Beliefs May Be Shaken, But Not Trust in God

By COLLEEN FONTANA
DAVIS HIGH SCHOOL
For the past five years, since the sex abuse scandal surfaced in the Diocese of Yakima, I have questioned my faith and my church.

Having been Catholic since birth, it was a strange realization to look at my religion and notice its dire need of repair rather than the flawlessness I had seen as a child.

Naturally, I didn’t like what I saw. It wasn’t comforting knowing that something I had believed in my whole life was not as perfect as I had once thought.

In response to the scandal and my misgivings, a priest told me that even though I might lose trust in priests and bishops, I need not lose trust in my religion. He said I could still go on with my faith.

So, for a while, I tried. I came up with many ways to keep my faith. Most of them, however, involved trying to ignore the problem.

Working to look past it, I focused my attention on the good things about my religion. But this method was short-lived. I found that even the things I enjoyed — receiving communion, going to youth workshops, even morning prayer at home — were all tainted by the knowledge of the scandal in the church.

I constantly asked myself: If church leaders are hiding information that impacts the safety of children to protect the power of priests and bishops, then what else are they willing to lie about to protect that power?

Ignoring the problem was impossible, and trying to keep faith in my religion when so much was being concealed was just as difficult.

Priests and bishops are the Jesus figures in the Roman Catholic Church. Without them, we can’t perform sacraments, which are vital to our roles as Christians. If I can’t trust them, how can anyone ask me to trust the religion they have helped to build?

The support beams are what keeps the house standing. Whether you trust the house does not matter if the beams’ failure causes it to topple.

I want to believe that my faith will be unaffected by these events, but the scandals have caused me to question more than just my trust in priests. I have questioned myself and my judgment. When something drives you to second-guess the decisions you have made, you know you have been affected in more ways than one.

So, in response to the priest who told me to keep my faith throughout this trial, I say, impossible. Instead, I must work to decipher what is left to believe in.

I do know one thing, though, and that is there is someone out there bigger than these disagreements and scandals. Someone who is in much more control.

Though my beliefs in my church or priests might falter during these events, my trust in God need not. In that, I can put my faith.

— Colleen Fontana is a junior at Davis High School

EDITOR’S NOTE: Unleashed writer Colleen Fontana is the daughter of Robert Fontana, the former director of evangelism for Catholic Diocese of Yakima. He sued the diocese in 2005, saying he had been forced to resign after he questioned how the diocese was handling the case of a priest whom church officials believe downloaded images of naked boys. The diocese disputed Fontana’s claim of being forced out and a state appeals court dismissed the lawsuit in 2007.

God is a “Loving Being”

By ANDY CARROLL
UNLEASHED STAFF

“What do you believe?”

This very broad question was recently posed to my religion class at La Salle High School. After watching an old video featuring teenagers from six different religious backgrounds talking about the faith in their lives, we were required to complete a project answering that question with written and visual work.

Even though it might seem simple, it’s a tough question to answer because it all eventually comes to an intimately personal answer.

Throughout my life, my faith has meant a lot to me. This was always my parents’ intention, hence the reason they brought me to Sunday morning services from the time I was 13 days old and sent both me and my sister to Catholic school.

Between elementary and middle school at St. Paul Cathedral School and high school at La Salle, faith has also been an integral part of my education. I’ve always had to take required religion classes in addition to all the regular ones.

I’ve had the chance to think about my faith daily because of the religion classes I’ve taken at school. But my faith cannot merely be summed up in the fact that I attend church services or Catholic school. There are always the personal underpinnings that lay at the heart of any person’s beliefs.

The foundation of my beliefs is, of course, that there is a God. I believe that God is a loving being, and that there is a purpose for every event.

Part of the reason why it has not been incredibly difficult for me to believe that God exists is because of the intricacy of all the events that occur.

Whenever something bad happens to me, my gut reaction is to wonder why and wish it had never happened. But with time, I tend to look back on those kinds of moments and see all the good things that never would have happened had it not been for that one tough event.

Some would say that such a thing is merely chance at work. But when I see how connected everything seems to be and how purpose-driven life is, I can’t help but believe that there must be some higher power pulling the strings.

When it comes to the expression of my faith, I tend to be more introverted. I’m not the kind of guy who tries to slip snippets of his faith into every conversation or one who exuberantly joins in with the gospel choir. For me, having faith and feeling sound about it is assurance enough.

Because of the school environment I’m in, I don’t find it that difficult to talk about my faith with my classmates. In fact, it’s usually a requirement during our religion class.

As I prepare to finish high school and move on to college, my faith life remains within the center of the action. As of this moment, every university I am considering applying to is a Christian one.

It can sometimes be difficult for teenagers to talk about the role faith plays in their lives. Our beliefs are among the most personal things about ourselves, and aspects can embroil controversy and heated debate if nerves are hit.

However, I do believe that faith is something that every person should examine within themselves. Regardless of the specifics of our individual beliefs, we all have stances on these issues. Knowing where we stand can help us realize a great deal about ourselves.

Regardless of the state of the times I go through, I always find it comforting to know that I have my faith to fall back on.

