Reaching Out to the Religiously Unaffiliated

thank you very much your eminence and a good afternoon brothers to all of you I think as you know I've directed the work of our committee the last couple of years to this issue of the unaffiliated which in my judgment is the second greatest issue facing the church today especially the disaffiliation of our young people so accordingly I've had experts come in from all kinds of different fields to help us understand this phenomenon of the nuns or the unaffiliated so we've heard from sociologists we've heard from theologians heard from catechist teachers analysts of the culture etc and what I wanted to do was synthesize and gather a lot of this information in a way that would be helpful to all of you so we put together it's about 98% finished a video it's about 28 minutes long where I'm not gonna show you the whole video but it's designed not as a video of the conference to go out to the world but a video from our committee to go to you to help you with this this issue so as I begin the presentation could I show you just a very brief three-minute a trailer of this video we also know I do not know I do not save here years ago we could confidently assume that Catholics would come to the institutions of the church but today the number the disaffiliated rises to a staggering 24 percent of our country half of American Catholics leave the church at some point in their life the rates of non affiliation continue to go up the church is failing to engage young people this is not business as usual there's something dramatic and something catastrophic going on church people they're very quick to offer explanations for the phenomenon of disaffiliation but we don't really have to guess lots of people have told us precisely why they've left I just never understood it science took over logic took over I don't feel different there 80% of them leave before their age 23 the median age at which someone leaves the Catholic Church is 13 many did not know what they were leaving they simply joined that train we're talking mostly about people who think religion has nothing to offer them now we come to the central question how do we get them back young people want to do something good they might not believe all the words that they hear the church speak right now but seeing something good done will speak to their heart they will resist moral arguments because they will say well atheists can be good people too but beauty is subversive beauty gets under your skin a lot of people are scared of going into this landscape the social media but the Catholic voice is needed there desperately young people do not want Catholic light they can handle Catholicism holding back on the teachings of the church is doing a grave disservice to our young people every single person is called to be a missionary disciple maker or an intentional disciple maker because that's the calling of baptism to fulfill the Great Commission making disciples all nations by fulfilling the great commandment loving God and loving neighbor is this affiliation the end of Catholicism and Christianity no the disciples on the boat with Jesus there's waves and there's a big storm all around them Peter sat out and could walk on water as he started to notice the storm that was raging around him he started to sink and he cried out lord save me if it feels like we're in a storm today it's no less than the one the disciples faced and the only way we can weather the storm is by stepping out of our boat with our eyes fixed on the risen Jesus the time we're passing through is serving as a summons to a coterie of catechist evangelists and witnesses willing to give their lives to the great task before them best the challenge and that's the great opportunity good thanks it gives you a little flavor of the video again it's about 27 28 minutes long it's not quite finalized but almost there remember back in June I addressed a couple of questions namely who are the unaffiliated and secondly why are they leaving so today I want to talk about the third and that's the structure for this video by the way those three simple questions who are they why are they leaving how do we get them back so today I wanted to say a few things about that third question how do we get them back and you saw the the five paths I'll be laying out adumbrated in the video so here's the first one the first recommendation I make walk the path of justice and get young people involved in the path of justice now you don't need me to come here to tell you that young people especially have a difficult time with the church's sexual teaching that comes through in survey after survey and it's we know it through common experience however the same surveys consistently show that young people get and resonate with the church's great teaching on justice they resonate with our outreach to the poor and the hungry and the homeless and the migrants and the unborn and the imprisoned they understand it they resonate with it they like it so I think we should lead with the churches great tradition on justice now we know it well stretching from the Hebrew prophets through Jesus himself into the great Fathers of the Church think of Ambrose and Chrysostom and these extraordinary things they say about service to the poor coming up into Thomas Aquinas and then into the great papal encyclical tradition going from Lila 13th and all the way to Francis we have a very powerful tradition around doing the works of justice and young people like that they get it they resonate with it I think we should lead with it we should talk about Dorothy day talk about Thomas Merton talk about Jacmel eat and talk about Reynold Hill bran talked about mother Teresa of Calcutta rose Hawthorne not to mention Francis of Assisi Martin de Porres Bartolome de las casas etc etc I mean we know this tradition we should propagate it and even lead with it because it draws young people to us read the surveys over and over again you'll find this motif more important still it seems to me get them involve themselves in the works of justice and that links them to the church get them involved in in soup Lyons and Catholic Worker houses and prison ministry and outreach to the homebound and community organizing and care for immigrants at cetera et cetera the more involved they are and again studies show it massively the more involved they are in this work that the closer they stay to the life of a church staying with the Church Fathers for a second that wonderful story told about Gregory the wonder-worker when he was a young man he came to origin himself and he said I want to learn your doctrine Origen said first come and live our life and then you'll know our doctrine from the inside yes to the path of justice leading to truth or think of Jared Manley Hopkins the great judge wood poet he was approached by a young man who was struggling with the faith he wanted advice and Hopkins said give alms so before he got to argumentation he said give alms enter into the work of justice I think that is still very much a recommended path can I just say something that I mentioned the church's sexual teaching I don't mean to shunt that to the side for a moment I'm a very faithful disciple of my great predecessor as rector of Mundelein Reynold Hillenbrand rector moneyline back in the 1930s and 40s who was the great advocate of the social justice tradition and then in the 1960s was a great advocate of humanity vitae and and articulated a close relationship between social justice and the church's sexual teaching so that's right and that's true it seems to me but leading with the path of justice I think works really well with young people second path I'd recommend the via pulchritudinous I'm using Pope Francis's phrase they're the way of beauty I had the privilege a couple years ago of contributing to a symposium on the intellectual formation of Pope Francis and I wrote a paper on Gaston facade who is a mid twentieth century of French Jesuit who had a big impact on bergoglio's generation of Jesuits but in the course that research of course I came you know across Gordini most of us know that connection in fact I think law da Tosi read it right off of letters from Lake Como 1920 of Gordini we know de Loup box influence but I think an underplayed influence on Pope Francis is Hans arose von Balthasar who of course makes the beautiful his starting point well you see it now very clearly in a lot of writings of Francis but especially in evangelii gaudium the Via pulchritudinous I mean today let's face especially young people they don't particularly like being told what to do they don't like being told what to think because we're a very postmodern culture where there's my truth and your truth there's your way doing it my way doing it don't impose things on me so young people especially balk at that but see what's so winsome and attractive about the via pulchritudinous is I'm not telling you what to think or do I'm showing you just look at the Sistine Chapel just look at the San Chapelle just read Dante just see how Flannery O'Connor's stories