Kristina DeNeve
Kristina DeNeve has accumulated a wealth of knowledge about the intersection of psychology and theology, which she has shared in university classrooms, church ministries and catechetical journals.
She brings it all to Hawaii as the diocese’s new coordinator for adult faith formation and evangelization. She will work in the diocese’s Office of Religious Education.
DeNeve has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and theology from St. Ambrose University, a master’s of arts in Christian spirituality from Creighton University, and a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Since 2008, she was the director for the Office of Evangelization and Welcoming in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wis.
“My calling is to work in the integration of spirituality and theology with psychology,” she told the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
DeNeve served as an assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University, has been a board member and online presenter for Paulist Evangelization Ministries, and a member of the evangelization committee for the National Conference for Catechetical Leaders.
At Creighton University she ran a program in the theological exploration of vocation, teaching classes, doing research and offering workshops.
DeNeve, 45, said she wants to be of service to the bishop and to Hawaii’s parishes in the areas of adult faith formation and evangelization in any way needed, whether as a teacher, catechist, presenter, consultant or writer.
On Jan. 24, she emailed her first monthly adult faith formation newsletter to parish priests and directors of religious education and others with 1,800 words of advice, suggestions, instruction, encouragement and resource recommendations.
She hopes to work with a full continuum of adult Catholics, from the lapsed to the devout.
It had been her longtime dream to live in Hawaii ever since, as a child, she had witnessed the effect a trip to the Islands had on her parents.
“They were so happy,” she said. “It was so good for their marriage. I vowed that, when I grew up, I would bring them back to Hawaii.”
DeNeve, who is single, is originally from Moline, Ill., a city on the Mississippi River that is part of the Quad City Metropolitan Area. As an adult, she has visited Hawaii every two years or so. She now lives in Kailua with her Maltese poodle.
In Hawaii, God “bonks you on the head” with the Islands’ amazing natural beauty “every single day, everywhere you turn,” she said. At the same time, she said she also “recognizes a real disparity here between poverty and wealth.”
She also considers Hawaii to be the best example she has seen of a “truly global environment for the Catholic Church — more than Chicago, L.A. or New York — with a diverse population,” many of whom are only one generation removed from the homeland.
“Ironically, it wasn’t the weather that brought me here,” she said. “I love the seasons and I do miss snow, but I am really here because of the people.”
“God has good control of things,” she said. “It has worked out really beautifully.”
