St. Dominic hosts fourth men’s conference

This year’s event draws 112 men from around the diocese and beyond for a day of talks, breakouts, and Mass

By Dan McWilliams

The fourth annual Appalachian Highlands Men’s Conference hosted by St. Dominic Parish in Kingsport on March 8 underwent a name change this year to reflect the wider area the event draws from.

A total of 112 men from 17 parishes in East Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and western North Carolina attended the Saturday conference, which began with breakfast and sign-in at 7 a.m. and concluded with Mass at 2:15 p.m. followed by a group picture and a social at 3:30. The theme of the day was “No Man Left Behind.”

Keynote speakers were David Rinaldi, Deacon Vic Landa of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Harriman, and Father Chuck Dornquast, a priest of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla., and chaplain for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Breakout sessions were led by Father John Orr, parochial administrator of Holy Ghost Parish in Knoxville; Father Andrew Crabtree, associate pastor of St. Dominic; Deacon Bob Lange, who also serves at St. Dominic; Jimmy Dee; Jonathan Cardinal; and Ron Henry.

Father Michael Cummins, pastor of St. Dominic, presided at the afternoon Mass. Concelebrating were Father Orr and Father Dornquast, with Deacon Lange and Deacon Landa assisting.

In his homily, Father Cummins mentioned the day’s Gospel from Luke 5, where Jesus calls Levi the tax collector, the future St. Matthew, to “follow me.” Christ is also saying that to the men’s conference participants, Father Cummins said.

“That’s truly appropriate as we prepare to go forth. Now that you have been strengthened through prayer and fraternity, Jesus says to you, ‘Follow me,’” he said. “Now that you have received insight and teaching and instruction and the testimony of others, Jesus says to you, ‘Follow me.’ Now that you have been strengthened by the grace of the sacraments, Jesus says to you, ‘Follow me.’

“Whenever Jesus asks us to follow Him, He asks us to go where He Himself has gone. He never asks us to go somewhere where He Himself has not been, and this is the truth of our faith.”

The Lord “doesn’t send us out by ourselves,” Father Cummins said.

“We hear elsewhere in the Gospels that Jesus says, ‘Go forth and proclaim the Good News,’ but He also says, ‘I am with you to the end of the ages,’” he said. “In essence as we look at this day of reflection and for you, who have experienced the grace of this day, Jesus is saying to you, ‘Follow me back to your homes, follow me back to your family, follow me back to your place of work, follow me back to your parish, follow me back to your community because I am there for you, and I will strengthen you as you live your faith wherever you might be and in whatever situation because I am there. I am there for you.’”

In his prayer and reflection on the men’s conference, Father Cummins said he asked, “What does it mean to be a Christian man in our world today?”

“And this is just my own thought, but I think a Christian man is a man who lives his commitments, whatever those commitments might be, whether it’s a commitment to be a husband, a father, a grandfather, maybe it’s a commitment to be a priest or a deacon,” he continued. “A Christian man is a man who seeks and who strives, even though he may stumble sometimes, to live his commitments. What the Gospel reminds us today is, we don’t have to live those commitments on our own. We’re not meant to.

“Jesus is there with us, even in our commitments, and He asks us to welcome Him so that He might strengthen us in all aspects of our life. So, He proclaims to us, as He proclaimed to Levi, ‘Follow me, follow me into your commitments,’ and know that it’s in those commitments . . . in faith and in hope and in charity that we will know the fullness of life, that we will receive the fullness of Him, and that we are called to be who we are meant to be, just as Jesus called Levi, Matthew, and called him to be the truth of who he is meant to be: an Apostle, someone who proclaimed the Good News.”

The Lord is saying “follow me” to “each and every one of us,” Father Cummins concluded.

“In a special way today, He says to each and every one of you, in your lives, ‘Follow me, follow me and be strengthened and know that I am with you until the end of the ages.’”

The keynote talks were by Mr. Rinaldi on “Take Your Stand: Equip Yourself to Stand Strong Against the Devil’s Schemes,” Deacon Landa on “The Enemy’s Ammunition: The Seven Deadly Sins Explained,” and Father Dornquast on “Fuel for the Fight: How the Eucharist Feeds Mind, Body, and Soul.”

Breakout sessions were led by Mr. Dee on “Why?” and “31 Words: The Foundation of Our Discipleship,” Father Orr on “Bandaging the Wounds of Battle: Healing through the Sacrament of Reconciliation,” Mr. Cardinal on “How to Be the Spiritual Leader of Your Family Following St. Joseph’s Example” and “Why Are Individuals Leaving the Church?,” Father Crabtree on “Detaching Ourselves from the Social Media Trap,” Deacon Lange on “Swimming Upstream: Basic Catholic Questions Answered through Apologetics,” and Mr. Henry on “How to Balance Material Needs with Emotional and Spiritual Needs.”

The conference also offered time for confession and adoration. The printed program for the day included not only the schedule and speakers but also messages from Bishop Mark Beckman and Father Cummins and pages on a Catholic examination of conscience, the Ten Commandments, a “how-to” guide to confession, and the five joyful mysteries of the rosary. A gift bag for each man attending contained items that included a “No Man Left Behind” book, published by the National Fellowship of Catholic Men, as well as a notepad, a pen, and a copy of “Catholic Daily Prayer for Men.”

Deacon Lange said the men’s conference gets bigger each year.

