The Diocese of Camden Rolls the Dice

Upon getting over my shock at being invited to be part of the leadership team representing our parish at the Convocation of Catholic Leaders: Joy of the Gospel in South Jersey, my second reaction was puzzlement. Why in the name of heaven was a Catholic spiritual conference of this variety being held in Harrah’s Casino, Atlantic City? Having now experienced the Convocation, I feel that perhaps the choice of venue was more appropriate than I first realized.

One bit of advance warning: this post grew beyond all bounds and is now very prolix. I apologize for that, and if you don’t have the wherewithal to wade through it all, please feel free to skip to the bottom where I offer my concluding thoughts.

At this event, we were all encouraged to “tell our stories” and to radiate the joy of the Gospel. We were also told that authenticity is vitally important. In that spirit, I write my observations below in what I hope will be a dispassionate and constructive way, even when my comments appear critical. And let it be said for the record that I left the convention energized to spread the Gospel, though perhaps not as a result of the main-stage programming.

To get a general sense of the tenor of the event, here are a few words that we heard a lot: joy, stories, youth, immigrants, sharing, diversity, complexity, encounter, accompany, mercy, change, authentic.

Here are some words we heard very little if at all: prayer, Rosary, fasting, saints, sin, vocations, devotions, truth, Lent, doctrine, tradition, catechism.

As with other events of this type that I have experienced, the speakers did a good job promoting the message of Pope Francis, encouraging people to become Missionary Disciples, to go out to the margins, and bring people the Joy of the Gospel. The trouble is, few of the speakers spent any time actually talking about the Gospel. Perhaps they assumed that core parish leaders didn’t need any brush-ups on the teachings of Jesus as revealed in Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and how these teachings impact the hot-button cultural issues that are battering the Church today. However, based on my observations, the main problem the Catholic Church faces in our time is the utterly dreadful state of catechesis among Catholics at every stage of life. This Convocation did little to allay this particular concern or remedy the problem.

While there were several very positive aspects of the Convocation, there was a concurrent sense that any type of criticism was taboo. Questions to the keynote speakers from the audience were kept to an absolute minimum and were vetted by a moderator from ones that were texted to them. Unsurprisingly, only softballs made the cut. For the most part, discussion of the scandals rocking the Church were tucked away into a couple small group sessions. I understand why they did this, as discussions about the scandals can often be counter-productive and spiral out of control. However, exclusion of any tough questions to the speakers made the event feel stage-managed and weakened the sense of authenticity that we were told played a key role in missionary discipleship.

In addition, as a Catholic who survived three decades of liturgical experimentation in my youth, I really suffered through the liturgical and meditative programming which (with one remarkable exception) was loud and boisterous — almost rigidly joyful.

The First Day

The conference opened on the Feast of the Annunciation and the organizers did well in recognizing Our Lady in the opening Mass. The hymnody was “Mass: The Broadway Musical” which made it tough for me to maintain any sort of focus or reverence.

The first keynote speaker was Julianne Stanz and her high-energy presentation served to warm up the crowd effectively. Originally from Ireland, she came to the US as a missionary and now lives here with her husband and children. Mrs. Stanz expounded upon JOY which she defined as “Jesus Over Yourself” and she shared a story about her three year-old not wanting to go to Mass because, “Nobody looks happy there.” As the father of several children, I could relate to that comment. However, my reaction to such a quip from one of my kids might have been different from that of Mrs. Stanz. I would have explained that Mass is not the same as the playground and that one need not always look happy. If you try to look happy when you’re thinking about the suffering and death of Jesus, the smile will seem fake. And that brings me to a term that kept recurring throughout this talk and several of the ones that followed: authenticity. Several of the speakers mentioned that what really drives people out of the Church – particularly young people of good will – is the perception that we Catholics don’t actually practice what we preach. I completely agree, and would take it one step further: we Catholics tend to preach what we practice, and what we practice is too often behavior that is approved of by the world but not in conformity with the moral laws of Jesus Christ.

