MERRILLVILLE – More than 50,000 Catholics of all ages gathered in Indianapolis last summer for the National Eucharistic Congress, including many young people who reveled in the opportunity to share their faith with peers.
This year, high school students and their adult youth leaders have the chance to return to the Hoosier capital, Nov. 20-22, to again express their faith at the National Catholic Youth Conference, which has announced “I Am/Yo Soy” as its theme.
This three-day NCYC “is a great way for high school youth to experience their Catholic faith with other young people,” said Vicky Hathaway, the Office of Missionary Discipleship and Evangelization’s coordinator for Youth and Young Adults who is organizing the Diocese of Gary’s trip to NCYC 2025. “This will be a big party for Jesus!”
Since the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry has designated that a central office handle registration for each diocese, the OMDE will coordinate the Diocese of Gary delegation and serve as travel agent, added Hathaway.
All parishes, whether or not they have an established youth group, are invited to form a delegation composed of high school teenagers and adult chaperones that can include youth ministers, parish leaders, parents, catechists, priests, deacons and religious women.
“NCYC is a great way to accompany your young people as they grow in faith and process that journey,” noted Hathaway. “Youth leaders can listen and pray with the young people at NCYC and, after the conference, use that momentum to help their young people live out their faith every day.”
The Gary diocese has developed a booklet to guide parish coordinators as they register their youth and make travel plans for their group with the diocese, which is handling hotel arrangements and event ticketing. The diocese will purchase 100 event tickets at the lowest available price, $285, and make them available; if more tickets are needed, they will be acquired as the conference gets closer, likely at a higher cost.
Jeannine Quigley, an adult youth leader at St. Michael the Archangel in Schererville, has attended several NCYC events in Indianapolis and calls it “an experience you and your team will never forget.”
“Young people only have a couple of times during their high school years to experience this event – and it’s right here in Indiana,” Quigley said of the annual event, which going forward will shift from Indianapolis and Long Beach, Calif. year to year. “It is worth the investment of your time; an amazing experience you will never forget.”
Quigley usually finds that youth say “being together – at workshops, on the bus trip, at Masses and Eucharistic Adoration – among thousands of teens from across the country, as the best thing about NCYC. Sometimes teens who have faith feel alone, but not here.”
Hathaway has attended several of the youth conferences, beginning in 2008 in Columbus, Ohio. “I have struck up a number of good relationships at NCYC,” she said. “The organizers have settled on Indianapolis every other year because it’s a good convention city, with Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indianapolis Convention Center both downtown, and it’s also a safe city with all of the venues, restaurants and hotels close to each other.”
Hathaway held a series of informational meetings in December to outline the diocesan pilgrimage, and said “quite a few new people are interested in taking a group to NCYC this year.” Small parish groups can “buddy up” with each other to travel together and stay together, with the diocese helping coordinate accommodations at a designated downtown hotel. The diocese will provide “charter buses leaving from a central location, or parish groups can travel on their own,” added Hathaway.
The cost of hotel rooms can range from $680 for a single to $170 each if sharing a room for four, with a $45 diocesan fee (including a T-shirt and swap items), meals, tips, souvenirs and other incidentals added to that. Quigley said her youth group reduced the meal costs by bringing along a cooler with sandwich items, fruit, granola bars and bottled water to their hotel.
Parish groups can hold fundraisers to reduce the cost for attendees, and scholarships are also available, said Hathaway, who estimated the total fee for each teen from $500 to $1,135.
The official policy, added Hathaway, is to have at least one chaperone per 10 teens, “but ideally a 1-to-7 ratio is better, and that can include a parent.”
Questions and registration forms for parishes are available by contacting Hathaway at vhathaway@dcgary.org or (219) 769-9292, ext. 88229. Youth interested in attending NCYC should contact their parish youth group leader or pastor.
“NCYC is a mind-boggling experience of faith that sometimes is hard to find. It is not easy being a faith-filled young person in today’s world; they can feel a lot of judgement,” Hathaway said. “This conference offers time to explore those spiritual feelings and needs. It’s a place where people say, ‘We see you, and we know what you are going through.’ It’s a great reminder to the young Church that the whole Church is with you.
“There are lots of different speakers and they strive to be culturally diverse, some on topics you might not normally talk about,” she added. “You can choose the workshops you are interested in, and there are also Masses, Eucharistic Adoration – in silence with thousands of others – and opportunities to meet people from different parts of the country. It’s a chance to be a part of the big Church.”
Caption: Jeannine Quigley (second from right), an adult youth leader at St. Michael the Archangel in Schererville, explains some of the events and activities available at the National Catholic Youth Conference that she has attended in past years with young people from her parish. "It's an experience you and your team will never forget," she told other youth leaders (from left) Bernadette Barrett from St. Thomas More in Munster, Diocese of Gary youth and young adults coordinator, and Gianni Niece, campus ministry apprentice at Andrean High School in Merrillville, during a NCYC information meeting on Dec. 4 at the Pastoral Center In Merrillville. (Marlene A. Zloza photo)