For some 70,000 children and their families across the diocese, September is not only a time to hit the books as they return to school, but to grow in faith through a variety of catechetical programs. Within their unique parish communities, children are shepherded by some 120 catechetical leaders who lead children through educational programs, formational experiences like prayer, worship and service, and who serve as witnesses to the Gospel of Christ. This year, six new catechetical leaders will take on this important ministry for the Church.

Theresa Cassata, St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Brant Beach

“When I came to the parish 12 years ago, I knew I wanted to work there,” asserted Theresa Cassata, St. Francis of Assisi Parish’s new coordinator of religious education. Cassata, once the records coordinator and ministry assistant in the Ocean county parish, noted, “I came up [through] the ranks.” Cassata, a secular Franciscan, earned a master’s degree in special education from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and completed the Diocese of Trenton’s Certificate Program for Administrators of Religious Education. The 450 students in grades one through nine will be instructed in their faith by 70 volunteer catechists and aides.

Cassata acknowledged the challenges of ministering year-round at a parish consisting of four shorearea worship sites on Long Beach Island: St. Francis of Assisi, Brant Beach; St. Thomas Aquinas, Beach Haven; St. Clare, Loveladies; and St. Thomas Villanova, Surf City.

“Our population declines in the winter, but swells in the summer,” Cassata said. “We see many students participating in summer vacation programs and have no room to meet for regular religious education.” Yet, Cassata recognizes that teamwork between parents and catechists can result in an educated, compassionate student. “Although parents are the primary catechists in a child’s life, religious education … helps give children and their families a foun­dation upon which to grow their faith. It’s a place to come and learn about our faith, but also a place to come and learn how a faith community works,” Cassata said, “a place where children come and feel supported and loved and a place that supports their families in teaching them to support and love others.”


John McGuire, St. Paul Parish, Princeton

When John McGuire, the new director of religious education in St. Paul Parish, Princeton, speaks of the mission he embarked on two months ago to help young people “build a relationship with Jesus” by making religious education a family experience, there’s audible enthusiasm in his voice.

For McGuire, 29, who began learning the basics of catechetical instruction as a teen by assisting his mother, a religious education teacher, this goal is a natural outgrowth of his own faith development.

During a break in preparations for the Sept. 16 re-opening of the 700-student, K-8, multi-layered program, McGuire, a one-time seminarian, spoke of his vision of fostering involvement in religious education on a family level, saying that “if a father and mother or guardian or some stable influence in a child’s life shows and lives out their faith, it is automatically more real to them.”

And so, McGuire, who served as a substitute in religious classes for older teens as a seminarian and devoted a lot of time in ministry to visiting classrooms to answer questions that might have been chal­lenging for catechists, said the idea he comes into St. Paul with is “that parents have to be engaged and supported and formed alongside their children.”

To accomplish this goal, McGuire is planning to offer weekly reflections in the church bulletin for parents and adult formation sessions while the children are in their religious education classes and “to put myself forward as a support, creating programming alongside interested parents.”

The son of George K. McGuire III and his wife, Theresa, McGuire, grew up in Lacey Township where the family – including sisters Anne Marie, 22, and Patricia, 18 – were members of St. Pius X Parish, Forked River. He received the sacraments in St. Pius X and went on to graduate from Monsignor Donovan High School, Toms River.

He earned a bachelor of arts in political science and pre-professional studies from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Galloway, in 2006 and a master’s of divinity from Seton Hall University, South Orange, in 2011. He attended the university’s Immaculate Conception Seminary where he studied theology which he continued in the Theological College of The Catholic University of America, Washington.

He’s looking to the formation experience he received while studying in two seminaries and working in the pastoral field and ministries to provide the grounding he will need as the director of a flourishing and wide-ranging program.

The program has multiple sessions Sunday mornings and Monday and Tuesday afternoons as well as a special program on Monday nights for middle school students. There are programs for home-school students and a two week intensive summer academy, he said.

“A newly hired youth minister, Kait Mayer, is also the coordinator for Confirmation and will be helping to foster relationships with the youth,” which, he said, “we hope will continue past their Confirmation and into young adulthood. It’s about creating a desire to do and experience more through service and group prayer.”

