Catholic Men Meet for Fellowship, Spiritual Renewal

With a nod to the rallying energy of the Promise Keepers movement and the solemn ritual of their own faith, more than 800 Catholic men from Orange County and beyond gathered here Saturday to pledge themselves to more spiritual lives.

The third annual Super Saturday Men’s Conference brought together a record number of grandfathers, fathers and sons for a day of prayer, singing and testimonials meant to tap into the essence of being a religious man in what many view as an increasingly secular society.

“We must be strong,” Christian recording artist John Michael Talbot told the crowd at the Center Theater in the Long Beach Convention Center. “But if our strength is not to become brutality, we must be gentle. . . . The challenge is to be Jesus to everyone we meet.”

Billed as the largest Southern California gathering of Catholic men ever, the conference borrows generously from the model used by the Promise Keepers, the Denver-based evangelical ministry that packs stadiums with a message of male unity and responsibility.

Like Promise Keepers events, the Super Saturday conference featured frank discussions among a male-only crowd about their roles and lives. Again and again, speakers and performers encouraged the crowd to share their feelings, build bonds with one another and take an oath to better themselves.

“What we are doing is taking the best of the Promise Keepers idea and grounding it in the context of our own faith,” another speaker, Father Jim Clarke of Los Angeles, said backstage. “When you gather people together of like souls, great things happen.”

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The speakers at the Saturday event included Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco F. Firmat, who struggled as a child to learn a new language and culture when he arrived in the United States from his native Cuba in 1961. Father Richard Rohr, known for his books and audiotapes on Christian life, also spoke.

Discussions ranged from coping with work stress to the difficulty many men have expressing their feelings, along with topics such as relationship building and grappling with spiritual doubt.

“I’ve never been to anything like this before,” said Bob Boucher, a Huntington Beach father of three. “I didn’t really know what to expect, but I’m impressed by the message and the approach.”

Boucher said he was especially interested in the discussion of how a religious life can conflict with society’s view of the ideal, strong male.

“One [speaker] said you don’t want to be ‘a wimp for Christ,’ and I understood what he was talking about,” he said. “I try to teach my own sons about gentleness and sensitivity, but to be strong also.”

The Super Saturday event grew out of the meetings of CatholicMen Fellowships, an Orange County group that met in each other’s homes to sing, talk and pray. The event has grown each year, just as the Promise Keepers movement has picked up steam.

Promise Keepers, founded by former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney, brought more than 1.1 million men together last year for religious rallies that focus on the roles of husbands and fathers.

The burgeoning movement has not been universally embraced--critics have questioned the political overtones of the events and the dearth of racial diversity among those attending.

Talbot was among the speakers who took a gentle jab at the Promise Keepers phenomenon by describing the fervent rallies as “somewhat militant” and “a football game.”

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Still, organizers and attendees alike pointed to the larger evangelical movement as a formula that could be borrowed by Catholics to bring more people into the church’s diminishing ranks.

“The Catholic Church has been asleep,” said Paul Marchi, 33, of Costa Mesa, who said he is among the Catholics who enjoy the energy and focus of Promise Keepers events. “If Catholics are hungry for something and looking elsewhere to be fed, we need to look inside and figure out why.”