BISMARCK, ND — University of Mary President Msgr. James Shea, known to be at the forefront of the New Evangelization across America, is now at the head table of today’s fastest-growing national Catholic youth outreach — the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. FOCUS Founder and CEO Curtis Martin and fellow members selected Shea to its board of directors.
“FOCUS emboldens young men and women to share the hope and joy of the gospel to their peers, fellow college and university students, and enkindles in them the desire for a deep and meaningful encounter with Jesus Christ and his Church,” said Shea, who is completing his seventh year as president of the Catholic university in Bismarck, ND.
He is the youngest university or college president in America. “FOCUS missionaries serve so selflessly in this noble and good pursuit, and have already transformed the hearts of so many; I’m humbled to be asked and honored to help in any way I can.”
FOCUS, headquartered in Golden, CO, is growing each day as a lay group working hand-in-hand with Catholic parishes and Newman Centers across the country with over 425 missionaries serving on 125 campuses — including four at the Northern Arizona University Newman Center in Flagstaff. The University of Mary currently has alumni working as FOCUS missionaries on other campuses and also hosts a FOCUS chapter.
In 1990, Pope Saint John Paul II began the movement for a New Evangelization and later wrote in The Church of America, “The new evangelization calls for a clearly conceived, serious and well organized effort to evangelize culture in such a way that the Gospel is proclaimed in the language and in the culture of its hearers. It is more necessary than ever for all the faithful to move from a faith of habit, sustained perhaps by social context alone, to a faith which is conscious and personally lived.”
FOCUS and Shea are true servants of JP2 and witnesses to his vision of the New Evangelization across America.
FOCUS Board of Directors
- Curtis Martin, founder
- Craig Miller, FOCUS president
- Alejandro Bermudez, executive director, Catholic News Agency
- Msgr. John Cihak, official at the Holy See
- Frederic Clark, president, Pacific Equity Management
- Mark Collar, chairman of the FOCUS board and retired president of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Health at Proctor and Gamble
- Terry Combs, chairman and CEO, Integrated Airline Services
- Bill DeMucci, president and founder of Titron Media Company Ltd
- Fr. Michael E. Drea, St. Paul’s pastor and senior chaplain at Harvard University
- David Fischer, president, St. Joseph G.P. LLC
- Margaret Kelly, retired CEO, RE/MAX and chair, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
- Margot Kyd, retired executive, Sempra Energy
- John Martin, founder of Martin Family Foundation, The VINE Foundation, McMurry Oil Company and owner of Jonah Gas Company
- William Mumma, president, Becket Fund
- Bill Newland, owner, Hercules Industries Inc.
- Msgr. James Shea, University of Mary
- Dr. Edward Sri, provost and professor of Theology, Augustine Institute
- Megan Wurtz, manager of Information Technology, Benedictine College
