NAPA, Calif. — Individual formation as a Catholic is integral to making the collective Church stronger and better able to engage the increasingly secular culture.
Several speakers stressed this important factor at the Napa Institute’s second annual prayer-and-apologetics conference.
The theme was “Equipping Catholics in the Next America” — an emerging secular America that is much more hostile to Christian faith and witness than it has been in the past.
Held July 26-29 at Catholic entrepreneur Tim Busch’s elegant Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa, Calif.’s wine country, the conference’s mission was to equip lay and religious leaders to defend and advance the faith in today’s increasingly secular society.
Consecrated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the conference drew more than 300 Catholic religious and lay leaders, including priests, nuns, monks, entrepreneurs, educators, lawyers and media from throughout the United States and five foreign countries.
Speakers included Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wis., Magis Institute President Father Robert Spitzer, Augustine Institute President Tim Gray, entrepreneur and philanthropist Frank Hanna III, Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and Father Robert Barron, who created the groundbreaking 10-part documentary series Catholicism.
Conference participants were fed not only by excellent speakers, but also by daily Eucharist (in both the Latin and Byzantine rites), morning and evening prayer, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a Eucharistic procession led by Santa Rosa, Calif., Bishop Robert Vasa and many opportunities for confession.
Crossing the Rubicon
Archbishop Chaput warned in his keynote address that Catholics may have “crossed a Rubicon” in a battle for religious freedom.
“Even many Christians who practice their religion,” he said, “follow a kind of easy, self-designed Gospel that led author Ross Douthat to call us ‘a nation of heretics.’”
Observing that “contempt for religious faith has been growing in U.S. leadership classes for many decades,” the archbishop said the problem “goes well beyond the current administration’s HHS [Health and Human Services] mandate.”
The “greatest danger to American liberty” today, he said, is “a culture of narcissism that cocoons us in dumbed-down, bigoted news, vulgarity, distraction and noise, while methodically excluding God from the human imagination.”
Quoting Søren Kierkegaard, who wrote that “talkativeness is afraid of the silence which reveals its emptiness,” the archbishop said, “Silence invites God to speak. And silence is exactly what American culture no longer allows. Securing the place of religious freedom in our society is therefore not just a matter of law and politics, but of prayer, interior renewal — and also education.”
Weapons for Intellectual Battle
Bishop Morlino offered a profound reflection on beauty and its connection to authentic human freedom.
Secularized Americans frequently believe “If I just do what I feel, I’m free.” Dismissing such a notion of freedom as “silly,” Bishop Morlino said that only when our feelings are disciplined, educated and trained through beauty — when our psychic unity (what’s popularly called the mind) and our somatic unity (the body) are integrated and spill out into action are we truly free.
A serious problem in secular culture today is a “complete disrespect for mystery,” said Bishop Morlino. He noted this tendency toward loss of mystery can be seen even in the liturgy, the source and summit of Christian life.
In one dimension, the bishop said, the liturgy “will always be tremendously beautiful,” because “the truth is immensely beautiful.” Unfortunately, he added, “the appearance of the liturgy in recent times has admitted many elements that are less than beautiful. And if our freedom is not built during the liturgy — [if the liturgy does not truly educate] our feelings by beauty — then what?”
Connecting our loss of freedom in America to the loss of beauty in the liturgy, Bishop Morlino said, “If something is wrong with the liturgy, then something is wrong with the Church, and something is wrong with the world.”
Father Barron, the rector of Mundelein Seminary in the Chicago Archdiocese, explained where we are philosophically in Western culture today. He cleared out much confusion from the past and gave Catholics some essential intellectual tools to address secular America with confident courage.
“A major problem with modernism is that it undermines evangelization,” Father Barron said. But the good news is that postmodernism has “broken the logjam of modernism,” and the postmodern spirit “helps us to analyze where we are and what we might do.”
In a talk on “Faith and Reason as a Historical Narrative,” apologist Peter Kreeft said, “There can never be a conflict between the truth of faith and the truth of reason” because “truth never contradicts truth.” Kreeft said that “the war between science and faith is a myth,” and “the result of the divorce of faith and reason is the death of both.”
Speaking on making the Church visible again, Tim Gray noted that throughout salvation history God’s people struggled with the challenge of living their faith in a pagan world. Scripture, he said, has much to say about how we can navigate the challenges to religious liberty Catholics currently face.
Frank Hanna III gave an inspiring but sobering talk on “Catholic Education in the Next America: Where Do We Go From Here?” Likening many Catholic schools nowadays to bottles of Coke that have lost their fizz, Hanna said Catholic education, by losing its identity, has lost its “brand name.” He called on bishops to clean out or close down elementary and high schools that are no longer authentically Catholic.
EWTN videotaped the conference, and many of the talks will be available on DVD in mid- or late-September. Beginning Oct. 6 on Saturdays at 2pm, selected talks from the Napa Institute conference will also air on EWTN.