Toward the close of her talk, Mrs. Stanz emphasized that the Church needed to change, saying that we need to stop saying, “But we have always done it that way.” She did not add much in the way of specifics about what that change would entail but said that we need a paradigm shift in how we view ourselves. Again, I very much agree with this sentiment. The Church absolutely can not go on doing things the way it has since 1970.

After Mrs. Stanz concluded, a gentleman named Derek was invited to the podium to share his story. Derek’s testimony about how the Catholic faith had lifted up him and his family during some of the darkest hours of their lives was heartfelt and inspiring. These poignant moments of personal witness were among the strongest points of the Convocation and I was glad they were included.

For the evening meditation, we were offered the Scriptural interpretive stylings of ValLimar Jansen whose bio indicated that she had been the vocal leader for “numerous liturgies at the Los Angeles Religious Education Conference.” Now, Ms. Jansen seems to be a lovely woman and clearly has huge vocal talent and stage presence. But this presentation was absolutely not my thing, and from taking a look around at the other men in the crowd, I wasn’t the only one who was casting longing glances toward the exit. The performance was also so loud and involved so much audience participation that there was no opportunity for actual meditation of any kind.

The Second Day

Day two kicked off with morning prayer. Upon walking into the main ballroom, I noticed that the projected backdrop over the stage had a curious Neolithic-looking image on it. I heard one person say that he thought it was either Stone Henge or the Stone Table from the Chronicles of Narnia. Thankfully, there was no emergence of liturgical druids dancing down the aisles, nor a deacon dressed as Aslan. What also didn’t emerge was any sign of a clerical collar. For an event with 50+ priests in attendance, apparently one couldn’t be spared to lead us in morning prayer. Instead, we were treated to some joyful Protestant-style music related in English and Spanish. This was another aspect that left me puzzled. Here in the Catholic Church, which strives to include all people, we find ourselves forced to present services and Masses in two alternating vernaculars. This is not the first time I have encountered this phenomenon (sometimes including three or more languages) and it is always awkward. If only the Church had one language that it used for everything liturgical--perhaps an ancient language--that could draw us all together when we worship no matter what culture we come from. But I digress.

I had to brace myself for the first speaker of the day, Professor Hoffsman Ospino, who teaches theology at my alma mater, Boston College. Given the dreadful track record of that particular academic institution in graduating young men and women who go on to practice their Catholic faith, I wondered if Prof. Ospino’s talk was going to demonstrate that BC had finally turned a spiritual corner. Sadly, his spiel sounded vaguely familiar. He presented an alternative history of Catholicism in the United States in which the Church in the US was always a Church of immigrants, that immigration is how the Church grows (as opposed to missionary evangelization, I might add, but again, I digress), and that immigration — specifically from Latin America — is how the Church will find new life in the 21st century. Now, you can forgive the man for being a little culturally triumphalist considering he is himself an immigrant from Colombia. But the problem with his thesis is this: people in Latin America are also leaving the Catholic Church in droves. Worse, when Latino immigrants come here, they fall away from the faith at the same rate or greater than native-born Catholics. Prof. Ospino admitted as much when he offered the statistic that an estimated 14 million people of Latino origin have already left the Church in the US. So to sum up, do we need to reach out to Latino immigrants? Absolutely. Are such immigrants, who are often coming in poorly catechized from their home countries, going to stick with a happy-clappy version of the Catholic Church that they find here? Maybe. Maybe not. If happy-clappy is what they’re seeking, it's quite possible that they'll go straight to authentic stuff at the local Evangelical church, not our attempt at imitation.

