The Napa Institute will hold its 13th annual summer conference July 26-30, at The Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa, California. The conference features presentations by prominent Catholic speakers, fine dining and conversation, and opportunities for daily Mass, personal prayer, confession and spiritual direction. The focus of the 2023 conference, according to organizers, is “on recovering the presence of Jesus Christ” – and His words, “my peace I give unto you” (Jn 14:27) – at the heart of our daily lives: i.e. in our personal discipleship; in the life of the Church; and in the affairs of our wider culture.”
A featured guest at the conference is 48th Vice President Mike Pence. Other speakers include Ignatius Press’ Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., who will speak on “The Legacy of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI”; Mary Hasson on “The Abolition of Man … and Woman”; Dr. Ray Guarendi on “The Logic of Being Catholic: How Reason and Evidence Brought me Back to the Catholic Church”; Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J. on “Faith, Science, and the Challenge of Scientism”; Andy Lesnefsky on “How to Develop a Missionary Heart”; Ryan Anderson on “The Idea of a Christian Society”; Wendy Dominguez on “Is ESG Catholic?”; Curtis Martin on “What We Need Now”; and many more.
Bishops participating include Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Bishop Steven Lopes, Bishop Gregory Mansour and Bishop Thomas Paprocki. The conference will be the largest in its history, with more than 800 attending. There will be a virtual option for those unable to participate in person.
Complete details, daily schedules, registration and other information are on the conference site.
CWR spoke with conference organizer Tim Busch about the conference.
CWR: What are some highlights of this year’s conference?
Tim Busch: Our headliner is 48th Vice President and presidential candidate Mike Pence. His visit was arranged before his decision to run for president. Our interest is in Mr. Pence’s witness as a serious Christian and how he integrates that with his vocation, his public life. His talk is entitled “You Shall be my Witness,” and will be on Thursday afternoon. He’ll be there for the day, and will be participating in other activities that day.
While Mike Pence may be a political figure, let me stress that the conference is not focused on political issues. Political issues are symptoms of deeper problems related to faith, its lukewarm health, and its absence. Catholics and other Christians in the United States face increasing hostility and pressure to conform to ideas and policies that violate their faith. We want to give them reasons for hope and positive action.
Another prominent Thursday speaker is Chris Stefanick of Real Life Catholic. His talk is entitled “A Man for All Seasons.” He’ll be talking about Christ as the perfect man and the need our world has today for authentic Christian men. Our Friday speakers include Msgr. James Shea who will be talking about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in a talk entitled “The Food that Gives Eternal Life,” in conjunction with the U.S. bishops’ Eucharistic Revival occurring in the U.S. right now.
Our Saturday speakers include the trio Erika Bachiochi, Leah Libresco and Abigail Favale who will present a panel discussion entitled “Toward a New Feminism: Healing the Sex Wars.” Their presentation will include a discussion of modern secular feminism and the healing power of a new and authentic feminism rooted in Christian anthropology. Ryan Anderson will also be talking on that day as well, he will explore building a Christian society and how we can live our vocation as Christian citizens in a manner that feeds and sustains our nation’s best ideals.
We have many more outstanding speakers addressing a variety of other topics I know our Catholic participants will find of interest. To get a flavor for our caliber of speakers, I encourage your readers to visit our Napa Institute YouTube page or our Napa Institute website and they can listen to conference talks from previous years.
CWR: Are there any particular themes you’ve asked your speakers to address?
Tim Busch: The conference is designed to be an overall experience of relaxation and catechesis around a single theme developed over three days — this year’s theme being “what we need now” for Christian renewal in our personal lives, our Church, and in our wider culture. What must we do in what is now the next America abandoning its Judeo-Christian virtues in our culture?
We live in a divided world, where many have lost hope. Our speakers will talk about how crucial it is for us to be authentic Christian men and women so we can renew our Church, society, and our culture.
CWR: Can you tell us a bit about about the facilities and dining offered?
Tim Busch: The Meritage Resort & Spa is the largest resort in the wine country featuring 467 rooms, spa and 100,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space. Most meals will be on the lawn buffet style except the closing dinner July 29, which features a sit-down multi-course meal with keynote Jonathan Reyes presenting his talk “A Fire Upon the Earth,” on how we can participate in the New Evangelization.
