Supplements

archive ISSUE

Colette Kennett leaves Youth Ministry office after more than 30 years

Story and photo by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

After more than 30 years on the job as the diocesan youth director, Colette Kennett is retiring.
Today, Thursday, was her last day at the pastoral center.

Kennett, an active parishioner at St. George in New Baden will not slowly ride into the sunset. Anyone who knows Kennett, knows her energy level has been and continues to be high.

After taking some time off, she will begin work as the part-time director of One Bread, One Cup, a youth leadership program at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana.

For more than 30 years Kennett has been “living the adventure,” beginning with her first day on the job, which she remembers clearly.

“I was on my way to (a youth meeting in) Baraboo, Wis. with two youth, and we had car problems,” Kennett said.
As she began her career with youth, she listened to all the acronyms floating around then: CYO, NCYC, USCCB and wondered “What am I doing in this job?”

At this point, she could tell you she was helping to form Catholic youth in the diocese in their faith, expanding their horizons and giving them the opportunity to participate in their own adventures.

One of the high points, Kennett said, was 1993 when she took young people to Denver, Colo. to see then Pope John Paul II.
“I coordinated 29 buses” with young people and chaperones, she said. That amounted to about 900 people.
She stood and watched as one of the young people received the Eucharist from the pope at one of the liturgies.
The young man, who was battling cancer, was invited to participate.

That trip “was a combination of every high and sigh,” she said. “I was very proud of that trip.”
Kennett has taken youth on an annual “trip” each year as the diocese welcomed youth to an annual conference.

Each year the conference had a theme that was determined by a creative or “visioning” committee, Kennett said.
Kennett guided diocesan youth as the ministry changed from a CYO — Catholic Youth Organization — model to a parish-based youth model.

From the parliamentary CYO-council, diocesan youth switched to a diocesan youth ministry advisory council.
“It became a discernment model,” she said, with youth applying for positions on the council. “They really want it; they have the passion, the enthusiasm” to serve.

Over the years, Kennett has reached out to hundreds of young people, seeing them grow and mature in their faith.
She has also stood by them as they have gone through challenging times.

“The hardest part (about the job) is being engaged in painful situations with youth,” maybe making poor choices in life, she said. Sometimes “they feel very broken.”

However, Kennett said, after “discerning for two years” she decided to take “a leap of faith” and change the course of her life.

“It was prayer, consultation with other trusted adults and family,” she said, and finally, “listening to God’s voice.”
While she is leaving youth ministry in the diocese, “I’m leaving on a high note,” she said. “We had the first ever junior high rally.” That was an event she had been working on for some time.

Now, she said, she “is looking forward to re-envisioning myself, what that means as who I am as Colette and what gifts I bring to the church.”

As she leaves what she describes as the rich “cultural diversity of the diocese,” she looks back on all the ways she has touched and taught the youth here, and she is happy about those times and those teens.

She lists the World Youth Day events across the globe in which she has participated and served at catechetical sessions: Italy, Toronto, Canada, Cologne, Germany and most recently in Sidney, Australia.

“My proudest moment was in Chile in the 1990s at a Latin American Youth Congress,” she said.
At the end of the congress, participants were given a certificate. “I was really proud to walk up and get that certificate,” she said.

And now it’s time to leave, to turn the page and see what will be written there as she begins a new chapter in her life.
“My peers asked me what I was going to do,” she said. “I saw a sign that said: ‘Leap and the net shall appear.’ Well, I’m jumping.”

Anyone who would like to contact her, can call 235-9601, ext. 146.