David Kersten treasures experiences from his childhood that set the groundwork for his Catholic faith.
He and his mother, for instance, would swing open tiny doors on an Advent calendar each morning in December to reveal small gifts or Bible verses. They built anticipation and underlined the lessons of Christmas.
Kersten, chief executive officer for OLV Charities, said Tuesday that equipping Catholic parents with the tools and knowledge to share similar experiences with their kids is vital to the comeback of the Catholic faith in a time of national disassociation and regional distrust as the Buffalo Diocese deals with the ramifications of its sex abuse scandal.
The religious culture between parents and kids “doesn’t really exist anymore,” Kersten lamented. “There’s nothing handed down. We want to recover and redevelop that.”
He hopes a new $1.25 million grant from Lilly Endowment will help OLV Charities fund a Catholic Parenting Initiative during the next five years that will bridge that gap.
The grant dovetails with OLV Charities’ partnership with the Buffalo Diocese in the Road to Renewal, a diocesan-wide initiative to help local Catholic parishes emerge from an “existential and challenging time for the church in Buffalo,” Kersten said.
Its aim is to equip parish leaders with tools – curricula, religious resources and programming – that inspires parents to undertake meaningful religious activities with their children. Kersten said the old model, where parents might drop their kids off to a parish for 45 minutes once every couple weeks, has proven ineffective in passing on the…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply