Post-convocation challenge: Translate event’s message into practice

Jul 14, 2017

By Carol Zimmermann
Many of the Catholic leaders attending the July 1-4 gathering in Orlando, Florida, have been to enough retreats or conferences over the years to know that the real challenge comes when they try to put what they heard into practice.

Inspired and a little overwhelmed could describe the follow-up reaction of some delegates from the Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America.

Vaillancourt Murphy, who leads a diocesan marriage prep programme with her husband, said what she found most inspiring about the convocation was how Church leaders seemed to be willing to try something new — “another way we haven’t tried.”

She said working out the details of how the church can better reach out to people puts convocation delegates at the start of something new akin to the closing words of Mass: “Go forth to love and serve the Lord.”
“Our story is just beginning,” she said.

The next steps for many of the delegates remained unclear but they still knew something would come of the experience.

Amelia Jean, a 17-year-old delegate from the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, and maybe the youngest attendee, was advised by other delegates to take on a leadership role in the Church after she spoke up at a breakout session called Youth on the Margins where she was surprised she was the only young person in the room.

Jean, who just graduated from high school and is starting college in the fall said her primary church involvement has been as an altar server at St Martha’s Parish on Long Island.

She told the delegates they would likely not survive in her high school as she spoke about challenges teenagers face. She also stressed that young people want to be heard, and, in that same vein, said they might see her on a panel at a future gathering.

Young adults also want to be heard, a group of young adult ministers pointed out they were glad convocation delegates were hearing tough challenges about the number of young Catholics leaving the Church.

The challenge to reach the growing number of “nones” — those who claim no religion, even if they were raised Catholic — means Church leaders will need to do things differently at the parish and diocesan level taking direction from Evangelii Gaudium — Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the Church’s mission to evangelise the modern world — and from the upcoming Synod of Bishops on youth and vocations, the youth leaders said.

“It will take time and there might be a period of mourning” as parishes learn to do things differently, said Jonathan Lewis, director of young adult ministry and evangelisation for the Washington Archdiocese, but he added: “If you can reach young adults, you can reach everyone.” --CNS