The year is winding down at Arizona State University, and the All Saints Catholic Newman Center is just one of the multiplicities of entities around campus scrambling to get in their events before students begin scattering for the summer. Tuesday morning, they held a 75th anniversary breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix and thanked members and friends, told their story and urged continued support.All the buzz in recent weeks at the Newman Center has been talk of a radically new construction plans to replace the aging 1962 center. Investors are in serious talks about erecting perhaps a 20-story tower on the strategically placed parcel at the corner of College Avenue and University Drive, familiar to all for its red-brick, steepled church erected in 1903. It would go up with a number of skyscrapers on drawing boards for downtown Tempe. So much remains in ideas and proposal, but the tower is seen partly as a residential hall for Catholic students. It could create a Catholic community of as many as 500 students living on that site. Last summer, we in the media reported on the Newman Center poised to put up a two-story office and new chapel project for $5.7 million on its .8 acre, leaving the old church intact. Even with its many weekend Masses, students cram into the 45-year-old chapel, meant to seat 250, with standing-room-only at times. More than 400 squeeze in and others may trail out the door. On Tuesday, the Rev. Fred Lucci, Newman Center director since 2006, reminisced about the deeply supportive and loving congregation more than 25 years ago when he was an ASU student. That experience led him to seminary and the priesthood. The 1984 ASU graduate said some exciting and dramatic prospects may be coming into focus, and if investors tradeoffs for the property can be agreed to, the approximately 13,000 Catholics on the ASU campus will one day have an even more remarkable place in the heart of the campus. The Newman Center is easily ASUs oldest and largest campus ministry and has a strong reputation nationally. It was started as the Newman Club by 25 students who gathered in 1932 in St. Marys Church for prayer, study meetings and social activities. That was back when it was a teachers college of 827 enrollees. Today, the center has broad programming that includes religious studies, retreats, service work projects, community outreach to the poor, travel, social events, speakers and close interaction with many Catholic families who call the parish without borders their own church. All talk about an intimacy, a more progressive brand of Catholic thinking, a tradition of active faith in the face of intellectual inquiry.On Wednesday night, many will gather with the Rev. Thomas DeMan, a Dominican priest who was the centers director 1973 to 1980. He will officiate at a Mass in the Old Church at 6:30 p.m., followed by a potluck Altogether, 17 men have been Newman Center director in the 75 years. Good, effective campus ministry has many goals: a meaningful place for worship, a faith family in the midst of academia, a place to cultivate ones spirituality, a venue for meeting those like-minded or others expanding their faith consciousness, and a vehicle to do service work and ambitious projects for those in places like hurricane-ravaged New Orleans and the poor in El Salvador. Students swear by it: Theyve been drawn closer to God at the All Saints Newman Center. They get religious grounding that launches lives of sound Catholic living and leadership.With all the remarkable transformation that is planned for downtown Tempe, look for this Catholic island to flourish.

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