— Unleashed columnist Andy Carroll is a senior at La Salle High School.

Camp Saint Francis Offers a Place to Serve

By COLLEEN FONTANA
DAVIS HIGH SCHOOL

Rylan Montgomery found the task at hand — drilling a screw into a table without plugging it into a power source — very difficult.

The 16-year-old knew it would take him a long time.

My dad, 50-year-old Robert Fontana, picked up the drill, and said, “Like this unplugged drill, we are working with people who are powerless.”

Reaching out to many such people is the purpose and mission of the yearly service crew known as Camp Saint Francis, held annually in my backyard. For three days during the summer, people — young and old alike — work throughout the community: building, painting, empowering.

Camp Saint Francis began five years ago when my dad felt inspired while talking with some friends.

“They were talking about taking their families to Tijuana for a service project,” my dad explained. “I told them that they don’t need to go to Tijuana; they could come to Yakima.

“There’s a lot of service to be done in our own backyards.”

That first year, five families participated, about 20 people in all. And year by year, more people have joined the project.

This year, 11 families participated, more than doubling the number of people involved. Seventeen teens, seven younger kids and 21 adults camped out in Yakima, giving up their weekend and donating their time to people in need.

The weekend project is appropriately named Camp Saint Francis for Francis of Assisi, who lived a life of poverty and service. Dedicated to helping the poor and sick, Saint Francis spent his life making other people’s lives more comfortable.

By cleaning yards, preparing food at the Union Gospel Mission, painting houses and building porches, the volunteers working at this camp strive to do the same.

“It’s a good thing to help others,” said 55-year-old Bob Kane, a lawyer from Seattle. “We can’t do that enough.”

The father of four brings his kids to the event.

“More than anything else I want the kids to get something out of it,” he said.

Melissa Montgomery, 45, has similar feelings: “The kids need a chance to serve, a chance to give back,” she said.

Colleen Kane, 14, has come since day one, and it’s not just because her parents make her. She believes that service is important.

“I realize that a little bit of work on my part can make a difference in someone’s life,” she said.

Sixteen-year-old Ali Thiel agreed, saying, “Service makes me feel thankful for what I have and happy that I get to help others.”

Camp Saint Francis works with Volunteer Chore Services in Yakima to organize and plan the weekend’s service projects. Theresa Wismer, a 23-year-old volunteer coordinator in Yakima, explained the organization saves all the big projects for the Camp Saint Francis group.

“We pick out the ones that should take more than one day,” Wismer said.

Through hard work, the volunteers’ efforts pay off by very visible leaps and bounds.

“It looks a lot better,” said 14-year-old Sarah Corn about a large yard she helped to clean.

“It’s fun, too,” added her sister, Jessica Corn, 10.

My dad believes that we serve not only because the community needs help, but because serving others enriches the life of the ones who serve.

“Our faith calls us to serve others,” he said. “We do it as families because we want to help our children become compassionate so they will grow up and do the same.”

Catholic Teens Pray in Taizé Tradition

EDITOR’S NOTE: Robert Fontana is the father of Unleashed reporter Colleen Fontana, who co-wrote this column. Colleen Fontana and Mia Walsh both attend the Taizé youth group at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

By COLLEEN FONTANA and MIA WALSH
DAVIS HIGH SCHOOL

The lights are off. Only the dim, flickering glow of candles illuminates three icons, each depicting a significant person in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Twenty teenagers sit nearby, each holding an unlit candle in their hands. Quietly, they start to sing hymns. Then, one by one, they light their candles and kneel near the icons to pray.

In preparation for the sacrament of confirmation, these teens meet once a week at Yakima’s St. Joseph’s Catholic Church to pray and discuss issues facing the church. They come from different schools, both public and private. And leading their Wednesday night meetings is Robert Fontana, 50, who has been the youth group leader at the church for eight years.

Fontana uses prayer in the Taizé tradition as a way to help strengthen teens’ faith.

After visiting the Taizé (pronounced Teh-ZAY) Community in France in 2000, Fontana says he thought it would be beneficial to use this method with teenagers in a youth group. In 2001, he began to invite young people to participate in the Taizé youth group, which continues today.

Hannah Kaluzny, a 16-year-old sophomore at Davis High School, has been attending the Taizé youth group at St. Joe’s for almost two years.

“It gives me a lot of time to reflect and think about my own life,” she says.

Taizé prayer services involve the use of candles, icons and short, repetitive songs.

For Frank Sziebert, a 16-year-old junior at Davis, the Taizé aspect sets this youth group apart from others.

“Most youth groups have discussion time, but Taizé is something new and different,” he says.

Taizé is not new. The monastic community was founded in 1940 by the late Brother Roger. Since the late 1950s, the Taizé Community has become a symbol of reconciliation between Christians and other groups. It’s made up of more than 100 brothers of Catholic and various Protestant backgrounds from more than 25 countries. And that’s part of its appeal for young people, who have popularized pilgrimages to the community as well as Taizé prayer services around the world.

Fontana explains: “Candles create a beautiful but soft lighting that helps the person praying to get out of their head and get more into their heart and simply be present to God.”

