Bloomfield Hills — As Auxiliary Bishop Arturo Cepeda gave his homily to nearly 90 young teenagers being confirmed April 28 at St. Regis Parish, the majority of them had their faces buried in their smartphones.
They weren’t ignoring the bishop, though; it was his idea.
Instead of being asked to turn off their cellphones or leave them at home, each of the 89 confirmandi were asked to bring them to the Mass for a special homework assignment from the bishop.
In the middle of his homily, Bishop Cepeda revealed his intention: to create a unique social network to keep the teens connected and involved with their parish long after their confirmation was over.
“Today you are called to be joyful disciples of our Lord, with great joy to spread the message of love,” Bishop Cepeda told the teens.
“This is not a graduation,” the bishop continued. “This is just the beginning. Isn’t that exciting?”
Each of the teens was asked to send a text message to the parish’s director of religious education, Sarah Hogan, who immediately texted back with a simple message: “Peace.”
From there on, the parish plans to keep in constant communication with the teens through text, Facebook and even Twitter, said Msgr. Charles Kosanke, pastor at St. Regis. The idea is to provide the newly confirmed students with continued opportunities for parish involvement, spiritual growth and fellowship with one another.
Before confirmation, each of the confirmandi were interviewed and asked how they’d like to help out during Mass and in volunteer roles within the parish. Some would be readers, altar servers and ushers during the parish’s weekly Life Teen Mass, and others would get involved in various other capacities during the week, Msgr. Kosanke said.
The bottom line, he said, was to keep as many of them active in Church life as possible, and avoid the post-confirmation “drift” many teens experience in high school.
“We won’t be able to keep all of them around,” Msgr. Kosanke said. But when the bishop presented the idea as a way to reach out to the teens on their own level, “we jumped at the opportunity,” he said.
The confirmation social network was an idea Bishop Cepeda developed during his time in San Antonio, Texas, before his arrival in Detroit in 2011. Though the St. Regis confirmation class was his “beta test” in the Archdiocese of Detroit, the bishop said he plans to continue the initiative at future confirmations.
“Here at St. Regis, we know how to communicate,” Bishop Cepeda told the teens. “And we have a message. And we’ll spread that message all over the world.”
And as a regular reminder of that mission, the teens were given a Scripture-inspired password to log in with: “Here I am” — followed by their name.
