NACC: Vision Online

Visionaries, prophets to guide
2012 conference in Milwaukee

By Michele Le Doux Sakurai, DMin, BCC

“Reconciling Journey: A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance” is the theme for the 2012 NACC Conference. This year’s conference promises to take all into a transformative journey; one that beckons each of us to acknowledge sin, mourn loss, seek healing, and celebrate hope in Christ. This journey will be experienced through the lens of our personal lives, our profession, our church, and our world. Our guides for this journey are visionaries and prophets. These plenary speakers will move us through the process of identifying and reflecting on the brokenness, ritualizing and validating our lament, and celebrating what we have integrated both personally and communally.

The journey begins with Reconciliation within Our Self focusing on the question, how do we explore our inner dynamic that is experienced as a tension between who we are and who we desire to be?
C. Vanessa White The plenary speaker is C. Vanessa White, director of the Augustus Tolton Pastoral Ministry Program, a theological and pastoral ministry formation program for African-American Catholics who are pursuing graduate study in preparation for ministerial leadership at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, IL. Ms. White has a passion for spirituality and ministry formation. She brings more than 25 years of experience as a presenter, retreat facilitator, spiritual director, and teacher. She is a professed Secular Franciscan with the Sacred Heart Province and is co-editor for Songs of the Heart and Meditation of the Soul as well as contributing author for Liturgy and Justice.

Jean De Blois, CSJThe journey continues with Reconciliation within Our Professional Settings: How are we a reconciling presence in professional settings where brokenness appears in many contexts? Presenting will be Jean De Blois, CSJ, who holds a doctorate in moral theology and medical ethics and currently is on the faculty of Aquinas Institute of Theology. She has served on the Board of Directors for the NACC and is attuned to spiritual care and its many demands. Her interests in ethics are varied including end-of-life decision-making, the effects of advancing technologies on the delivery of healthcare, professional ethics, the relevance of Catholic social teaching to Catholic healthcare today, environmental ethics and the future of Mother Earth, and lay leadership and sponsorship in Catholic healthcare and other ministries of the church. She has co-authored with Benedict M. Ashley and Kevin D. O’Rourke, “Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis.”

As the journey moves to Reconciliation within the Ecclesial Community, the focus is on how do we live gracefully within a church that embodies “the already and the not yet?” The plenary speaker is Bishop Blase Joseph Cupich of the Diocese of Spokane, WA. Bishop Cupich holds an S.T.D. in Sacramental Theology from The Catholic University of America.
Bishop Cupich Within the USCCB, he currently serves as chair of the bishops’ Committee on the Protection for Children and Young People and is a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Scripture Translation. Bishop Cupich has been involved in the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project as well as the 2011 Collegeville National Symposium of Lay Ecclesial Ministry. Recent articles include “Power in the Present: Hope for the Future” in the March 23, 2009, America magazine, and “The Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project: The Theological, Sacramental, and Ecclesial Context” (National Ministry Summit, May 2008).

The final focus of this convention will be Reconciliation within Our Global Society focusing on, how do we serve as ambassadors of reconciliation within the global community? Our presenter will be John Dear, SJ, who is a priest, pastor, peacemaker, organizer, retreat leader, author and editor. John Dear is an internationally known voice for peace and nonviolence. A Jesuit priest, he is the author/editor of 25 books.
John Dear, SJ In 2008, Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. From 1998 until December of 2000, he served as the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the largest interfaith peace organization in the U.S. After 9-11, John served as a Red Cross chaplain, and became one of the coordinators of the chaplain program at the Family Assistance Center. Presently, he lectures and also writes a weekly column for the National Catholic Reporter. His books include, “Lazarus Come Forth: How Jesus Confronts the Culture of Death and Invites Us into the New Life of Peace” (Orbis 2011), “Transfiguration: A Meditation on Transforming Ourselves and Our World” (Random, 2001), and “The Questions of Jesus: Challenging Ourselves to Discover Life’s Great Answers” (Image, 2004).

With these plenary speakers and the conference weaver, the stage is set for a potentially powerful and prayerful journey that will take us through lamentation to joy….

In addition to these speakers, the conference will include a “conference weaver” – Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, a monk of the Camaldolese Congregation as well as a musician, composer, writer, and teacher, who will help us move through our journey with the plenary speakers, provide times of meditation, reflection, and contemplation each day.
Fr. Cyprian Consiglio He will draw our theme across the four days we are together in Milwaukee. Fr. Cyprian has recorded and published (OCP) five collections of original music; he has also written “Prayer in the Cave of the Heart: The Universal Call to Contemplation” (Liturgical Press).

With these plenary speakers and the conference weaver, the stage is set for a potentially powerful and prayerful journey that will take us through lamentation to joy as we embrace the words of Ecclesiastes, “For everything there is a season…a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Come, let us together be transformed, as personally and communally we experience anew our oneness with God.

Michele Le Doux Sakurai is manager of pastoral care and mission for Providence Health Care, Stevens County, WA, and a member of the NACC 2012 National Conference Planning Task Force.

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