We then broke out into our small group sessions. There were about a dozen different options for this and we divided into groups of 40-50 people each. For my first group session, I chose “Technology and Social Media: Evangelization in the Digital Age.” This session was run by Fr. Frank Donio of the Catholic Apostolate Center and his crew from DC, and it was actually quite good. While much of what was discussed was pretty basic (what’s the difference between FB, Twitter and Instagram, etc. and how can we utilize each most effectively), I came away with two noteworthy points. The first is that social media, though good for some things, is still inferior to two other methods of getting your message out to the people in your parish: the bulletin and the pulpit. Second, the presenters emphasized that for their own social media, they do not tolerate negativity. Any negative comments get deleted and the poster gets blocked. While I understand why they adopted this policy, I thought it was short-sighted. First off, when you do this aggressively, no one responds to your posts and the media stops becoming social. Instead, it becomes a simple managed data-feed that few pay attention to. And if you look on the Catholic Apostolate Center’s FB page, you’ll see that even though they have +218,000 followers, engagement is low, and largely limited to “likes” and the comment “amen.” To most folks who use social media, this will immediately feel inauthentic. That small point aside, I thought these folks did a nice job and they appear to be on the right track.

The afternoon keynote address was given by Joseph Cardinal Tobin of Newark. Cardinal Tobin came across as personable and funny, talking up his well-known connections to Pope Francis and taking shots at “the Cardinals” including the Dubia Cardinals. He highlighted his invitation as Bishop of Indianapolis to speak at the United Methodist Churches of Indiana convention in 2014 to satisfy their curiosity about Pope Francis. The good Cardinal did his level best to relate the teachings of Pope Francis to the audience and struck many Francis-like themes, among them:

• Evangelization good. “Proselytism” bad;
• “Devout people are often quick to be angry and lacking in mercy;”
• “Why is the Church known not for its mercy, but for its moralism?”
• Called out “defensive, moralistic Catholicism”.
• Americans are very results-oriented (which is, apparently, a negative);
• The greatest danger in the Church is “the great pragmatism of everyday life.” 

Of these, the most puzzling statements to me were the ones decrying moralism, or the tendency of some overly-scrupulous people to wish to enforce the letter of the law to the detriment of the spirit of the law. To get to the location of his talk, Cardinal Tobin had to walk through a long corridor at Harrah’s plastered with advertisements displaying the allurements of four or five of the seven deadly sins. Does he honestly think that moralism is one of the biggest problems we face in the Church? I’d say it’s not even in the top 20. The moral teachings of Jesus Christ as related by His Church are ancient and enduring for one reason: because they are true. By following Catholic morality, an individual is more likely to lead a healthy, happy, Christ-filled life in this world and to be with God for all eternity in the next. Rather than defensive, moralistic Catholicism, we should joyfully display and share the treasure of Catholic moral teaching with the world without any hesitation at all. What Cardinal Tobin should have said was that Mother Church is known for Her unequivocal stands on moral virtue and for mercy, because that would have been authentic.

Another highlight of the Convocation took place after Cardinal Tobin resumed his seat. A married couple ascended the podium and told their story. Similar to Derek earlier, theirs was a simple yet powerful tale of getting through some life crises large and small with the help of their Catholic faith. They specifically mentioned the role their parish played in helping them, along with devotions like the Rosary. Finally! Nearly two days into the conference and the Rosary had been barely a blip on the radar screen. I found their 10 minute testimony to be one of the most gratifying portions of the program for one simple reason: it was absolutely authentic. It was also one of the scant few moments during the Convocation where the topic of Catholic dads came up.

Mass that evening was done in a Gospel church setting. Let me just say that I enjoy Gospel music and the choir performing it was really very good. Their tunes stuck in my head and if they had a CD, I might even buy it and listen to it in my car. But the performance distracted me from the Mass big time—and it was a performance: overwhelmingly loud and complete with dancing and clapping by the audience after every piece wrapped up. At this point, I began thinking about the words in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the first document promulgated at Vatican II, which said the following:

“The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited for the Roman Liturgy: therefore, under normal circumstances, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.”

I’ll let you guess how many times we heard Gregorian chant at the Convocation.

The evening meditation for Day 2 was simply awesome. Run by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, this was another high-point which included a beautiful reflection by Father Glenn Sudano of the Friars, and a personal testimony by one of the sisters. All during this time, the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. Following the meditation, there was benediction during which the Body of Our Lord was carried in procession around the main hall. During benediction, I kept thinking, “This is where the focus needs to be."