Register correspondent Sue Ellen Browder writes from Ukiah, California.
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Archbishop Chaput says, ” contempt for religous faith is growing.” No! What is growing is contempt for the clerical leadership of the institutional church. How are we to get the lay leadership when our best and brightest are silenced or driven out of the church. All that we have left are puppets and parrotts.
The Church needs to reaccess it’s structure. It talks about subsidiarity (doing things at a local level) and yet has a top down organization. To reevangelize the culture, not only do families, the domestic church, need to know and form the faith in children, the bishop and priests of the diocese need to confront the culture in the community. Parents are busy earning a living and raising children, they can’t be counted on to lead evangelization efforts especially when persecution may arise that would affect their children. Bishops and priests don’t get married for a reason. It’s not only to remind us of the marriage in heaven but so they can evangelize and take persecution. They are called and equipped to teach with oratory and written skills for our faith. Who better to defend it than them? Instead, we’ve become self serving. The Church is community and the laity serves a ministry of the Church and is controlled by the DRE or Pastor, which in turn, is motivated by what makes them look good (feeding the poor) and makes sure it won’t loose money for the parish. AFter all, the DRE and Pastor have a financial concern if they loose money, that is why they continually point the finger at the laity. We need leaders who are community based to evangelize. We need bishops and priests willing to stick their necks out and write editorials addressing the social issues of our day. I see bishops on the front page of the paper when they are newly assigned but then never see an editorial from them or hear them discuss a social injustice. Community involvement of our leaders, instead of just passing out the sacraments, attending business meetings and fund raising dinners would evangelize mightily! Instead, the bishops look out for themselves, their hospitals, universities and charities that all recieve billions in gov’t grants and business grants which they don’t want to loose by offending anyone! The Church needs leaders for Christ not business leaders building a kingdom of brick and mortar!
Spirit filled messages from some of the best in the world of Catholicism, produce a major question: how will all of this relevant and necessary information be disbursed to the masses, and what is the time frame for that distribution? As a convert, I was told I was a better Catholic than most Catholics, because I had studied and lived the faith prior to entering. That is a sad statement indeed. With priests erroneous teachings, confessions without pennance, and RCIA and CCD teachers who know less than I do, there are many problems that can only be addressed with a good ‘house cleaning.’
Blaming the bishops and priests won’t help things, the secular media does enough of that. I think people need to take some responsibility for growing in their faith, there are so many wonderful resources online, like salvationhistory.com. as well as a wealth of books to help us grow in our faith, like the Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn. Our Catholic faith is so rich and there is SO much to learn, but we need to start some where, take one small step to grow in your faith. I have learned so much by reading and sharing what I’ve learned with others, my excitement was contagious, several of my friends at church all read the Lamb’s Supper, and we ended up starting a book club, where we focus on reading books to help us grow in our faith. It’s fun and you make new friends, in which you can share and grow in your faith together. At confirmation we were all sealed with the Holy Spirit, that means we each need to do what we can to evangelize, and live out our faith. We are to be salt and light for the world, we need to do all we can to be that.
What a wonderful gathering
“the conference drew more than 300 Catholic religious and lay leaders, including priests, nuns, monks, entrepreneurs, educators, lawyers and media from throughout the United States and five foreign countries.”
300 persons now have a message to distribute to all the Faithful. NCR did its job by posting the excellen article by Sue Ellen Browder. She did her part by writing about the conference. EWTN will do its part by selling the DVD’s. (I hopw this doesn’t post with the paragraphs eliminated, which sometimes happens. Otherewise it will be a difficult read)
How are those of us who have very little or no monetary resources to have access to read these Spirit-filled messages?. The link to the Keynote address doesn’t work. I would love to read all the addresses given there, and post a series of articles on my Catholic blog - with attribution. It would be a huge task for this old lady, but its do-able. There are many fine bloggers who would be more than happy to share the information from their own understanding of the messages given.
@Carol… God Bless you! Your comment is wonderful! We all MUST take responsibility for our personal faith journeys. To add to that, we need priests to really challenge the congregation every Sunday and write good letters in the bulletins for people to read. They need to make people realize that it’s not impossible to grow in your faith. Just like you mentioned reading books and getting on different Catholic websites… someone can get a book and read 1 ch each day to learn. The only life that matters is getting from this life on Earth to life in Heaven.
The tuition and high lodging expenses will always keep the Napa Institute an event mostly for the elite. (total over $2,500 per person for 3 days) Thanks to the NCR and EWTN, we have access to the reports and videos later. The elite whom I met the past 2 years were sincerely spiritual but, for the most part, basking in reflected light of the princes of the Church and the Latin Liturgy - sort of like religious opera. The speakers and the breakout sessions were generally top notch, also many fine exhibitors.
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