McGuire said he’d also like to find a way to encourage students to take time for silence. “We live in a culture that plugs in all of the time: I-pods, cell phones, laptops, etc. People don’t take time to actually be in silence and that is when we can best communicate with God.”

“I’m not sure yet how to incorporate that (in the curriculum) but we’ll see as we go.”

“It’s a big program,” McGuire acknowledged. “If I didn’t see God’s hand in bringing me here, I might feel overwhelmed. It’s definitely an adjustment, but the parish staff is amazing.”

Margherita Moran, St. Dominic Parish, Brick

“Religious education is very important in the life of a child because it is the building block on which their faith is formed,” asserts Margherita Moran, the new coordinator of religious education for St. Dominic Parish. Moran, a catechist for more than half her adult life, has laid many such blocks of faith for hundreds of children in two states and now is charged with laying many more for the young Catholics in the Brick parish.

Moran, a native of The Bronx, was a parishioner of that New York City borough’s Our Lady of Mercy Parish and attended the Academy of Mount St. Ursula there.

In her senior year in the Catholic girls’ college preparatory school, she laid her first building block of faith by serving as a 19-year-old catechist for second. graders preparing for their first holy Communion. Moran furthered her own education by taking psychology and education courses at Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.

She and her husband Patrick and their two sons Michael and William relocated to Brick and became parishioners of St. Dominic Parish 23 years ago. Moran, 54, worked at the parish school as a registrar and became a teacher’s aide in the religious education program.

She took the reins at her predecessor’s retirement and will now assist 50 teachers as they lay their own building blocks for the program’s 750 students.

The mother, wife, extraordinary minister of holy Communion and spiritual architect, affirms the value of family and Church working in harmony to instill the tenets of faith in their young. “It’s so important for children to develop spiritual, moral and religious values,” Moran notes. “I believe that begins with the partnership of the parent and the religious education program.

Aileen O’Brien, St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Hightstown

To Aileen O’Brien, the new director of religious education in St. Anthony of Padua Parish, transporting her passion for teaching the faith from Willow Grove, Pa. to Hightstown, is part of a life-long journey of Catholic belief.

O’Brien, who commenced work in St. Anthony Aug. 23, is a graduate of Gwynedd-Mercy College, Philadelphia with a master of arts in theology from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, also Philadelphia.

She began her career in Catholic education in the Philadelphia Archdiocese in 1985 as a third grade teacher in St. Thomas Aquinas School, Bensalem where she remained for six years. From there, she went on to teach in a number of schools in the Philadelphia archdiocese including St. Raymond Pennefort, and Queen of Peace.

Other schools she taught in include Mount St. Joseph Academy, Flowertown, Pa. and Landsdale Catholic High School, Landsdale, Pa., where she taught theology for four years. She was also director of religious education for four years in Queen of Peace Parish, Philadelphia.

In an interview, O’Brien said she is eagerly anticipating working with the program in St. Anthony of Padua attended by 700 students in grades one through eight with the assistance of 50 catechists and their assistants.

While the classes are taught in English, she noted that some of the catechists have the bilingual skills where needed in the diverse community. The program also strives to welcome special needs children, providing them with aides when needed.

O’Brien and her husband, John, a retired police officer, are the parents of three grown children and grandparents of two. With them in mind, she said she considers it of vital importance to “work against a culture that is very negative with positive messages about Jesus.”

“In our parish work, we want to reach out to the whole community, not just the Catholic community” by way of service activities.

One way she is hoping to do that is by “jump starting” the youth ministry at the parish. “I’d like to get the children involved in a level that is appropriate in pro-life activities and also work with students on how not to make decisions that are destructive.”

“I formerly worked with terminally ill children at a McDonald House in Philadelphia,” she said. “I would like to find a similar ministry for the children in St. Anthony so they begin to understand that when they leave religious education and go off to college, their faith doesn’t just stop at Sunday Mass.”

Joan Savarese, St. Anthony Parish, Red Bank

This catechetical year opens for long time catechist Joan Savarese, with a return to her home ground of Red Bank.

