Promoters of life honored by diocese at annual Mass at Cathedral

METUCHEN — Rosemary Kern has spent more than three decades involved in God’s gift of sexuality; the Church’s teaching about and what role it plays in people’s lives from youth to adult.

To Kern, the retired manager of the Project Respect Ed program at Saint Peter’s University Hospital, New Brunswick, the lessons she has taught have been more than just teaching sex education to youth.

“It certainly has opened my eyes to a whole different world,” she said. “You can get locked into your middle-class, comfortable world, and these kids are in situations that nobody should be living.
“So it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, you know, these girls getting pregnant; what’s wrong with them?’

“Well, when you get into the background and the families and what’s been going on, you understand their situation a lot more.”

The diocese honored Kern with its Pro Vita Award at the annual Respect Life Mass Jan. 19 at the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi. The annual award goes to a person who has promoted the pro-life message in a variety of ways.

Kern, a member of St. Magdalen de Pazzi Parish, Flemington, oversaw Project Respect Ed, which provides education and support for New Brunswick-area youth and their families about setting goals, and avoiding high-risk behaviors such as sexual activity. The 65-year-old woman said the program has counseled roughly 3,000 youth per year in New Brunswick area public schools, as well as diocesan middle-school students.

It marked a shift in the career path of Kern, who earned a master’s degree at Xavier University, Cincinnati, in hospital and health care administration, after studying English literature and humanistic studies as an undergrad. But the birth of Kern’s first child changed her priorities between home and work life. She and her husband, Deacon Stephen F. Kern, director, diocesan Office of the Diaconate, eventually raised three children, Kevin, Kristen and Stephanie, wife of Dennis Gomes.

“I was not going to be able to do the job I was doing in hospital administration,” said Kern of her early years at Saint Peter’s, “because it was 60 hours a week.”

However, one of the nuns at Saint Peter’s asked Kern to become involved in a teen pregnancy clinic, with some clients as young as 11 years old. Kern became a beacon of hope to thousands of girls.
In his homily, Bishop James F. Checchio, who resided at the Mass, singled out Kern for her years of promoting the Church’s immutable pro-life message.

“We’re grateful to you for that,” the bishop said. “Thank you.”

The diocese also recognized Kern and her husband, and two other couples, Deacon Gregory and Liz Caruso, of the Church of the Sacred Heart, South Plainfield, and Deacon James and Helen Rivera of St. Augustine of Canterbury Parish, Kendall Park, for their service in marriage preparation ministry. The diocese particularly noted Rosemary Kern has also trained hundreds of couples in Natural Family Planning, which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop says is the method married Catholic couples can use to either achieve or postpone pregnancies.

“They have pointed out the Lamb of God by these actions, by these ministries they participate in, by how they live their lives,” Bishop Checchio said of the couples.

Erika Arias, Project Respect Ed’s current manager who has worked with Kern for 17 years, called the award a “blessing” to the organization. Arias, a member of Holy Family Parish, New Brunswick, also considers Kern a mentor. She and the agency’s counselors attended the Mass and posed for photographs afterward with Kern.

“Sometimes we deal with children who are perhaps dealing with personal issues, and they have no one to talk to,” Arias said. “They see us as a sense of hope and someone they can trust and get advice.”

Kern, who continues to work part time for Project Respect Ed through grant writing and teaching, said she sees “small miracles” every day with troubled youth in helping them find a more positive “sphere of influence” in their lives.

“That’s what it’s all about,” she said.

Jennifer A Ruggiero, secretary, diocesan Secretariat for Family and Pastoral Life, announced Kern’s award near the Mass’ conclusion, while Cristina D’Averso-Collins, director, diocesan Office of Family Life Ministry, presented the couples to the bishop and congregation.

Since, 1998, the diocese has celebrated a Respect Life Mass in conjunction with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the January 1973 United States Supreme Court decision giving a pregnant woman the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. That ruling, according to the bishops’ conference, “effectively removed every legal protection from human beings prior to birth.”