“It gets better, and we’re able to bring in better speakers to do the keynotes, and this year the three keynotes just knocked it out of the park,” he said. “Then the breakout sessions, that’s a smaller group, more intimate, and people can have a little more interaction, and I think that’s the best of both worlds. Plus, the opportunity to have reconciliation, adoration, Mass—everything just crammed into one short day, and I think that’s the benefit of this conference.”

Deacon Lange talked about his breakout session on apologetics.

“In this environment in East Tennessee, being a Catholic and trying to talk to anybody about anything, we’re swimming upstream,” he said. “There’s just not many of us, and some of the folks feel intimidated because we’ve got some folks who are a little forceful in pushing their agenda, their religion. We’ve got to say, now wait a minute, let’s build the relationship. Let’s talk— we don’t have to beat each other over the head. We’re Christians for the most part. We have some non-Christians here but not many. We have a whole lot of Christians in East Tennessee, and we just have to remember that we’re brothers, we’re brothers and sisters in Christ, and we’re not at war with each other.”

Father Orr’s breakout session drew the biggest attendance, Deacon Lange said.

“What we did was limit the number of attendees in each breakout to 35. I think Father John Orr, obviously because he’s so good, his was the most full, and the rest of us had in the vicinity of 20 to 25,” he said. “So, that spread out everybody, and everybody seemed to be able to attend the breakouts that they wanted to.”

Kevin Musser, Grand Knight of Council 6992 of the Knights of Columbus at St. Dominic, served again as conference coordinator.

“I was so thankful for the guys who came here with great hearts and came in greater numbers than ever, and it’s becoming a family here now, it really is,” Mr. Musser said. “This year we have men from 17 different parishes. It was the first time we had invested some energy by going out to these parishes and inviting them, speaking at their Masses, sending out announcements, and it was received very well.”

The conference has a family atmosphere because it draws many repeat attendees, Mr. Musser said.

“We have many repeats,” he said. “Typically, if someone comes the first year, they’ll continue to come back. In addition to that, however, we are receiving a number of young men. I think this was the highest numbers that we’ve seen. We don’t have all the data together yet, but it looks very promising.”

The attendance of 112 was about a 20 percent increase over last year’s number, Mr. Musser noted.

“We’re thankful for that. We believe that with strategies that we’re laying out to reach out to more parishes, we’ll have men from 30 or more parishes next year,” he said.

Having confession was again an important part of the day, Mr. Musser said. Father Cummins, Father Crabtree, and Father Bede Aboh of St. Dominic, Father Orr, and Father Dornquast heard confessions.

“We were so thankful for the number of men who attended confession this year. It had to be almost 100 percent who went,” Mr. Musser said. “That’s an area that we really wanted to provide for. We had a nice selection of priests, and the men took advantage of that. It was beautiful.”

Mr. Musser already has a date for next year’s conference: Feb. 28.

“We’re going to take a break here for a couple of weeks, and it’s a full year that it takes for us to make it happen,” he said.

St. Dominic parishioner Ray Vachon said he enjoyed attending the conference this year, his third time coming overall.

“I think the speakers were special,” he said. “The whole idea was to emphasize that we’re not passive, we’re not just Christians who go to church, we have an active role and a vocation to share what we have with others.”

Father Dornquast and Mr. Rinaldi were his favorite speakers of the day, Mr. Vachon said. Father Dornquast, the NFL chaplain, used some salty language in his talk.

“He hangs around with football players,” Mr. Vachon said.

Sean Fernandez of the St. Dominic Knights helped secure the speakers for the men’s conference.

“Not to knock the other speakers we had in years past, but these guys were just so much better, so good,” he said. “Father Orr and Deacon Vic are just amazing people. Father Chuck came from St. Pete. He grew up with me. Him and my brother-in-law and my sister, we all kind of grew up together in the Church in Florida.”

Mr. Rinaldi is the president of NET Ministries. Mr. Cardinal, a repeat speaker at the St. Dominic conference, is a regional director for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). Father Dornquast is director of vocations for the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

“Jonathan Cardinal has been one of our regulars,” Mr. Fernandez said. “Father Chuck: He’s always been straightforward, a punch-you-in-the-mouth kind of guy to a point.”

Mark Pendley is deputy Grand Knight of Council 6992 and a member of the men’s conference committee. This year’s event was “awesome as always, very pleased with the turnout,” he said.

“One of the things we did more so this year than previously—the feedback, the surveys, the information shared from the previous years—we were very sensitive of that with the guys this year,” Mr. Pendley said. “We wanted to make sure the content was very appropriate for all ages.”

Mr. Dee was his favorite speaker of the day, Mr. Pendley said. Mr. Dee is a parishioner of Holy Ghost in Knoxville and serves as director of faith formation and evangelization for the Tennessee Knights of Columbus. He has attended previous St. Dominic men’s conferences but had not served as a speaker before this year.

“Jimmy Dee was one I watched and listened to this morning,” Mr. Pendley said. “This was the first time I heard him speak—very impressed, great presentation, great content.”

Having five priests to hear confessions was a “nice thing” about the conference, Mr. Pendley said.

“The line was long before every one of them. I was very grateful that all the guys got to say their confessions to the fathers,” he said.

Father Cummins said that “this year’s event was a very faith-filled event for the men.”

“Each year it keeps getting stronger and stronger,” he said. “It keeps attracting men from a wider area with the hope of being strengthened in their relationship with Christ, to take that back to their parishes, back to their communities, and to live out of that. I think it was very faith-filled.”