Savarese, who was the director of religious education from 1997-2006 in St. James Parish there, will resume that mission, this time in St. Anthony Parish, after a six-year hiatus as a sales consultant for the Catholic news weekly, Our Sunday Visitor.

Reached in her new office in St. Anthony Parish, Savarese said she is happy and enthusiastic about returning to the ministry she loves, especially “in my home territory.”

Savarese said she volunteered her way into ministry – “that’s how I learned the job, as a clerk, secretary and volunteer” before beginning diocesan certification studies in the field. She said that even while she was away from the ministry, the connection she felt to religious education was still strong.

Last year, Savarese began volunteering in religious education again in St. Ann Parish, Keansburg. And when the chance to apply for DRE in St. Anthony Parish came up, the reader, extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, former member of the diocesan Catholic Committee on Scouting, wife, mother of three and grandmother of one, decided to apply.

“I really missed being in the trenches of the religious education program, helping to catechize the children, overseeing their sacramental preparation. I prayed about it and felt like I was being called back,” Savarese said.

Savarese, who earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Monmouth University, Long Branch, said she hit the ground “with both feet” when was offered the position, starting in July with the intense, two-week summer program when about 330 children – about 75 percent of the religious education enrollment – came to study their yearly curriculum.

“They started every morning in church, learning how to pray the Rosary, genuflect, Stations of the Cross and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.”

They will return on Sundays during the school year for sacramental preparation, she said. The summer program has had the advantage of adding flexibility to scheduling for the program. Overall, 559 students attend the program receiving instruction from 30 catechists for the summer session and about 18 for the year-round program.

“When you have a small parish center and the after school programs are competing for space,” the summer program adds breathing room, she said.

William Staub, St. Thomas More Parish, Manalapan

As William Staub, the new coordinator of religious education in St. Thomas More Parish, Manalapan, recalled it, after college, he worked in a variety of fields ranging from carpentry to management to retail to religious education.

It was the latter that had the most profound effect on him, said Staub, who noted that a “thoughtful re­evaluation of his life” confirmed the realization that he wanted “a career that offered more than a lot of merchandise but no God.”

And this year, when he found that there was an opening for a coordinator of religious education in St. Thomas More, he applied and got the job. “It worked out very well,” said Staub during a recent interview. “I arrived July 1 and walked into a well established program. I was able to spend the summer acquainting myself with procedures and priorities, connecting with the diocese, the curriculum and getting operationally oriented.”

Staub, the son of Ruth and the late Norman Staub, grew up in Robbinsville with his brother and three sisters. The family was actively involved in St. Gregory the Great Parish, Hamilton Square, when “it was just a little church,” recalled Staub who was confirmed there.

A graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, with a bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology, he studied philosophy and theology in Seton Hall University’s Immaculate Conception Seminary, South Orange. He later studied Benedictine spirituality in St. Paul Abbey, Newton.

Over the years, he has been involved in parish ministry as a youth minister, catechist and extraordinary minister of holy Communion.

He was a catechist in a number of parishes including St. Matthew the Apostle Parish, Edison; St. Peter the Apostle, New Brunswick, and St. Bartholomew, East Brunswick. He also taught religion in St. Peter High School, New Brunswick.

Staub brings the skills accumulated by way of these studies and experiences to a thriving religious education program attended by 1,7000 first through eighth grade students. Meeting in the two worship sites of the parish – St. Thomas More and Our Lady of Mercy, Englishtown, three days a week.

Educating the students in religion are 96 catechists, 55 assistant catechists and another 25 monitors.

“It is a big program and it is only going to get bigger,” said Staub who said he recognizes the demographic challenges of the booming Western Monmouth County area.

While Staub, who describes himself as “very operationally oriented,” has spent the past few months studying how the religious education program functions and flows, he’s anticipating the opportunity to look at the program with “new eyes” to see if there is a way to take it further.

The possibilities of online registration, incorporating more technology such as PowerPoint presentations and ipads in class might all be on the horizon, he said.

Contributing to this story were Lois Rogers, features editor, and freelance writer Christina Leslie.