Decades of ministry to young Catholics recognised with award

Chris Duthie-Jung’s leadership in ministry to youth and young adults for many years has been recognised with a Delargey Award.

The Delargey Awards acknowledge significant and outstanding contributions made in the field of Catholic ministry with young people in Aotearoa New Zealand. They are named in honour of Cardinal Reginald Delargey.

Dr Duthie-Jung has been involved in youth and young adult ministry leadership since the 1990s. He has worked on a range of projects at the local, parish, archdiocesan and national level.

He has supported, mentored and walked alongside many young adults, encouraging them to make informed decisions in order to be the best version of themselves that God created them to be.

From one-on-one pastoral care and leadership development with young people themselves, through to strong advocacy for young people, Dr Duthie-Jung has shown true dedication to this ministry for decades.

Currently the director of Church Mission at Wellington Archdiocese, Dr Duthie-Jung said receiving the award was “a complete surprise” and “very humbling”.

“Over the years, I have had a behind-the-scenes hand in many Delargey nominations, but not for a number of years now.”

Now, it is “very humbling to find myself unexpectedly on the receiving end.”

Looking back on his service in this ministry, Dr Duthie-Jung said that “the youth and young adult formation work has been extremely rewarding over the years”.

“Putting so many young people through various long-running programmes (Leadership Formation Programme, Young Catholic Leader . . .) and watching them thrive and move on into leadership with a new understanding of discipleship has been its own reward,” he said.

Dr Duthie-Jung added that his earlier years with the National Council for Young Catholics with Bishop Max Takuira Mariu and then-Bishop John Dew, were “really productive with a youth ministry diploma, standards of practice and an annual events cycle resulting”.

He worked at youth offices in Palmerston North and Wellington in the 1990s, and became leader of the Archdiocese of Wellington Youth Office.

The fact that so much is being done online today is a major change from his early years in this ministry.

“Social media, with its plusses and minuses, has changed so much of how we operate,” he said.

“But young people still love to gather! Six or seven years ago, some year 13 students here in Wellington set up their own inter-college youth group and named it YAFA (Youth Allowed Faith Aloud).

“They organise it across the colleges and move the hosting around and it is still going, stronger than ever, with hundreds involved. It is such an inspiration to see,” he said.

Another change is in the demographics of Church congregations over the years, so that today “we have the whole world represented in almost every parish”.

“The richness of the experience is vastly more broad, and with it comes the challenges of inclusion that can be truly daunting,” he said.

Dr Duthie-Jung’s work in youth and young adult ministry saw him contribute to various Church policy documents regarding young people, and he helped organise many youth ministry conferences. For many years, he facilitated youth Masses and retreats. He was a keynote speaker at the archdiocesan synod in 2006.

Dr Duthie-Jung attended several World Youth Days, and was co-leader of the Archdiocese of Wellington pilgrimage to World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005. He was the national leader of the thousands of young Kiwis who attended World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008.

In 2012, he completed a doctorate titled Faith Amid Secularity: Qualitative research into faith experiences of young people.

In 2013, he took a two-year break from diocesan ministry to lead the National Centre for Religious Studies at The Catholic Institute. He served on the NZCBC National Council for Young People from 2017 to 2021.

The aims of the Delargey Awards are:

• To provide recognition for ministry workers and supporters of ministry with young people in New Zealand.
• To educate the community about ministry with young people.
• To raise the profile of Catholic ministry with young people in New Zealand.
• To recognise the place of long-term involvement in Catholic ministry with young people.