I'm giving a talk on reaching the hearts and minds of youth for pro-life

Each year, at the March for Life, there are hundreds of thousands of youthful marchers, yet few of them are from the Northeast.Why is that?
 On Saturday, October 30, at the Holy Angels Pro-life Outreach Conference in South Meriden, CT,  I will be speaking on how to reach the youth of Connecticut with the pro-life message.
In preparation for this talk, I am looking up youth groups in CT to recommend.
My research on pro-life youth groups in CT has led me to YLife who are sponsoring a pro-life youth conference at Holy Apostles Seminary this Saturday from 9 to 5. The cost is only $15 including lunch, and the speaker, Fr Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center is top notch. See their blog for registration information, but rest assured you can register at the door for the same low price.

Learn why the Church has always opposed IVF, and meet some pro-life youth.
Be inspired by the Culture of Life among youth.

One Year Ago Today I met Pope Benedict

I was at the Papal Youth Rally at St Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, enjoying time with my daughter Gabbi and the youth. I wrote this article about my experience for the National Catholic Register. I also made this montage (below)with some of the photos I took.
What a wonderful time that was, the Pope, the President and the people united in joy.
How I miss that sense of unity now.
Pray for the Divine Mercy of God to heal our nation!

Here is what happened one year ago yesterday. Pope Benedict had a special encounter with a young man with T21.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Come join us and get motivated to change the world!

Youth 4 Life Conference stramed here on Sat March 28 3-8 PM
If you couldn't come to the Academy of the Holy Family in Baltic, CT tomorrow to see the wonderful line up of speakers discussing a wide range of prolife issues, you can still attend on line via the live stream which will be available on this website, AirMaria.comPlease leave a comment if you watch and encourage the girls who worked so hard on this conference this past month.

Prolife Youth Activism Conference

I am helping to organize a pro-life youth activism conference here at the Academy of the Holy Family. I will be co-moderator and the speaker on how to become a prolife activist online. In order to reach the largest possible audience, we will have the Friars stream the conference live on AirMaria.
Keep the afternoon of Saturday, March 28 open, and stay tuned for more details. I hope to link the conference on Facebook for a really large audience, and get some interesting visual aids going. All this while teaching Literature and keeping up with the children.
I'll be counting on your prayers for this, my friends.

My article on teens at the Youth Rally at Dunwoodie in the National Catholic Register

My article on the teens at Dunwoodie has been published in the National Catholic Register.I ran into Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand leaving Mass at Holy Family parish in New Rochelle that day, it was such an honor to be be able to interview her. She is pursuing canonization for her husband Dietrich, but I think she herself should be canonized, she is such a wise and holy woman.Thank you to Therese who made that incredible day possible, and to the members of the Holy Family Youth Group in New Rochelle who gave Gabbi an ID card in the nick of time!Thanks to Tina who found the link for me, for those of you with a subscription, this column is coming out in next week's paper.

The story of the video "50 Reasons"

A group of 50 high school friends in Madrid organized themselves to "give back to the Church who has given so much to us", by saying why they pray the rosary in this month of Mary.This video, seen more than 150,000 times on YouTube, has become the most viewed video in Spain. Increible!So much for the death of the Church in Spain.
Read the entire article here in Spanish. If anyone finds it in English, kindly let me know.
HT Air Maria

My impressions of the Papal Youth Rally at Dunwoodie

Are in an article I published at Catholic Exchange.

My Montage of the Papal Rally at Dunwoodie

Papal Youth Rally 4/19/08

It's time for our youth to get busy writing!

One of the few disadvantages of homeschooling, is that our childrens' work is not given public acclaim. Unless, of course, their mom has a blog. My local diocesan paper, The Long Island Catholic is calling for essays on the daily life and faith experiences of high school, college students, and young adults. Here is the post.
I am excited about this, because when Catholic youth are given a voice, we can see that they take their faith quite seriously and the results are inspirational. Our bishop has had a number of youth rallies, (see my posts on Proud 2B Catholic and Youth 2000) focusing on the Eucharist, confession, vocations, fellowship, and solid Catholic teaching. At last week's rally at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Island, I reperesented 40 Days for Life . Mine and other pro-life programs received wide attention from the young people there. Particularly gratifying was their enthusiastic response to Fr. Roderick Ermantingers' video about the conversion of Eduardo Verastegui, which is a great story in itself, and his participation in the film Bella.
Faith and Family magazine also has a youth essay contest, whose instructions are here, it's for 6-8th graders, and the deadline is Oct 15. The theme is "Caught Being Good".
The March for Life will be posting the rules for the 2008 essay, poetry and artwork contest on their website here.
I hope that this will help motivate your young writers. Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, once head of Ignatius Press, and now at Ave Maria Univesity, once told a large crowd of families, gathered in support of bringing EWTN to Long Island that, "homeschooling will bring about the salvation of the Catholic Church in America". Since Gabbi was just a toddler at the time, I thought this was a bit overstated. The more I know of the fine young Cathoilc young men and women who are going off to college; their personal example of holiness, and their articulate defense of the Faith, the more I come to believe that Fr. Fessio was right.

Proud 2B Catholic Fest

I have just attended a Proud 2B Catholic Conference where religious vocations were strongly emphasized in this manner:
1. showing the 20 minute priest film "Fishers of Men" available from Grassroots Film on their website the kids wanted to see it twice, it is amazing
2. Had lots of dynamic young religious from great new orders(Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Sisters of Life, etc) present to speak with the kids.
3. Adoration throughout the conference, and Holy Hour at the end, after a reverent Holy Mass.
4. Traditional vocations talks, featuring the abovementioned religious, and a great deacon to be ordained this week.
I think Proud 2B Catholic is great news for vocations.