Editor\u2019s note: Since last autumn, Wichita\u2019s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish has hosted Jens Beverungen, a seminiarian for the Diocese of Paderborn, Germany. To learn more about Beverungen\u2019s faith, vocational journey, why he sought to spend most of a school year in the Diocese of Wichita, and what the experience has been like, the Catholic Advance sat down with him on March 12. That lightly edited conversation follows:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Please discuss your youth, faith formation, and how you came to enter seminary.<\/p>\n
My parents married in 1986 and wanted kids, which was a bit difficult. I was born after 14 years later. We\u2019re all from the village Luchtringen, H\u00f6xter, in North Rhine-Westphalia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the biggest city nearby?<\/p>\n
Hanover.<\/p>\n
So you were the eldest.<\/p>\n
Yes, the eldest and \u2013 only \u2013 child.\u00a0 I grew up technically Catholic; Catholic \u2018on paper.\u2019 I was baptized. My parents were Catholic. My father had a very strong Catholic formation. Their parents went to Mass every Sunday. My mother grew up Catholic too, but not as strict. As far as learning about the faith, she taught me.<\/p>\n
But your family didn\u2019t necessarily go to Mass on Sundays, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Right. I remember my grandma, my mother\u2019s mother, as a generally faithful person, but I never really remember her praying the rosary, or going to Mass regularly \u2013 which doesn\u2019t mean that she never did. I went to Mass with her quite a few times, but as I remember, she went to church irregularly and so did we. \u00a0<\/p>\n
To what extent did you have your own faith, recognizing that this God stuff is real?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a really hard question for me to recall really well. I would say, if you asked me, then I would have probably said, I believed in God and Jesus Christ. As for many Catholic truths, such as what we believe about the Eucharist \u2013 as a kid, you don\u2019t reflect on that as much \u2013 it\u2019s hard to tell. Sure, there was probably some faith, but I can\u2019t remember lying in bed praying, or anything like that. It was a very light form of faith; let\u2019s put it that way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I was going to have my first Communion, our pastor said we needed to go to Mass every weekend, if possible, and my mother was faithful to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How old were you?<\/p>\n
I was in the third grade, eight or nine years old. I remember we always drove to church. I went, and I was never very excited for it, but I also didn\u2019t hate it. It belonged to the category of something we do that\u2019s okay. But we had a very good pastor at the time who did a great job in preparing us, and we then received first holy Communion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mother wanted for me to become an altar server right away and I didn\u2019t want to because I thought I would have to go to church every day. She insisted that was not the case and so \u2013 after some back and forth \u2013 she finally had me doing it. At that point, I thought it was a nice community, but again, I neither loved nor hated it. It was nice. We had a good priest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What was the church structure like? Beautiful? Mundane?\u00a0<\/p>\n
St. John the Baptist is a nice, pretty church.<\/p>\n
So it gave off a sense of mystery and majesty?<\/p>\n
It was not like one of those buildings that gives little indication it\u2019s a church. And when I went to church at that time, the church was still full, with a variety of ages, although most of the people were definitely from the older generation.<\/p>\n
This would have been the early 2000s?<\/p>\n
I was born in 2000 and by this point in the story it\u2019s about 2011-13. At the time of my first Communion, we had Mass almost every day, Tuesday through Sunday. On Wednesdays, sometimes we attended a school Mass.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0501-Jens-First-Communion-horiz-cropped-copy-1-1024x677.jpg\")
Jens Beverungen poses for a photo with his mother, Martina at his first communion. Although he recalls having a sincere faith at the time, Beverungen says the death of his father, Wolfgang, several years later, was an important moment in his spiritual journey. (Courtesy photo)<\/p>\n
Were you at a Catholic school?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The system with the Catholic elementary schools in Germany is that they are 100% state, public, but if the rector is Catholic, then to some extent, they can have some Catholic identity. I remember that we went to Mass every two weeks. Now I know this school only has a service, not a Mass, every three months. Here, Catholic schools and public schools are very different. It\u2019s very either\/or. In Germany, it\u2019s more the Church and state working together.<\/p>\n
