History of Ut Fidem

Every year thousands of college freshmen who graduated from Catholic high schools will leave the faith they were raised in. According to Sherry Weddell in the book, Forming Intentional Disciples, “Catholics who leave, leave early... Nearly 80% of those who leave the faith, will have left by the age of 23.” However, a study done by St. Mary’s Press in 2018 found that 74% [of former Catholics] said they stopped identifying as Catholic between the ages 10 and 20, with a median age of 13. “Enough is enough,” said two local families who decided to do something about it. Dowling Catholic High School (DCHS) supporter Dan Rupprecht and parent Brett Bosworth came to the conclusion that the Church couldn’t continue to teach the faith the same way she always had and hope for different results.  They decided to invest their own time and money to develop a ministry to help young people keep the faith especially through the most toxic years of one’s life…college. After initially reaching out to a local parish to see if they would be open to a new way of teaching the faith it became clear that the right place to start this new program was at the high school level. A meeting was held with Jerry Deegan, President of DCHS, and it became clear that now was the time and Dowling was the place to change the way young people engaged in their faith. A team was formed consisting of President Jerry Deegan, Bishop Emeritus Joseph Charron, Dan Rupprecht, and Brett Bosworth, and the seeds were planted for the Ut Fidem ministry.

The founders began searching for a model and realized the FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) model could be modified and implemented in the high school setting. Everett Fritz, who was running a very successful discipleship ministry in a parish setting, was hired as a consultant and Addie (Magruder) Croegaert was hired as the Ut Fidem Coordinator. A team made up of the original founders, Addie Croegaert, Matt Meendering (Principal of DCHS), Fr. John Acrea (DCHS chaplain), Terry Clark (DCHS director of formation & ministry), and Christy Sheaff (DCHS teacher and head of retreats & liturgy) was formed to begin the development of the Ut Fidem ministry. Together they asked, how can we help our students keep the faith after they leave high school and especially through college? They examined the current faith landscape within the school and saw many faith opportunities already in place. There were strong theology classes where students learned the knowledge of the faith. There were retreats available for every grade. Specifically, the junior retreat, Kairos, produced very powerful encounters for students, but the benefits were not felt long-term. The team saw a gap between knowing the faith and truly practicing the faith. They also saw that while encounter experiences existed, there was a need for more intentional accompaniment to help students take greater ownership of their Catholic faith. Addie Croegaert, relying greatly on inspiration from the Holy Spirit, began the task of developing the Ut Fidem ministry utilizing strategies found in the books Forming Intentional Disciples and The Art of Forming Young Disciples.

Ut Fidem is set up as a small group ministry where groups of 5-6 students come together each week with a volunteer adult mentor. Together groups learn how to grow their devotion to prayer, the Sacraments, understanding of Church teaching, and they enter into the lifestyle of an on-fire Catholic. Ut Fidem comes from the Latin phrase, “Ut fidem teneamus,” meaning loosely- to keep the faith (2 Timothy 4:2-7). 

By the end of year five at Dowling Catholic High School, Ut Fidem grew to involve 62 active small groups, or 333 students, which was nearly 24% of the student body. According to an external study done by C1C Consulting, a research arm of Pew Research, Ut Fidem alumni were 59% more likely to attend Mass 4+ times a month than non-Ut Fidem alumni in their senior year of college. They also were more likely to be committed to their faith, feel more confident in defending it, continue growing in their faith in college, and to engage in faith behaviors like daily prayer, Mass, reconciliation, and faith groups than non-Ut Fidem alumni. Ultimately, the study revealed that 77% of Ut Fidem alumni continued themselves active Catholics compared to only 50% of non-Ut Fidem alumni.