are working thanks be to God and to John of Damascus we have this great tradition of beauty within our Catholic heritage use it young people I think respond very readily to it what's it look like more concretely you know how beautiful are our churches how beautiful our liturgical spaces or make it more pointed for people today how beautiful are our websites so for a lot of the people that we're trying to reach out to that's their main portal to the faith they're gonna find us through websites how beautiful are they are they just dull texts and information that's not gonna bug dial their imaginations beauty is a great path to follow how do we as a church I wonder about this engage the great artists of our own time you know as famously we did in the course of our history we engage the greatest of the writers and the poets and the painters and so on what's our engagement as leaders of the church of the finest artists of our own time I think it's a good challenge for the church and it's a way into the minds and hearts of young people a third path and now I know you've heard me on this a lot I've been banging this drum for a long time we have to stop dumbing down the faith so this is the intellectual path if you want I think I've made it over the earth sufficiently clear that we now have at least two generations that have received a pretty intellectually inadequate formation in Catholicism and this has been in my judgment a pastoral disaster and you can see it again in study after study of young people the people that were interested in reaching they have so many questions that have remained unanswered for them and for many of them I hear from them every single day in my internet work what's religion it's stupid it's irrational it's pre-scientific nonsense it's Bronze Age mythology they use all the phrases of the New Atheists of course it breaks your heart is we have yes a beautiful tradition but we have a very smart tradition but we've not it seems to me communicated that effectively to our young people and it leaves a lot of their questions unanswered which is causing them enormous difficulty you know I'll use the language of Francis again here to my mind this is simply one of the key ways that we accompany people anyone that accompanies young people know that they're filled with questions I hear them every day in my work I'll give you a recent example I think last June I mentioned this to you reddit is a very popular website one of most popular in the world and it's a forum for the exchange of ideas so think of like Hyde Park Corner or the Areopagus but now updated to the Internet so you can exchange views it's very popular website there's something on it called the reddit AMA which means ask me anything so it's like a quad liberal question from the Middle Ages just Here I am ask me anything so I did one about a year ago and I just did a second one a few months ago the one I that my first one was the third most popular reddit AMA of the of the previous year this last one was number two I was just after Beto O'Rourke and right ahead of Bernie Sanders now I say that not say oh are now famous because I'm sure 98% of the people on it had no idea who I was but you announce yourself I did it this way I'm a Catholic bishop who loves dialoguing with atheists agnostics and non-believers well 15 thousand questions later that's in about two hours fifteen thousand questions came through and it's very interesting to go on reddit you need galoshes and rubber gloves I mean it's a pretty messy space you want to get through a lot of just silliness and obscenity and all that but but once you're past then some very clear patterns emerge and I've seen it my own work but who is God how do you know there's a God can you possibly prove there's a god doesn't science disprove God I mean just thousands of questions along those lines secondly to no one's surprise the problem of evil how can there be a God if there's if they're suffering the world third typical I think of our time how do you know your religions right aren't there a thousand different religions how could you get up and say yours is right fourth issue actuality especially homosexuality and transgenderism so I mean 15,000 questions and you can discern very clear patterns well we got a smart tradition and I think providing good answers to honest questions is a major part of accompaniment something that we brought up a lot at the youth Synod last year was the Emmaus image so here's Jesus walking with the disciples and doing all these wonderful things like walking with them even as they walk in the wrong direction listening to them yes indeed what are you talking about if you go on the way non-judgmental accompanying all those wonderful things and then at a key moment Jesus teaches and then their hearts caught fire we're not our hearts burning within us as he explained the scriptures to us on the way so to my mind that's all just part of a process of accompaniment and presenting a smart version of Catholicism is key to it let me just on this one end with a quick little story I have a nephew who's now in his second year at MIT super smart kid so he's studying physics and math at the highest level I asked him at the end of his first year hey drew did you feel ready day one to take your MIT classes I mean you should Maya and kudos to his high school it was a public high school outside Chicago kudos to his teachers that readied this kid for the highest level math and physics but you know I started to muse after that would even in our own Catholic programs of education would we ready a kid for the toughest highest level of theological study as he or she begins college and if not why not you know so I think the intellectual path after those of Justice and beauty is a key one here's the fourth path that we've discerned turn every parish into a Missionary Society now we've been hearing a lot about this because it's been a central theme from cry the council through the council into the great hopes and the New Evangelization all the way to Pope Francis we heard the new CEO talk about it this morning if I can use the jargon term to move us from maintenance to Mission you know I grew up of course in a Catholic parish did I naturally think that my task now was to go forth as a missionary frankly no I mean I think I like a lot of Catholics thought of it know its place I came to attend Mass fulfill my obligation receive the sacraments and that's doing pretty well which you know it is that is a good thing but moving from that into a missionary model go back to or as von Balthasar in the 50s who writes a book called raising the bass shows Raz ing and that was the idea was to knock down the walls behind what the church was crouching too much now john xxiii bring the lumen to the gentes it's all of Vatican 2 now the new evangelization of John Paul the second and Benedict and then read that wonderful sermon that Pope Francis gave to priests on a chrism day many years ago we said the oil of our ordination should run down our heads onto our garments even to the very fringe of the garment that it might then go out to the world and an oil that remains stuck to our garments becomes rancid well that's the same idea seems to me is that our very priesthood has a missionary structure and purpose I think a dialogue with our priests and our people how do we turn our parishes into mission societies that go forth you know in the Pope spoke not long ago about getting out of our sacristy and he was construed by some as you know making an anti liturgical remark I don't think it was anti a liturgical I think it was simply making this point the the young people aren't going to come to us typically that was even true I think at the youth senate last year as we were talking about this issue very often the focus was on how we improve our programs and I thought well fine but the people were trying to reach are not naturally coming to us we have to go out to them and so turning the parish into a mission society and that leads now to the fifth and the final path I'll talk about is this creative use of the new media it's something I said it you said it a couple times was precisely at the moment when we're facing this crisis of disaffiliation through God's providence I would say we have the means for the first time to reach massively into that world so yes they're not going to come readily to our programs institutions but using this tool which didn't exist even 10 years ago we can now reach into their world there's a wonderful that the term they use a lot is sticky there's a sticky quality to things you put on social media meaning it goes out there and someone gets stuck to it and that sticks him to something else and sticks them to something else and before you know it you've drawn the person in but it might be in the most circuitous way so I maybe you've heard me tell stories before about videos on Bob Dylan that I've done over the years and religious themes and Bob Dylan's and there's this young man that wrote to his years ago he said he hated the Catholic Church he hated priests but he