Kaluzny says she finds it easier to do that at the Taizé youth group than during Mass on Sundays.

“This is much more personal,” she says. “Mass is traditional, and it is hard to get stuff out of it, where as here it is more personal and (relevant) to your life.”

Thirteen-year-old Christina Foley, an eighth-grader at St. Joseph-Marquette School, agrees.

“There is a lot of talking in Mass, but Taizé is silent, and we spend more time with God as well,” she says.

Once the Taizé prayer has finished, the teens get to eat a quick snack before regrouping for discussion. Every week there is a new topic to discuss; some pertain to current events and others to church history.

“We don’t just sit there,” says 16-year-old Chris Wilson, a freshman at Eisenhower High School. “We get to ask questions if we don’t understand something.”

And, says 18-year-old Minerva Perez, a senior at La Salle High School, “I can actually be with people my own age.”

These weekly discussions and reflective prayer services create an atmosphere in which students can come together and share their faith.

“Taizé is very relaxing,” Kaluzny says. “And since life is usually busy, it is hard to find time for my faith.”

For these teens, Taizé gives them that time.

Sandwich Sundays at St. Joe’s

By LETY CLARK-OLIVERO
EISENHOWER HIGH SCHOOL

What makes the perfect sandwich?

I say it’s bread, cheese, meat and mayo — along with a little love and friendship. And all of these ingredients are readily available on an assembly line of care every fourth Sunday at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Yakima.

The fourth Sunday of the month at St. Joe’s is Sandwich Sunday. Sandwiches are made, donations are given, and gifts are brought — all to benefit the homeless.

Production started slowly. In 2005, volunteers made only 5,475 sandwiches. But by 2007, they were making 14,660 a year.

“We now make over one thousand sandwiches a month,” says 69-year-old Alice Nevue, the coordinator of Sandwich Sunday at St. Joe’s

Plus, she says, volunteers have “been able to give extra funds for blankets, caps socks and water almost every month.”

The project started with former parish member Sue Romzek. She had traveled to Alaska, returning with the idea in 2005. She shared the idea with Nevue and the Rev. L. Michael Pope, the pastor at St. Joe’s.

Nevue loved the idea and, with Pope’s support, immediately started working on the project, which has been a success for four years now.

Nevue says her goal is to expand Sandwich Sunday to other local Catholic parishes in order to better reach the homeless.

Meantime, production continues once a month at St. Joe’s, located at 212 N. Fourth St. All supplies are donated. With money collected from donations, Nevue buys whatever else is needed at local stores.

She arrives at the church the Saturday before each event to make sure everything is in order. The Sunday of the project, she arrives at 8 a.m. and brings up supplies from the basement refrigerator, arranging them on tables in the parish’s Schoenberg Hall.

Volunteers begin arriving and assembling peanut butter-and-jelly and ham-and-cheese sandwiches.

Among the volunteers are families from the parish, including teens, single members of the church, walk-ins, and even occasionally a few homeless people that have heard of the project and want to help out.

I attended a recent Sandwich Sunday. And upon arrival I was shocked. There was a whole assembly line with tables covered to their the edges with cheese, meats, condiments, peanut butter, jelly, and bags.

Mike Emerson, a member of the parish, and his daughters Kya and Alyesha, were working the first station, arranging slices of bread on a paper towel.

“It makes me feel so great,” he says. “I also got my girls to understand that they have so much compared to these people that have nothing.”

Emerson has been volunteering with the project for about three years and occasionally donates breads and cheese.

When the bread is properly arranged, he slides the paper towel to the next station, where a volunteer adds cheese and meat, stacking turkey, ham or pastrami, depending on what has been donated or purchased.

Then, they’re topped off with bread and bagged by 16-year-old Hannah Kaluzney, a sophomore at Davis High School.

“I think it’s really cool,” Kaluzney says of the project. She’s volunteered here about five times so far.

“People always talk about helping, and here people are actually doing it,” she says.

Kaluzney puts condiments — like mayonnaise, relish and mustard — in the sandwich bags, then stacks them for distribution.

At another table, I met Janet Moser and Ashley Blain, making peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches

“There is a lot of sadness and a lot of hunger in the world, and you can do a little and it will help,” says Moser, a parish member.

Blain, a 17-year-old junior at Selah High School, heard about the project from her mom. She’s been volunteering since last October.

When the sandwiches are completed, they — along with donations — are distributed by 50-year-old Steve Gaulke, a long-time homeless advocate who supervises mental health outreach services for Central Washington Comprehensive Mental Health.

He drives around town to places where homeless people live, giving away sandwiches, hygiene items and other supplies. He visits streets and alleyways, the underside of highway overpasses, cheap motel rooms, parking lots and the riverbank.

“Many (homeless people) have a mental illness,” Gaulke says. And they’re “all ages,” says Gaulke, who has encountered entire families living on the streets or looking for shelter at the Union Gospel Mission.

The sandwiches and other donations are “a beam of hope,” Gaulke says. They give local homeless people “a community connection.”

The outreach, he says, “develops trust, companionship and a feeling of respect.”