Kevin Kelly/Key photo Diocesan Respect Life Director Adrienne Doring shows Josie DeFeo, left, and Debra Barker the 'Truth Illuminated' T-shirt. Doring is seeking teens to start Truth Illuminated chapters in high schools and parishes throughout the diocese.

At least five high school-aged pro lifers, anxious to learn more about defending life and willing to spread the truth, will do nicely. Each chapter will also need just two adult sponsors to get going, then the "Truth Illuminated" movement will grow from there.

In fact, Doring told the group of 25 teens and adults representing 14 parishes and schools who attended an Aug. 25 informational meeting that their attendance was a good start for Truth Illuminated.

"We're not expecting these groups to start out huge," she said. "Five, 10, 15 people - that would be awesome."

The movement for pro-life teens was the brainchild of Doring and Ron Kelsey, her counterpart in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. Together, they looked for a way to help teens already burning with the pro-life fire to carry their passion to the broader community.

At the Aug. 25 meeting over pizza at the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocesan chancery, Doring said that Truth Illuminated would follow an "apologetics" model, arming teens with the information they need to communicate the pro-life message effectively.

"We want to take this out in the culture and change the culture," Doring said.

She and Kelsey want to see chapters meeting regularly - about once a month - in convenient locations in several parishes and schools.

"It's not practical for people to be driving 45 minutes to a meeting across the city," she said. "We need to localize it."

The chapters will be led by teens for teens, Doring said. Adult sponsors will assist, she said, but it is important for teens to take the lead. Each meeting will be required to have at least two adult sponsors in attendance, and those adult sponsors must have completed the diocesan "Protecting God's Children" seminar.

Doring said Truth Illuminated will be centered around the pillars of the pro-life movement: prayer, education, outreach and public policy advocacy.

"This is a spiritual battle we are in, so prayer is huge," she said.

Doring invited those who will start chapters to invite all their pro-life friends, Catholic or not. But the group will be decidedly Catholic, rooted in Catholic prayer and Catholic teaching.

"It is perfectly fine to have people from other denominations join us," Doring said. "But we aren't going to water down our Catholicity. We are going to be Catholic, but we are not going to be exclusive."

In addition to prayer, meetings will also focus on aspects of the church's rich teaching on beginning and end of life issues.

Doring said "middle of life" social justice issues are very important, and the church has rich teachings about the obligations to uphold life at all stages. But she said the diocesan Human Rights office is focusing on those issues while the Respect Life office hones in on issues such as abortion, the protection of human embryonic life in research, the death penalty and euthanasia.

But in order to defend church teaching, it is necessary to learn it, Doring said.

"It is amazing how poorly catechized our own Catholics are," she said. But once people of good will learn the truth about the attacks on life at the beginning and end, they become pro-life, she said.

"We are going to save lives by speaking the truth," Doring said. "We care deeply about poverty, hunger and homelessness, but God has put it in our hearts to work on these beginning and end of life issues."

That faith and trust in God can't be beaten, she said.

"The reason we are so active and so impassioned about this is because we are Christian," she said. "We have to be secure in our own faith because our work will flow from our faith."

Doring said the Respect Life Office will provide the "skeleton" framework of the meetings and any assistance needed. But it will be up to teens speaking to teens to "put the flesh on" each chapter and shape its work.

Doring urged the teens to talk to their friends about forming a Truth Illuminated chapter, then approaching their Catholic high school principal or parish pastor for a regular meeting place and time.

She also urged the teens to contact her by e-mail at doring@diocesekcsj.org, or by phone at (816) 756-1858, ext. 544, for any assistance and materials to get started.

Noticing, however, that the all the teen attendees at the informational meeting were female, Doring added one suggestion.

"Be sure to invite some boys," she said.

There were no objections.

END