The Third Day

Based on my experience of Day Two, I decided to skip the morning prayer and simply say my Rosary in the adoration chapel which was set up in a prominent place. This was another good point for the Convocation, and when I felt my frustration level rising with the speakers, it was a nice place to retreat and lay my irritations before Our Lord.

The first speaker of day three was Carolyn Woo, retired CEO of Catholic Relief Services. Dr. Woo is an impressive lady with a long resume in corporate and charitable America. Like many of the other speakers, she was articulate and personable, but if you asked me now what her talk was about, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. There were a lot of funny anecdotes. She did a short exposition on seeing sacredness in other people: “The most sacred object you can behold, aside from the Holy Eucharist, is the person next to you.” This was followed by a listing of some saints who were friends — a good way to incorporate a little Church history which was otherwise lacking in the program. At the close, she took some shots at US and Israeli foreign policy which seemed somewhat out-of-place.

Following Dr. Woo was a panel discussion on the main stage which was a promotional opportunity for Catholic Charities, Camden. The three participants spoke about the rewards of working with immigrants, going to the US/Mexico border and working with the refugees and migrants there. One fellow, a stay-at-home dad who served as a volunteer with Syrian refugee families teaching them English, told his story about how fulfilling he found the experience and how he even managed to pick up a little Arabic. They fielded questions from the audience such as: “How do we overcome hate and racism in our society?” Reaching out to the youth was a sub-theme of this discussion, and the question was asked: “How do we make going to Mass more appealing to young people?” One of the panelists, a young woman, said that to do so, Mass should relate the message of Jesus to everyday life. She suggested more youth masses. I could only reflect on my own experience with youth masses back in the 1980s and how they almost sent me headlong out of the Church for good – and how few of the faces I remember from those days have remained active Catholics.

We then broke out into the first of our two workshop sessions of the day. I attended “The Parish and Social Sin” offered by Tom Ulrich. I chose this specifically because I didn’t have a good concept of what social sin was and wanted to know more. As prep for the workshop, I read JPII’s 1984 exhortation entitled: “Reconciliatio et Paenitentia” where the concept of social sin is explained in detail. In short, social sin is the accumulation of personal sins that impact the larger society in negative ways. Mr. Ulrich, is a social worker who is VP of a branch of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, so I expected his jargon to be right in my wheelhouse and it was. He attempted to get the audience talking about justice and asked them to define justice. He ended up with the rather simple definition of “making sure every person gets what they’re entitled to.” I raised my hand and asked him if it was possible to understand what constitutes true justice if we don’t have a well-formed conscience. This was the first deer-in-the-headlights moment for him. His answer was that people's consciences will never be fully formed, and we can't use that as an excuse for not taking action. I found this answer unsatisfactory at best.

Later, when he delved more deeply into the concept of social sin, he made an effort to speak about it apart from or somehow separate from personal sin. But unfortunately for him, JPII said:

"There is one meaning sometimes given to social sin that is not legitimate or acceptable even though it is very common in certain quarters today. This usage contrasts social sin and personal sin, not without ambiguity, in a way that leads more or less unconsciously to the watering down and almost the abolition of personal sin, with the recognition only of social gilt and responsibilities." [Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 16]

I read the above to Mr. Ulrich aloud during the session, and he fumbled around a bit, admitting that JPII was right, of course, and that's not really what he was trying to do.

Shortly thereafter, he mentioned "climate change" in connection with social sin and his personal belief that we only have 11 years to take action before the world ends--or something. A fellow in the audience identified himself as a chemical engineer who has studied the issue carefully and responded that numbers like 11 years are nonsense bandied about by reporters, not scientists. This immediately got him off of this issue.

