Treasuring Womanhood Conference
celebrates women's gifts

By Mary Ann Wyand

More than 300 women from parishes in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and Diocese of Lafayette celebrated their Catholic faith in song and prayer during the second annual Treasuring Womanhood conference on April 30 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis.

Internationally known Irish vocalist Dana Rosemary Scallon of Galway, Ireland, who is known as Dana and is a former member of the European Parliament, and nationally known author and chastity speaker Mary Beth Bonacci of Phoenix presented keynote addresses affirming women’s roles in the Church and society.

This year’s conference was dedicated to the life and ministry of Pope John Paul II and was co-sponsored by the Marian Center of Indianapolis and the archdiocesan Office of Pro-Life Ministry.

The women also participated in a eucharistic liturgy celebrated by Msgr. Joseph F. Schaedel, vicar general and pastor of Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis, as well as eucharistic adoration and Benediction led by Father Jonathan Meyer, associate director of youth and young adult ministry for the archdiocese and associate pastor of Our Lady of the Greenwood Parish in Greenwood.

Servants of the Gospel of Life Sister Diane Carollo, director of the archdiocesan Office of Pro-Life Ministry, said the second annual conference for women was a success.

“We had fantastic speakers,” Sister Diane said, “and everyone was enthused. We also had eucharistic adoration, and it was so prayerful, so beautiful and so well-done by Father Meyer. To be in the presence of Christ as we concluded the day was so appropriate.”

In “The Challenge of Discipleship,” Dana sang and talked about how her pro-life efforts in the European Parliament from 1999 until 2004 helped counter legislation that would have expanded legal access to abortion, and said her activism on behalf of the sanctity of life led to her defeat when she ran for re-election.

Dana also shared the story of how her participation in the National Catholic Youth Conference in November 1991 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis inspired her to write the song “We Are One Body,” which was adopted by Pope John Paul II as the theme song for World Youth Day in Denver in August 1993 and has been part of the biennial international youth gathering since then.

Dana said Our Lady of the Greenwood parishioner Kathy Denney of Greenwood, a friend who is a co-director of the Marian Center, as well as the national youth conference in Indianapolis “were part of the reason that ‘We Are One Body’ was written. It basically sprang from what was obviously a challenge: What do we teach our young people today? What do we teach them about the Catholic faith, this incredible jewel, that will give them the strength to fulfill basically what we are asked to fulfill in our confirmation—that we are soldiers of Christ?”

Dana said that, as a child growing up in Ireland, “we were told that this was a faith that we had to be willing to lay our lives down for.”

But in recent years, she said, young people have only received “half-truths” about the Catholic faith in their ­catechesis.

“Yes, we must tell our young people that we have a loving and forgiving God because we do,” Dana said. “But one of the people who spoke at that particular conference for young people said that we also have a God of justice, a God who gives us Commandments and not suggestions. … Yes, there is a merciful ocean of God’s love for us, but there is also the reality that there is a devil in this world, there is evil that we must constantly battle. And yet these young people were not being properly told this.”

During a flight from Indianapolis to her family’s temporary home in Birmingham, Ala., after the national youth conference, Dana said she was “very sad about what I have seen happening with these young people and I was praying about it.

“I thought, isn’t it better that we teach our young people the whole truth and tell them, ‘Yes, it’s going to be difficult, the times when you are going to stand alone, maybe even in your own family, maybe with your own friends, but look beyond that,’ ” she said. “Look with a vision that takes in the world and you will see that there are millions and millions of young people like you standing for the same truths and you’re not standing alone. And just like that, I got this song, ‘We are one body, one body in Christ, and we do not stand alone. … You came that we might have life.’

“It went on to talk about all the needs in the world,” she said. “ ‘Can you hear them crying? Can you feel their pain? Would you feed my hungry? Would you help my lame? See the unborn baby and the forgotten ones, the elderly, the infirm, who feel that they’re forgotten. They are not forgotten. They are not forsaken. They are not alone, for we are one body. I am the way, the truth and the life. He who believes in me will have eternal life.’ As I got [the words to the song], I could see in my mind’s eye a huge stadium with tiers and tiers of young people singing it like an anthem.”

Dana’s vision came true when she sang the song at Mile High Stadium during World Youth Day in Denver in August 1993 for Pope John Paul II and more than 250,000 teenagers and young adults from all over the world.

Bonacci blended humor with a discussion of Pope John Paul II’s teachings about the theology of the body and emphasized that the late pontiff was very supportive of women throughout his 26-year papacy.

St. Gabriel the Archangel parishioner Dorothy Barry of Indianapolis, who assisted as a music minister for the conference Mass and eucharistic adoration, said “the women’s conference wasn’t just about women. It was a message for everyone, and I appreciated that more than anything. We were called to go back to our lives and spread the word [of God], and also to live the life of Jesus, to try to do that always in our lives, with our family, our friends and everyone we meet.”

As a conference organizer, Kathy Denney thanked the women for participating in the conference and challenged them to “go back into our homes and bring Christ and share what we heard today, that Jesus is real and that life is important. That’s what we hope goes on from this conference. We came to do this [conference] to bring about evangelization, and here comes Jesus. It was so beautiful.” †