loved Bob Dylan and he was searching and up came my video with the Roman collar and he said I wanted to delete you immediately but you were talking about something I found interesting which led him to another video to another and then finally to in his case a real reengagement with the church that's the power of the social media and I think we're all coming to know of those it's a tool that we can and should use to reach out to this world something I've said before I do think brothers that we should invest a lot of time and money in getting really good people to work our social media to spend the money and to spend the the effort to get someone in place who can really use this tool creatively someone that knows the culture knows how to reach it knows how to engage it but also who knows the Catholic tradition that's why I've recommended send someone for doctoral studies but not to teach in the seminary or a university but to run the social media outreach I think ideally every parish but maybe it's a it's a cluster of parishes could have someone who's really good at this kind of engagement that's how you draw folks in it seems to me that we're trying to target okay so just to draw to a conclusion and just to show there's nothing really new Under the Sun think of those first three paths are the three trans metals so justice that's the good then we go to the beautiful and we come to the truth so the three great trans annals now born by the great inspiration of Vatican 2 and the New Evangelization and Francis is going to the margins and then finally using I think the prime tool to do precisely that work in the social media so those are the five paths that the video ends recommending I gave a summary of it here and I reminisce with your permission if I could invite up to the podium three people you saw them feature in that little trailer there in the video first you know him well dr. Romano Espino from Boston College it was in our video please come on up dr. Hass Pino and then miss Julianne stands he was a consult or to the evangelization catechesis committee she's director of parish life and evangelization in the Green Bay diocese has written extensively and spoken a lot on these issues of evangelization and finally Brandon Vaught also a consultant to our committee and author of eight books all around the issue of evangelizing especially his own millennial generation so what I'd like to do if it's okay remin says now open it up for conversation questions directed either to me but you've heard a lot for me but I really prefer directing to these three good people behind me and just so we have a chance to talk through this issue a bit which i think is of prime importance for all of us thanks Bishop Baron thank you very much for the presentation the the three parity are behind us and the floor is open to you we'll call on you and then you can direct your question somebody has Sam Bishop Conlon Oh bishop Khan said I'm sorry yes we've heard this statement before that the average age that a person is leaving is 13 I'm just wondering if somebody could explain that a little bit more it's I've heard it but I haven't heard any details about it it seems a little surprising on the surface of it yeah a lot of us were surprised because the standard thing was more late teens are into the 20s maybe late high school but it has definitely moved down all the surveys show it Brandon what's the best explanation for them yeah that specific to Cystic comes from this latest Kara study the catholic research apostolate they did a study called going going gone i've highly recommend reading it but they found the median age so you got to qualify that the median age is 13 at which a young person begins to stop identifying as Catholic doesn't mean they stop going to Mass maybe their parents are still dragging them along but they've made a conscious decision not to identify as Catholic when we look at the the anecdotal responses in that survey when they're asked well why why did you drop the label it's a lot of this stuff echoed in the other surveys well I stopped believing you know my parents just took me but I never really understood why I went to mass faith in science it's illogical it's not common sense I'm bored at mass it's a lot of typical reasons but I think for all of us it's alarming to see the age that low this means we can't wait till high school to address this can't wait till college these are middle schoolers and even younger that are hemorrhaging from the church Bishop Coyne Thank You Bishop Baron and your committee this a lot of good food for thought here two points one point and then a question one first point is that we're also seeing a lot of disaffiliation with older boomers yeah I can't begin to tell you how many people like a migrated extended family of cousins who I thought were chill still church goers who are my age who arts anymore they've disaffiliated from any religion and I'm finding that within my own peers of and the people who are 60 years old 55 60 years old so the disaffiliation is is is really starting to ramp up the second thing is did you have you given any consideration to the fact that especially among millennials and even younger people they're not they tend to be very mobile at a presentation by Catholic Leadership Institute last January they said that Millennials by the time they turn 40 have moved 17 times now that may be sometimes within the same city yeah but it's within a state or out of a state they there are those that join parishes because they're stable but most of them don't join parishes and even though young people who are practicing Catholics don't tend to necessarily go to the same parish every weekend they'll go where they can go to the five o'clock Mass on Sunday or it's they'll go to the Saturday Mass on Saturday evening because it fits their schedule but they don't join parishes and so I'm wondering have we can we consider new ways of being in the church that doesn't necessarily identify with a parish could we think of maybe even going back to some of the movements that have been our history you know the devotional more dire and and even some of the other 13th or 14th century affiliations with the church that were across the spectrum that work outside of the parish let me just give me an example yeah I've still got three minutes have we considered each diocese having in every one of our catheter cities or big cities like a guild or a group that's named after a saint you know like that what's that young man who died in Italy in nineteen thirties Pierre thank you if you call it that and you say in every diocese around the country on Sunday evening at six o'clock there's you can come to this place for the pier for scottie committee community guild and you can be with other young people and they have mass but you know that no matter where you go in the United States there's gonna be that guild you know what time they meet you know what they do you know the affiliations there yeah I'm just saying it's like can we have you given any thought to thinking outside the box of the paradigms that we've been using thank you thanks for both those observations and I it comes to my mind as Cardinal martini back in what several decades ago but it's in the Milan Cathedral having these gatherings on Sunday night where they would they do lectio divina or he would preach and it was in a more informal setting and young people could come in a maybe non-threatening non threatened way to this very beautiful site with a lot of historical resonance but I think today especially its online is where young people live and we can create now and it's not community in the perfect sense of course but something approaching community can be created online where people can talk to each other and find a sort of mutual support or connection and yes outside the box or outside the usual program now we want to get them to parishes and we want to get them to mass into the Eucharist of course but as a first step I think that's so one way to do it so I have I have a friend who's a young woman and I noticed that I would see her at various parishes throughout the diocese and so I asked her which parish she actually belonged to and she looked at me like that was just a foreign question to her and she said I'm multi parishioner I just go wherever there's something good going on but but she asked a very penetrating question after that she said you know what is the actual benefit to somebody's life in joining a parish and it and I leaned into the question a little bit and she said you know if something happens God willing and I pass away what are the actual benefits to my life right now I think we have to do a much better job in helping our parishes reach out with a new order in looking at our parishes as being a sanctuary of sanctuaries which is what Pope Francis said where the thirsty can come to drink and our parish has become a space and a base to mobilize for mission so I do agree that there is a place for apostolate and they're remarkably effective with young adults but renewal should not happen just