by Aaron Kiel
Arts & Entertainment Editor
She co-led 20 crowded tour buses full of 800 excited teenagers on a trip to Denver for the Pope’s visit two years ago. She occasionally rides her bike to work and she makes a mean cup of cappuccino.
Is she Superwoman? No, she’s Elena Cardeña, the new Catholic campus minister who once worked in youth ministry for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
“Now I look back on the trip,” said Cardeña, “and think I was absolutely crazy.”
Cardeña began her position on July 31, replacing Jane Kirchner.
Having been here just a little over a month, she already feels like she’s “living it and loving it.”
“The pace at the University allows one to begin to enjoy the gift of being in a place that is physically as beautiful as this place [University of La Verne] is; and that has the opportunity to connect with people in a real human way.”
With a degree from Cal State Northridge and her bilingual-crosscultural teaching credential, she began her career as a second and third grade teacher and as a volunteer in ministry.
After teaching children in East Los Angeles and youth through the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Cardeña was invited to participate in campus ministry at UCLA.
“God came looking for me and God wanted me to go into ministry,” she said.
As a lay campus minister, Cardeña is not ordained because the Catholic belief is that clergy members should be all male.
“For Catholics it is still a male celibate clergy,” said Cardeña.
She does not have a personal frustration with this, however, she hurts for those women who wish to be in such a position.
As for her dream job at ULV, the position of Catholic campus minister had been on Cardeña’s wish list for a few years but was never open. Now that she’s at the University, Cardeña wants to make the best of it getting to know students and have them find out about her, her beliefs and fascinations.
Cardeña thinks of herself as a multitalented person with a plethora of interests. “I like to draw and I’m on the edge of becoming a gourmet cook. I’m becoming a connoisseur of good wine and good beer; and I enjoy having friends over. I’m just interested in a lot of different kinds of things,” said Cardeña.
From watching Star Trek to riding her bike to work, she believes in enjoying life.
“I have a good time doing almost anything. I just like hanging out with people and talking. I think of myself as the otter. The otter is a little animal that’s always having fun or wondering, ‘Why not?’”
Regarding faith, Cardeña feels the most important thing she can bring to the campus ministry is that she is confident God is already working in student’s lives. ULV is 40 percent Catholic.
She knows that the college years are a time for students to reflect and question their own religious beliefs. Wrestling with faith, she says, is typical for college students.
“If you don’t wrestle with questions of faith they will never be your own. They will continue to be something you inherited from your parents,” said Cardeña.
She uses this analogy: “When you’re a little kid your parents pack a really good napsack for you. And they put inside of this backpack everything they thought you were going to need along the way. And at a certain point in your life you decided to take a look at what’s in the knapsack. And you take things out and you realize some of the stuff your parents put in there that they thought you were going to need, you don’t really need; so, you leave it along the road and sometimes you go back and you pick it up because you find out you really do need it. This period of life is the time to take things out of the knapsack and look at them and say ‘Do I believe this?’”
Committed to helping people work through these questions, Cardeña says she has a good listening ear and her office is always open so students may eventually say, “Oh, this is what I believe. This is who God is in my life.”
When asked what she hopes to accomplish, Cardeña laughs and says, “I hope to end world hunger. That sounds like the kind of question you ask at a beauty pageant.” Mimicking a beauty contestant, “I want to end world hunger,” laughs Cardeña.
“Back to the question,” she says, “I hope to put together a ministry that has such a variety of things that all sorts of people will feel comfortable to participate or not to participate, but to be in a relationship somehow to this office.”
“I am an invited guest at ULV and ULV is gracious enough to give us [campus ministry] an office and a budget to open the doors,” Cardeña said.
Currently planned for campus ministry is The Holy Hour Coffee House, a Monday night alternative to sitting in a dorm room and doing nothing.
“It starts at 7 p.m. and runs until 10 p.m. People are welcome to stop by any time. I’ll have my cappuccino maker here and probably two different flavored coffees and pastries,” said Cardeña. “At 8 p.m. the holy hour begins. We turn on the T.V. and we watch Star Trek.”
Aaron Kiel
