On Saturday, October 12, the second annual GotLove? conference will be held at Nativity Church and School in Menlo Park, just south of San Francisco. GotLove? is aimed at youth and young adults (and their parents) and describes its mission: “Our culture misleads many about love, sex, and relationships. We want to empower people with the truth about love and purity, to bring them lasting joy and fulfilling relationships with God and others.”
GotLove? traces its roots to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. The conference was begun in 2012 under the leadership of newly-ordained Father John Mary Chung, associate pastor at Nativity, who “… saw a tremendous need to enlighten people about Christ’s teachings on authentic love and chastity. He noticed that many, even devout, Catholics were misinformed or simply ignorant.”
Father Chung asked Nativity deacon Dominick Peloso to help form a committee of parishioners to tackle the problem. Stanford college and graduate students, recently married people, single professionals, those called to celibate vocations, parents, and grandparents – came together. One of the committee members and co-organizers of the conference told CalCatholic: “God created each of us to love and to be loved. Love is our calling and purpose. Each of our hearts longs to fulfill that calling, but we are often confused about what love is. Our culture and what Pope Frances calls the Enemy feed us lies about love, sex, and relationships. Those lies have left many feeling confused, frustrated, used, depressed, and, sometimes, addicted….”
The 2012 conference drew 250 people. Attendees used phrases like “life-changing,” and some parents told organizers that their high school age children “talked non-stop for an hour about how amazing the conference was.”
This year’s conference begins with Mass at 9:00 a.m.. One of the conference workshops is on authentic masculinity, and is called “What it is to be a Man?” That workshop turned out to be the most popular at last year’s conference, and this year it will feature Charlie Aeschliman, a former Navy S.E.A.L. and S.E.A.L. instructor, who will talk on Commando Catholicism and Spiritual Warfare; and Matt Fradd from Catholic Answers, who has appeared on the BBC and EWTN, will speak on Dispelling Sexual Myths, Manhood and True Freedom.
Other speakers include Mary Bielski, national spokeswoman and founder of ALL4HIM, on Exposing Lies, Unveiling Truths about Love, Sex and Relationships; and Patricia Sandoval, from Rachel’s Vineyard and who has been featured on EWTN, on Healing from The Culture of Death. Seminarians and religious sisters will also be in attendance and will host workshops on My Call to The Priesthood and My Call to Be a Sister.
Organizers told CalCatholic: “Delicate subjects are addressed at the conference. They are handled with refinement, dignity, and discretion. Our goal is to have every attendee leave as innocent as they arrived. Attendees must, however, be at least high school age to attend.” Registration is $30 and includes lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments. Nativity Church is located at 210 Oak Grove Avenue in Menlo Park. The conference will be held at the adjacent Sobrato Pavilion of Nativity School, at the corner of Oak Grove & Laurel. Registration and more information at www.gotlove.info
Finally, a group is doing something to counter the sex-saturated messages that are given to young people. I have never heard a homily about celibacy, purity or self control, but TV, movies, advertising for clothing, autos, and even hamburgers, stress the glamour of an active sex life. The media provides the “catechesis” for many young people, and even some who are no longer young. Teaching the virtues of celibacy and purity could even, indirectly, reduce the number of abortions.
Arranging and gathering excellent, nationally-known speakers for a conference like this second annual “Got Love” conference takes a great deal of work and expense for travel, accommodations, etc. It is great that 250 people attended the conference last year and hopefully more will attend this year.
However, millions of Catholic (and other) young people need the information and counsel provided by this conference.
Hopefully the organizers will be able to have this conference very well video and audio recorded and also transcribed so that it can be made available in many formats: print, audio, and video and on the Internet and social media to a very wide audience who are in great need of authentic teaching.
The Planned Parenthood, hedonistic, egotistical message to young people is propagated constantly by the mainstream media — and brings great revenues to Planned Parenthood in distribution of birth control drugs and devices, and “back-up” abortions and testing and treatment of rampant sexually transmitted infections!
May the messages of the “Got Love” conference be seen, heard, and read far and wide !!!
Having just recently celebrated the Memorial of the Martyrs of Korea, I am very grateful to Father John Mary Chung for making this happen.
He is a CONVERT to the Catholic Faith: he is very devout, pious, and committed.
For young people and their parents to learn more about “The Theology of the Body” is so important — let us move toward getting this kind of workshop spread to MANY parishes!
It sounds great. I wish I could demo it to see how good it is. I hope it shines if it is truly spreading the word on Chastity.
If you check out the Got Love? website http://www.gotlove.info, you can see videos of 2 of this year’s speakers, Mary Bielski and Matt Fradd. The site has a lot of great resources on chastity. It also takes donations, if you want to support the chastity revolution. It’s a very orthodox, cool, and inspiring conference.
Sounds great Mich. Definitely will support anything that honors God’s plan. Thank you, I will check it out. God bless you
I attended last year’s Got Love? Conference, and it was amazing! Really positive, informative, and real. Very empowering! Everyone loved it.
Young Catholic people should never be DATING…period!…this implies ROMANCE!…they should be “courting”…and on the day of their wedding, they should kiss, for the first time, on the day of their nuptials…that’s what my wife and I did…so should all Catholics!…nuff said
OMG
Stephen I have to tell you that we must reach our youth in their level without compromising the truth. I use to use the phrasing courting (I only used this word recently because of a wonderful example from a Christian family) but my kids and their friends would ask “what’s that?” Only devout Christians used that word more, except for the mega churches. So now I tell my kids OK, don’t fight me about that word, fine…then lets use the phrases “dating with a purpose”. The purpose is to practice chastity, and to get to the know the person in a chaste manner to see if they are right for us for marriage. I always tell our youth, if you are not ready for marriage, then why date…there needs to be a holy purpose. I do like the word courting but if kids don’t use that, then best we remind them that dating in a Catholic Christian plan as God commanded them, then we must have a holy purpose.
and lets not talk about the kissing….we need to reach them with realistic expectations. It’s hard for them today and we pray for them all the more. We parents who are more conservative will suffer with ugly pride because we don’t want them to disappoint us, so we can actually provoke rebellion in them because we have so many bad influences working against us. So I hope this conference does a good job at edifying our values to them, but in their level to help reach them and use better common sense. The trashy message in the secular is so powerful right now, we need more and more conferences and resources that will help our children discern for themselves and help them choose a chaste lifestyle throughout all their life..
One more thing…pornography is second only to abortion as the greatest scourge in our great nation!…It is a gateway sin, that leads to prostitution, premarital sex, compulsive masturbation, abortion and a whole host of other “sin’s of the flesh”, which are all mortal sin’s… that kill’s the life of the animated soul in a state of grace…more soul’s are in hell due to sin’s of the flesh, than any other sin…
Excellent comments Stephen….you are truly a soldier of Christ. Keep on!
Nice counter argument to Myley Cyrus.
I knew a sister in Los Angeles, she used to run a number of workshops in and around Westchester and the South Bay…she used to dress immodestly and even flirt with men!…I called her on it, and she didn’t like it…she gave a workshop at LMU wearing a skirt with no hose, and she was wearing a pair of “peep-toe mules”…no joke!…I should have reported her to her superiors…lot of good that would have done…one of many less than wonderful religious who have lost their faith
Who is that sister you are talking about? What does this have to do with this article.
‘We must be pure. I do not speak merely of the purity of the senses. We must observe great purity in our will, in our intentions, in all our actions.’
–St. Peter Julian Eymard
“Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.”
–Pope John Paul II
“There is need for a crusade of manliness and purity to counteract and nullify the savage work of those who think man is a beast. And that crusade is your work.”
–St. Josemaria Escriva