Local young adult Catholics get a taste of Theology on Tap

By J.D. Long-Garcia
The Catholic Sun

TEMPE — With buffalo wing sauce on their hands and beer in their bellies, nearly 100 young adults listened to local Catholic author Mark Hart proclaim the need for conversion.

“When we look at our life and feel like we’ve been forgotten, God’s love hasn’t changed,” Hart said. “It’s because of the decisions we’ve made, because of sin, that our relationship to God has changed.”

Hart spoke to the young adults in their 20s and 30s at the first ever Theology on Tap session held in the Diocese of Phoenix at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish June 6.

Theology on Tap unconventionally engages young adults struggling to find meaning through theological discussions in relaxed, contemporary settings.

“Last Saturday at almost every Catholic Church in the country, sainthood was offered in the sacrament of reconciliation,” Hart said. “Not just forgiveness of sins, but sanctification.”

Hart, who drank from a bottle of beer during his talk, suggested that if young Catholics truly came to know the sacrament of reconciliation, they would go more often.

“It’s not Father So-and-so. It’s Jesus,” Hart said, referring to the priest hearing a person’s confession. “In temptations, we look at the temporal and forfeit the timeless.”

Fr. