The centrality of families in the Church was a key theme of the sixth annual Evangelization Leadership Summit, “Called and Sent.” Keynote speakers emphasized the importance of evangelization by way of the family.
The summit, organized by the diocese’s Office of Evangelization and Catechesis and held at Ohio Dominican University, featured speakers Dr. Chris Burgwald, chancellor for the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Bishop Earl Fernandes; and Dr. Marlon De La Torre, senior director for the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis.
Bishop Fernandes celebrated a morning Mass for attendees, many of whom serve as catechists and evangelists in parish religious education, faith formation and youth ministry. School administrators, clergy and consecrated religious also attended.
The bishop gave the first keynote on building a “civilization of love” in the age of artificial intelligence as it pertains to the family.
“Artificial intelligence seeks to make us more productive and efficient. It can certainly do that, and it’s not all bad,” Bishop Fernandes explained, “but are those things the highest values — productivity and efficiency? That’s something that we need to ask ourselves.”
Pope St. Paul VI , who coined the phrase “civilization of love,” described it as a society based on love rather than greed, power or control. Bishop Fernandes added that it requires seeking the good of others.
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“We must choose whether to defend and heal families—to build the civilization of love,” he proposed, “or whether we will allow ourselves to be dominated by technological forces and the culture of power.”
He suggested Pope Leo XIV’s five paths to building a civilization of love: the need to disarm words; building peace through justice; adopting the perspective of victims, or empathizing; cultivating a healthy realism; and reviving dialogue and multilateralism.
Burgwald delivered the second keynote, “The Church in Miniature,” focusing on the family as a miniature Church.
The talk explored “Familiaris Consortio” (The Fellowship of the Family), Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation on the role of the Christian family in the modern world. The family, Burgwald explained, is at the center of formation and is called to form others.
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Many attendees left the summit inspired and equipped to return to their parishes, ready to evangelize and form families in faith.
Stephanie Andrews, youth minister at Columbus St. Dominic Church, tries to find ways to engage youth and families on a regular basis, which can prove difficult. The Evangelization Leadership Summit offered encouragement and practical ideas.
“This is invigorating because it’s a call to action,” she said of the summit. “It reminds you of what we are called to do and gives us the tools of how to get there. And so, I think that’s very important, especially in youth ministry, because our youth is our future.”
Busy schedules and calendars full of activities can be distracting and deter families from practicing the Catholic faith.
“That’s what I’m competing against: the world, the sports, the traveling sports,” Andrews explained. “(Some) kids aren’t even in the states on the weekends. They’re often missing church, and so, it’s like, ‘How can we still reach them?’
“This effort can’t be parish by parish. This effort needs to be a collaboration of the diocese, but it’s the people, the leaders of each of those different (parishes) coming together. I came back last year with the idea for the youth to do a presentation called ‘Gaming with Jesus’ because kids love gaming, … but how can we connect that to the Bible?”
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Anna Blouir, a wife, mother and parishioner at Dublin St. Brigid of Kildare Church, serves as a baptism coordinator at her parish and is part of Missionaries to the Family. The apostolate forms married couples to walk alongside families in their communities and parishes.
The summit was an encouragement in Blouir’s work evangelizing married couples.
“Evangelization is going to start with a face-to-face and one-on-one encounter with another human being,” she affirmed. “It’s going to be accompaniment, and it’s going to be our empathetic reaction to another human being.
“I think that’s how we’re going to be able to change our society and our civilization, and I think,” she added, “the concept of ‘civilization of love’ is what should form our vision and our goals for evangelization in the diocese.”
Maria Pushparaj also found the summit beneficial.
The husband and father-of-two serves as leader of the Indian Tamil community, which is based at St. Brigid of Kildare. The growing community has 60+ families.
“It is a great opportunity for us,” Pushparaj said of the summit. “We are all here to be … sent by the Holy Spirit.
He added that attendees “are taking away whatever we got—knowledge from the Holy Spirit here, and then, we are going back to share” with families in their communities.
In the afternoon, De La Torre offered a keynote, “I Will Listen.” The approximately 45-minute talk focused on listening so as to evangelize. The diocese’s senior director of evangelization and catechesis described evangelizing as “collecting the strays,” a term referring to individuals who resist the Catholic faith.
De La Torre told attendees that time in silence is necessary to listen. Silence is listening to God speak and filters out anything impeding a person from evangelizing to others.
He added that listening requires the faithful be willing to forgive and has four components: docile, ascent, proclaim and creed. Docility calls for surrendering to a person rather than trying to force the faith, ascent is listening, and proclamation is teaching, which leads to the Creed, a statement of faith that expresses the core beliefs of the Catholic Church.
The summit also offered a series of breakout sessions, a keynote in Spanish for Hispanic families in the diocese and concluded with Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.