Brown-RISD Catholic Community readying new student center

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PROVIDENCE — The large marble sign outside the front entrance of 51 Prospect St., greets students with a classic Latin aphorism, carved in an Old English style.
Carpe Diem. Seize the Day.
“It’s been exciting telling the alumni about this project,” Megan O’Brien Crayne, the campus minister for the Brown-RISD Catholic Community, said as she showed Rhode Island Catholic around the community’s new Catholic Center near Brown University.
Formerly a private home, the Brown-RISD Catholic Community acquired the residence last January and spent the better part of the last year-and-a-half raising funds to bring the house up to code to be a student center.
Huge floor-to-ceiling windows provide plenty of natural sunlight throughout the building. Renovated by the previous homeowners, the Catholic Center has the look of a modern home, with an open floor plan, two fireplaces, a sleekly-designed kitchen and a large central staircase.
Father Edmund McCullough, O.P., the chaplain for the Brown-RISD Catholic Community, said the ministry plans to convert the building’s garage into a permanent chapel.
“The hope is to have (the chapel) open by the fall,” Father McCullough said. For now, the ministry is using an old second-floor bedroom as the temporary chapel, where students can pray before a small tabernacle containing the Blessed Sacrament.
After installing wheelchair ramps and updating the building’s sprinkler system, the ministry acquired the occupancy permit for the Prospect Street house on March 10, marking the first time that the Brown-RISD Catholic Community has had its own space for students to gather for Mass, study, pray, and enjoy one another’s fellowship.
“This was a student-driven need,” said Crayne, who four years ago became the campus minister for the Brown-RISD Catholic Community. Crayne said it was “odd” that Catholic students at Brown University were among the few Catholic communities at Ivy League institutions without their own space.
For the past two months, students from Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design have been stopping by the house to do schoolwork or to relax and play the Steinway piano that Brown alumni donated for the Catholic Center.
“The piano sounds very nice in the open house,” Crayne said.
A second-floor balcony area will be a “loft study space” for students. The home’s former master bedroom is being converted into a library.
“It’s nice having a Catholic library on campus that students can wander into, see a book on the shelf and pick it up,” Crayne said. “Brown has Catholic books, but they’re buried deep and you have to go digging for them.”
Meanwhile, other upstairs bedrooms will be converted into office spaces for Bible study and small faith-sharing groups.
Crayne and Father Albert Duggan, O.P., the former Catholic chaplain at Brown and RISD and himself a Brown University alumnus, spearheaded the capital campaign to purchase the home near the Brown University campus.
With the help of the Thomas Becket Foundation, the ministry has raised just under $3.5 million to date to acquire the residence and fund the necessary upgrades. The ministry is now in the process of raising the needed $500,000 to convert the garage into a chapel.
“They’ll always have a place where they can pray,” Father McCullough said, adding that the ministry also has long range plans to renovate the basement — currently used for storage — into a recreation area complete with air hockey tables.
A large fire pit outside is a current popular hangout spot for students who have not been able to really gather socially over the last year because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 regulations have thus far prevented the ministry from holding the larger gatherings that leaders had in mind for the space, such as lectures, parties, retreats and Masses.
Still, the ministry has been able to use the space for Lenten fish fries and smaller events. On Holy Thursday, Catholic students processed with the Eucharist from Manning Chapel on the Brown campus to an altar of repose in the Catholic Center’s temporary chapel, where small groups of students kept vigil throughout the night.
When conditions allow for larger gatherings, Crayne said the ministry hopes to have a big grand opening event.
“We’ll have Mass and the bishop will be invited,” Crayne said. “We’ll pray a little and we’ll eat a lot.”