Where priestly vocations begin: The lasting impact of Steubenville Youth Conferences

In April, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate’s (CARA) survey was released and showed that 18% of priests ordained this year attended a Franciscan University of Steubenville Youth Conference during their vocational journey. This was more than any other Catholic conference ministry in the United States.

In previous years — specifically from 2010 to 2025 — this percentage ranged between 8% to 16%.

In 1976, Franciscan University of Steubenville held its first youth conference on its campus in Steubenville, Ohio. Celebrating 50 years this summer, the youth conferences have helped over 1 million young people encounter Jesus Christ through dynamic talks, the Mass, Eucharistic adoration, confession, prayer, and fellowship.

So, what is it about the Steubenville Youth Conference that is having such an impact on young people and specifically vocations?

EWTN News spoke to a priest and a transitional deacon — both of whom credit their experience at a Steubenville Youth Conference with impacting their vocations — about their journeys to the priesthood and why they believe this conference is igniting a fire for the faith in the hearts of young people.

Seeing joyful priests changed everything

Father Rufino Corona is a Third Order Regular Franciscan in Steubenville who was ordained in 2020. Originally from Puebla, Mexico, Corona came to the United States with his parents at the age of 8 and grew up in San Diego.

As a teenager he was active in his youth group, and it was his youth minister who frequently told Corona that he could see him becoming a priest.

“It was something that he would say to me and I would kind of write it off,” Corona recalled. “Itʼs one of those things that as I look back now, I think part of the reason why was — for one thing, I was a teenager and really in that world, but also another thing, I feel like I had priests around me who were not bad priests but Iʼd seen people very passionate for the Gospel, be very passionate for evangelization, but that was not something that Iʼd ever really seen in a priest.”

He continued: “So all of a sudden I go to these youth conferences and, it wasnʼt necessarily one in particular, but it was these men were so on fire for the Lord, so on fire for the youth hearing the Gospel. That was really my first time seeing a priest just be passionate about the Lord, and be passionate about their faith, and be passionate for souls.”

Another impactful moment for Corona was the vocations call that takes place at the end of the weekend. On the last day of the conference, anyone who may be considering religious life is asked to stand up so they can receive a blessing.

“I joke about it now that that used to be my least favorite part of the weekend, because, especially, I went to four conferences, and especially in my third and fourth conference, I started to feel the Lord moving that way but I never got up,” he shared.

However, those moments also served as a “powerful witness” for him because Corona saw so many other men his age stand up and say that they were considering it, which was “part of what really started to open up my heart to it.”

A couple of years went by and Corona was put into a leadership position where he was ministering more to his peers and felt a great desire toward the sacrament of reconciliation as he was working with these individuals. Eventually he spoke to his spiritual director — a layman who worked at Franciscan University — who told him he could continue to pray about it or he could take a step. Corona decided to take a step.

He emailed the vocations director in San Diego but never heard back. However, after speaking more with his spiritual director he was encouraged to look into becoming a friar.

“He just knew how big brotherhood was for me and literally 24 hours into the Come and See [with the Franciscan friars], I knew thatʼs where I was supposed to be,” he recalled.

From the back bleachers to the altar

Deacon Arthur Bodenschatz is a transitional deacon in the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, who was ordained on June 6. He grew up in a very devout Catholic household. His parents met as NET missionaries — a youth ministry program — and instilled a love for evangelization in their four children.

In the second grade, Bodenschatz began to dress in all black to attend Mass — pretending that he was the priest. However, it wasn’t until he was 14 when he had a powerful encounter with God at a Steubenville Youth Conference that he knew he was meant to be a priest.

“The moment was during Saturday night adoration … and I was sitting on the back bleachers, in one of the uncomfortable spots, when the Eucharistic procession was going by and I just had a moment of locking eyes with the Lord in the Eucharist and just had a moment of realization, of grace, where I just knew that that was Jesus in the Eucharist. I knew that he loved me. I knew that I loved him. And I knew I was going to be a priest. And it was just a joyful moment filled with a lot of joyful tears,” he recalled.

After that experience, Bodenschatz went back home and became very involved with his youth group, began to attend daily Mass, and found a spiritual director.

After he graduated from high school, Bodenschatz went straight into Borromeo Seminary in Cleveland and will be ordained a priest in 2027.

“Iʼm looking forward to the completion of a nine-year journey. So much preparation leading up to it,” he shared. “And just the idea of celebrating that first Mass — it brings a smile to my face. Knowing that what I feel God has been calling me to for so long, that he wants to use me to turn bread and wine to his body and blood for the people of God … I just canʼt wait to be his instrument.”

The power of encountering a joyful Church

So, what is it about the Steubenville Youth Conferences that is inspiring so many vocations in young people?

For Bodenschatz, it was hearing the Gospel “in such a way that was personal to me.”

“Hearing the insistence and the repeated message that Jesus loves me and that the Holy Spirit is alive in me and wants to work in me was something that maybe Iʼd heard before but I was actually starting to experience it there,” he recalled. “So I think that was just a really powerful message that is embodied by the people who are up there speaking and embodied by the people up there leading worship and the whole community, the whole environment. Itʼs just so joyful.”

He added: “Whereas in my normal experience of parish life, I didnʼt see as much joy and I didnʼt see as many people my age or as many priests and sisters running around who were just so happy to be there. So I think something about that unique experience of just the universal Church so full of life really opened me up to what the Holy Spirit was doing in me.”

Corona echoed a similar sentiment in that it is powerful for young people to see the joy their peers are also carrying for the Lord and their faith.

“There is something about coming to a conference and seeing a thousand other kids there for the same reason,” he said. “It makes your faith seem like ‘OK, this is more than just my high school. OK, this is more than just my area. This is something real. This is something that Iʼm seeing other teens honoring God and so maybe thereʼs something here.’”

“I think that there is so much to the witness of the other groups that I think goes just a really, really long way because all of a sudden the faith becomes something so much more than my familyʼs thing or something so much more than, ‘Well I go to this youth group because thatʼs where my friends go.’”

Corona added: “Itʼs like, ‘Oh my gosh, I am surrounded by anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 to 4,500 teens who all believe that this is real’ or at least who are trying to and are wanting to see this as something real.”

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/where-vocations-begin-the-lasting-impact-of-steubenville-youth-conferences