Father Anthony L. Cecil Jr. believes Gen Z and Gen Alpha — today’s children and young adults — are more open to religious experiences and to exploring faith than the generation before them.
And he’s ready to help them encounter Jesus in his new role directing the Archdiocese of Louisville’s Office for Youth and Young Adults.
“If someone hasn’t encountered Jesus, they don’t care what the catechism says,” Father Cecil said in a recent interview.
He will lead the office in collaboration with Jonna O’Bryan, the associate director, who agreed with him, noting, “My number one goal is to bring them to an encounter with Christ.”
Father Cecil and O’Bryan will begin their new positions July 1 at the archdiocese’s Maloney Center. They succeed Michal Horace, who retired in March.
The decision to hire two people to lead the office speaks to the importance of the ministry, said Dr. Brian B. Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer for the Archdiocese of Louisville.
“While we’ve had a youth ministry office for many decades, we were desiring to expand our outreach efforts to parishes, high school chaplains and campus ministers. In order to do that, we needed a staff beyond the director,” he said. “There is no question that whenever we talk to parishes about their pastoral challenges, how they can be more effective with youth and young adults” is among them.
Both Father Cecil and O’Bryan, he said, will bring significant and unique experiences to their roles.
“The archbishop appointed a priest who has been a high school chaplain and has youth ministry in his parish. This provides a unique opportunity for us to have an advocate in the office who has firsthand experience with all of that,” he said. “Likewise, hiring a youth minister for the office, who has more than 25 years of experience in parish youth ministry, provides a unique opportunity as well, to have that kind of practical first-hand experience.”
Father Cecil is pastor of St. Raphael Church, which has a youth ministry program, and he will continue in that role. He serves on the advisory board of EQ Saints, a national organization for youth ministry. He ministered to high school and college-age young people through St. Meinrad’s One Bread, One Cup program for six summers, first as a seminarian and later as a priest. He is also just finishing a six-year assignment as chaplain for Sacred Heart Academy. And when he attended Bethlehem High School, he was heavily involved in campus ministry.
And when it comes to young adult ministry, Father Cecil said, “I am one. I just turned 32.”
Father Cecil was quick to point out that ministry with young adults is about “meeting them where they are” because it can look so different from one person to the next.
“I have friends who are in the church and friends who are not in the church,” he said. “A person in their 20s is different from someone in their 30s,” as are those who are married or have kids.
O’Bryan has served as director of youth ministry at St. Patrick Church for nearly 10 years. She will leave that position when she begins her new role. She has also served as a pastoral associate for Meade County Catholic Youth Ministry and served as director of youth ministry for a cluster of parishes in the Diocese of Evansville, Ind.
Over the course of 25 years, O’Bryan said, “God has called me to love young people so they feel loved, known and seen. The experience of seeing a child change in front of your eyes in an encounter with Christ — I can’t explain it. And then that encounter turns into a conversion, and they go on to live for Christ.”
“We’re facilitating opportunities to encounter Jesus. When you look at the Gospels, when someone encountered Jesus, it changed them. By ministering to the ministers, we can help youth have an encounter with Jesus that will change their lives forever.”
— Father Anthony L. Cecil Jr.
O’Bryan and Father Cecil said they intend to define their roles once they begin their new ministry. But they share a vision for the ministry, they said. As they spoke, they tended to finish one another’s thoughts, one picking up where the other left off.
First, they intend to “minister to the ministers — volunteers, parish staff, campus ministers, high school chaplains — anyone that is ministering to the young church,” said Father Cecil.
Their goal, he said, is to equip them with the resources and formation that they need.
“We need to support and empower them to live out their vocation,” said O’Bryan. “When they live out their vocation, they can encounter Christ in a meaningful way.”
Picking up that thread, Father Cecil said, “All our work as an office — we’re facilitating opportunities to encounter Jesus. When you look at the Gospels, when someone encountered Jesus, it changed them. By ministering to the ministers, we can help youth have an encounter with Jesus that will change their lives forever.”
Father Cecil said he and O’Bryan “are going to have to build” their ministry.
“The church changes, culture changes and kids change,” he said. “It’s the same Gospel, but figuring out how we proclaim it” is their task.
O’Bryan said she’s excited to reach out to people in the archdiocese who are ministering to youth and young adults.
The archdiocese will be taking a delegation in November to the National Catholic Youth Conference, known more commonly as NCYC. So far, 350 people have signed up.
Father Cecil said he attended the conference, held in Indianapolis every other year, as a college seminarian.
“It blew me away,” he said. “It showed me how big the church is. I think those experiences for young people are really important.
“I would love to see us host a diocesan youth conference,” he added. “There is a lot of room to dream.”O’Bryan is coordinating the archdiocesan NCYC delegation. To register or for more information, contact her at 812-449-6560, at ncyc@archlou.org or visit www.archlou.org/youth/.
