12th Men’s Conference sold out

If you don’t have your ticket for next Saturday’s Catholic Men’s Conference, you waited too long. The March 24 event is sold out.
“For the third year in a row the conference has sold out,” said Msgr. Thomas J. Sullivan, diocesan chancellor and pastor of Christ the King Parish.  “What’s been happening is that each successive year the conference sells out earlier and earlier.”
Some 1,200 men have now purchased tickets for the conference.  All three bishops and another 50 priests have agreed to hear confessions.  There will be 54 Catholic book companies, organizations and exhibitors on hand as well.  And, in addition, to the five major speaker keynotes a brief preview of “The Catholicism Project,” the new international evangelization initiative produced by Chicago’s Father Robert Barron, will be shown.
Bishop McManus will participate for the eighth year in a row and celebrate the Lord’s Day Mass scheduled for 4 p.m.
“This is a marvelous moment in evangelization for the Diocese of Worcester each year,” he said.  “It is remarkable to see the faith of these men who come from throughout the Diocese and beyond to be a part of this great day of spiritual renewal.  I know that the men are going to enjoy this extraordinary event again.”
If you cannot be there, you can look to The Catholic Free Press for coverage of the event in the newspaper and online at www.catholicfreepress.org.
The first keynote presentation, “Listen My Son: St. Benedict for Fathers,” will be made by Father Dwight Longenecker, the parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Greenville, S.C., where he is also the chaplain of St. Joseph’s Catholic School.  Father Longenecker, along with his wife and children, came into the Catholic Church from Anglicanism in 1995.  Later, through a special “pastoral provision” offered to former Anglicans, he was ordained a Catholic priest for the Diocese of Charleston.
Father Larry Richards, a pastor and retreat master from Erie, Penn., will offer the second talk, titled “Confessions.”  He last spoke at the conference in 2004 when his talk was extraordinarily well received and 900 men went to confession as a result.  He is scheduled give a Parish Mission at Worcester’s Christ the King Parish in Lent of 2013.
Following confessions and lunch a 10-minute trailer of Father Barron’s “Catholicism” series will be presented.  Immediately thereafter the conference participants will hear theologian, public policy analyst and syndicated-columnist George Weigel summarize the legacy of Pope John Paul II.  Mr. Weigel, whose columns appear in The Catholic Free Press, is the official biographer of the late pope. He will speak on “The Achievement of Blessed John Paul II:  A Retrospective.”
Men’s conference participants always enjoy talks given by those associated with athletics. Joe Lombardi, the coach of Drew Brees and all the quarterbacks of the New Orleans Saints, who is also the grandson of the legendary Vince Lombardi, will talk on “Faith, Family and Football.”
Mark Nehrbas, a lay evangelist and director of numerous spiritual renewal conferences at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, will round out the day with his talk, “Power from on High:  The Holy Spirit in our Lives.”
Further information about the conference can be obtained online at its website, www.firstmensconf.org, or by calling Judy Stevens at 508-929-4345.
“We are absolutely delighted to offer another outstanding conference this year,” Msgr. Sullivan said.
Speakers for the 2013 conference include America magazine columnist Jesuit Father James Martin, and Mike Sweeney, five-time American League All-Star and Kansas City Royals superstar.