BRIDGEPORT— Bishop Frank J. Caggiano recently announced that Father Christopher Ford has been named director of Campus Ministry for the Diocese of Bridgeport.
The focus of this position is to create a comprehensive plan to provide effective, ongoing opportunities for Catholic formation for all college-age students who are enrolled in all the secular universities and colleges located throughout our diocese.
Father Ford has a background working in student affairs, having spent two years as a residence hall director at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Penn., immediately before he entered seminary.
Father Ford will develop and implement a vision of comprehensive campus ministry that forms the faith community, appropriates the faith, forms Christian conscience, facilitates personal development, develops Catholic student leadership, and promotes vocations. By establishing relationships with key stakeholders, fostering the presence of the Church in the campus environment, and increasing collaboration between the college communities and local parishes, this pastoral vision will ensure that the faith-based needs of all Catholic students pursuing post-secondary education within the Diocese of Bridgeport are met.
Father Ford will remain in his position of coordinator of the Vocations Team, in addition to this new set of responsibilities.
“I wish to express my sincere thanks to Father Ford for his willingness to assume this new evangelical outreach,” said the bishop.
“I am incredibly excited to return to one of my first passions, working with college students, to begin this new ministry in our diocese,” said Father Ford. “We have had great opportunities to support our Catholic students at WestConn, and it couldn’t be more important to find ways to do the same at all of the colleges in the diocese. It will be an exciting challenge to work with different parishes and the university communities to build this ministry, but one that I really feel immensely worth it. We have such a great opportunity before us to help more and more young people encounter Jesus Christ, so they can really come to know that He is the one who will fulfill the deepest desires of their hearts and I am both humbled and grateful to Bishop Caggiano for developing this vision and inviting me to be a part of it.”
