A chance to celebrate unity

By ROB HERBST
The Catholic Week
Division within the Catholic Church has surfaced and organizers of the “One Faith One Family” conference have that in mind. 
The theme to this year’s Archdiocese of Mobile-sponsored family conference is “May They Be One.” It will be an opportunity to celebrate the unity of the Church instead of harping on what divides Catholics.
“People just seem to be on edge and very quick to judge, very quick to be at odds with each other,” said Pat Arensberg, director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. “The Devil is the great divider. He is always seeking to take the people of God, separate us from one another and isolate us. Then we’re easier to pick off.”
This year’s conference takes place March 17-18 at the Mobile Convention Center. Tickets are available at www.mobarch.org/one-faith-one-family and cost $40 for single admission and $75 for families.
Arensberg said much of the reason for the division within the Church is Catholics often look at the teaching of the Church through the wrong lens.
“We look at the teaching of the Church through the lens of our politics instead of the other way around,” Arensberg said. “Our lens is supposed to be the Gospel. It’s the way we look at our politics. We’ve got it upside down and it’s affecting the Church.”
Respectful disagreements are one thing and are expected, but “there’s an imminent attack seeking to destroy us. This is a time to put aside squabbles and deal with the attack,” Arensberg said.
Leading this year’s conference are Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi and Dr. Andrew and Sarah Swafford. They frequently speak across the country on issues such as dating, marriage, the moral and spiritual life, St. John Paul II and Sacred Scripture. They are also authors and Dr. Andrew Swafford is a professor of Theology at Benedictine College in Kansas.
The Swaffords will focus on the four marks of the Church — One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Archbishop Rodi will also discuss what it means for the Church to be Apostolic, Arensberg said.
Other speakers will also give presentations for various age groups. 
“So often we take families and we subdivide them,” Arensberg said. “We have something for young adults, we have something for college age kids, we have something for the youth ministry or maybe pub theology for older adults. We minister to particular demographics in the Church, but I can think of almost no other event other than Mass itself where we all come together as one family of God and the entire family comes together.”
The conference begins with a fun night with food trucks, music and games beginning at 5 p.m. at Cooper Riverside Park, adjacent to the convention center. Doors to the convention center open at 6:15 p.m. The night will close with Eucharistic Adoration at about 8:30 p.m.
The conference continues with doors opening at 8 a.m. Saturday. Opening prayer is at 9 a.m. The day will conclude with a Vigil Mass scheduled for 4 p.m. and celebrated by Archbishop Rodi.
This will be the first in-person family conference sponsored by the Archdiocese of Mobile in four years. The family conference normally takes place every two years, but it was a virtual event due to COVID-19 in 2021.
Said Arensberg, “You have to stop and recharge. As families, that’s what we do. We haven’t stopped and recharged in a long time. The idea of this is to have an opportunity for the family to come together, get recharged and light the world on fire.”
— Visit mobarch.org/one-faith-one-family for more information.