Want to empower CTA in your region? Come to CTA National in Detroit, convene a caucus from your own state, and ask for volunteers to run a regional conference back home!

That formula paid off at Claremont, Calif. Aug. 8-10, when 300 CTAers from eight western states and western Canada heard world-class speakers, enjoyed 16 workshops and shared a moving Eucharist in the first-ever Western Regional CTA Conference. It was also the first regional conference that spanned a three day weekend. Said Evi Quinn of San Diego CTA, who chaired the event and was in tears of joy over the outcome, "It all started in Detroit last November. We just called a California caucus, 100 people showed up, and 50 signed up to work on a '97 conference out West."

Opening the event on Friday, Tom Fox of the National Catholic Reporter sketched "The Church that Follows John Paul II," and reminded the CTA audience that they, the Vatican II progressives, are the real conservatives, working to conserve the living tradition, while so-called conservatives are actually fundamentalists.

Speakers included many headliners from CTA national conventions: Michael Crosby, Carmel McEnroy, Patrick Brennan and Jeannine Gramick. But new West Coast talent was also tapped: like Florence Martin Gillman on early Christianity, psychotherapist Patrica Martens on sexuality and conscience, Franciscan Fr. Barry Brunsman on divorce and remarriage, and Ched Myers on social justice. Both the program and the CTA movement were clearly publicized in a sizeable article in the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper the previous week.

Most heartening for the CTA movement was the networking. An Orange County caucus found 18 people focussing on gospel justice. Ventura County convened 10 people who'd never gathered before, and got helpful start-up advice from colleagues in San Diego. At the gay/lesbian caucus, 10 participants discussed their common struggles with Church officialdom.

Plan sequel in 1998
Seeds are already planted for a 1998 weekend at the other end of California. A Northern California caucus of 30 people broke into subgroups by diocese. San Francisco, Monterey, Oakland, Sacramento, San Josˇ and Santa Rosa will send two delegates each to a 1998 conference planning meeting in Dublin, Calif., Sept. 21. Each diocesan cluster is also talking about evolving into its own chapter or sub-chapter of CTA.

CTA News associate editors Bob and Margaret McClory represented CTA national leadership at the Claremont event. They were mightily impressed. Said Margaret, "Evi Quinn and company wanted to put the West Coast on the CTA map, and they did it -- in a classy way."

For reports and color pictures from the Aug. 8-10 conference, see the N. California CTA Website: http://www.microweb.com/burnside/cta/wccta97r.htm