Delegate for consecrated life brings experience to new role

By Dave Hrbacek The Catholic Spirit

A year ago, Nicole Bettini got an email from Sister Carolyn Puccio, who at that time was the delegate for consecrated life in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Sister Carolyn, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, was planning to step away from a role she had held for 10 years, and asked Bettini to give suggestions for a replacement.

“She was turning 80 and was going to be retiring,” Bettini, 45, recalled. “And it was really important that somebody in this role have a broad understanding of consecrated life, as we just have a gift and a flowering of so many forms in our Church.”

Bettini thought about it, then two weeks later gave Sister Carolyn a list with one name on it — hers. A consecrated virgin since 2007, Bettini expressed that she would be “really open and excited” about this position. Sister Carolyn agreed, and so did Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who appointed Bettini to the position, which she started July 11. This part-time position is in addition to her full-time job as director of evangelization and catechesis at Holy Spirit in St. Paul.

Bettini’s acceptance of the position marks the first time a consecrated virgin will hold this role. Bettini hopes she will help Catholics in the archdiocese learn more about who consecrated virgins are and how they serve the Church. She anticipates “more conversation, maybe even more questions.”

“There’s a lot of Catholics that have no idea who a consecrated virgin is,” she said. That was true of her, too, all the way into her 20s, when she began exploring the possibility of a religious vocation. She had grown up in Omaha, Nebraska, and transferred from a Lutheran college to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul in 1997, where she majored in Catholic Studies and theology.

By the time she graduated in 2000, she had decided she wasn’t being called to religious life, but still felt like God “wanted me to give myself fully to him.”

She continued to pray about a vocation, then learned about consecrated virginity while working for the archdiocese in the Office for Family, Laity, Youth and Young Adults (now called the Office of Marriage, Family and Life).

“I thought it sounded weird” at first, she said of this vocation. But, by fall 2004, she began to feel called to it, and formally applied to become a consecrated virgin in 2005. After two more years of prayer and formation, she was consecrated one month before her 30th birthday by the late Archbishop Harry Flynn.

In the meantime, she left her job at the archdiocese in 2004 to move into parish work, which she has done ever since. She has worked at several parishes over the years, including St. Peter in Forest Lake and Maternity of Mary in St. Paul, St. John Neumann in Eagan, Annunciation in Minneapolis and St. Pius X in White Bear Lake. Her work has been in faith and sacramental formation, youth ministry and pastoral care.

“It’s taken many forms, but I like to summarize it as helping people to grow in friendship with Jesus and his Church,” she said. During that time, she also worked in a role with the archdiocesan Office of Vocations to help women discern their vocational calling. She sees all of these roles as preparation for her new task of being the delegate for consecrated life.

As she looks ahead, she has identified one primary goal she wants to pursue.

“One of the first things I would really like to do is go visit our religious communities in our archdiocese,” she said, “to learn more about them, their life in our archdiocese, how we can support them.”

Archbishop Hebda expressed joy and hope about having Bettini as the delegate for consecrated life, saying in a statement, “I look forward to collaborating with Nicole in this role, as she takes on the responsibility of acting as my official representative in matters regarding all forms of consecrated life in this archdiocese.”

As she goes around the archdiocese to build relationships with consecrated men and women, Bettini said she also will try to carry on the work of Sister Carolyn, who was “very intentional and really supportive of the breadth of consecrated life here in our local Church. She brought such beauty (to all forms of consecrated life).”

In carrying out both of her professional roles, Bettini sees a cohesive whole of helping people in the archdiocese deepen their faith.

“More than teaching the faith, I’ve been about forming people in our Catholic faith,” she said. “That is, how to authentically live our Catholic faith. And I have done this by accompanying others to encounter more deeply Jesus Christ and his Church. … In our catechesis, we must help people grow in their own personal prayer and live the richness of our Catholic faith.”