When did your faith start to become more important to you?<\/p>\n
My father died in 2013, when I was 12. After that, I started going to Mass more regularly and faith, to some degree, started to become more important.<\/p>\n
Did you feel closer to your dad when you were praying, or in the church or anything like that?<\/p>\n
Maybe a little.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Was there an aspect of being a kid who suddenly came face-to-face with eternal things that prompted you to take it more seriously?<\/p>\n
Yeah, probably, and not just the eternal things. At that point I also became interested in earthly things such as medicine, with my father being in a hospital before and then dying, I was interested in the whole process of dying and with what happens next.<\/p>\n
What did he die of?<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t know at that point, but he had a cancer on his liver. He had a rupture and just bled to death internally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That sounds very painful.<\/p>\n
No, we talked to him that night at 9 p.m. and the time of death listed on his death certificate is 10:20, so it was a very short time before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Church became more important for me. The first turning point was when my father died, and the second turning point to make it more important for me was when I started to play the organ in 2015. Music was becoming more important for me, and music is another way of announcing the gospel. I started to play the organ during Masses, and got to see other churches, other organs, other priests. So I started thinking about the faith more and maybe praying. And that\u2019s how I got into this whole aspect of faith.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And we had a good vicar when I was getting into my final years of high school. He accompanied me pretty well, and was very attentive for fulfilling a vocation. Our seminary always has two or three weekends a year where interested men can join the seminary for a weekend, and I did that. It was pretty nice and I was very interested, but I really never knew if I wanted to do that. I was thinking about either studying something with music, chemistry, or entering the seminary. Those were the three options I faced in my final year, and after praying and thinking, I just decided \u201cI will go for it. I will give it a try. If it goes well, then that\u2019s my vocation. Even if it does not, God will show me that I have another vocation.\u201d And that\u2019s how I tried seminary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0501-Jens-Outside-Closeup-copy-1-678x1024.jpg\")
After some online research, Jens Beverungen, a seminarian for the Diocese of Paderborn, Germany, chose the Catholic Diocese of Wichita as the place he wanted to live abroad during this academic year. He notes that the Diocese of Paderborn was founded in 799 by Pope Leo III. (Advance photo)<\/p>\n
Of course, seminary life is not always the high life. You have the downs and the lows where you think, \u201cI will do something else, definitely.\u201d This is very normal and belongs to a healthy process of discerning a vocation, I think.<\/p>\n
It sounds like you had a very gradual awakening of your faith. It was always there, but it grew in a very organic sort of way. Do you recall a point at which you realized \u201cI have a prayer life\u201d or thought \u201cGod isn\u2019t just an abstract concept, but a person with whom I am connecting\u201d or something like that?<\/p>\n
One point, definitely, was shortly after my father\u2019s death. A second point I remember was the Monday of Holy Week, 2021. I really had a very good confession. Somehow, after that all, it was suddenly more active.<\/p>\n
It came alive.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it came more alive at that point, not like a full conversion, but I really could tell the confession blew all the dust off, and it was just beautiful. I look back how everything got more active, especially with reading the Bible. When I was 14-15 years old, I thought \u201cWe\u2019re Catholic. We don\u2019t need to read the Bible. We\u2019re not Protestants. We have the popes and the teachers who tell us about the Bible, but I don\u2019t need to read it.\u201d Our vicar told me to read the New Testament and I was a little bit bored, especially by all those letters of St. Paul. Now it\u2019s the exact opposite. I love the letters of St. Paul; they\u2019re beautiful.<\/p>\n
How did your friends and family react when you said you wanted to try seminary?<\/p>\n
My mother said \u201cIf it\u2019s your thing, do it.\u201d My friends just said, \u201cWe know it\u2019s you.\u201d I didn\u2019t face real concerns. Some people said maybe I should study something different first, and then I could still do that later, but I felt that it was right to do it now. I didn\u2019t really face any kind of criticism.<\/p>\n
How did you find yourself in Wichita?<\/p>\n
