Archdiocese’s First Men’s Conference Sets the Bar High

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Addressing the capacity crowd attending the archdiocese’s inaugural Men’s Conference at Fordham University in the Bronx, Cardinal Dolan employed a metaphor from the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to laud the selection of the day’s theme: Men, Be Who You Are.

Workers, some using tools as tiny as a toothbrush, uncovered the formerly hidden letters “IHS,” signifying the Holy Name of Jesus, near the top of the cathedral structure, the cardinal said.

“We have a God who is in the restoration business, who is helping us to rediscover who we are,” Cardinal Dolan told the 550 men gathered March 21 on the second floor of Fordham’s McGinley Center.

Before he spoke, the cardinal led the men in morning prayer and told them he had wanted to have a men’s conference since he became Archbishop of New York in 2009.

During his keynote address, Cardinal Dolan shared with attendees that he had often confronted stories of rejection and renewal when he was a parish priest.

More recently, he had such an encounter while visiting St. Christopher’s Inn in Garrison, the acclaimed drug and alcohol treatment center for men run by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. There he met a man in his late 30s who told him what his life was like until he bottomed out.

The man said he was on a weeklong bender. He hit rock bottom on a night in which he ended up in the gutter covered with his own blood and vomit. Finally, he decided to head home. Instead of going to sleep in his own bed, he wound up in his young son’s room. When the 6-year-old discovered a strange man in his bed, he went screaming to his mother.

“Mom, there is a man in my bed, and I don’t know who he is,” the cardinal said as he recounted the man’s story.

The fear in his son’s voice, and his shame before his family, prompted the man to seek recovery at St. Christopher’s, where he told the cardinal, “I have discovered who I am—a child of God.”

Quoting the words of St. John Paul II, Cardinal Dolan said the danger in today’s society is the premium put on “having and doing rather than being.”

“Our worth, our identity, our dignity,” the cardinal continued, “comes not from what we have or do. It comes from what we are.”

The initial vision for the Men’s Conference was expressed by Kimberly Quatela, chairperson of the archdiocesan Men’s Commission. She did much of the planning and organization along with her husband, Steve, and other commission members.

“We wanted it to be an authentically Catholic experience. They deserve the best,” she said of participants. Another 85 men were put on a waiting list.

“We want to remind them that they are definitely needed by the Church,” said Mrs. Quatela in an interview with CNY. She is coordinator of chastity education for the archdiocesan Family Life/Respect Life Office.

“They have a role, and it’s vital.”

The conference was dedicated to the memory of Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop Emeritus, who died March 5.

The daylong gathering also featured a morning conference by former New York Jets star Joe Klecko and an afternoon conference by Damon Owens, executive director of the Theology of the Body Institute.

Also on the agenda were midday prayer and a closing Mass in the Fordham University Church, celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Peter Byrne, who also led Benediction. There were opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration and to receive the sacrament of reconciliation from the many priests on hand.

Father Joseph McShane, S.J., president of Fordham University, offered welcoming remarks, telling the mostly lay audience that it was “a great grace to have you with us today,” and noting the importance of their vocation to act as “leaven in the world.”

Bruce Filak, who hails from Basking Ridge, N.J., in the Diocese of Metuchen, said he came to the Men’s Conference to listen to Cardinal Dolan speak and because he was a Jets fan who enjoyed watching Joe Klecko star on the team’s defensive line.

Filak, 60, said he has learned that life is “a process of continual conversion.” Change and growth is possible for everyone but not without assistance, he told CNY.

“God helps you to change,” Filak said.

One of the conference’s youngest participants was Paolo Caponong, 16, of St. Anthony’s parish in Yonkers who is a junior at Regis High School in Manhattan. He attended along with his older brother, Leandro, 18, a senior at Iona Prep in New Rochelle.

Both were encouraged to attend by their mother.

“The talks were fantastic,” Paolo said during the lunch break. “They want us to hear the truth, to be exposed to those things.”

“I’m going to pray more because it’s such a powerful gift,” Paolo added.

Deacon Enrico Messina, of St. Denis parish in Hopewell Junction, was one of many ordained clergymen present. He was one of about a dozen members of the men’s ministry group from St. Denis to participate.

Joining such a large fraternity from around the archdiocese inspired him. “It gives me confidence that we believe in the Lord and want to be nourished,” he said.

Klecko got points for honesty when he told the men he had been “sweating bullets for two days” in anticipation of his talk.

“Following (Cardinal) Timothy Dolan on a speech is not easy for anybody.”

After a career at the highest level of sports, he was brought low by filing for bankruptcy more than 20 years ago. It wasn’t the bankruptcy that bothered him, rather that he had to turn to others for help. He said he found that the only person “I could turn to was God.”

He went from being a self-described cradle Catholic who was not practicing his faith to a daily communicant and frequent reader of Catholic apologetics offered by Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid and others.

The primary lesson he learned is that God, not sports, fame or fortune, has to be No. 1. And he said that’s not the easiest lesson for anyone, let alone a man, to absorb.

“We have to believe that God has everything for us in hand,” he said.

The married father of five children said one of the fruits he’s tasted since radically reshaping his faith life is a better relationship with his children. “My children call me from college about a test they had,” he said. “They want me to pray for a test they’re having.”

Owens’ hour-long talk was entertaining and enlightening. A mechanical engineer by education and training, he spoke about how his life of faith was constructed.

Married to his wife Melanie since 1993, he wove together stories about the births of his seven daughters (“I am blessed among women—all the time,” he said.) and, finally, the arrival of his son, by adoption.

He spoke about feeling the presence of God clearly while on a retreat early in his teenage years, and learning right then that real faith means “taking the mask off, and opening my heart to the Lord—with the good, the bad and the ugly. He wants all of it.”

If we learn to love as God does, then with time and practice we become reliable and are recognized by others as possessing that gift, Owens said.

“It should not scare us. It shouldn’t put us on our backsides. It should put us on our knees,” he said. “He’s calling us to become who we are.”