By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
A popular annual conference was a blessing to some local people, despite – or even because of – watching it online this year.
Others chose not to participate at all or to have their own alternative live event.
The diocese and several local parishes usually take more than 100 teenagers to the Steubenville East youth conference, which annually draws a couple thousand people to UMass Lowell. It is one of more than 20 youth conferences in North America which Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio, schedules.
This summer, during the coronavirus pandemic, most of the youth conferences were cancelled, according to the website steubenvilleconferences.com.
Instead, they offered a live-streamed, virtual youth conference experience – Steubenville Live, broadcast from Orlando, Florida, July 17 and 18. The conference’s theme was “Hope Alive,” from Rom. 5:5.
“I was definitely excited to hear that they were still doing something,” said Christina Brady, an 18-year-old from St. Gabriel, the Archangel Parish in Upton, who has attended a few of the conferences and watched this year’s at home on her computer.
“I definitely enjoyed the solitude,” she said. She said she’d worried about interruptions from her family, but that did not turn out to be an issue.
Neither did she experience as a problem something that conference leaders seemed worried about – youth feeling free to sing and move in time to the music at home. She said she’s so much more comfortable doing such things in her room than in front of lots of people. She liked being in her own comfortable, familiar room for the conference.
Community is important, but “you can have that wherever you are;” it doesn’t have to be in a church, she said. “And it was definitely good timing in the midst of the pandemic.” She said it’s been hard to have hope and trust in God when everything is falling out from under you.
Ms. Brady said she enjoyed the online chat opportunities, which showed her that many other people experience the same things she does.
“It helped remind you that you’re not alone,” she said. And learning more about how other people connect through social media, she got ideas for doing that too.
“It’s nice to have that as a support system,” she said.
Elizabeth Guerriero, of St. Bernadette Parish in Northborough, also said the conference helped her feel less alone during the pandemic; it was reassuring to know that others are dealing with the same feelings.
Her mother, Lisa Guerriero, said leaders do a fantastic job of making the material something teenagers can relate to.
“As a parent, I’m so appreciative that they take the time to create such a wonderful program,” she said. “We thoroughly enjoyed it and she’s hoping to be there in person next year.”
St. Bernadette’s encouraged families to watch the conference together this year, and several did, said youth minister Lori Howard.
“It’s a nice way to evangelize families as a unit,” she said.
“It’s such a moving experience,” said a comment Miss Howard received from sisters Katie and Nicki Farmer, from St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Westborough, whose parishioners were to go to the Steubenville East conference with St. Bernadette’s before it was cancelled. “Even though we are so far away, we feel so close to the Lord and the Steubenville community. We needed this now more than ever.”
At St. Patrick Parish in Rutland, six young people and a couple of adult leaders watched the conference together Saturday, socially distanced in the parish center, said Father James M. Boland, pastor. He said he joined them when he could and provided adoration for them there during the time the conference had adoration, so “they were able to focus on the Eucharist” right in front of them.
Jessica Valera, religious education director and youth minister at Holy Family of Nazareth Parish in Leominster, said teenagers there were tired of doing things online after having to work that way for school.
So she held an outdoor, socially-distanced “mini conference” July 10, with eight young people and her fiancé, Mark Smith. Around a campfire they did icebreaker games and had witness talks from two college students who had attended Steubenville East conferences in the past, she said. In the church, they had adoration.
It went well,” she said. “They enjoyed it. They appreciated being back together.” She said it was the first event she has run since the coronavirus quarantine.
Timothy Messenger, director of the diocesan youth ministry office, said he did not organize a group event to watch the conference because people couldn’t get together. He said he informed people who had signed up to go with the diocesan group that they could watch it on their own online.
Joseph Krans, youth minister at St. Anne and St. Patrick Parish in Sturbridge, said he offered the online conference to their young people but no one took him up on it. Watching it himself, he was somewhat glad they didn’t, as social distancing was not being observed at the site of the conference in Florida, he said.
Aileen Lemoine, director of student ministries at St. Patrick Parish in Whitinsville, said, “Our teens chose not to attend virtually but want to return next year.”