outside of the parish it should be the parish should be renewed as that space where we can employ a missionary mindset because I think the question that we often ask is how do we get all those people out there but the missionary mindset is how do we get our people who are already with us and equip them for mission so that they can reach out to their friends their nieces their nephews who are no longer practicing their faith so I suggest that it's it's probably a two-fold response Archbishop Sheehan Thank You Bishop Baron I want to thank you for your tremendous leadership with new evangelization years ago I was chairman of the evangelization committee and I worked very hard my whole life to promote evangelization reaching out to the unchurched helping them to get back and I want to thank you for your wonderful leadership your wonderful programs that you put together through the last few years you've been a tremendous example for all of us and I for one am very very grateful to you Bishop Baron for your tremendous leadership in this area of the New Evangelization thank you very very much bishop Belisario thank you Bishop Baron I have a question for you you spoke a little bit about the experience of Emmaus and I'm just wondering in the your five steps there how does that personal encounter with the Lord fit into it the importance of person having that in that experience with Lord and all of those things a person can be involved in justice without really experiencing the Lord and yet we know for instance the jvc and other organizations and my own founder st. Vincent DePaul was very very adamant about the importance of seeing Christ and the people we serve and his missionary activities solely getting people into the pews or is it having them experience the Lord so that they become part of the community yeah you know quite right it's the second thing and these are our means to an end you know their ways of drawing people to Christ and so when when Hopkins said to his friend you know who lost his faith give arms it was a first step because by giving arms you participate in charity which God is and so it'll start you on a path same with the beautiful I think of Cardinal Luce TJ who's kind of a hero of mine he was Archbishop of Paris when I was a student there many years ago and was converted as a young Jewish kid walking into one of the great Gothic cathedrals so maybe that visit wasn't an encounter with Christ but it was a very important opening of a door so we're talking about people who are very alienated from the church disaffiliated if you were to talk immediately about a relationship with Jesus Christ they would know what you mean they'd say what with some mythic figure from long ago like a storybook character so I think we have to draw them in through these other means but right the purpose is to bring them into friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ and especially around the Eucharist but I think we have to start sometimes slow we're start where people are and they're often very far from that relationship with the Lord Bishop Daniel Conlon just an observation first and then a question the observation is that in recent bulletins from Kara there was a report on some research that was done that younger people in particular are very uncomfortable with people speaking about their own religious faith they believe that it's an insult to talk about your own faith that somehow that makes you superior I think this has to be taken into consideration the difference between proselytizing and giving witness it's for us you know it's a delicate matter you know how what is one and what is the other and I'm sure perhaps some of the people there or yourself might want to comment on that but as we go forward we really have to be clear about how what we're doing in that regard the question that I have has to do with the way we're organized in the conference and Bishop Belisario points out a point you you referenced the fact that good catechesis somewhere down the line is a very important part of this it was one of your one or two actually of your points yeah you know I get frustrated particularly at the high school level we have youth what they call Youth administration there really is no catechesis you know there's a lot of a lot of good works a charity that are done there's also a lot of good popcorn parties but you know so it really does have to be improved upon so my my question is what given how important both evangelization and catechesis are you know what do we be better off in the conference to have two separate committees well I want to keep them together I think you'll be evangelizing catechesis the phrase we use now and the new GDC I think will emphasize that very strongly so it's not just informational or maybe and not just an aggressive sort of imposition of ideas but really does have that sense of drawing people into communion with the Lord I mean I go your first question I go back to John Paul we never impose only propos but but even to press your point further which is a good one people today often will see religious faith as just by its very nature and imposition because who are you to tell me what's right you know if you start announcing your faith well then you think you're better than I am and you think you know more than I do that's why you have to do it very very carefully and often indirectly so what I've tried to do in my work is you know start with the culture and find a motif that's already embedded in the culture and bring that out so it doesn't sound like oh here's my ideal which I want you to have so you're right we got to be very delicate about that but I guess I'd like to keep the evangelizing catechesis together I wonder if dr. Rose Pino could address some of that something that we need to keep in mind is that many of these questions that we are asking are asked primarily from a middle upper-class perspective and also we are asking questions about those who are already in Catholic schools those Catholics young Catholics who are going to religious education programs let me bring the Latino perspective for one moment we have a challenge in the United States of America right now in the Catholic Church when we speak about catechesis education and evangelization we know for a fact that about 60% of all Catholics under 18 are Hispanic however only 4% of Hispanic Catholic children who are school-age are enrolled in Catholic schools about 10% of Hispanic children or Roman Catholic are enrolled in religious education programs so one concern is how do we improve the quality of catechesis an evangelization for those young women and men who are Latinos but it also applies to African American to immigrants from Africa Asia in other parts of the world the biggest challenge is gonna be how do we still retain those millions of Roman Catholic young people women and men who are who are still Catholic but they are on the fringes and they are not being reached out either by Catholic education by catechesis or by youth ministry and that's one of the challenges that we need to keep in mind especially looking at the relationship between catechesis and evangelists and evangelization as we move forward Archbishop sample I would also like to add my thanks to you Bishop Baron and those have been working with you this is a tremendous wonderful important work for the church today as you were talking I was remembering back at the oddly mint of visits in 2012 when we visited the Pontifical Council for the new evangelization I remember at that time very vividly being told that the New Evangelization was essentially being looked upon as as being waged if you will on three fronts and those three fronts I relate very much to those three transcendentals that you always refer to Bishop Baron in your work you know that the one was that whole front of catechesis and Faith Formation are obviously related to the truth sort of as a vehicle for that for the truth then you know talking about the liturgy as a vehicle if you will of the New Evangelization how beauty that transcendental is reflected in in the liturgy so beautifully and and by the way I think that you know there's there's a real area where we need to give a lot of thought in terms of that transcendent of beauty I think are the a lot of the young people I talk to and run into are very taken with with beauty when it's expressed in the liturgy whether it be in the architecture and the environment you know sacred music and I think we've been presuming a lot of things for a lot of years about what appeals to young people and I think maybe we need to rethink some of that and then finally the third front being the works of mercy as our witnesses to the Corporal and spiritual works of mercy as related to to that transcendent of goodness so I I just I just see this lining up very nicely with you know kind of where where Benedict Lee and has spoken on those three fronts but now Francis has taken to this whole idea of missionary discipleship and that's really what I'd like to ask the question is I'm very excited about evangelization especially looking at our parishes as evangelist and vandalizing missionary societies to create missionary disciples yeah I guess the challenge is how do we do that you know I think that it was been alluded to already that you know we have to set the the hearts of our people on fire first that we have in the church into to help them see their role I remember when st. John Paul the second when he wrote novo Milenio in the unti at the beginning of the new millennium he spoke of you know they use that image of the reaks coming to Philip we wish to see Jesus he said and he says this is what the people of today are asking of us they want us to show them Jesus not to tell them about Jesus yeah but to show them Jesus and he says but that's the task of the church in the new millennium is to let the light of Christ's face shine before the generations of the new millennium but he said that our task would be hopelessly inadequate if we ourselves had not first contemplated his face and and I think that I'd be interested to know if you have any ideas about how do we do that in in in the parish communities to help people come to a deeper life in Christ themselves in order to inspire them to to want to share the good news of life and faith in Christ yeah I'm gonna turn to Brandon because Brandon and Julian who wants to respond because you both have written I met I think one of the challenges in our parishes is to equip people for mission and to help our parishioners understand what missionary discipleship means and what looks like in their own life and then I would add that looking at Jesus's own methodology has to be our starting point Jesus himself had a process of disciple making which was fruitful we know that we're here today because of that we rest on 2,000 years of tradition and so I think looking at Jesus's discipleship making process his first step was to spend time in prayer with his father and discern who to choose and I think as you look at your parishes as spaces of communion there are already disciples who are there waiting to be energized and equipped for mission and so a lot of times we emphasize very large gatherings in the church and those are fine but we also have to balance that with the one-on-one disciple making that Jesus did and also small group I think that there are three avenues for us in a sense to look at in terms of our parishes there's still tremendous hunger in our culture for the message of Jesus but also for him self and a lot of our methodologies around catechesis have focused on an overly instructional response focus on what and how and our young people today they can Google a lot of what in how're they can enter into conversation about that but what they can't Google is the WHO and the why of why you are Catholic and what you stand for and that one-on-one conversation is tremendously important to a culture that's really struggling with things like mental health issued issues the opioid crisis and so to speak the gospel into people's real needs and their hunger that's a huge opportunity for us in our parishes just add a quick note Bishop Baron said at the beginning and I think all of us here would agree that if the number one problem the church right now is the abuse crisis this is pretty close on its heels that we're hemorrhaging people at such extraordinary numbers the most recent pew religious landscape survey found that for every one person that becomes Catholic not including baptisms six-and-a-half people drop the label not including deaths so every one person that walks in the front door six-and-a-half people walk out the back door so it's not just about plug in the hole to make sure people aren't leaving it's about going out to get all those people that have already left and I think one thing to consider is just as most dioceses and parishes now have designated full-time people to address the abuse crisis whether they be places victims can come whether they handle the legal or the procedural ramifications perhaps it's time to consider for each parish and diocese assigning a point person whose job is to figure out how our diocese can reach all the Catholics that have left this diocese or at our parish with this person's job is to reach out to all the parishioners that no longer show up if it's that big of a priority I think we need to emphasize it with our resources Archbishop Naaman yes thanks Bishop Aaron I just want to speak to the point that you made about helping our parishes become missionary I think the model that the conference provided us in the convocation of Catholic leaders at least for our delegation was a very powerful one and when we went back to Kansas City we discerned that we wanted to do something similar there just this past October with two years of planning because we had to have our priests not scheduled weddings and other events on this particular weekend and people had to take a day off of work of many of our laypeople we did have a similar convocation it was called inflame our hearts we were hoping to get maybe a thousand to twelve hundred people we had over we had close to sixteen hundred people at it and it truly was a powerful experience we and we we adapted what we experienced at the convocation but there was like our own experience there was a preparation the pastor's were asked to choose a delegation so our hope was to surround the pastor with a group of people to help him in this evangelization and to choose not to choose the emerging leaders as well as those and we had a hundred percent participation of our parishes which that itself is a miracle in my experience and and we we've focused on also that this as was just said that Jesus own evangelization there were the crowds there were the 72 there were the twelve and there were the three and to ask every person there to think who are who are your 12 who are your three that you can really influence anyway I mean it's to eat too early to tell what the impact will be on our parishes but I'm very hopeful for it there's a number of follow-ups but it's to inflame our hearts to grow closer to Jesus ourselves and flame our families and then inflame our communities we also had 30 Protestant pastors that came and prayed at the convocation for us and for our initiative which was very powerful and very moving but I want to thank the conference for the the convocation and it really gave us a model for something that I'm very hopeful it's going to have a huge impact in our diocese Thanks yeah thank you for that Bishop Pfeiffer Bishop Baron thank you for your fine presentation your comments focused mainly on young people who are leaving the church in Rhodes and one Bishop just mentioned and I've read this too it starts even at the age of 13 I've also read as you know that today our youth come from 40% come from broken homes even higher maybe 50% I'd like to add to your transcendentals another quality that's much more imminent and down-to-earth and that is programs of parental love first of all maternal love and for health and experience a maternal love helped them to come to know Mary she will lead them back to her son she will lead them back to the church young people especially when we talk about apparitions they fall in love with Mary because she's right down to earth and most of our apparitions are to children and I think we really need to promote much more maternal love for these young people because before we can reach the mine we have to reach the heart and nobody touches a heart like a mother and I really think we need to bring Mary our mother our maternal mother much more deeper into this whole effort of being missionary and evangelization I would like to see us set up as we had many years ago more programs of devotion to Mary and also have in our parishes you talked about bringing people together have programs that bring broken families together with their children and focus on the maternal dimension because those families that are broken the vast majority are led by a woman a poor woman who's trying to be a mother having a job and raising a family so I think there's many ways to spell it out but I'll stop with that we need to bring the maternal dimension into this especially bring Mary into this picture yeah Thank You Bishop for that because it reminded me of something I overlooked in my presentation which was if I applaud for the two but under the rubric of the beautiful I was talking more at the high level there of you know Sistine Chapel and Dante but both john paul ii and pope francis are very strong on popular religiosity and the forms of the beautiful that manifests themselves in processions and apparitions and statues and local customs and all event and that is a way in for a lot of people but i wonder if dr. you know maybe could say more about that certainly for many for many catholics in the united states of american we see this particularly in the context of the Latino community Asian communities popular Catholicism sustains the lives of the spiritual lives of many Catholics and something that we have I have found out important in the research about what happens in parishes