History of Campus Ministry at Bellarmine

In the fall of 1999, Fr. Ron Knott was asked to become the Director of Catholic Worship at Bellarmine. He was the Archdiocesan Vocation Director in his “full-time” job, but he agreed. The following semester, Melanie-Prejean Sullivan became the part-time Director of Campus Ministry. With a merry band of 26 students, they had a vision of growing a program which would be “deliberately Catholic, consciously Christian, and unapologetically ecumenical and interfaith.” In 2010, the university invited the Conventual Franciscans from the St. Maximillian Kolbe province in Kerala, India to join the campus ministry team. Currently Friar John Pozhathuparambil, OFMConv. serves as the Director and Friar George Munjanattu, OFMConv. is a Campus Minister.

Spiritual Peer Mentors serve the Residence Life staff and have joined the team to invite more students to join the merry band and expand their outreach. In the last 25 years, over 200 students who were active in Bellarmine campus ministry have gone on to pursue vocational calls in some type of ministry within their churches, temples, or synagogues.

Our campus is affiliated with Interfaith America. Campus Ministry today includes programs for all students in nearly a dozen active faith-based organizations and scripture study groups with over 450 members. They are Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Mainline Protestants, Cooperative and Southern Baptists, Evangelical and Independent Christians, Reform and Conservative Jews, American and International Muslims, Pagans, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’i, Unitarians, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and Secularists. All are welcome in Campus Ministry.