Campus ministry reaches Arizona State students with office on wheels

Published: 2007-09-12

MESA, Ariz. (CNS) -- A college campus is accustomed to high-speed objects flying across its grounds: students bicycling down the mall, professors hurrying to their next class, a sport utility vehicle adorned with pictures of Pope John Paul II disseminating campus ministry information. OK, so only students at Arizona State University's Polytechnic campus in Mesa will experience that last example. That's because Father Michael Goodyear, a Legionaries of Christ priest who is chaplain of Polytechnic's John Paul II Newman Center, recently outfitted his SUV with pictures and messages of his office's namesake. "When Bishop (Thomas J.) Olmsted (of Phoenix) asked me to come to the Polytechnic and initiate campus ministry, there was no history of anything there," Father Goodyear said. "We didn't have an office space, no Newman Center. There was no list of Catholic students," he said. "We had nothing." Father Goodyear, who is entering his second year as chaplain at Arizona State University's east campus, drives his "popemobile" on campus and it serves as an advertisement for the Newman Center and as a mobile office. "I'm trying to be as visible as possible," he said.

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