Bishop Earl Fernandes set the tone for the 26th annual Columbus Catholic Men’s Conference when he encouraged those in attendance to become spiritual entrepreneurs.
The conference, held Saturday, Feb. 25 in Kasich Hall at the state fairgrounds, was attended by more than 2,000 men from throughout the diocese and elsewhere who listened to an opening talk by Bishop Fernandes in his first visit to the conference as shepherd of the Diocese of Columbus and featured talks by Catholic evangelists John Sablan and Deacon Charlie Echeverry.
The day’s activities included Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and confessions heard by 42 priests from the diocese, including five for Spanish speakers.
Short presentations were given by Peter Range of Ohio Right to Life on an upcoming pro-abortion ballot initiative in the state and by Father Jonathan Wilson, pastor at Westerville St. Paul Church and the spiritual director for the local Catholic Men’s Ministry who encouraged the men to consecrate their homes to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as a complement to Enthronement to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Matt Palmer, a member of the local Catholic Men’s Ministry board of directors, served as the master of ceremonies and also sat with Bishop Fernandes on the stage for a brief discussion between the two during which the bishop revealed that he has driven nearly 20,000 miles throughout the diocese in the nine months he’s been here and that one of seven persons attending Mass now in the diocese is a Spanish speaker.
At the start of the conference, Bishop Fernandes laid out his plans for his evangelization goals and hopes for the diocese to expand rather than contract as is now the case with the parish mergers and closings that will take place as part of the Real Presence Real Future initiative.
Doing that, he said, requires an understanding of spiritual entrepreneurship, similar to how a person in business grows a company, as explained to him in a conversation after he became bishop with Don DePerro, president and CEO of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce.
“First, an entrepreneur is a man of vision,” Bishop Fernandes told the audience. “Am I going to be a leader or a manager? A leader is one who sets the vision.”
Applying that concept to the Catholic faith, the bishop asked the men, “Do I set the vision for my family? If you had a mission statement for your family, what should it be?
“As men, we’re called to be spiritual leaders.”
The next attribute for an entrepreneur is focus, and the bishop mentioned that Lent is a special time for focusing.
“We’re constantly being distracted,” he said. “A true entrepreneur is self-aware” of the things that are a distraction and prevent a person from bringing his gifts and talents to others.
Next, he mentioned that an entrepreneur could be considered a salesman who’s responsible for helping others buy into his vision. And, the bishop said, the entrepreneur needs to be a person of integrity.
“Are you willing to sacrifice for others?” the bishop asked. “Are you prepared to lay down your life for your wife and kids? This is what God is calling us to do – to be a spiritual entrepreneur.”
Bishop Fernandes then described how the Blessed Virgin Mary could be considered a spiritual entrepreneur.
“Mary had a vision, and her vision was God’s vision,” he said. “Mary is focused. She shared a mission to be the mother of the Redeemer.
“Mary is a servant leader. She gave up her life for God’s greater plan.”
To help the Diocese of Columbus grow in faith and numbers, Bishop Fernandes told the men that they are called to be saints and that “I have every confidence you can fulfill your destiny in God.”
But he added that men need to be willing and encouraged to step forward to answer a call to the priesthood before he announced that the diocese has approximately 15 candidates for possible entry to the seminary next fall.
“I’m more concerned about mission than maintenance,” Bishop Fernandes said.
Sablan followed Bishop Fernandes’ sit-down conversation with Palmer and picked up on some of the bishop’s themes while describing his own spiritual journey that led to his World Ablaze apostolate, which is focused on evangelization and discipleship.
He launched into his energetic presentation by showing pictures of individuals who receive significant attention in social and mainstream media but fail to embody Christ-like qualities.
“We have a man problem today,” Sablan said, before detailing his own journey that led him away from his faith for years until he was on the brink of losing what was most important to him – his family.
Born in Guam, Sablan recounted his early years of suffering physical, mental and emotional abuse that included being sexually molested by a family member at age 10. His father was an alcoholic, and Sablan got involved with a bad crowd, leading to his arrest at age 12.
In high school, Sablan had by now fallen far away from the Catholic faith but met his future wife, who also endured childhood trauma. They married at an early age and went on to start a family and enjoy the trappings of worldly success with nice cars and a dream house.
“But my wife said one day, ‘I feel dead inside,’” Sablan recalled. “She knew that she was missing something. She had everything else figured out except for the spiritual piece.”
So, the couple started church hopping, eventually landing at Sablan’s previous Catholic parish. His wife said she felt the presence of Jesus in the church, later discovering it was the true presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament that drew her in.
“But I was wounded,” Sablan said. “I was playing the hokeypokey with God. I was putting one foot in while my wife was catching fire for the faith.”
He said he experienced demons from his past trauma that kept him from embracing Christ and led to the couple’s separation. They were on the verge of divorce when he began spending time in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Then a friend asked him to attend a men’s conference, where he became emotional and went to confession to pour out his sins.
“The priest walks around from behind the screen and said, ‘Praise God for the remorse you feel in your heart,’” Sablan said.