Throughout the conference participants will enjoy fine wines from all over the Napa Valley, especially my family winery, Trinitas Cellars. Our guests will experience amazing meals with wine pairings, and can even sign up to participate in cooking classes, if they have that interest. But along with great food and wines, meals will be an opportunity to network and get to know one another, to see how we may more effectively work together in the future.
CWR: Some protestors showed up at the 2022 Napa Institute conference. What happened and how did participants respond?
Tim Busch: We had five different groups, including Church Militant on the Right and Stop NAPA Hate on the Left, protest at different times throughout the conference. We followed these groups’ social media before the conference and had an idea that they’d be coming.
One group even rented trucks with loudspeakers in an attempt to disrupt a presentation by former Attorney General Bill Barr. One of our priests stood up and led participants in the St. Michael prayer and then we sang the Salve Regina. It was a beautiful moment, and also gave our security the chance to remove the protestors. I suspect we’ll see more protestors in the future, but we have ample security to keep them away from conference attendees.
CWR: You will also be having film screenings.
Tim Busch: Yes, our guests are welcome to enjoy three different films: Mother Teresa and Me, Journey to Bethlehem with Antonio Banderas, and The Shroud Face to Face, which is about the Shroud of Turin.
CWR: What else would you like to share about the conference?
Tim Busch: There will be over 130 masses in various approved styles, spiritual direction and confessions, rosaries, a Eucharistic procession to open the conference, concerts and of course much Napa Valley wine!
CWR: Are there any other Napa Institute activities this year you’d like to highlight?
Tim Busch: Visit our Napa Institute website and click on the Attend tab and you can see all our events coming up. October 10 & 11, 2023, we’ll be having our Principled Entrepreneurship Conference in New York.
Also on October 10, we’ll be having a Eucharistic Procession through New York City led by Fr. Mike Schmidt. We’ll start at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and walk around Times Square. We expect two thousand people to participate, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan will offer benediction.
That event is free to participate, although we ask people to register online. It’s a wonderful way to bring our faith to the city.
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Unless I am seriously mistaken, Mike Pence was baptized Catholic and is now some kind of evangelical protestant. If that’s the case, then I am greatly disappointed that the Napa Institute invited him. If I’m wrong in my facts, I apologize. But if not, Napa needs to get its act together.
You are correct.
Deacon, as a convert to Catholicism from Evangelical Protestantism, I am THRILLED to see Vice President Mike Pence as a speaker at a C-c-c-Catholic conference!!! When I was growing up (I’m 66), most Evangelical Protestants considered Catholics idol worshippers! But since Chuck Colson (R.I.P.), along with Father Richard John Neuhaus (R.I.P.), founded Evangelicals and Catholics Together, many Evangelicals have converted to Catholicism, or at the very least, now consider Catholicism true Christianity, not a Marian cult or a Babylonian mystery religion! Also, the pro-life movement has united Catholics and Protestants-the Pregnancy Life Care Center in my home city was started by Evangelical Protestants, who “allowed” Catholics to volunteer, but today, the center is managed by Catholics who invite Evangelical Protestants to volunteer (and they do!). After I converted to Catholicism, I continued to play organ/piano for Protestant worship services and Catholic Masses–and never were there any objections from the Protestants about paying a C-c-c-Catholic! I attended a Protestant missionary conference (with my best childhood friend) last summer, and every missionary mentioned in their talk the cooperation between Protestant and Catholic missions in their country. Our Lord Jesus prayed (John 17) that “they may all be one.” I think–I HOPE–this is happening now in our world. Rather than turning our backs on Protestants like Vice President Pence, we should welcome him hospitably, listen to his talk, and pray that he will be convicted to return to the Catholic Church! And while we’re praying, ask that God would unite all Christians and make us ONE!
I am NOT suggesting that we should turn our back on evangelical protestants. My remarks were directed at the Napa Institute which, from my past understanding, was a gathering of orthodox Catholics with the specific intention of edifying Catholic faithful who assemble there to listen to Catholic speakers and for mutual support. With that in mind, I fail to see what someone who left the Catholic faith has to say to orthodox Catholics who are in the forefront of the battle the Church faces daily. Now, if the Napa Institute is going to be an ecumenical sort of gathering, I’m glad to know as it will spare me the thousands of dollars I would have spent for my attendance next year.
