Catholic Scouting: Faith, Service, and Leadership | Tulsa Time

0:00Well, you know, I was impressed when I went to the last camp out. Which is how I got involved with this thing. It's a go. Back in 1975, Bishop Gander asked to start Committee on Scouting for our Diocese. So we've just gone over 50 years as an entity here in the Diocese and we're looking forward to building even more from here. Hello friends. Bishop David Konderla here for another episode of Tulsa Time. And today we have visiting with us in the studio, Dennis Svacic, who is the head of our Scouting here in the Diocese of Tulsa, in Eastern Oklahoma. So we're glad to have him here with us today. We'll learn some more about Dennis himself, but also about Scouting. For the young girls and boys in our diocese and ways that people can assist, right? I mean, Scouting is one of those kinds of organizations that is very dependent on volunteers.

1:02Well, like yourself. But, you know, volunteer din leaders and and troop leaders and people who help with the organization itself, all of that. So we'll look at that. But we'll begin with our gospel for this coming Sunday. When we're going to be looking at the gospel from Matthew, Peter approached Jesus and asked him, Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times? And Jesus answered, I say to you not seven times, but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge

2:06amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage and said, be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full. Moved with compassion, the master of that servant, let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, pay back what you owe. Following to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, be patient with me, and I will pay you back. But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt.

3:07Now, when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you, then in anger, his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart. Thus for the gospel of Matthew, this is a gospel. There are some gospels where all Catholics will say, okay, what are your favorite XYZ number of gospels? I bet this is in many lists because it's so

4:13applicable. We all immediately understand it. I grew up with 11 brothers and sisters. So the question, who has to forgive who? Hey, wait a minute. You're being mean to me, and I'm going to go tell mom and all of that. I suspect in scouting, sometimes in troops of young boys and girls, one runs into this kind of conversation as well. Yes, that's certainly true. And this is a principle that scouts and youth need to learn. Kind of forgive always. It's not a one time. You must do it and continue and forever. And for for kids for youth, that's their forever is a little bit shorter than so far. So that's that's a good principle for them to grasp at that age.

5:16Well, the commentators will tell us that the number that Jesus gives is not intended to be a number. It's a poetic way of saying without end. Yeah. So I suppose one could quantify how often I have to forgive my neighbor by thinking how often do I want God to forgive me? And if you put it in those terms, it becomes pretty easy to see, A, I should forgive my neighbor and B, I always should forgive my neighbor, right? We should. Yeah. Now it does come up sometimes and I've had to talk to people about this business of forgiveness because sometimes we confuse forgiveness with emotion. And so we think so and so offended me. I forgave them. But then later I was so angry with them. And I'm still

6:16so angry with them. Does it mean I haven't forgiven them? And it's not it's not the case to say that because forgiveness is an act of the will. When I say to myself, I know that I should forgive this person. And so I'm going to forgive them. And so I do forgive them. Now forgiveness means I wish them well. I pray for them. I hope their life goes well. But I might still be very hurt and angry because maybe what they did is terrible. That doesn't mean I haven't forgiven them. It just means it will take my emotions time. Maybe the rest of my life to catch up. The other thing that's important to note here is that forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation in order to be reconciled with someone. We both have to be open to be reconciled. I have to say I forgive you

7:18or they have to say I'm sorry I have to say I forgive you. We both have to be open to relationship. But sometimes it happens that someone is so consistently harming me that I really cannot reconcile with them because they won't. They might even tell me no. I don't care if you forgive me or not. I don't want a relationship with you. Or they're just not capable of a relationship. Maybe they themselves have been traumatized in such a way that they're simply always harming people. In such a case, I still have the duty to forgive them and can forgive them. But I can't be reconciled. We cannot have relationship. That means that I still wish them well. Pray for them. I don't post nasty things online about them, whatever the modern equivalent would be. But we can't simply be friends because relationship is not possible to us. So those are things that

8:26flow, I think, also out of this gospel. The story is so often is the case with Jesus as parables. The story is so immediately available to us. It just makes such perfect sense that we all grasp that if God forgives me, such like the king or the king in the story, if God forgives me, then I really do have to forgive other people. Scouting, I was a cub scout and made it all the way up to we-blows before I left scouting. But certainly scouting, now again, I came from a large family, but there were certainly kids in my troop who didn't. And who the scout troop was their introduction to the give and take that comes with human adult life and also with large families.