By the end of the session, Mr. Ulrich seemed to be fairly flustered, but he had to get in his list of key organizations that Catholics should support if they wished to combat social sin. At the top of the list was the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which is ironic considering this organization has been involved in scandals for giving money to groups that promote actual social sins such as contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage. I asked him if he was aware of these scandals when I caught him after the session, and he said that he was working at CCHD when the scandals first erupted. He said that the accusations were false. When I appeared incredulous, he backtracked and said that the bishops had done a thorough investigation and had given the organization the seal of approval. I left feeling a sense of inauthenticity.

To finish up this long digression, it’s worth noting how JP II concluded his comments on social sin in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia as follows:

“At the heart of every situation of sin are always to be found sinful people. So true is this that even when such a situation can be changed in its structural and institutional aspects by the force of law or, as unfortunately more often happens, by the law of force, the change in fact proves to be incomplete, of short duration and ultimately vain and ineffective — not to say counterproductive — if the people directly or indirectly responsible for that situation are not converted.” [Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 16]

JPII's foresight when raising such concerns is not to be despised.

After a hearty lunch where our parish group was able to discuss what we experienced in our morning sessions, we moved on to our afternoon break-out sessions. For my third and final one, I chose: “Young Adults: Encountering and Developing Leadership for the 21st Century” moderated by Monica Konschnik. To my surprise, I found several familiar faces among the attendees of this session, including two others from my parish group, along with a particularly brilliant priest who sat right up in the front. It turned out that this session was run by the same group from the Catholic Apostolate Center that I had encountered in the Social Media session earlier. Mrs. Konschnik and several of the team members, who all fit into the young adult category (ages 18-39 according to the USCCB), shared their stories of how and why they chose to serve the Church.

We then filled out a sheet which asked us to indicate how young adults were currently incorporated into our parishes. When reporting the results, it soon became apparent that most of the parishes had little or no participation by young adults. Our parish certainly has some, but we could be doing better. It was at this point that my priest friend spoke up very authoritatively. He pointed out that his parish has none of these problems. If anything, the main issue confronted by the young adults in his parish is that they need help taking care of their many young children. He then enumerated the ways that young adults participated in his parish—and the fact that he had two examples right next to him as part of his parish leadership team helped to emphasize his point in a very concrete way. Father then went on to voice his opinion that part of the problem we seem to have with the Millennial generation is that we coddle them too much and don’t challenge them to confront the culture. He related how when he was that age, nobody had to reach out to him. He came to Mass because he wanted to. He became a priest because he felt the Holy Spirit was calling him and he decided to act on that call. As he wrapped up, the room burst into spontaneous applause.

At this point, Fr. Donio, the head of the Catholic Apostolate Center stepped in. He was familiar with Father’s parish and termed it an “intentional community” which didn’t face the same kinds of difficulties as regular geographical parishes. For the record, an intentional community in this sense is defined as one which has a distinct spiritual charism that draws in like-minded people often from long distances away. So basically, this was a case of special pleading that didn’t apply to the rest of the diocese. A few moments later, after the discussion had moved on, Mrs. Konschnik continued telling her story and mentioned how she and her husband had spent seven years looking for the perfect parish to raise their children. At this point, my priest friend quipped to the group: “So you’re looking for an intentional community.” Ouch. The point here is that all parishes are becoming intentional communities. The days when people will put up with what goes on in their local parish simply because it is local are long gone. My priest friend’s parish is thriving not because it is an intentional parish but because it is offering something that people—especially young people—are looking for, and that is simply this: a clear sign of contradiction to the prevailing popular culture of irreverence, immorality, sin and death. In my experience, a parish that looks like the fallen culture with a felt cross plastered over it is not actively proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is therefore inauthentic. Lest I belabor the point, inauthenticity is the root of what drives people out of the Church.