Typically I enjoy your comments, but not this one, alas. Wrapped too tight. Christ ate and drank with sinners, you needn’t raise hackles regarding eating and drinking with Mr. Pence. Too, we know the grace of God can and does bring about reverts.
Read my reply above. I said nothing about associating with, collaborating with, fraternizing with protestants. I was addressing myself to what I thought the purpose of the Napa Institute was.
Deacon Peitler:
Your specific concerns are well-founded regarding this annual summer conference of the institute that is not designed to be part of an ecumenical outreach that can easily be done via another Institute event at another time.
But perhaps even more troubling are some reports that claim the location of the event owned by NAPA’s Tim Busch (Catholic) has been permitted by Busch to be used for “gay weddings” in the same place/s where Holy Masses are celebrated during the summer conference. If this is true as reported, what kind of an “ecumenical outreach” would this be? Surely the location can be rented out for more wholesome activities that are not exclusively Catholic, but if it is being rented out for “gay weddings,” such should be halted and never again permitted in the future, and a most heartfelt mea culpa apology should also be issued.
Since the Institute is located in California, I call upon Carl Olson and members of his staff to honestly look into the claims of the “gay weddings,” and if they are taking place as reported, then perhaps upcoming attendees that include Fr. Fessio and Archbishop Cordileone can be properly informed and asked to intervene with Mr. Busch.
Of course, if the reports of the “gay weddings” are bogus, let’s hear about this as well, but note that one of the reports I read involved an undercover operation wherein a person claimed to have inquired about being able to hold a “gay wedding” on the aforementioned same grounds where the summer conference is held, and he was told that he could rent the place for the upcoming “wedding.”
I hope and pray this reporting is all wet, but is it? Let’s find out and proceed accordingly.
_________________
Back to the “ecumenical aspect” of the upcoming conference, note the following promotion of the Institution found on the Institute’s Website:
“EMPOWERING CATHOLIC LEADERS TO RENEW THE CHURCH AND TRANSFORM THE CULTURE”
“The Napa Institute harnesses truth, faith, and fraternity to forge the future and act as a catalyst for the Catholic renaissance.”
Thank you for your clear-thinking on this matter and explicating further my concerns about having protestants at this Institute. Granted I can be a bit prickly when it comes to the Catholic Church but, I rather take my religion seriously.
Fr. Mike Schmidt – I’m in.
Mike Pence – I believe he is a baptized Catholic but now a practising Evangelical.
“Catholics and other Christians in the United States face increasing hostility and pressure to conform to ideas and policies that violate their faith”. (Tim Busch).
Fr. Mike Schmitz?
I am not too crazy about Mike Pence. I may be mistaken and don’t have the proof now, but I seem to have read a tiny news item on the back page of the SF Chronicle magazine a long time ago, while he was still Vice President, that he and his wife attended a dinner party with other powerbrokers, and they were planning to depose then President Trump. I was not a Trump supporter then, but I was shocked and thought that was the lowest form of betrayal ever thought of.
On the other hand, it would be nice to hear Fr. Fessio talk on Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy and see SF Archbishop Cordileone among the crowd. I wonder why Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa is not on the list? – Napa is in his diocese!
I live in a city next door to Napa; I’ve been to Meritage and it is a lovely place. They have wines named after the Popes there, and a chapel where some years before, Archbishop Cordileone celebrated the Tridentine Mass. I read about his impressive vesting ceremony before the Mass, and that would be really exciting to see.
I’ve always dreamt of attending, but it’s super expensive and you’ll need a small fortune just to get in. So, I’ll keep on dreaming and just stick to the more affordable retreats around.
What we need .. – ? more trust – to take delight in The Lord, to have the grace to trust that He delights in us , delights in healing us , in giving us the grace to repent and accept His mercy with delight , to extend same to others , as He waits to fulfill that critical – ‘Therefore , when you stand in prayer ..’ purity and delight in Oneness with His Heart ..
Our times, much afflicted with sins against life and purity in marriage, having forfieted the grace to delight in The Lord as Life Giver , in turn also having lost the grace to delight in each other in families – that are often left with the empty jars ..