The priest asked if he could pray a deliverance prayer over Sablan, and he took out a large crucifix and began to pray in Latin before he “douses me with holy water. It wasn’t just a little sprinkle.”
Sablan immediately went to the Adoration Chapel, lay prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament, “and for the first time as a grown man I felt held as a son and I felt loved by the Father.”
He began to heal his relationship with his wife and children, and “God started to use the gifts that I had for His glory and for the salvation of souls.”
Sablan, who is now a grandfather, works in cybersecurity when he’s not engaging in his evangelization ministry.
“I tell people I keep people from stealing your data by day, and by night I keep people from stealing your soul,” he joked.
He stressed that roles are important in the family – that husbands and wives each have a unique part to play in the family.
“Be the bishop of your own home,” he encouraged the conference-goers. “The domestic church is the solution to all of the world’s problems.”
He recommended that men be guided by the cross to teach, govern and sanctify, and he asked them to be faithful to what God’s calling each person to do.
“Are you a prayerful man?” he asked. “Do you hear what God is telling you?”
He ended his talk with a call to action.
“It is good that we’re here,” he said, “and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be around a bunch of Catholic men who seek a greater relationship with our Lord, who seek to learn more about their faith and seek to live out their call to biblical manhood.
“But, brothers, it can’t stop here. If what you take today fizzles out in a week, you missed the point.
“The Church, and therefore the world, is in trouble today. Not just with our youth, but with the family as a whole. And when we reclaim our birthright in the Christian patriarchy that we were called to, to be holy men of God, we’re only focused on growing in virtue and dying for all those that God entrusted to us, we can change the world, we can change the Church.”
Sablan’s talk was followed by a Eucharistic procession with Bishop Fernandes carrying the monstrance and about 20 minutes of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament with many of the men kneeling on the floor.
Father Kyle Tennant, parochial vicar at Columbus St. Cecilia Church, offered guidance on the sacrament of reconciliation before a number of men took advantage of the opportunity for confession.
Deacon Echeverry’s afternoon presentation resembled Sablan’s story in many ways. Both men were away from the faith before returning with vigor to the Church through encounters with the Lord that came after each had reached a low point in his life.
Echeverry was a successful entertainment executive who described how he was stricken with insomnia for nine months, sleeping once or twice a week for a few hours before “in my weakness God’s power was made manifest,” and he realized he had to change his ways and live for the Lord.
He attributed turning his life toward God as providence, which his wife told him should be the theme of his talk in Columbus.
“Providence is the ordering of all events in the universe so the end for which they were created might be realized,” he said.
Echeverry and his wife didn’t just become lukewarm in the faith; they embraced it and became involved in a variety of ministries in southern California.
In addition to his work as a deacon, Echeverry was with Catholic Answers, one of the world’s largest evangelization and apologetics ministries, and has served as a board member for the Catholic Association for Latino Leadership, the Tepeyac Leadership Initiative founded by Bishop Thomas Olmstead, and Sent Ventures, a platform focused on entrepreneurs of faith.
In addition, Echeverry is chairman of SOFESA, a non-profit founded by his wife that accompanies and serves homeless families in southern California; and he is the founder and CEO of the Black/Brown Collective, a Los Angeles-based strategic advisory and impact studio.
Elaborating on his theme, Echeverry described providence as foresight and pre-vision and said men experience it first as sons and then as fathers.
After offering three lessons each in sonship and fatherhood, he warned men of three pitfalls that could trap them: machismo, man-cave mentality (selfishness) and worshiping lesser gods.
As an antidote to those potential traps, Echeverry suggested cultivating three practices: remain in the moment; make your desk an altar; and cultivate a servant’s heart like the Virgin Mary did.
“Live your vocation with boldness,” he proclaimed.
Father Wilson followed Echeverry with a brief message to the assembly.
“This conference rises and falls on the decisions you make,” he said. “You’ll look back on this day and say, ‘My life changed because I made a decision (to serve God and His Church).’ If this doesn’t result in a decision, it was a colossal waste of time.”
Before the conference-ending Mass, Todd Treon of the Catholic Men’s Ministry announced several initiatives to “continue the conversation” before the next Columbus Catholic Men’s Conference on Feb. 24, 2024.
He said the men’s ministry is adding resources to build, form and live as “soldiers for Our Lord” in service to Bishop Fernandes and to become pillars for supporting vocations and evangelization in the diocese.
Quarterly half-day men’s conferences are planned, with the first two scheduled for May 20 and Aug. 26, and weekend retreats at the Damascus Catholic Mission Campus in Knox County slated for April 21-23 and Nov. 3-5.
Concluding this year’s conference was a Mass with Bishop Fernandes as the principal celebrant that included priests and deacons from the diocese. The men’s schola from Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral, directed by Dr. Richard Fitzgerald, provided the music for the Mass. Music during the program and Adoration had been led by the local Neumann Project group.
This year’s host parish was Westerville St. Paul, which brought more than 200 men to the conference to assist.