9:28And so scouting was very advantageous to us. Yes, that's very common. When we're out on a camp out or involved in a scouting activity and we're in close quarters and we're working together, we do, we may have an objective or it may be some training or something. There is some interaction and the models that we set in this kind of reflects on the leaders too. You mentioned scouting is depends on the adult leaders and it certainly does. But the scouts are going to kind of reflect what they see from the adult leaders. And so this is an opportunity for us as well as for the the moment we have to teach the the principles. Yeah, the you know the earning of badges is a big part of scouting and I suppose some of those are designed in such a way that they have to work together with someone. Yes, that's very common. So either some badges will you learn a skill and

10:32then you teach it to someone else and that helps solidify that learning. But and you know working together in scouting units they often break down into smaller units, patrols in some cases service units or something of that sort and then work together with a small group to achieve an objective. It may be cooking dinner on a camp out or something like that. So you know things aren't going to go right all the time and so it is our duty to our opportunity to learn and in those situations where something didn't go or one of the scouts thought it should maybe offer some forgiveness. Yeah, but but you're right that there are a lot of scouts that don't have the family members at home don't have that activity that they can rely on and scouting provides that for them. Yeah, so I can remember older scouts sort of having little

11:33roles of leadership within the troop and of course if you're in that situation you have to learn some patience and how to accept that everybody doesn't do things at the pace maybe you want them to It's very interesting to see the older scouts how quickly they forget that just a couple of years ago they were that younger scout. Yeah, but they're they're growing and learning and that's pretty rewarding to see the scouts. There are a lot of good kids out there and it's really rewarding to be involved with the youth in our community. Did you yourself start as a boy scout? I did. I very similar. I was a Cub scout and then I went into boy scouts but didn't the boy scout troop I was part of disbanded before I could finish and reach the legal scout level but my involvement was scouting. I realized the the value of the program and our both of our kids or son is involved

12:34in scouting and her daughter was involved in campfire and we helped them to move all the way through the program and I think I think it really helped them. It's very rewarding. Now I seem to recall that back when I was a kid there basically was just that campfire girls and boy scouts. And girl scouts. Okay, okay campfire girl and girl scouts. Yeah, I guess I didn't recognize those as separate. Yeah, boy scouts were there and girl scouts fairly fairly soon. Campfire was another program. Well, we also and our dice is unique somewhat in that our our committee that supports all the scouting programs works with all of those groups. Yeah. And the American heritage girls and the trail life programs as well. We do our best to help them and support them throughout the throughout their development. Yeah, that's what I've seen. Now, you know, the interaction I've had

13:38with the scouting here in the dice. He's has often been the award mass and the campouts and things like that. And that's one of the things that I've noted and was pleased by in the award mass is all the different scouting organizations. I occasionally see individual ones of them out, for instance, camping at Clear Creek Monastery or at this camp out or when we had the diocesan family campout things like that. But seeing them all together at that mass brings together the panoply of scouting organizations and the diocese. That's something that's relatively new to have so many different kinds of organizations. It is in the last probably less than a decade that we've had this many groups, but they're all focused basically on the same same principles developing the character of the the youth in our community and there's there's some real positive attributes to

14:40that. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I was going to ask you here, if you could say, you know, people watching this or listening to this, if there was something you would want them to know about scouting that that maybe they don't know, what would you say that is? Well, scouting programs are an excellent development program for the for our kids, for the youth in our community. Character development, the leadership experience, the skills, the outdoor skills that the that the kids learn. And you mentioned the older scouts and the younger scouts as scouts move through the program, they move up in rank and leadership. All of that that development provides for a basis, a foundation for the future. And pretty much all of the certainly all I think I can say all of the scouting programs have

15:42a reverence or a reverence to God as a basic tenant in their in their program. And so our our committee here in the diocese works to support the Catholic scouting programs with a series of awards programs that start even as young as kindergarten age. And they enhance kind of tie together, put it maybe put a little bit of a bridge between the the church or help I guess tie together the church and the scouting programs and and support and enhance that that reverence reverence for God. Yeah, scouting is an excellent program for the development of our youth and when we enhance that with a focus on the religious awards and the reverence for God, it builds an even better development for the kids. Yeah, I think the church is approached to reverence for creation,

16:42connected explicitly with God as creator is a truer approach. You know, now we live in a world that has such a sense of climate alarmism sometimes. And so people talk about taking care of the environment and all those things as if the environment was a God. Whereas as Catholics, we understand that God has placed the world at our use. God has given us this good world. And we as good stewards should take care of it out of reverence for God for what he has created for us, but not because we think the planet somehow is is alive or a God or something. So those are sort of corrective ways of understanding that. But the other thing that I think of when I think of scouting, my mother was a din leader because she had boys who were Cub Scouts.

