Diocesan Ministries Conference to offer various workshops

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
August 25, 2005

This year's Diocesan Ministries Conference will be held in three different sessions at two sites in the Diocese of Sioux City on Oct. 9 and 10. The conference will provide different workshops for people to attend.

Rather than two all-day sessions, this year three sessions will be available with the first being from 12:30 to 5 p.m., Oct. 9, at Pocahontas Catholic School in Pocahontas. People will have the chance to attend one of two sessions to be held Oct. 10 at Gehlen Catholic School - one from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. or an evening option from 5 to 9:30 p.m.

The Spiritual in Each Moment is the theme of the conference this year. Some of the workshops that will be presented take on a morality or ethical theme.

"The planning committee for the Diocesan Ministries Conference is pleased to have so many talented and committed people who work with our young people in the schools of the diocese and who are willing to share their gifts with the other catechists in our parishes and schools," said Kevin Vickery, diocesan superintendent of Catholic schools and a member of the conference planning committee. "It is important to realize that the teachers in our schools, the catechists in our religious education programs and all of the faithful have a huge impact on the young people of our communities. These sessions will help us realize the importance of the message of morality is to our children as well as to give us some insight on effective ways we can communicate with them about these difficult topics."

Mary Arens, spiritual life director at Remsen St. Mary's High School, will present a workshop titled "Collaboration and Cooperation in a Competitive Society." The RSM Christian Leadership Team (CLT) students will help her with the workshop along with Lynn Even.

"They (CLT) will be presenting how the morality debates are worked out," said Arens. "They are going to choose four or five different issues and just give a brief example of the pros and cons of each issue and the church's teachings on those and how they debate in class the rights and the wrongs of the morality issues."

Arens noted that Even will set up a hands on activity for those that choose to attend this session. It will be a team building activity.

"I will touch upon morality in today's society and why it is so important for us to be all on the same page in regards to these morality issues," said Arens. "I feel they have to come from the church's teachings."

Another workshop, titled "Believed it or not? Media Literacy" will be presented by Father Randy Schon, pastor at St. Joseph Church in Wesley, Sacred Heart Church in Livermore and St. Benedict Church in St. Benedict. The workshop will provide some hints about how to distinguish between fact and opinion and how to identify bias in what is read and heard.

"He (Vickery) wants me to focus on how things that we hear and see in the media can be misleading," said Father Schon. "How can we tell if something is truthful or not? I am going to try to give information that will be helpful in answering that question."

Father Schon explained that sometimes things are presented as facts when they are not facts. People need to be able to know the difference between fact and opinion.

The workshop titled "Bringing Morality Issues to Life in the Classroom" will be led by Father James McCormick, pastor at Holy Spirit Parish in Carroll. This workshop will focus on the answer to the question, "How can we teach and model moral behaviors to students (and everyone) so that they will be able to recognize their own moral beings and moral responsibilities?"

"I like to do brainstorming as to where we are right now with morality," said Father McCormick. "The pope is talking about relativism. There are people who say that there are objective guidelines and other people say we play life by ear. Then the evil trinity is secularism, materialism and individualism - not the Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

He will address the impact of the three on morality with practical applications.

"I always feel that it is good if people have clear guidelines," said Father McCormick. "Then if they have the instruments to decide in a given situation what's right and what's wrong, they are at an advantage if they simply go and say, 'I feel today this way or that way.'"

Father McCormick believes that morality leads people to life and immorality leads people to death.

Brendan Burchard, religion teacher at Heelan High School in Sioux City, will present a workshop titled "It's Not What We CAN do, But What We OUGHT To Do." The session is intended to develop skills to help students recognize situations and to help them understand the implication of their decision.

"I think it is good because every 50-plus minutes you have a whole new group of personalities coming at you - all with their own questions and situations," said Burchard. "Lesson plans and syllabuses are great, but sometimes you have things that just comes up. You just have to run with it."

Burchard explained that he would like talk about how to help handle classroom settings when there are "unprepared for moments" or questions - things that just come up on a daily basis when people are dealing with teenagers. He has thought about having some of his students there on a panel to go through some scenarios.

"As a community of faithful, we should not be afraid to help our children and young people learn to make decisions about their lives that reflect the model of Jesus Christ," said Vickery. "As leaders of today's church we must be hopeful that these lessons will be carried into the future church by the young people we teach today. The moral fiber of each of us is influenced by many different sources of input, we need to make certain that the church is a source of input that has a strong and committed voice for children."

Conference brochures containing workshop and registration information have been sent to all parishes. The brochure and registration form is also available for downloading at the diocesan Web site - scdiocese.org. For more information call Sandi at (712) 233-7530.