Our seminary rector forces every seminarian to study a year somewhere else \u2013 to leave seminary, live on your own and study where you want.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the name of your seminary?<\/p>\n
Theologische Fakult\u00e4t Paderborn. It\u2019s about a 90-minute drive to Hanover.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I studied in Paris for eight months, which was an interesting experience with many pros and cons. But it was very interesting to see Catholic life in Paris. I always thought about going somewhere else one year after the end of my studies \u2013 maybe East Germany, maybe France again, I didn\u2019t know. At one point I thought I wouldn\u2019t do that, but in November 2024 I had a talk with my rector. He made it active and said, \u201cYou can go somewhere else if you want to \u2013 you don\u2019t need to.\u201d He didn\u2019t force me, but said I could if I wanted to. He started mentioning places like Africa, Asia, or America \u2013 even the USA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the rationale behind those years abroad?<\/p>\n
Spending time elsewhere, touring, just becoming more mature in a full way \u2013 on your faith, but also on your personality.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Becoming more worldly, but not in a bad way.<\/p>\n
Yeah, right, absolutely. To have a sophistication, to gain more experience, especially because nowadays, Catholic life in Germany is becoming more international, so it\u2019s good to really see how the Church lives in other countries.<\/p>\n
And we\u2019re part of a universal Church.<\/p>\n
Absolutely. I have been interested in the United States for years, so I just went on the internet and looked at a map of all the U.S. dioceses. I knew I wanted to go to the Midwest, because \u2013 not to attack the coasts \u2013 I believed the Midwest was the \u201creal America.\u201d So I looked on the websites of some dioceses: Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Dodge City \u2013 I can\u2019t remember all of them, but I\u2019ve looked at some. After some days, I found that Wichita had a very active way of living Catholic life, and an especially high number of seminarians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The high number of seminarians is \u2013 for me personally \u2013 always an indicator of how active and lively a diocese actually is. I stuck with that and then looked up some parishes. I stumbled upon St Francis in Wichita, which seemed to be a very big, very good parish. My director didn\u2019t know anything about Wichita, he has no idea, but he told me to go for it, so I contacted Fr. Jarrod Lies, (who was pastor at the time). He was surprised but very happy to welcome me, but a few months later he told me he was being moved. \u00a0<\/p>\n
After that, he spoke to another pastor at a nearby parish, but it was not able to receive anybody. Then a friend of mine helped me and said, \u201cI found a parish: St. Thomas Aquinas,\u201d and sent me the parish website link. The first thing I did was watch some of the Masses that were transmitted there. The church looked nice, interesting, and so did the pastor. So I contacted Fr. Matt McGinness, and he responded very quickly. We phoned, did all the work, I applied for a visa, and that\u2019s how I got here.<\/p>\n
Do you remember your first impressions from those conversations?<\/p>\n
I had thought Fr. Jarrod was a very active, outgoing, and nice man. Fr. Matt was very nice too. During that first phone conversation, I thought he had a very unique voice. It was wonderful how he always responded so quickly, and he did a lot of work to help me.<\/p>\n
How has being here been much of what you expected and how has it been different?<\/p>\n
I expected quite an active Catholic life, but I didn\u2019t expect so many people at church every weekend. I was really stunned by seeing about 2,500 people combined at the weekend Masses.\u00a0 I come from a parish where we have maybe 60 or 70 on Sundays.<\/p>\n
Mostly older folks?<\/p>\n
There are still some families, but not like here, where it seems like almost every other person is a family with a little child. I am not used to seeing that many children at Mass, so yeah, that was very, very different. I also enjoy how the people are so outgoing and welcoming. You don\u2019t really stay alone, because somebody will always talk to you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I had thought I would be focusing on the high school, but it\u2019s a little different. I go to the high school too, but I definitely focus more on the grade school, which is closer and has fewer students. I get to know them better, especially the middle schoolers. So many of them have brothers or sisters, where an eighth grader has a brother in the sixth grade. You get to know one family, but two students. That was different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for things that were not as I expected \u2013 I knew there were regions without people, but I didn\u2019t know there were so many. I drove up to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, and realized I was pretty much on my own. It was beautiful, but there were a lot of wide-open spaces without many people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I hope you had good company or something good to listen to.<\/p>\n