17:43And when I go to the camp out, you know, I see all the adults who are assisting. So it's also a rich opportunity, a rich volunteer opportunity for adults. It is. And it's very rewarding. When we work with the youth and the scouts, a lot of times, you know, we're teaching a merit badge or working on a principle or a point of rank advancement or something. And you think, and you wonder if the scouts or the kids are really paying attention. Well, sometimes later, they'll come up with a point or an answer or a comment that you realize they really were paying attention. So our investment in the in the kids in the scouts is well worth the time. But the scouting programs could not operate without the adults. And the same thing with our religious awards that we have for the girls and the boys, we are one of our largest needs or one

18:52of our largest openings is for counselors for religious awards programs. We are working, doing our best to build back a series of awards programs and annual classes that we can deploy throughout the community. And we're going to need some help with a few adults. And which is how I got involved with this thing. It's ago. Back in 1975, Bishop Gander asked John connect to start a committee on scouting for our diocese. So we've just gone over 50 years as a entity here in the diocese. And we're looking forward to building even more from here. Well, you know, I was impressed when I went to the last camp out with the teenage volunteers who were assisting. Some of them had been scouts, but I'm not sure if all of them had been. Not all of them. So there is, and I mentioned the awards programs. And there was a, we held an award

19:59program last year that for the awards programs go all the way from my first grade through high school. And some of the high school kids came out. And I think they're looking forward to coming back out this year. And we're looking forward to you being there as well. We're actually advertising your participation. Yeah. So we'll have a good weekend. It's just good to get out and get away and being that peaceful, natural setting. Yeah. Well, especially that. I mean, something that I am increasingly concerned about as with many people in the world, Pope Leo is talking a lot about it these days is the effect of our technology on us as human beings, both in terms of our ability to relate to one another, but also in terms of our ability to think because the, the kind of immediate input of knowledge that our technology provides to us can also cause our brains to

21:03rewire themselves in such a way that it's hard for us to carry on long thoughts. You know, people used to spend whole evenings reading a book. Certainly young people did. And maybe it was a book like Lord of the Rings or something. And would just get lost for hours in a book. But I think most young people today are not even able to do that because their brain has been so rewired and accustomed to scrolling through information quickly that to sit for hours and let the imagination roam and read through a book would seem boring to them. And so I like scouting for that. Yeah. I do too. And we see that as well. When we say, okay, today we're going to go on a five mile hike. That's something that's that's way beyond that takes several hours. And unfortunately some of the scouts don't

22:08realize that you can step into a project that's going to take several hours to accomplish. So we do our best and continue to deploy the program as it's available. Most scouting units will not do not take electronic devices on them. Because when we're out in it camp and we're out in the nature, there's so much more beautiful than anything we could see on a little screen. So yeah, sometimes depending on where you go, there won't be covered. That's true too. Yeah. Services there. But it's also a good opportunity. It can be a good opportunity to demonstrate to young people how you use a device as a tool. Exactly. And then put it away. So for example, wonderful star maps on the phones and the iPads and so forth. So you can certainly show kids, look, you can look up where this planet or that asteroid is on your device.

23:09Now that we've done that, we don't keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, but you put the device away, maybe even turn it off. Because now we're doing something else. We're building a fire or doing whatever. Yes. Yeah. Use of the tool or the abuse of the tool is the challenge or opportunity. And so that's that gives us the chance that that's kind of the basic actions or our events tied to the scouting program. That's an attribute of scouting that is very valuable. It gets us out outside and out into nature. And that's the basics. And in a large part, our activity, what they religious awards does that as well, where we kind of take the basics of the church. In some of the early Cubscout awards, they helped to develop the goal of the award is to help

24:14develop a personal relationship between the scout and Jesus. And some of the older awards are have set up in chapters that are based on the sacraments. The trail life folks don't really have a law that they follow, but use the Bible as the guide for a large part of the program. The American heritage girls and the trail life programs. The religious perspective is built into the program very highly integrated into the program. So it's the two compliment each other so well. The church and the teachings of the church and the scouting programs and the development of character and the leadership and the respect and reverence that we have for each other. Well, in the diocese now, we are moving by 2029 to have all of the parishes moving to confirming children in the third grade.

