by Laura Grindstaff and Rachel Pokora, CTA Next Generation Advisory Group
“We're so glad to see the younger faces at conference this year,” many older CTAers told us. One woman wept as she thanked us for our youthful energy.
Over 500 adults age 18 to 42 came to CTA Conference 2000, twice the number in 1999. As younger and older Catholics merge in CTA, there is a need for presentations specifically geared to impart history and share experiences across generations.. This need was met at a Friday reunion of experts and eyewitnesses present at Vatican II, sponsored by the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC), and again on Saturday during the Wisdom Exchange Panel sponsored by CTA’s Next Generation Advisory Group.
The Vatican II panel came about because ARCC saw a need to “glean the memories of the eyewitnesses,” Mary Louise Hartman explained. “These first hand recollections offered something not included in the scholarly works about Vatican II — the human element offered by the Council workers viewed through the passage of time.” She also said that ARCC hoped that younger people would attend as a way to make contact with some of the makers of history.
Next Generation attendee Tom Peppard of Chicago welcomed the idea: “The reason I came to the CTA conference was the draw of this pre-conference. I had heard the Church had not lived up to the promises of Vatican II and wanted to explore that idea.”
The ARCC panel reminded us how ignorant we are of much recent church history. (A quick recent survey of the CTA-Hope internet discussion group had shown us that beyond the name of John XXIII and the fact that liturgical texts were translated into English, young people do not know many specifics of Vatican II.) ARCC panelists included such Vatican II veterans as theologians Gerard Sloyan and Gregory Baum, former bishop James Shannon, and journalists Robert Blair Kaiser and Gary MacEoin. Through their stories, we learned much about the role of the U.S. bishops and the impact the media had both on the council and on its public image.
Perhaps most interesting to us were the women witnesses, notably Sr. Mary Luke Tobin, one of the few official women observers at Vatican II. Even though women were kept in as much obscurity as possible, their presence at Vatican II had historic impact. While women were not allowed voices during council sessions, panelists pointed out that religious and lay women interpreted the council as monitors and as members of the media who presented the event to the rest of the world. If young people don’t know much of the specific history of Vatican II, what we do know comes from a lived experience. During the question session, Joni Apt, a Next Gen attendee from Eden Prairie, Minn., thanked the panelists for their part in creating the Church in which her faith was formed.
Wisdom Exchange panel
This lived experience of the younger generations was brought to light again on Saturday in two sessions of a Wisdom Exchange Panel of two younger and two older adults. Susane Peiffer of St. Paul, Minn., a younger adult, recalled how even as a child she was not afraid to ask questions through avid letter-writing to her teachers, her bishops, and the Pope himself. She maintains this attitude as an adult, along with her passion for her Catholic faith.
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| Wisdom Exchange panel: Rachel Pokora, Teresa Hawk, Susane Peiffer, and Rob McClory. |
Teresa Hawk, an older Catholic from Chadron, Neb., shared how Vatican II affected her as an adult. As she gradually came to know of her ministerial gifts, she listened to the Council’s call to educate and empower all Church members and earned a masters in pastoral ministry.
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| Nancy Golen, CTA conference manager, welcomes members of the Latino community from Chicago. |
We were deeply moved by our interactions with members of the Wisdom Generation throughout the conference.