Of course, there were dozens of other breakout sessions that I did not attend. I should mention that there were two full sessions on “LGBT” issues and how to incorporate practitioners of that particular lifestyle into your parish. I did not attend either, so everything I heard about them was second-hand. Some friends did attend those sessions and went in armed for spiritual combat. The result was, sadly, predictable. The presenter, a psychotherapist, declared that he encouraged those with such temptations to get into same-sex relationships. He also encouraged them to receive Holy Communion if their consciences were clear. My friends challenged the presenter on this and he claimed that he was only reflecting the teaching of Pope Francis. According to my friends, there were three priests in the session and when they were asked if they would give Holy Communion to individuals that they knew were in active same-sex relationships, all three said “yes.” One of my friends laid it out clearly: The Church teaches that if you engage in homosexual acts, you are committing a grave sin. If you die with a grave sin on your soul, you will go to Hell. Who is the more compassionate one? Someone who enables a person who has assimilated such habitual grave sin into their lifestyle? Or the person who warns them of the dangers of doing so and accompanies them on the path to chastity and conversion?

To wrap up the break-out sessions, it should be pointed out that while there were two full sessions on alphabet soup topics (LGBT), and numerous sessions on ministry to women, Hispanics, and young people, there were zero specific sessions on outreach to any of the following groups:

• Dads – Does no one notice how few men there are in the pews?
• Those contemplating vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life
• Working families
• Those of other religions including non-Catholic families whose children attend Catholic schools (a question was raised by one of my friends, himself a convert from Protestantism, as to whether evangelizing to Protestants, Jews, Orthodox, or Muslims is encouraged at all these days).
• The Black community – Has anyone noticed how many Black folks there are in south Jersey and how few of them are in our parishes?
• The various Asian communities, especially our Filipino brothers and sisters
• The elderly
• The bereaved
• Kids with special needs and their families 
• Homeschoolers – considering how many vocations come from the homeschool community, this was a major miss.
• Traditional Catholics – not that they need outreach, but a single session on the successes enjoyed by traditional Catholic communities in drawing and retaining young people might have been fruitful. 

Now I’m sure some of the above were covered in the various break-out sessions, but simply reading through the titles and descriptions did not make that clear. To me, this showed where the diocesan leadership sees its priorities and demonstrated a bit of tone-deafness as to where some real sources of Catholic dynamism might be located.

We had another productive dinner on day three where we discussed our experiences in the break-out sessions. Following this, our parish group spent an extended time together developing our plan for moving ahead as missionary disciples after the Convocation. This conversation was extraordinarily fruitful and generated a wealth of ideas that, we hope, will truly lead more souls to Christ and rain down abundant blessings from heaven upon our parish. When our conversation came to an end, we realized that we had missed out on the evening’s entertainment which was fine by me. I didn’t come to be entertained. So we wrapped up with the Rosary and then headed off for the evening.

The Fourth Day

This was a half-day which concluded the Convocation. I got up at 5:00 AM to find some spiritual sustenance outside of the Convocation and was richly rewarded, though I had to pick my way through the remains of a wild all-night party complete with partially dressed women and an active security detail to get there. Apparently a rapper and his posse were on-site at the casino doing what they do. I again skipped the morning prayer service in favor of a half-hour in the Adoration Chapel.

The final keynote speaker of the Convocation was Chris Lowney, former managing director of JP Morgan Chase. The Convocation attendees were already quite familiar with Mr. Lowney because part of our homework prior to arriving was to read his book, Everyone Leads. This book came highly endorsed by Carolyn Woo (see above), James Martin, SJ, and several academics from institutions like Boston College and Villanova. Mr. Lowney’s message was, in a nutshell, that all Catholics need to be leaders if we are going to survive in this complex new world. He said, “The reality of the world is going to force us to change how we do things in the Church,” and that we need to “be comfortable being uncomfortable.” He highlighted the military acronym VUCA as something we need to understand and be able to cope with. VUCA means: “volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.” He felt that negativity was counter-productive and that we shouldn’t seek to scapegoat or blame anyone or anything for what has gone wrong in the Church. This sounded to me like a very convenient way of saying that we shouldn’t examine how and why we have failed so miserably in the recent past. In my opinion, without such serious, humble, and brutally honest reflection, how can we possibly move forward?

