Part of bishop’s appeal to youth is being ‘a happy priest’

With students crowded before a stage at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul as part of Archdiocesan Youth Day in 2017, Father John Paul Erickson strode to a drum set at the back of the stage, Father Nick VanDenBroeke picked up an electric guitar, Father Joah Ellis headed to the keyboard and Father James McConville carried a stand-up base.

The Second Collection band started playing, and Father Michael Daly began singing. The crowd sang and batted around colorful vinyl beachballs.

When the song ended, cheers grew as the audience watched Bishop Andrew Cozzens walk on stage, saying, “That was pretty good guys, but why don’t you give me that guitar?” The crowd cheered.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Bill Dill, marriage preparation and youth ministry events coordinator in the archdiocese’s Office of Marriage, Family and Life. “People were shocked when the bishop came out and played with them. It was quite the spectacle.”

Part of the bishop’s appeal to young people is that he is “a happy priest,” said Mark Berchem, founder and president of West St. Paul-based NET Ministries, which offers retreats to high school students around the country. When a young man considering a vocation interacts with someone holy, who can be serious but also positive, optimistic and fun to be around, “it’s very inviting,” he said.

In addition to serving with the ministry as a team leader before being ordained a priest, Bishop Cozzens’ support of NET Ministries included being an annual keynote speaker for the organization’s monthly Lifeline events, Berchem said.

“He is very good in front of young people,” he said. “They can relate with him.”

Bishop Cozzens also was involved with St. Paul’s Outreach college campus ministry as a young man, at one point spending summers in an SPO household. He continued to be involved in NET and SPO as a bishop, including chair of SPO’s national board of directors since 2013.

Gordy DeMarais, Inver Grove Heights-based SPO’s founder and president, said that at a recent board retreat, Bishop Cozzens spoke about the spiritual origin and nature of their work. “He reminded us that while we should aim toward excellence in all of the human dimensions of our organization, we must always remember that this is the Lord’s work, and ‘apart from him we can do no good.’”

With the bishop leaving the board due to his appointment in Crookston and other responsibilities, DeMarais said the organization is “grateful for the contribution he is making to the broader Church and eager to support these important initiatives.”

Catholics ages 18-28 who join NET Ministries serve nine months with evangelization teams to share the Gospel with other young adults and their families. Bishop Cozzens’ first assignment, as a team leader from 1991-1992, was in the Diocese of Crookston, where his team spent time in Crookston as well as Barnesville, on the southern border of that diocese, and Warroad, at the northern tip, on Lake of the Woods. His team also served in Moorhead and East Grand Forks.

After ordination, he helped train new NET missionaries and celebrated Mass, gave presentations and heard confessions.

He always encouraged people that “you can do this,” Berchem said. While some people see the negative, the bishop sees potential, he said. “This is where you can go, this is what you can do.”

During the pandemic in 2020, with in-person activities curtailed, Bishop Cozzens reached out to youth with three livestreamed conversations on current events and other topics in a Catholic context. He encouraged young adults to submit questions for discussion. One was “What is it like to say Mass in an empty church?”

Dill noted that any time Bishop Cozzens spoke to youth ministers, he inspired people to holiness. “His witness is so authentic that it connected with people, especially to young people,” he said. When Bishop Cozzens participated in events for youth, he often heard confessions, Dill said, and the lines were long.

“When he came to the March for Life with us and told stories of his pro-life activity over his lifetime, he has some amazing stories, and he really inspired the kids and the adults,” Dill said.

Bishop Cozzens will be remembered “very long, wide and deep,” he said. “When people heard him, they knew that he knew the Lord, and he spoke from a deep, personal relationship with the Lord.”

Berchem said the people in the Diocese of Crookston are blessed. “You’re getting a good shepherd,” he said. He will care for people, reach out to them, call them into greater holiness and greater service to one another, Berchem said. “I’m excited to see what happens.”