I was alone, but yeah, I had some phone calls and listened to some music or podcasts, I wasn\u2019t bored. I was also really surprised at how low the the gas prices are compared to what I am used to in Germany. That\u2019s very nice. And of course, the big, giant supermarkets are different. What is a Walmart here is really more like shopping mall back home, because it\u2019s one place where you can get the groceries in the same place you get clothes, hunting gear, and things for your home and garden. I also didn\u2019t expect such huge parking lots. Those parking lots fill for every Sunday Mass, but it\u2019s necessary for most people to own a car.<\/p>\n
Especially in middle America,\u00a0 there\u2019s not as much mass transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m interested when it comes to food. Is there stuff you really miss and stuff you\u2019ve tried and think \u201cHey, I really like this?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes I miss some of our German sausages, but the food doesn\u2019t seem to differ much from what we have in Germany as it might from other countries. I don\u2019t miss much \u2013 maybe my favorite sparkling water. After four or five months, I am used to it.<\/p>\n
I remember you once commented about the sheer number of German last names around here.<\/p>\n
Right. It was neat to see the name Klausmeyer and think that family name comes from a place that is just a 20-minute drive from my seminary. One day in a class I asked the students \u201cWho has German ancestors?\u201d Literally, all the hands went up.<\/p>\n
Although his ancestry is Czech,\u00a0 had you heard of Venerable Emil Kapaun before coming here?<\/p>\n
Before I came here, I never understood the name of the high school. What is it? \u201cMt. Kapaun and Carmel? Okay, Carmel, Mount Kapaun?\u201d And then, of course, I mispronounced it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0501-Jens-Fr-Kapaun-copy-1-678x1024.jpg\")
Jens Beverungen stands alongside a statue of Venerable Emil Kapaun inside Wichita\u2019s St. Thomas Aquinas Parish. (Advance photo)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some good-natured controversy about the pronunciation.<\/p>\n
Yes, when I first got here, Fr. Matt would talk to me about Kapaun and I was confused and had to ask what it was. \u201cYou mean Kuh-pawn?\u201d I was told \u201cIt\u2019s pronounced Kay-pen here.\u201d But his story is beautiful.<\/p>\n
Have you developed any devotion to him?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I really hope for him to be canonized. I know he had some ancestors who spoke German. We have been praying a novena for Mrs. Stout\u2019s recovery through the intercession of Fr. Kapaun. I would definitely say there is some devotion.<\/p>\n
Do you have any favorite stories from your time here?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I remember a priest telling me about a town outside of Wichita where people get together outside of town after Easter Sunday, set up chocolate Easter bunnies, and then shoot them with their guns. That sounded very Midwestern.<\/p>\n
I also stayed a couple of nights over at the St. Joseph House of Formation, where they introduced me to American sweets and everything. Some of them were delicious and I said, \u201cI know now why I came to the United States.\u201d The seminarians laughed and they cheered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And sometimes Fr. Seth Arnold goes bow hunting for deer, and puts the meat in the rectory fridge. Everybody can use anything in there, so I warmed up one of the burgers he had made. He said, \u201cOh, did you like it?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, it was good. What was it?\u201d He said, \u201cIt was a deer I shot with my own arrow.\u201d I told him \u201cThat\u2019s the most Kansan thing I\u2019ve ever heard.\u201d And it\u2019s definitely not a very New Jersey or New York City thing to do.<\/p>\n
Not so much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You arrived in October and will be here till late June. What are some things you hope to do while you\u2019re still here? And then what comes next?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to Colorado for spring break and will ski for the first time. I am really looking forward to that. I am going with Chris and Katie Swyer and Curtis and Kelley Richardson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond that, there are so many things I would like to see: Death Valley, the Grand Canyon. I would love to see Texas. I am interested in seeing some of the southern states such as Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. I am definitely interested in seeing California.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I still plan to go to Abilene to visit the Eisenhower Museum. In those first weeks of June maybe I\u2019ll be able to drive around some and see what happens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once you\u2019re back at school, what seems to be next?\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I return in June, I will have about one month of vacation. By August and September, I will, God willing, be appointed in one of our parishes, where my main assignment will be teaching elementary school in a local school. After that, God willing, I would be ordained a deacon.<\/p>\n