Holy Father planning to be in Fatima on the occasion of The Feast of God The Father ( First Sun in August ) – his delight in The Mother – may same become an ocassion to bless The Church , ? in consecrating the universe to The Father , to hasten the time of the Reign of the Divine Will as Triumph of the Immaculate Heart – the Synod might be a preparatory stage for same in calling forth the Holy Spirit … that the wine of delight in The Lord may be brought forth as the answer for the evils of our times , even more so than the holy innocent delight that Adam and Eve had in God and in each other prior to The Fall ; our times see the extent of the evils – to also see His delight in forgiving us,as the oceans of His mercy , His inner joy as delight in the future glory of His children even during The Passion ..
The recent hospitalization of the Holy Father also an occasion of a bit of the light of that inner delight – a trait that he likley desires for the most needy of our times – yet also often occasion of the misuderstandings of his views and steps ..
May The Blood and Water flowing from His Heart through that of The Mother quench the thirsts of our times, drown out the flood waters of evils of the dragon as we get to taste with delight the New Wine of trust as deep grateful love for the Goodness of The Father for same to flow into the daily lives and trials of many .
FIAT !
Mike Pence behaviour during his time as vice president has Trump’s sycophant yes NAPA should stay clear of him.
What we need now? — is certainly ‘not’ to be scorning used-to-be Catholics like Mr. Pence. Nothing holy or righteous about doing so.
On my part, this has NOTHING to do with Pence and EVERYTHING to do with the nature of the the Napa Institute.
Well, Mr. Pence per Catholic teaching remains in fact a Catholic though one not currently practicing his faith.
If the Napa Institute wants to invite public leaders I suppose they’re not doing that based on their choice of denomination but upon shared values.
And who knows how God may use this event to call Mr. Pence back home?
mrscracker:
Catholic teaching does not in fact state that Pence is still a Catholic. Some people cling to this opinion based on an overly broad literal interpretation of the phrase “once a Catholic, always a Catholic, but it is not specific Church teaching. For more on this, see Jimmy Akin’s “Once a Catholic Always a Catholic” article in Catholic Answers (see https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/once-a-catholic-always-a-catholic).
As for “who knows how God may use this event to call Mr. Pence back home,” one could also say who knows how God might use a proper disinvitation (and invite to another event that is more ecumenical in nature) based on the stated mission and purpose of the summer conference and Institute to call Mr. Pence back home?
As I stated elsewhere in response to Deacon Peitler’s most legitimate concerns, the Institute can easily engage in other actions of a more ecumenical nature. It has no need to ignore its mission and purpose for which the summer conference is designed and promoted to engage in any ecumenical activities.
Even so, please see my response to Deacon Peitler that contains an outreach to Carl, because the institute may very well have a more serious problem than violating its basic mission to Catholics, and I hope Carl and his staff find out what needs to be found out.
God Bless.
The problem, in the case of Pence, is not that a lapsed or ex-catholic is invited to a conference; after all, they can be won back to the faith through the conference.
The problem is that, by inviting a full-fledged neo-con warmonger, NAPA reinforces the idea that it is committed to that false and destructive ideology.
Why would the Napa Institute invite should such a worn-out, uninspiring political hack to speak at its conference? Are they trying to bore their guests to death? Imagine the scene five minutes into his speech after everyone has had a couple glasses of wine.
I apologize Doc for not seeing your comments sooner. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply and share that link.
I enjoy listening to Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World and I know he’s a great deal more educated than me but I’m sticking to my Baltimore Catechism which says Baptism imprints an indelible character on the soul which cannot be removed by anything, even mortal sin.
I think there might could be a couple different things going on in this issue and Mr. Akin may be talking about one’s good standing in the Church which is separate from Baptism.
Mr. Pence was a Vice President and I’m guessing he was invited more because of the office he served in
?
God bless you too and I hope you have a good evening!
I do believe that the ccc does not state that the idelible catholic character on the soul as I was baptised in the Nazarene Church (because they had a bus and I could go to see Jesus) and converted at 13 years old with my protestant parents permission. I did not receive a second Catholic Baptism but I already knew I belonged to Christ and so did my beautiful Catholic Church. They knew it was indelible when I was a Nazarene and my Church and its family has been my all in all with Jesus for 62 years. So he is a member of the body of Christ not a member of the Catholic Church and I too would have prefered to hear from fellow faithful Catholics so I too understand the Deacons concern. I still attend CBC International knowing that it is ecumenical but I would be disappointed if I choose to attend and a Key note speaker is not Catholic