By Kevin Kelly
Catholic News Service

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CNS) — They clogged downtown streets, jammed restaurants, took up hotel rooms, ate up parking spaces and generally inconvenienced downtown Kansas City.

But the nearly 21,000 teens and their 3,000 adult chaperones and local volunteers also gave the city a three-day gift of faith.

They came to bring themselves closer to Christ. By the time they left the 2009 National Catholic Youth Conference Nov. 19-21, they showed Kansas City — and the world watching live on the Internet — what happens when Jesus Christ pours out of the hearts of thousands of believers.

The theme of the conference was “Christ Reigns.” It was co-hosted by the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kan.

Participants heard from keynote speakers, were entertained by various musical artists and attended dozens of workshops on such issues as social justice, the Bible, prayer, spirituality and social networking.

They spent time at a special conference theme park called the Reign Forest, a 200,000-square-foot interactive venue with more than 150 exhibits.

Mass was offered daily, and there were opportunities for the sacrament of reconciliation, Eucharistic Adoration, meditation, recitation of the rosary, prayer through music and a labyrinth experience.

Ernie Boehner, in charge of the army of 1,100 adult volunteers whose job it was to make the conference run smoothly and safely, smiled through a face that could barely hide the exhaustion of days that began before dawn and ended after midnight.

“When you look at all these kids you don’t see all the politics that adults argue about,” Boehner told The Catholic Key, newspaper of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. “You just think about what a great foundation this Church has for the future in these young people.”

Just how well-behaved can thousands of teenagers be? Consider opening night, when nearly 20,000 of them, not knowing there was another entrance on the other side of the 20,000-seat Sprint Center, massed early at one entrance and waited for two hours for the doors to open and to undergo security checks of backpacks and purses.

The jam-up could have seemed interminable, but the youths started the conference a bit early outside the arena. They began meeting each other, partying and making new friends with other teens from other parts of the country.

“It’s a lot different than Altamont, Kan.,” said Seth Blackburn, who came with a group from Mother of God Parish in Oswego, Kan., in the southeast corner of the state. “It’s incomprehensible to me. It’s mind-blowing.”

A group from the Archdiocese of Chicago began dancing with a group of umbrella-wielding, bead-wearing teens from the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

“Mardi Gras!” said Ryan Erhardt. “We are young, spirited New Orleans Catholics, and we came to accept and spread God’s message.”

Bob McCarty, executive director of the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry, said that three weeks before the conference began, registration had already exceeded the capacity of the main hall, the Sprint Center, where all the general sessions were scheduled.

That left organizers scrambling to prepare a “satellite” site for the overflow in the grand ballroom of the H. Roe Bartle Convention Center, with its own master of ceremonies. Both sites were linked with big screen, high-definition, closed-circuit television.

It worked so well that the masters of ceremonies at each site, musicians Steve Agrisano at Sprint and Jesse Manibusan at Bartle, were able to sing duets together across downtown Kansas City.

“We may be in two places, but we are one body in Christ,” Manibusan, formerly of the Oakland Diocese, told audiences in both places by the TV linkup.

Groups of teens were rotated from both sites so that no group was in the Bartle ballroom for more than one general session.

For many of the teens, just showing up in Kansas City was a physical ordeal. They came from all corners of the continental United States, plus Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. One delegation even came from a military base school in Japan, streaming their reports back to the Land of the Rising Sun via the Internet.

Those who lived closer to an ocean were more likely to book an airline flight. But others endured hours on buses.

Andrew Finch and his peers from Fife Lake, Mich. rode 13 hours. But it was worth it, he said.

“This is ridiculous,” Finch said as he joined the party outside the Sprint Center on opening night. “This is 20 times more people in my whole school.”

“It’s unbelievable,” said Hannah Miller, a member of St. Mary’s Parish in Albany, Ore., who came by plane.

“The speakers are just so amazing, and you learn so much about faith and how to share it,” she said. “There are just so many Catholic teens here and we all believe the same thing.”

Alyssa Petri, who came from Ascension Parish in Dayton, Ohio, called it “freaking amazing, the whole atmosphere here. There are just so many people here sharing the same faith that you have.”

McCarty make a grand entrance into the Sprint Center. An accomplished mountain climber, he rappelled by rope from the ceiling. Once he landed safely on the floor, he told the thousands of young people that they also need to “show up, step up and step out.”

The conference, he said, wasn’t just about having a three-day Catholic party. It was more about becoming disciples when they returned home.

“On Sunday, disciples show up for Mass even when they don’t feel like it,” McCarty said.

“Disciples are also challenged to bring their very best gifts to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Disciples step up in prayer when painful changes and challenges occur,” McCarty said. “And when we encounter disregard for human life, disciples step up in courage to proclaim Gospel values.”

McCarty reminded the youths that one in six children in the United States live in poverty and hunger.

“Disciples can’t close their eyes to that and give in to fear,” he said. “That’s because we don’t do this alone. Our Scriptures are filled with stories of people who stepped out. Our saints are models of people who stepped out.”

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