The seventh annual Guadalupe Youth Summit gathered more than 700 Latino youth from various dioceses at the Ohio Expo Center & State Fairgrounds in Columbus Thursday, Feb. 26.
The one-day event was organized by the diocesan Office of Hispanic Ministry in collaboration with the Office of Catholic Schools, The Catholic Foundation and Catholic Social Services.
“We have our office of ethnic ministries now here in the Diocese of Columbus, which is important; I think it’s important also to highlight this particular group with its specific gifts,” Bishop Earl K. Fernandes said, “particularly as we are now approaching 2031, the 500th anniversary of the apparition to Guadalupe.
“I think the Hispanic youth are going to be a real force for evangelization, and we want to keep them connected to the Church.”
Bishop Fernandes added that the Hispanic population in the diocese has grown by about 20 percent in the last two years.
He was one of three bishops to attend the youth summit along with Archbishop Robert G. Casey of Cincinnati and Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut.
“I’ve never been in a youth summit for Hispanic-background kids, so I’m thrilled about this,” Bishop Betancourt said. The Spanish-speaking auxiliary bishop is a native of Puerto Rico.
In the Columbus diocese, students attended from schools including Cristo Rey Columbus, Columbus St. Charles Preparatory, Bishop Hartley, Bishop Ready, Bishop Watterson and St. Francis DeSales high schools.
Students also traveled from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Dioceses of Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown and Lansing, Michigan.
Mass in Spanish, confessions and a Eucharistic procession were included in the summit. Several priests celebrated and seminarians were also present.
Archbishop Casey was the principal celebrant, and Bishop Betancourt served as the homilist.
The three bishops later participated in a panel discussion in which four students from various diocesan high schools were invited to ask questions.
“We have to touch hearts,” Archbishop Casey reflected prior. “In the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, as well as here in the Diocese of Columbus, we’re looking for those opportunities in which we can touch the heart and awaken people to the faith and the hope and the love that that God wants for us.”
The summit featured Federico Carranza Jr., a speaker, musician and producer from Mexico. Carranza, a Franciscan University of Steubenville alumni, has served in ministry for two decades.
He explored language and identity with the teenage audience, noting its impact on their familial relationships, friendships and with others.
Carranza also noted hardships endured by today’s youth. He offered the COVID-19 pandemic as an example.
“Can you just pause for a moment and acknowledge I was 10 or nine when this happened,” he said. “The world broke, and it broke the way we relate to each other, the way we relate with our cell phones, the way we relate with other people, with my education, with my future, with my thoughts.
“What do we do? Where do we go from here? Thankfully, God came up with something. God’s creative, and … side note, God loves you eternally, madly. He’s divinely obsessed with you.
“He thought of something, … and He gave us a gift that we didn’t deserve but we needed.”
Not only giving His Son, the Lord gave His mother. The Guadalupe Youth Summit centered on the Blessed Virgin Mary and her love for her children.
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The theme, “¿No estoy yo aquí, que soy tu madre? Niña Mía (Am I not here, I who am your mother? My child), I am going right away to do your wish,” was chosen for this year’s summit.
It was inspired by the Blessed Virgin’s apparition as Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego in 1531 in modern-day Mexico. The Virgin’s words continue to provide comfort nearly 500 years later.
“We hear that in our Blessed Mother when she says, ‘Am I not here, I who am your mother?’ Right? She’s saying to us, ‘I’m here, and I’m ready to introduce you to my Son, Jesus,’” Archbishop Casey reflected.
“How do we provide our young people opportunities for that encounter to take place? Sometimes it’ll happen at your local church, but sometimes, it happens when you’re on a retreat or in a summit.”
Bishop Fernandes noted he encounters many young families in the diocese’s Hispanic parishes.
“This is a chance for them, especially with the leadership summit today, to try to get them to think about their talents, their gifts – but also to appreciate their own cultural heritage because I do believe that these young people have something great to contribute to the Church,” he affirmed.
The summit was an opportunity for youth to begin thinking about their vocation.
Several booths were stationed in Kasich Hall at the Ohio Expo Center for students to explore. Religious booths included the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters), Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and Dominican Sisters of Peace.
The Columbus St. Thomas More Newman Center’s Buckeye Catholic ministry also had a booth to meet with prospective students. Ohio State University, which is adjacent from the Newman Center, had representatives from its Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
Individuals from companies, law firms and colleges were also present.
The summit invited youth to think beyond their college or career aspirations and consider their religious calling, too.
“So far, we’ve got lots and lots of seminarians but no one yet from our Hispanic parishes. We really want to begin to plant seeds, but also to encourage young people to think about priesthood or consecrated life,” Bishop Fernandes noted.
“Sometimes, as an immigrant, and I can speak from my own experience, parents want young people to succeed in the world: to get a good education, have a good career, be able to provide for oneself and so on. That’s beautiful, but sometimes God could be calling a young person to be a priest or a religious, and so, they have to find the courage.”
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The Guadalupe Youth Summit, Bishop Betancourt added, he hopes, brings a sense of affirmation to Latino youth that they are largely the present and future of the Church.
“They don’t have to be full-grown adults to contribute to the Church, to bring Christ to others, to have a personal relationship with Jesus,” Bishop Betancourt explained. “This is how we do it.
“The younger we start, the better, because that relationship with Jesus will make us do what actually the Lord asked us to do, which is bring the Gospel to the rest of the world.”