The fifth annual Evangelization Leadership Summit held Saturday, Nov. 15 was not simply a meeting of parish catechists, educators and evangelists. It was a call to urgency.
The summit, organized by the diocesan Department of Evangelization & Catechesis and conducted at Ohio Dominican University (ODU), united the diocese’s chief faith formators, including priests, laity and consecrated religious. Keynote and breakout speakers stressed the significance of their roles.
“We want to create an opportunity for the person to be a beggar before God, that urgency to see Christ and to share that urgency with others among us,” Dr. Marlon De La Torre, senior director of the Department of Evangelization & Catechesis, noted in his opening remarks.
The summit began with daily Mass celebrated by Bishop Earl Fernandes in ODU’s Matesich Theatre. The bishop delivered the first keynote later that morning.
His bilingual presentation “To God through Knowledge,” delivered in English and Spanish, proposed education as a means for encountering God. Parents, he said, are the primary educators of their children, also noting the Columbus diocese’s move toward family-based catechesis and formation.
All of the baptized share a co-responsibility in imparting knowledge of the faith, he explained. If education and evangelization efforts do not lead to holiness and sanctify families, they fail.
Bishop Fernandes noted many failures in catechesis and formation occurred the past 60 years.
“If you want to have a strong Church, you need to have strong families,” he stressed. “Our families are hurting, so we have to work on healing the family.”
The bishop also spoke about the diocese’s recent change in age for receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. The sacrament will be administered to children beginning in fourth grade.
“Younger people are facing greater challenges,” he said, alluding to a need for strengthening through Confirmation. “I don’t think parents today really talk to their kids or understand properly what their kids are going through.
“Priests hear confessions. We get a clearer picture. It’s not out there in the public eye, but you really see how badly our children are hurting.”
Bishop Fernandes offered catechists four principles, reflected on by Pope Leo XIV during the Jubilee of Educators – part of the Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year – in October.
Interiority, unity, love and joy, he said, can be a framework for parents in shaping and forming their children.
The bishop also expressed the value of a parent’s witness. He reflected on several childhood stories, noting the impact of observing his parents authentically live the Catholic faith.
Dave VanVickle, a speaker from Pittsburgh on the topic of spiritual warfare from a Catholic perspective, followed with the second keynote, “The Battle for our Children’s Souls.”
Parents need to live their faith fervently and model commitment to the Gospel for their children, the father of five urged. “We can never expect to raise saints if we’re not going to be saints ourselves.”
He recognized many families wrestle in bringing their children back to the faith.
VanVickle challenged such families to not simply pray for their child’s return.
“A lot of the people that I work with, their intentions are very social,” he explained. “They want their kid back in the family. They want them to not be a scandal. They want a lot of things.
“You kind of have to ask, more than anything, do you want them to just know Jesus? That’s what we have to pray for, is that our children will know the Lord and know Him in an intimate way.”
VanVickle also addressed the culture’s “obsession with balance.” He noted the prevalence of buzz words such as “balance” and “self-care” that are often used but not found in the Bible.
“I want to say to my kids, ‘No, go and kill yourself for the Lord. Go and be a martyr,’” he expressed. “I don’t want any balance in their life, and I want them to see in our life that there’s a radical aspect to it.”
He added that his children should recognize a significant difference in how the VanVickle family lives versus the world. Faithful should pour themselves out for others and strive for heaven, not to create balance in their lives.
Prayer teaches children to hear God’s voice among the noise. Millions of voices are competing for their hearts, he added. They are exposed to numerous different messages.
He emphasized the importance of family prayer. Praying the rosary as a family, he acknowledged, can be difficult and unenjoyable but necessary.
The VanVickles established a daily family rosary before Dave’s wife, who battled cancer for four years, died in 2023.
“I had this moment in my head,” he recalled, “where it was like, you know, it’s time for me to stop with trying to save her life and start preparing her for the next life.”
He noted how important the discipline was for his children when that suffering occurred.
“So many of us, we protect them from the serious problems, and we protect them from the cross, and maybe we let them mature a little bit too late,” he recognized. “All of a sudden, when something bad happens, we tell them to turn to the Lord, but they don’t know how.
“We have to instill in them every single day that we are there, begging the Lord, begging our Blessed Mother for them to be in our life and be seriously in our life.”
Instilling prayer can also prepare for evangelization.
VanVickle recalled joyfully praying the rosary as a family at his wife’s hospital bedside, drawing the attention of nurses and patients. His children evangelized to hospital staff and were concerned about the salvation of the dying patient next door.
“It’s just this thing that my kids understand,” he reflected. “The answer to most of life’s problems are not practical – that it’s the Lord.”
He also encouraged exposing children to various vocations: marriage, priesthood and consecrated religious life. While not forcing a vocation, VanVickle explained, it is an act of faith for parents to say, “Yes, Lord, they’re yours,” and be open to “that radical reorientation to the Gospel.”
Other speakers included Dr. Juan Rendon from the Diocese of Dallas who spoke about Catholic families as the domestic Church. The bilingual speaker, who holds a doctorate in spirituality from The Catholic University of America in Washington, delivered his keynote in Spanish.
Breakout sessions were offered by various speakers, including Deacon John Green of the Diocese of Cleveland. In addition to serving his parish, Green is the mission expansion officer for Evangelical Catholic, which offers a people-centered approach to evangelization.
The deacon shared several of Evangelical Catholic’s materials to reach friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members. Green addressed nurturing adult children back to the Catholic faith through practical conversations.
Andrea Patch, eastern regional director for NET (National Evangelization Teams) Ministries, also spoke.
Patch offered parents a guide to small-group discipleship and adult mentorship. She shared statistics that approximately 1,700 young people exist for every one paid youth minister.
NET missionaries lead small groups, mentor youth one-on-one and participate in the parish or school where they serve. Teams of Catholic young adults also travel the country, proclaiming the Gospel to young people.
The summit concluded with Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Exposition and benediction was led by Father Adam Streitenberger, vicar for evangelization and director at the Columbus St. Thomas More Newman Center near Ohio State University. He was assisted by diocesan seminarians Miguel De La Torre and Mark Jewett.
The sixth annual Evangelization Leadership Summit was announced for Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026.