Parishioner Profiles: Kathleen Gathright

Kathleen Gathright grew up at the Church of Saint Mary and is an alumnus of the School of Saint Mary. She is the new Communications Director for Holy Family Cathedral.

 

My name is Kathleen. I graduated from the School of Saint Mary in 2009, I graduated from Bishop Kelley in 2013, and I am a proud Raven alum of Benedictine College Class of 2017.

I am the new Director of Communications and Outreach here at Holy Family Cathedral in Tulsa.

 

What does your job entail?

There’s a lot of little details to my job but in general I take care of the bulletin, social media, our website, and then just general outreach to the community.

 

What is your favorite part of the job so far?

Becoming integrated into the Holy Family family. There’s so many amazing parishioners here and they have welcomed me into the job with wide open arms.

We’ve had two very large events that have happened since I started. First was the Diaconate ordination couple of weeks ago and then the Corpus Christi procession. Multiple parishioners that I saw at those events were introducing me to new people and welcoming me and saying how happy they were that I was joining the team.

 

How did the School of Saint Mary prepare you for this role?

I think that my background in customer service and marketing started with my formation at the School of Saint Mary. Both the parish and the school taught me general outreach plus basic Catholic principles and virtues.

I absolutely loved Mrs. Lushen and Mrs. Dowdell. They were definitely very inspirational to me growing up at the School of Saint Mary.

 

What are your short-term plans at the Cathedral?

I want to connect with parishioners and people from the area through social media and our website and maybe an app. I’m looking at how we can better engage the people in our community and how we can better incorporate them into parish life at the Cathedral.

 

What is your source of inspiration?

I was actually reading the summary of Pope Francis’s Wednesday audience today. I liked his address to young people. He’s calling for the youth of the Church to live an authentic life and to seek beauty. Obviously the Cathedral is one of the most beautiful places in Tulsa. It is such an honor for me to be able to be here. I’m definitely striving towards what Pope Francis is asking of young people although it’s something that is very difficult to obtain in today’s society.