By Kelley Kepler
Catholic Herald
College students attend Catholic leadership conference at UWS
SUPERIOR --About 35 college students from throughout the state of Wisconsin gathered at UW-Superior for the Catholic Student Coalition of Wisconsin (CSCOW) Leadership Conference, Oct. 4-6. This year's theme was "Mission Possible."
The purpose of the CSCOW conference was to provide Catholic students with opportunities to meet other student ministers, learn more about their faith and learn how to better share their faith with fellow students through campus ministry.
Most of the activities took place on Saturday, Oct. 5. After a breakfast, prayer and a welcome from Bishop Raphael M. Fliss at the Cathedral of Christ the King, the students attended four workshops and a presentation by keynote speaker Fr. Victor F. Mosele, S.X. The day concluded with supper, evening prayer time at the cathedral and a dance.
Mosele worked as a missionary in Sierra Leone, West Africa, from 1971 to 2000. During the last months of his experience in Africa, he was caught in the midst of civil war. He was captured and held hostage for five months before managing to escape from prison.
He plans to return to Sierra Leone when it is safe for him to go back. Mosele is currently assigned to the Xaverian community in Franklin, Wis. He also tours the United States and speaks to college audiences about his experience as a missionary.
In line with this year's theme, Mosele delivered a keynote address entitled "Mission Possible, to Advance God's Kingdom on Earth." He started by addressing a typical stereotype. He said people often think the religious, the priests, the nuns, the missionaries are the ones to go out and save the world. This is not so. "The salvation of the world comes from all of us."
He spoke of Christianity as a big mystery; "Ninety-nine percent of our beliefs are a mystery, and God has given us the gift to believe," Mosele said.
He discussed the "two horns" of the mystery. The first is that an all powerful God wants the salvation of everybody. The second is that God made people free. When Mosele put these horns together, he concluded, "God saves the world through us."
Mosele spoke of another mystery in that people are all individuals and fully responsible for their actions, yet the behavior of one person has a direct influence on the good or bad actions of others. "Good things influence the whole body of Christ; bad things detract from the whole body of Christ. Salvation will be accomplished when the good in the world triumphs over the evil," he said.
"Our role is to do good in whatever we are doing," Mosele said. And humans should never judge the actions of others, for only God can do this, he added.
Other workshop presenters talked about advancing God's kingdom on earth. Sr. Adele Thibudeau, a professor at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, gave a presentation titled "How BIG is your God?" She challenged her audience to examine their images of God through a broader perspective.
She spoke about different images people have of the divine, and using artwork as evidence, she proposed that "people of different cultures image God and Jesus according to the way they look." Consequently, the fact that God and Jesus are portrayed as men can make women feel excluded and have negative effects on their spirituality.
"God is beyond gender," she said. "But we have put a category and image to God because we're trying to embrace God, and we make God too little." While she understands through firsthand experience why women become discouraged, Thibudeau recommends women critique the church and examine the inclusive ministry of Jesus, rather than closing the door on the church.
Another professor at Stritch, Sue Adam, also talked about expanding one's horizons in her session called "Scratch and Sniff, Creative Bible Study," a title inspired by scratch and sniff stickers. She said, "We can only scratch at the surface of scripture and pick up a little bit of it."
Adam said, "How we share our stories shows that scripture is still being written today." Adam also said it is important to understand the people of the time and realize "the Gospel wasn't written on the spot. What was remembered was passed down. We're continually unfolding the Gospel today."
David Carrano and John Paul Kloiber, students at UW-Madison, spoke on "The Spirit of Service on Campus." Their main point was that service should be sparked by love. "The love of Christ leads us to loving our neighbors, and to serve others is to serve Christ," said Carrano. "Without that basis, the fruits of your labors would not come forth," Kloiber added.
From their own experiences, they found more joy in establishing ongoing relationships than in tackling big service projects. According to Kloiber, there are three relationships to focus on while serving others: the volunteer's relationship with God, the volunteer's relationship with the person he or she is serving and the volunteer's relationship with fellow volunteers.
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2002