is that many young Catholics even though they may not be thrilled about going to Mass on a regular basis young Hispanic Catholics thrilled about going to Mass on a regular basis of receiving the sacraments or participating actively in the life of the church they still remain remain Catholic through practices of popular religion from their parents one of the challenges that we have right now is that many pastors unfortunately many lay pastoral leaders are not appropriately trained to support these practices to support him in in in in in the in the context of the parish the same happens in terms of ecclesial movements you'll see you Catholic Charismatic renewal Neocatechumenal way and many others are injecting a new life in our parishes in sustaining their lives in the faith of many of our communities yet know our pastoral leaders not always sound supportive of the of these practices so I think that you know no I mean it's difficult to disagree with Bishop Baron and the proposal of this way of beauty however the way of beauty already exists in many in many of these communities through these practices and through these movements the question is that we need to insist in the formation of our seminarians the formation of our lake little ministers in the formation of our deacons how to support these practices and devotions in movements next we have about twelve more on the list wanting to talk obviously this is of some interest to you what I would ask you brothers is make your interventions short and sweet with a question or an observation and if you think you're repeating what others have said you might want to forego it we'd like to get everyone in in terms of the time for this analysis our next person I'm a Sarah Bishop sotto thank you my concern was already addressed Archbishop good Jack mr. Probert I want to thank you for something others heaven thank you and heaven thank you and that's the modeling of how to speak today's church with the three laypeople going back and forth it's not top-down it's not you know just clerical I think we've got a long long way in developing a discourse that you're modeling whether consciously or just naturally I'm grouping from my question a little bit but it was mentioned that Jesus had different ways of speaking in different ways of evangelizing in different group sizes but in the end they were very few Paul had very few in those churches I live encountered and studied the underground church in Ukraine it was half of one percent of the pre-war systemic population and I wonder how much fixated are we on statistics and systems we're doing good if there's a lot of people you know there were we all wanted I mean we all rejoice we all we all cite it when it's on our side especially but I don't think that really is is how Providence works Jesus says you are the salt you can't have a lot of salt in any dish it spoils it you're the yeast you can't make a piece of bread out of yeast if if God our soteriology I think does not take into real consciousness the sense that the the point that God came into this world long after he created it and he revealed his son not to everybody you know at the same time and I think we're our failure is often because we want it all and we want it we want a system we want high statistics and when when those are primary criteria the heart-to-heart you know it just doesn't happen it just doesn't happen because we've got other priorities things take time why did we suddenly realize why did the church realize that it's time to canonize John Henry Newman did he suddenly become great did people suddenly start reading him 120 years after his death there's there's a lot of mystery in this and I think we need to open up our our stance and stand and be silent because our our compulsion to find the answers and find the forms and get the system down I think is a really getting in our way well I'd say a couple things one is I read the biblical principle it's it's the few for the sake of the many it's not the few for its own sake that's to say Israel's chosen one small nation among many but for the sake of the world the twelve are chosen for the say cult Emilia of the world think of Paul on the Areopagus and this handful of people that heard him everyone laughed and walked away but that handful of people is a seed of European Christianity which then becomes the Christianity goes all over the world so I think that's the principle it's not the few for the sake of the few but few for the sake of the many and then to your second point I quite agree with you if things get kind of overly systematized or here's my program just follow this you'll be fine what I'm proposing our paths let's call them the five of them the Quin qui VA there are five paths five suggestions five ways we might begin to approach so I agree with you I'd be loath to think well here's our little neat tidy program that will then lead to the conversion of the world it's more here are five paths I think would be useful in reaching out to people that are alienated from the church but I am fine with the with the I mean Newman himself says that why did Jesus not appear to everybody because he wanted a forceful missionary band Newman says the people that knew him and loved him and got him he appeared to them that they might then be the spearhead of evangelizing the world so that's how I look at that Bishop Strickland followed by Bishop Duke Oh in my experience will first Thank You Bishop Baron especially for the film the video I think it's excellent I look forward to seeing the whole thing in my experience with young people they love a challenge and then we have a small Catholic High School ninety percent of those kids are involved in sports because they find challenges there I think the sporting world is an area we can explore I wanted to ask specifically Julianne question I liked her part of the video and the enthusiasm there specifically with number three we have to stop dumbing the faith down if you think about challenge to live the fullness of the Roman Catholic tradition living as a disciple of Jesus Christ if we embrace all of that everything in the Catechism the whole history it's the most challenging path the narrow path that any of us could take I'd like to hear Julian speak a bit about how do we raise the bar for young people rather than letting it go further down it's a great question I think about my four-year-old son right now and he is interested in jellyfish and he is learning all the complex terminology he knows that the smallest jellyfish is that you know congi he's four and he's mastering a lot of complex terminology as a parent I'm not I'm not just teaching him about jellyfish by reading books with him that's part of the story but we're visiting aquariums or watching documentaries I think in looking at our katha catechol endeavors we rely on a very programmatic methodology and we have to be able to recognize that disciples make disciples programs are a springboard books are a springboard as part of a methodology if you look at the GDC for example there are a number of methodologies that are given to us media human experience strong teaching discipleship discipleship is a way of life and in a lot of our parishes for example we have the challenge of a September through May classroom framework which automatically puts our children in a framework where they see faith as a subject to be taught rather than a relationship to be lived and so I absolutely agree that we need very very strong catechesis and this is the the great genius of evangelization and catechesis absolutely going hand-in-hand because the aim of catechesis as we're told in the general directory is to promote intimacy with Christ but how can our children be intimate with Jesus if they've never been introduced to him and so I think we can strengthen our katha catechol endeavors but our evangelization work we have to give that as much attention especially when we consider that the majority of our are Catholic parishioners are in a stage of pre evangelization meaning that they have not had an encounter with Jesus they should okay Bishop dukkha followed by Bishop Higgins as I see the question Christian there how do we get them back the question comes to mind it sounds may be self-evident but why do we want them back I say that only because it goes to the whole reason that we call the zeal for souls and you know what I think about a lot of the things I learned growing up you know go to Mass on Sunday because well it's a mortal sin if you don't go to Mass so you have that obligation built-in I don't remember that remember really talking about the joy of the gospel growing up although I don't didn't particularly find it not joyful but it was one of those situations where the question goes why because as if it really is to bring them into connection with Jesus Christ then there may need to be things that we don't hold them to right away I mean there's a journey an accompaniment that has to be part of that second that's just kind of a statement that maybe you can relate to talk about the second thing would