STEUBENVILLE, OH— How can a catechist bring youth, lapsed Catholics, and non-believers to the Church? Curtis Martin says, “Somebody needs to walk them back in.”

Martin, president and founder of FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, was one of many to speak on “The Witness of Holiness,” the theme of the St. John Bosco Conference held at Franciscan University of Steubenville July 13-16.

For the third time in conference history, the Bosco conference drew over 400 catechists, youth ministers, DREs, and religious educators, who attended workshops to fulfill diocesan catechist certification.

In his talk “Forming Missionary Disciples,” Martin said that before trying to catechize people, they must first be evangelized. “If we try to catechize people who don’t care, we will bore them, we’ll disengage them. In fact, we’ll frustrate them because you’re giving them something they don’t want yet. Evangelization addresses the ‘I don’t care,’ so that catechesis can address the ‘I don’t know.'”

Martin said, “It gets hard to be a disciple. You sit back and ask, ‘Why am I doing this?’ And you remember, ‘I’m doing this because I know God is real. I know that Jesus that is alive and he saved me, and I remember that I gave him my entire life, so now when it’s hard, I keep going.'”

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Founder of New Evangelization Ministries Deacon Ralph Poyo said, “We need a new evangelization! We have been working on an assumption that when an infant or adult is baptized, they receive everything they needed to grow in faith. But how and why are our teens receiving the sacrament of confirmation when they aren’t sure whether they believe in Jesus?”

Poyo stressed the need for personal prayer in his talk, “The Trenches of Spiritual Warfare.”

“We are not praying for our people and specific events,” Poyo said. “We’re not bathing our lives in prayer so that we can get connected and have the strength to remain standing when the people need us to stand. When we are not praying, we’re not connected to God. We’re so busy doing that we’re not creating the time to be with God.”

Poyo also spoke on the need for “spiritual warriors,” as well as going out and making disciples.

“Every disciple of Jesus Christ should be discipling others. That is our identity as a disciple. The Holy Spirit uses a disciple to form and fashion disciples. So who are your disciples?”

Throughout the four-day retreat, participants attended Mass, confession, a Holy Hour, and praise and worship led by Franciscan University professor and musician Bob Rice.

Speaking on “The Role of Parish Priest as Catechetical Leader,” Bishop R. Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Illinois, said that the parish priest must be actively teaching catechumens.

“The pastor must first be a good teacher,” Bishop Conlon said, “a good model for others who would teach the faith. Catechists need to know not just that the pastor appreciates what they do, but that he is one of them, one of the best, one of the most ardent, one of the most faithful.”

Bishop Conlon also explained, “The pastor, then, is not one catechist among catechists. He is the principal catechist who promotes, animates, and supports the work of the other catechists. . . It is good for the pastor to be seen with his own sleeves rolled up.”

Dr. Petroc Willey, Franciscan University theology professor and a consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization in Rome, spoke on “Christ Is Our Peace,” saying that many searching for peace opt for a “false peace.”

“Peace doesn’t happen automatically,” Willey said. “Left to themselves, relationships break down. In the work of evangelization, John Paul II loved to use the phrase ‘Mend the fabric.’ This is a constant need to be repairing something. Peace is a very active thing; strive for peace. . . It means making a decision that your life will be one of peace. At the center of this striving is an act of will. . . The only thing preventing holiness is will.”

The conference concluded with the celebration of Mass.

This year, Franciscan University offered 5 adult, 2 young adult, and 21 youth conferences in 13 states and 2 Canadian provinces. For complete conferences information, visit www.steubenvilleconferences.com.