.

“The thought of working with Kathy again really appealed to me. She is such a good and honest person, rooted in Christ. Once again I have had the privilege of working with very talented people in this office . . . I am flattered and I am moved that they want me to continue as a rural consultant.”

In addition to the free time of retirement, Hamill said she feels a new calling after taking part in an immersion retreat in Ecuador in October. An associate of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for six years, Hamill said the trip reinforced the charism of the order’s foundress, St. Katharine Drexel, which she described as liberation through education.

“I am a teacher at heart and I know that what God wants of me will unfold within that charism.”

Hamill said that her 30 years in ministry have been a “blessing and challenge and privilege.”

“It’s been a journey that I’m really glad happened. I’ve seen God in so many different levels and so many different situations. The only regret I have in my life is I wish my son were here. But professionally — no regrets.”