be I just picked it up when she was talking about evangelizing children how do you find a child when you the parents are not evangelized right so is it a matter of banja lysing the family at one point as well but that whole point of of how we present the gospel even to our people that are in the pews as more obligation I think I said it last time you know what if we were to one day say okay it's no longer in mortal sin not to go to Mass on Sunday a lot of people don't believe that anyway you know but all of a sudden now it's just you know I don't that's not the right way but you see the obligation gets taken away what happens to our faith so that's a more deeper question but anyway I just think that I appreciate that I've wrestle with it myself both theologically and practically I think the basic answer is always I've got something that's so wonderful that's so beautiful that's so joyful so life-giving I want to share it with you so it's under that rubric always that we evangelize out of our sense of of joy now having said that is there always some role that obligation plays well yeah if you want to live this life that I've shared with you then I find so uplifting and so joy producing if you want to live it it's got a certain structure and if you live out of line with that structure it's gonna get you out of touch with the thing that gives you joy you know so we're very happy in terms of the physical dimension to say these behaviors are mortally dangerous you eat nothing but you know greasy food you've never exercised you smoke four packs a day you're in mortal danger you're gonna lose the life that you find wonderful the same thing applies doesn't it I mean so I you know I love Jesus Christ with all my heart but I never go to Mass never receive the Eucharist well that's a that's a mortally dangerous situation you're in danger of losing contact with the very Christ that I've declared you so I don't think we have to eliminate the language of obligation but everything's under the aegis always a you know evangelii gaudium it's always that I want to share the joy of it but that joyful life has a structure and it's okay to tell people about that I think Bishop Higgins followed by Bishop Kelly I'm concerned about a statistic we all heard earlier today about the roughly 60% of our people that identify as Catholic do not believe in the real presence yeah seven so yeah so when we turn around speaking about mission oriented parishes and turning them into activities like that how many of us have watched roughly 20% of the folks who come to Mass leave either at communion or right having received Communion and take their kids with them out of the parking lot before we have a chance to send them forth on mission yeah so I think we need to go back and recap guys the real presence this folks is a reality this is not a symbol it's not a cookie it's Jesus Christ oh I absolutely agree and I think we are I hope as a conference gonna move in that direction and really do something about this issue because that alarmed me I must say I read these polls and surveys all the time and that one got my attention because it wasn't 70 percent of just the country as a whole hey what a Catholics think about the Eucharist it was asking Catholics what our doctrine is at 70 percent said it's a symbol yeah I think it's a very serious problem and I do think we should address it absolutely Bishop Kelly followed by Archbishop Cordell a young agree if this ship strictly I'm looking forward to seeing the whole film doctor Espino touched a little bit on my question I was just worrying about the the impact of movements like the Neocatechumenal way like focal re like community of all this proliferation of movements and even in the diocese of Dallas a lot of just you know larger than parish organizations a charismatic group and all these different groups that how do they fit into this overall effort of getting people back it seems like they have some impact but I've just want to get your reflections on how you see that their impact yeah wants to address that my primary exposure to the apostolic attrition movement has been through my work with the Latino community we know that in the United States of America about 50% of parishes have at least one group associated with the Catholic Charismatic renewal we got millions of Latinos in the United States of America who have gone through the co-ceo process through the Cursillo experience but we also know in the United States of America that many Roman Catholics youth and young adults are exposed to the ecclesial movements in college through campus ministry in universities both secular universities and and in Catholic universities one of the challenges that we face in in basis on the one hand we have a treasurer but much of that treasurer is disconnected from parish life so when many of these young women and men have had the experience of joining either an excellent campus ministry ministry experience in high school or in in a Catholic college or a university through a Newman Center or through focus or other of these initiatives and then they go to their parishes they there's a major drop in terms of participation and the enthusiasm that they have so at some point what we need as part of this process of evangelization is to establish bridges between what is happening in college ecclesial movements what is happening through popular religion what is happening in these different communities and parish life and let's be honest parish life can actually be renewed if it paid more attention to the energy that these movements are bringing Archbishop Corps DeLeon followed by Bishop Nash down thank you to the whole team for an excellent presentation as usual and I would say this is the number one concern people I talk to constantly bring this up even before concern of what's going on with sexual abuse issues so thank you for the presentation we're concerned about how to get them back I think we should also think about how do we prevent from losing them even if they're starting to fall away in high school they're still around so I would suggest we take a page out of the LDS playbook I learned this from conversations with my LDS leadership friends of course they require two years of missionary service of their young people men are required the young ladies are may not all of them do it that they told me that if a young person does those two years of missionary service they know they will stay involved with their church for the rest of their life so I think we need to present these kind of opportunities and encourage them with their young people there are some time between graduation from high school and graduation from college or at least immediately after college there are many such opportunities Bishop Belisario made me think of this when he made a reference to the Jesuit volunteer corps there's focus right after college we know how hugely successful that's been with vocations to priesthood and religious life net ministries hosted a lunch here this afternoon there are many others I think it helps the young people to be more outward focused there have to think of another first give their life to a greater cause a lot of our schools give them these opportunities they have social service projects sometimes they'll take them for a whole week for a missionary experience but many of them still disaffiliate a week isn't enough a year or two years or even five years like with focus certainly will inculcate that sense of service to others and giving their lives to greater cause it's not that we would require it but it's a matter of creating a culture around it there's a cultural expectation that a young person in Catholic circles if they're going to be respected by their peers that just expected that they would have given a year or two of their life to serve the poor or to be involved in some kind of evangelization project so it's basically applying the wisdom from the father's bishop Barry mentioned earlier on your talk first come and live our life and then you will understand our doctrines yeah no can I just in fatica ly agree with that it was many years ago I heard from a LDS leader exactly the same thing saying we're delighted if the kids bring in some people but that's not our purpose our purpose is that they are strengthened in their faith so it's the sending the kid out as a missionary affects him what did Brandon can you say a word about that yeah we've we've studied the LDS community a lot both through Word on fire in on our committee Curtis Martin the president of focus is one of our consultants and when he gave his presentation he made the exact same point he said it's not even about the effectiveness of the missionaries themselves it's about the convictions that are strengthened and deepened within them one thing we've also learned is especially through this reddit Q&A that Bishop Baron did the number of young people that leave their faith upon coming into contact with people that disagree with their religion they were raised Catholic most of the people they know we're Catholic it was taken