This summer in the Bronx, New York, nearly 60 postgraduate students gathered for a week at the University of Mount Saint Vincent before embarking on a year of service to Catholic education. Representing 50 different majors from 47 different universities across the United States, these students—the 12th cohort of the Seton Teaching Fellows—will spend the next year bringing the Gospel and the beauty of the Catholic faith to children and families in underserved communities.
Three Legionary priests—Fr. Mark Haydu, Fr. Martin Connor, and Fr. Andreas Kramarz—and Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi, Charlene Alexander, accompanied this year’s fellows as chaplains and presenters during their onboarding week.
In response to the closing of over 60 Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York, largely elementary and middle schools in underserved neighborhoods, Seton Education Partners began to create directed toward the goal of a growing network of public charter schools to ensure that all children have access to the perennial values of a Catholic education. The Seton Teaching Fellows are university graduates who offer one to two years of service to these charter schools run by Seton Education Partners, located primarily in the Bronx.
Throughout their missionary year, the fellows will continue to receive holistic training to help the children and families they serve, and to evangelize with the love of Christ the Teacher. There are three pillars that drive the Seton program: faith, through formation toward an integrated lay Catholic life; education, involving continuous professional development; and community, where fellows live a community life within the neighborhoods they serve.
The first week of the Seton program provides the fellows with instructional orientation, which focuses on building community as well as integral formation in the foundations, skills, and mindsets necessary to be an effective educator. The week began with a full-day retreat led by Fr. Mark, which included a trip to the shrine of the program’s patron—St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first American-born saint and the founder of the Sisters of Charity, as well as the founder of the first free Catholic school in America (in Emmitsburg, Maryland) in 1808, which became the foundation for the parochial school system in the United States. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s shrine, located at St. Peter’s Church in lower Manhattan where the saint lived and started her mission, is maintained today by the Sisters of Charity.
“During the onboarding week, we spoke about forming our hearts as missionaries and apostles—two themes so central to our Regnum Christi charism,”
says Fr. Mark, who also serves as the chaplain for Seton. Fr. Martin preached on vocation as a response of Love, while Fr. Andreas led formation sessions on integral formation and how to harmoniously balance the diverse demands of being a missionary in an urban setting. Charlene served as spiritual director to the fellows throughout the week.
Fr. Mark first became involved with Seton Teaching Fellows when, returning to the United States from the Vatican in 2016, he desired to become engaged in serving those experiencing poverty locally in New York. A friend, Luanne Zurlo, mentioned to him that Seton Education Partners—and their schools in the Bronx—were in need of a chaplain. Since 2017, Fr. Mark has served as chaplain to the board, and local chaplain to the Seton Fellows.
Throughout his ministry with Seton, Fr. Mark has witnessed the impact of the program, particularly in the connection points with our spiritual family. “About 15 percent of our fellows have gone on to follow a priestly or religious vocation, so the experience of mission and service has led to a deeper response to Jesus, which is consoling for me and for the Church,” says Fr. Mark “It is also beautiful to see how many of the fellows and staff have been touched by the charism of the Legionaries and Regnum Christi before arriving to the fellowship. Challenge, Conquest, ECYD, RC Missions, and university life at schools like Benedictine, Georgia, Texas A&M, Duke are all ways members of the Seton team have been touched by our spiritual family.”
Indeed, Fr. Mark recognizes a real overlap, or spiritual synergy, with Regnum Christi and what the Holy Spirit has inspired in Seton Education Partners as they serve the underserved. “So many of the core values the Seton Education Partners have as part of their mission—integral formation, Christ centeredness, evangelization, formation of disciples, charity in community—ring true with our charism. Many other spiritual families touch the work of Seton in the Bronx and in other cities. Such movements and orders as Communion and Liberation, Focolare, The Neocatacuminate Way, Opus Dei, Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Sisters of Life, Dominicans, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and others share their charism in supporting Seton in the city. It’s been fantastic to be in the contact with Catholic lay leaders, and enthusiastic young missionaries!”
Besides being the chaplain for Seton, Fr. Mark serves as a territorial councillor for the Legionaries of Christ, and the chaplain for the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut Lumen chapters. Fr. Mark is part of the Legionaries of Christ community in Rye, NY.
To find out more about Seton Teaching Fellows and Seton Education Partners, visit their website at www.setonpartners.org.