25:26So now even the Cubscouts and the youngest boy scouts and girl scouts will already be confirmed. And one of the challenges for us as a church after any sacrament, but also after confirmation now, is to continue what in the language of the church we would call the mystical journey, which means a person who has received a sacrament, let's say confirmation. So let's say a third grader has now received baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist, holy communion. They've been through those sacramental rights. They did some some catechises to prepare for it. But now they need to continue to learn. What does it mean that now I'm a fully initiated Catholic in the church? And when they're 10 years old, they'll have one answer appropriate to a 10-year-old.

26:29But when they're 12 years old, they'll need to have more of an answer than the 10-year-old had, and 14 and 16 and 18 and on up. And so scouting and particularly with the religious badges and all gives them a way to continue. This is another lane, another opportunity to continue that mystical formation of our young people. I think that's an excellent description. This scouting programs do start at a very young age and they're age-appropriate and this scouting religious awards. And they run about every other year, an awards program fits into the overall layout. But and through all the way through 18. And we have some adult recognitions as well that as so. And I hear the kids talk about when I'm typically 18 years old is when the scouting, when the scouts move into an adult leader. And I hear the kids talk about, well, when I finish

27:31with, but you never finish. And we never finish our learning, whether it's through scouting or through the church or whatever environment we're in. So. Yeah, and the other thing that I like about scouting is the other thing that we emphasize in the diocese is what we call whole family catechesis. So it emphasizes that point that there's no member of any family who can be considered through with catechesis. They're through learning about the faith. And then the younger ones are still learning about the faith. And so scouting because it's for boys and girls and because it needs leaders. So the parents can be whole family activity. We see it in the camp out. Yeah, we do. And the scouting programs, and we mentioned a boy scouts, girl scouts, campfire, American heritage girls, trail life. We have a good selection of of programs and families can be involved in

28:35and the sons and daughters can be very closely tied together. So it is, I believe the activities that we have here do support that family perspective very well. And it. It. The. That's where I was going. The even though as a scout moves through the the scouting program as a scout and moves through the the church, the religious education in the church. And through the religious awards, religious scouting awards as well, then they move into a little they get a little older and they can teach some of the younger scouts. You mentioned the the teenagers that were on the camp out last year and they were helping to teach the younger scouts the craft activities and the things that were going on. And they enjoy that and it worked well for us.

29:38And to see the older scouts working with the younger scouts. And I use scouts as just generic term from all the different different youth that we deal with. That's one of the the real benefits to see the yeah see the kids develop that way. Well, I saw some of the young people in their cooking too. They look like they were having fun cooking for the whole group. So that was fun. You've brought some pamphlets there. So people can get more information about scouting in the diocese on our website. I guess. Yes. On the diocese website, there's a through the ministries tab there. You can find a lot more information about the awards that are available. And right on our that first tab there, there's a contact link. You can you can contact us through that. The a lot of times we have people that when they get involved in a religious award program, there were a scouter. One of the young people in our community comes to us a religious awards class.

30:41Unfortunately, it's common to hear from the parents. I didn't I didn't know these programs were available. And so publicity and awareness is one of our biggest challenges. And so I really appreciate the chance to be here today. Sure. And we've recently had some information in the EOC extra and some other areas. This is a 100 this year is the 100th anniversary of the Adeltery Day program, which is one of the basic boy scouting programs. So there's a long running foundation there. So awareness and publicity and development. And a lot of it is word amount passing. And on occasionally, we'll have an information night or something like that. But it's we kind of depend on sharing this with each other. Sure. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the point that we always try to to specify. We we don't think there's something wrong with technology per se and social media and

31:45all those things. In fact, we have to use them. Yes. So that we can get the word out and so forth. It's just how we use them. That's important to know. They should remain always our servant. We shouldn't become their servant. I agree with that. Yeah. Very much. Well, it's been fun to have you here with us today and to learn a little more about scouting in our diocese. I appreciate so much all the work that you and the other volunteers do. I've been here now 10 years and have seen in numerous occasions at the masses and the campouts and things. The work of the scouting leaders in the diocese. And so we'll hope that more people will reach out and find information and seek to get involved. I hope so. I hope so too. And that contact link on the website is a real good way to get in touch with this. Any questions or if you'd like to help out or help just offer a word of support or something of that sort. Sure. Send us a message and we'll get together. It may take

32:47us a minute. We have a group of volunteers, but we are volunteers. And we do our best. But we'd love to hear from anybody, especially the folks that would like to help us. Yeah. Deploy these programs for our kids. Sure. Very good. So thanks everybody for joining us today on Tussle Time and learning more about our scouting programs. We'll see you next time. Thank you.