for granted but then they go off to high school or college and meet atheists and agnostics and people challenged in their religion and that breaks them and so I think to prevent that the Mormon strategy is the right one we need to shape and form them maybe even send them door to door put them in positions where their faith is challenged in and and questioned but forming them beforehand so they're ready for that that way when they go out in the world they won't capitulate the first time they encounter someone who says you know why are you Catholic brothers we have about six more we're basically towards the end of our session so I will those who are still to come I ask you maybe just make one comment or something so we get at least hear from you and then we have to close it off Bishop Ned stop Thank You Bishop Aaron the just the thought in terms of lived experience and lives experience of young people that were called to accompany them in some way and what I have seen or experienced and understand is that among this generation we're trying to reach and those who are losing that they have some characteristics that are seen and kind of evident that they've been told their whole lives they are very special and kind of the center of attention that they've been sheltered and kind of watched over and hovered over in terms of a lot of experience of kind of being watched over by family and parents and others as well that they tend to be much more convential than their parents were in terms of life and activity that they've always experienced high expectations in terms of achievement and that they've experienced kind of this call to inclusion among you know everyone in terms of the diversity around them it seems to be the church has the answer to all that experience which was it resonates with the experience in terms of the specialness the dignity of the human person the sheltered aspect of life that God watches over us as a providential care the conventional kind of experienced all of our traditions and expressions of piety and sacramental life high expectations the call to holiness and virtue and the inclusiveness of merciful mercy and the universal call to holiness as well that around that so we have all that can resonate I guess the question or the thought here is that because they've been so sheltered because there's been kind of an abundance amount so many in terms of their experience of comforts of life and especially in our own American culture they've never really been shaken by a crisis or something that kind of has happened to call into question the meaning of life and to try to find those answers and yet you the church is not you're relevant to that and we're not you know not disinterested in that and we have so much that can resonate with that the Shapiro and I'm going to ask three or four more just to briefly raise a comment and you can finish Bishop is Steve as followed by Bishop George Thomas follow a bishop Rickon followed by Bishop Lowe Verde and Bishop Peres if you would come forward to the mic make a comment or a major pointer question and then sit down and we'll have Bishop Baron summarize this ship is yes bishop Estevez Thank You Bishop Baron for very fine work I have four very brief points the first is that in your leading young people down the path of justice to introduce them to the genius of Catholic social teaching and the school of the poor who are I think some of our finest teachers the second involves the the point that you made around creative use of the media you've used doctor Jing twinkies work extensively my comment is it's important not to allow our young to remain in the cocoon of the virtual world but to be able to mobilize active young Catholics on the other end of the the virtual world to welcome young people they are our best teachers the third comes from Avery Dulles who I used to sit with regularly at the meeting he said many of our young people over many generations are caius but unavenged others are evangelized but i'm catechized we need both and i think you're very very correct in not unhinging those two important values the fourth is in my dialogue with young people over many three diocese is now constantly asking us teach us to pray and john paul described the Eucharist as inestimable a donum our most priceless treasure and I hope that remains the the centerpiece of what we what we ultimately do introducing our young people to the it to the Lord lastly the 19th century Jesuits were very they're ingenious allowing young people to bring the gospel of Jesus into the family and into the the dining table I believe if we are successful in our our project with youth and young adults that they will serve as our best evangelists for the for the home and for adults I think we have a golden opportunity as a conference I hope and pray we don't squander it thank you bishop Rickon followed by Bishop Lou Verde and Bishop Paris I just wanted to remark very quickly there the spiritual nature of this work we've been at this work in Green Bay for about six years very intentionally it's very very hard because it involves deep conversion personal and communal this is the work of the Blessed Mother she did appear here in the United States in 1859 this has been approved by the church since that approval in 2010 the pilgrim numbers have gone up 20% per year she's still doing the work she's the greatest evangelizer ever number two we need to entrust this work to the Holy Spirit this is the work of the Holy Spirit and we always forget the Holy Spirit we can't be doing that anymore in order to face these huge challenges we have to beg the Holy Spirit to lead this of this movement and number three I think it would really help I know I would like to listen to the beautiful results of the encuentro movement how the Hispanics are approaching the challenges so that we really there's there's all kinds of treasures right here here and in our own bishops conference if we really listen more to one another and learn to speak a common language together from different cultural perspectives I think it'd be very enriching yeah Bishop la Verde Bishop Baron in so many ways we've said this the heart is a lonely hunter and it just seems to me that at some point in a person's life we ask there must be something more even the most beautiful day it must be something beyond this and of course we don't God put that longing for him in our hearts I st. Augustus of course said that so well but he said our hearts are restless until they rest in you my question is this when what do you think is the right moment to raise that issue that we're hearing like 13 year-olds go I don't know if they asked that question you know people in high school they get very despondent they must ask that question in a different way and certainly look out of the pews you'd like to say that God's people there you know you were here because someone is here do you really Jesus Christ is here friends if he we should get them on fire he's the one who satisfies our heart so I guess when is the right time to raise that that's basically my question bishop eras building on what juliennes spoke about building capacity in terms of the parish community I would propose that the actually the methodology in the process of the encuentro provided an incredible opportunity and an vision in the church the United States we through that process three hundred thousand people were touched at the level of parishes all over the place and that resource is now available through the conference in Spanish and now in English that could be implemented as a way of reaching and building capacity as well and going back to something that you spoke about in terms of young missionaries I just welcome to to the Diocese of Cleveland culture project a group of young vibrant incredible missionaries that I know are in Los Angeles in San Francisco Toledo and now and now Cleveland that are doing precisely that these are two very powerful moments of grace I think that we should cease good let me just say in conclusion thank you for that extraordinary participation and we wanted when we issue the video I want to have a little text I would go with it and what our committee said just the other day was why don't we listen to the bishops and they can fill in a lot of the blanks let's say under these five headings with best practices with ideas with what's worked in your diocese so I was furiously taking notes I hope David from my committee was even more furiously taking notes because that's really what we wanted was to elicit just this kind of response so thank you to all of you into the three participants on the panel thank you everybody [Applause]

Channel: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Views: 54,974

Rating: 4.7018633 out of 5

Keywords: usccb, catholic church, catholic, church, barron, bishop, unaffiliated, religiously, general, assembly, 2019, november, baltimore, five paths, five, paths, robert barron, robert, bishops, meeting, nones

Id: bUmg-DLBa1E

Length: 84min 39sec (5079 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 13 2019