So you\u2019re a year away from diaconate.<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
You mentioned that you looked at seminarians as an indicator of our diocese\u2019s health. What is the situation in your diocese? \u00a0<\/p>\n
We have 10, total, and that\u2019s is pretty good for we where we were 5-10 years ago. For a North German diocese, we are pretty good, but the Bavarians are always stronger. I think a diocese may have 20-30, but that\u2019s the most.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What would you like to see in the Church in Germany? What is something that you think would be particularly helpful for Germans\u2019 Catholic faith?<\/p>\n
A stronger focus on Jesus Christ, and less focus on all the matters such as politics, clerical celibacy, women\u2019s ordination, and all that stuff we heard about from the German Synodal Way. Just focus on the faith, on Christ, and trying to live the faith authentically as possible,<\/p>\n
Yes, I recall reading about some of what seemed to be coming out of the Synodal Way and thinking \u201cIt sure sounds like they\u2019re going to do their own thing, but I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s going to draw people closer to the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, I don\u2019t think so either. Germany\u2019s Synodal Way is focusing on some political reforms, but reforming means turning back to the Lord. I don\u2019t want to say they don\u2019t have the Lord in mind, but they can find everything they want in the Protestant churches. Those Protestant churches must be Heaven on Earth because they allow everything on the Synodal Way wish list. Sadly, they are losing members faster than the Catholics and have fewer people attending their services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Obviously, we need to refocus. I think it\u2019s really important to have your eyes on Jesus Christ, on the Lord. Focus on trying to live the faith authentically with Christ in the center.<\/p>\n
If, God willing, you do reach priestly ordination, are there any particular types of ministries that particularly interest you?<\/p>\n
I would mainly be a diocesan priest. Schools are nice \u2013 this year I especially started loving the schools and they\u2019re working beautifully here \u2013 but that\u2019s not my deal. I want to serve the faithful in a parish.<\/p>\n
Anything else?<\/p>\n
I like the United States. And I knew before I came here that this would probably be a good time, and it really has been even better than I expected. The people here have welcomed me with very open hearts. And the students \u2013 all the kids \u2013 are just so nice, warm and welcoming, whether it\u2019s at St. Thomas, Kapaun, or Bishop Carroll. Anywhere I go, people are so nice and welcoming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They like to not only see a seminarian, but some exotic German seminarian.<\/p>\n
Katie Swyers told me that on the day of my arrival, she saw Fr. Matt and asked him what he was doing that day. It really confused her when he said \u201cI\u2019m picking up our German seminarian.\u201d But being here has been a beautiful experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: Since last autumn, Wichita\u2019s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish has hosted Jens Beverungen, a seminiarian for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8420,8421,8422,8423,8424,8425,8426,8427,8428,5,5830,8429,8430,8431,8432,8433,8434,8435,8436,8437,8438],"class_list":{"0":"post-8607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-bishop-carroll-catholic-high-school","9":"tag-chris-swyers","10":"tag-curtis-richardson","11":"tag-diocese-of-paderborn-germany","12":"tag-diocese-of-wichita","13":"tag-eisenhower-museum","14":"tag-fr-jarrod-lies","15":"tag-fr-matt-mcginness","16":"tag-fr-seth-arnold","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-hanover","19":"tag-hoxter-north-rhine-westphalia","20":"tag-jens-beverungen","21":"tag-kapaun-mt-carmel-high-school","22":"tag-katie-swyers","23":"tag-kelley-richardson","24":"tag-martina-beverungen","25":"tag-st-john-the-baptist-luchtringen","26":"tag-st-joseph-house-of-formation","27":"tag-theologische-fakultat-paderborn","28":"tag-venerable-emil-kapaun"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}