Mr. Lowney highlighted that as the laity, we are co-responsible for the Church along with our bishops and priests, and this led into his central thesis that “everyone leads.” He exhorted us not to become paralyzed by the “Moses Problem,” that is, the desire to return to Egypt when things get tough. “Fear is not a good counselor,” he said, and encouraged us not to be afraid to take shots—like Kobe Bryant who is the all-time NBA leader in missed shots, or Wayne Gretzky who said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Here are a few of my thoughts on where Mr. Lowney went off the rails:

• First, saying “everyone leads” sounds strangely like the inverse of Jesus’s injunction that the leader of all needs to be the servant of all [Mark 10:44]. While Mr. Lowney is encouraging all of us to move into the front pew, Our Lord specifically said that we should take the lowest seat and put others before ourselves [Luke 14:10].
• If nothing else, my experience at the Convocation demonstrated how sadly uncatechized many of my fellow Catholics in the laity are on some fairly basic Church teachings. What is going to happen if such folks are suddenly self-propelled into leadership roles within the Church? Go ahead and ponder that for a minute.
• As for not being afraid to take shots, what’s left out of those quotes is that the athletes in question were masters of their craft whose shots were often on-target because they had spent prodigious amounts of time practicing – that is, training their minds and bodies. As Catholics, if we don’t train our minds, hearts and spirits or do so inconsistently or haphazardly, our shot is not only going to miss the mark, it’s going to take out someone’s face in the front row. 

To wrap up, Mr. Lowney encouraged us to go for easy wins. He suggested that we not focus on the “recalcitrant 10%” but rather, ignore them. I thought this was especially good advice for young people who wish to bring traditional practices and devotions back into the Church but run into brick walls from the recalcitrant Baby Boomers who may rule the rectory or the sacristy. Don’t let them frustrate you. Keep putting your ideas forward despite continual and stubborn refusals. You are not the ones with the Moses Problem – they are. You are not longing to go back to Egypt, but to Jerusalem, to the foot of the Cross. Or to Rome to stand with the martyrs. Or to Lepanto, to risk your life to defend Holy Mother Church. In too many cases, the "recalcitrant 10%" is longing to get back to Woodstock.

After this talk, we again retired to our parish group. This session proved unexpectedly contentious, but also bore fruit. Again, these conversations were among the best, most inspiring and spirit-filled aspects of the Convocation, even when not everyone agreed. Our pastor, a long-suffering priest who deals with the insanity of the popular culture entering his church on a regular basis, served as a true shepherd, fearlessly teaching the truths of the Church, calming the waters of discord, and reminding us that division and hatred are the tools of the prince of this world. Getting to know this good and holy priest a little better and experiencing his leadership was one of the great highlights of the Convocation for me.

Concluding Thoughts

My goal in attending this Convocation, as in writing out these reflections, was to remain as objective as possible and open-minded to the working of the Holy Spirit. In that spirit, I can report on several very positive take-aways from the event. The primary positive aspect for me was the opportunity to network with our own parish team, and with teams from other parishes I was introduced to. I was also able to re-forge connections with a number of outstanding priests I had known over the years—men who, in a different era of the Church, may have been elevated to a bishopric. Chatting with such spiritual power-houses helped keep me grounded and focused on the task at hand.

The opportunities for quiet prayer before the Holy Eucharist were also very much appreciated. The availability of the Adoration Chapel was a key for me, especially after coming out of the occasionally contentious break-out sessions. Benediction with the Franciscan Friars was one piece of the conference which will stick with me for a long time.

Ironically, the other piece that has stuck with me—and I suspect will stick with me for a long time—was the Gospel choir. Though their music was better suited for a concert hall than for Holy Mass, their spirit was unmistakably authentic and their songs were earworms that I am still hearing in my brain. It also made me think that we desperately need more of our black brothers and sisters to come into the Church. May Servant of God Fr. Augustus Tolton pray for this intention.

