20/30 Team introduces new leadership
Each year, CTA 20/30, Call To Action’s young adult community, elects a few new members to its leadership team. Team members commit to visioning and creating programming for and with young progressive Catholics. Last year, we planned young adult events at the annual CTA conference, revamped this blog, and sent young adult pilgrims to World Youth Day. This coming year, who knows what more we can accomplish? I am thrilled to announce our four new team members who will get started in February! If you have ideas and dreams for what you want us to work on this year, please leave us a comment.
Megan Graves
Megan is a Senior at Dominican University, majoring in Black World Studies and Pastoral Ministry and minoring in Theology and the Study of Women and Gender. Megan is a Resident Assistant in the dormitories at Dominican, she is actively involved with in University Ministry, the Black Student Union as well as being a part of the Liturgical Choir, and this year’s Student Trustee. She is also a proud Sinsinawa Dominican Associate. She joined the Equally Blessed LGBTQ and ally pilgrimage to World Youth Day this summer.
Lui Francesco
Hello CTA families, my name is Lui and I’m very honored and excited to be given a chance to join 20/30 leadership.I’m originally from Japan, and I currently live in an adjacent city to Detroit. I hope to work on outreach projects especially concerning the Detroit area, hopefully strengthening the tie between 20/30 and local CTA chapters like CTA Michigan. I hope that I can be a part of the movement to ignite growth and change in Church to make all people welcome. I hope that someday I can create a place where LGBT folks can answer to the call to serve, can answer to God saying “Here I am, use me as your instrument of peace”. I am very excited to be an active ingredient for the growth, rather than being passively waiting for the Church to change. My motto is, if there is none, then create one. I hope to learn a lot, and again I’m thankful of this opportunity to grow together.
Caroline Riebeling
I’m Caroline, and I’m excited to be part of this team! I am originally from southern Illinois and am currently a Loretto Volunteer working in Washington, DC. My placement is a non-profit that provides GED preparation and workforce development to adults in DC. I am very passionate about education, and I very much enjoy working with adults. I am Catholic, and I draw strength and inspiration from dialogue about how we can make the church a place in which all are truly welcome. I enjoy being in and helping create spaces in which respectful and constructive conversations can happen, and I’m excited to help the 20/30 group continue to foster an environment in which young Catholics can express their thoughts and feelings about church and church reform.
Kristen Schenk
Greetings! My name is Kristen Schenk, and I’m excited and grateful for this new opportunity to serve on the CTA 20/30 Leadership Team! I originally hail from Louisville, KY, but have made my way to Chicago via St. Louis, MO (for college), Belize City (where I was a Jesuit Volunteer), and Charlottesville, VA (where I worked at a Catholic parish as the Coordinator of Justice and Charity). I’ve just finished my first semester of coursework toward my MDiv degree at Loyola University Chicago; I also live in an intentional community, volunteer at a home for folks with intellectual/developmental disabilities, and have been gradually getting involved with peacebuilding work, immigration reform, and the Catholic Worker community here in Chicago. I’m incredibly passionate about faith, spirituality, and social justice but have struggled throughout my young adulthood to find my place within Catholicism, largely due to all of the “no’s” and exclusionary practices that dominate the institutional Church. Being connected to and involved with the CTA community energizes me as we join together to shape a church and a world that are more inclusive, compassionate, simple, and, ultimately, radically loving and welcoming. I look forward to sharing my gifts and experiences with this group and to learning from those gifts and experiences that each of you bring as well as we try, individually and communally, to live the Gospel.
(originally posted on our 20/30 blog, http://youngadultcatholics-blog.com)
