Florida Catholic | New Lay Minister’s Broken Road Leads Back To Christ

New lay minister’s broken road leads back to Christ

BETTY ANl WEBER | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 07.03.08

Armand Carpentier, second from left, meets with members of the young adult ministry group at Holy Family Parish. From left to right are Michael Cain, Carpentier, Gayle Zambito, Maite Crespo, Jaime Crespo, Emily Zambito, Barbara Bowden, Jeff Thompson and Daniel Orr.
Courtesy Photo

ORLANDO | Armand Carpentier, 56, a commissioned lay ecclesial minister at Holy Family Parish here, needed no prodding to talk about the twists and turns he has taken in his life.

“I’m a cradle Catholic with an impressive education in Boston area Catholic schools,” he said. “The trouble was I didn’t listen.”

But there was more. Two scandals he associated with the church touched his life in his youth. First, the leader of his Boy Scout troop, which met in the basement of his parish in a small town neighboring Boston, was jailed for sexually abusing some of the boys, said Carpentier, who was 10 at the time.

“There was no sensitivity training. No one took us aside for counseling. My parents’ attitude was: ‘It happened; now handle it and move on.’ I linked church to Boy Scouts,” he said.

At his Catholic high school, where, he said, he was deeply plugged into the traditional training of the faith, a popular priest left without explanation.

“We loved him. He was like a rock star to us,” Carpentier said. “The word was that he had a sexual relationship with a nun and was defrocked.”

Coupled with the normal teenage tug to leave the nest, the 1960s anti-establishment tidal wave wreaked confusion in him. “I’m outta here,” he said.

At 18 and spiritually disconnected, he fled the church. At 39, he was back.

In between, he earned a degree in business management and marketing from North Adams College in Massachusetts.

“My dad offered me my first job at the packaging company where he worked. Chasing career, money and title, I changed jobs and moved 11 times, buying companies, selling them for profit, reinvesting. Sometimes rich, sometimes broke. I gave nothing to the church. I had one God: money.”

He had married a Protestant girl at 19, a practice unheard of. “My mother was the oldest of 13 children, where no one ever married outside the church.” Her family boycotted the ceremony and his pastor refused to bless the union.

They divorced in 1973. Their daughters stayed with their mother. Carla, now 28, is a learning-disabled high school graduate and Wendy’s restaurant assistant manager; and Cristen, 30, works for Maine Special Services Division helping children.

Carpentier was back in church, sporadically, in 1982. “Something was missing. The bottom line is that once you’re raised Catholic it’s in your roots and heart.”

But it wasn’t until 1992, “completely lost and broken, I sat alone in a pew at Holy Family. I’m a big relationship guy and I had none. No deep connection with God. Unable to help my family.”

But God was watching all along.

“At Mass one day, I began to ask, ‘Who am I? And who has God called me to be?’ That’s when it came together.”

Carpentier, now national sales manager for an international packaging company, has been working with Holy Family youths for 15 years. “They taught me the God I now know. Not the ever-punishing one of my childhood, but Jesus Christ, a living, positive presence.

“I’d had a full conversion,” he said. “Still, I wasn’t satisfied knowing so little about my faith and the church. I wanted to be effective in my ministry, but I was just a neophyte with a thirst for knowledge. I longed to see and feel with the heart of Jesus.”

That calling led the well-traveled Carpentier to the Lay Ministry Formation program, now at San Pedro Center in Winter Park. After being encouraged by Bishop Norbert Dorsey, Carpentier aspired to be a deacon. His divorced status, however, had become a stumbling block.

For the next three years, he filled his mind and heart with foundational courses in Scripture, liturgy, ecclesiology, sacraments and church leadership.

By the time he entered his third year, Carpentier knew what his project would be.

“Over the past eight years I’d been involved with direct ministry to young adults,” he said. “I’d witnessed a tremendous gap in the church’s ministry to this category of Catholics. Recognizing those between the ages of 18 and 25 as the most vulnerable in their faith journey – with careers and friends and relationships without God, and thinking they no longer belonged – I found my focus.”

The young adult ministry at Holy Family started with a group of 12 and now has 40.

“And we’re hoping to grow. They’ve helped form their own curriculum and agenda, where they feel safe and listened to. And they know they are loved and accepted.” he said.

Also, tapping into his business acumen, Carpentier spearheads fund drives and activities for his parish.

“Let me tell you,” he said of wife Kathryn, who he met on a blind date and married in the church in 1999. “She’s a core team member who’s in love with the Women’s Emmaus Retreat.” Kathryn Carpentier also is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion.

Both of Carpentier’s 80-year-old parents, Edmond and Rita, live in his home.

Wheelchair dependent, Edmond Carpentier was present at St. James Cathedral on May 17 when his son was commissioned by Bishop Thomas Wenski – along with 23 fellow candidates – as lay ecclesial minister. That’s when Armand Carpentier, flushed with love, placed his new medallion of office around his father’s neck.

Return to Diocese of Orlando Front Page

New lay minister’s broken road leads back to Christ

Other Stories