I felt that the choice of keynote speakers left something to be desired. All of the main lectern presentations felt like TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks. The problem is, I don’t like TED Talks. As described in an article in the UK periodical, The New Statesmen, in the world of TED, “everything is awesome and inspirational, and ideas aren’t supposed to be challenged.” Such talks generally feel like this: “sixteen minutes later, I’m aware of only three things: the talk was awesome, I can’t remember anything of substance from the talk, and now I’m watching a weirdly artificial standing ovation.” I definitely felt a bit of this vibe at the Convocation and it struck me as slightly manipulative and inauthentic (there’s that word again…)

Another thing that bothered me throughout the event was simply this: Why was a conference focused on the Joy of the Gospel being held during the penitential season of Lent? Would it not have been more appropriate to hold the Convocation during the Easter season? Now, I know that there is probably a very practical answer to this question but as Cardinal Tobin opined during his talk: “The great pragmatism of everyday life is the greatest danger in the Church.” This sense of unreality—of being divorced from the seasonal calendar of the universal Church—seemed to linger throughout the event.

And this gets me back to my original question: Why was Harrah’s Atlantic City chosen as the venue for this event? Based on my reflections above, it could be because the diocese has decided to double-down, put it all on red, and bet the house on the kind of change that I grew up with in the 1980s and that, sadly, led a majority of my peers out of the Church. Indeed, at one of the Masses, the opening hymn encouraged us to “sing a new Church into being.” But everything I saw liturgically at the Convocation was the same old Church in America that was sung into being 50 years ago – only louder, flashier, and slightly off key — like an Elvis impersonator.

I sincerely hope that this type of gamble is not what the diocese is betting on. Entertainment-Masses and a de-emphasis on the tough moral teachings of the Church have not worked. The proof of this is the empty churches, parish consolidations, closed schools, and paucity of vocations to the religious life we are experiencing now after five decades down this path. The fluffy whiz-bang Jesuit Masses and retreats I attended in my teens and 20s had little depth and were not effective conduits for the Holy Spirit. But they were exactly what the older generation thought would appeal to the youth. Mainline Protestant churches adopted this type of theological and liturgical change within the past few decades and have also come up snake-eyes, the result being that people are leaving them faster than they are leaving the Catholic Church. But hey, maybe that’s just me being results-oriented. I figure I’m in good company considering Saint Paul encouraged us to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good while refraining from even the appearance of evil [1 Thessalonians 5:21] while Jesus Himself said by their fruits you shall know them. “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and shall be cast into the fire.” [Matthew 7:18-20]

All of the above I say in a spirit of loyalty to the Church and to our local bishop, even when my tone may be slightly jocular. The most difficult part of loyalty is forthrightly telling your superiors when you think they are making a mistake. I would like nothing more than for our Diocese of Camden to radiate the authentic Joy of the Gospel and to draw all men to Christ as was our Savior's mandate. It is with this hope in mind that I suggest that the diocese not feel pot-committed to the dubious reforms of the past 50 years which, if we are brutally honest, have not borne good fruit. We should not be afraid to change course and embrace authentic reforms which have already manifested a plenitude of good fruit when bishops have had the courage and fortitude to push them through. One instance of this good fruit may be seen in the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska which has bucked nearly all of the negative trends afflicting the greater Catholic Church in the United States. One obvious statistic that may exemplify this difference is the number of young men in priestly formation: whereas Camden has 15 seminarians (Catholic population ca. 500,000), Lincoln, with one-fifth the Catholic population (ca. 100,000), has 39. Again, this is me being results-oriented. But the fact remains: if every diocese in the US were like Lincoln, there would be no priest shortage. And we also wouldn't be closing parishes and schools by the score.

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So let’s say that an event like the Convocation of Catholic Leaders comes to your diocese — and it probably will. Would I advise you to avoid it? By no means! If selected by your pastor, you should absolutely go. But you should go armed with your Rosary and be prepared to engage in spiritual combat. One of the major messages of this Convocation was that the laity should be assuming greater leadership roles in our local parishes. If those who most ardently love, treasure and study the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines and practices of Holy Mother Church choose to abstain from diocesan events like this, who do you think your lay leaders are going to be?

My suggestion, brethren, is this: Stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned. In other words, do not fold. Go all-in!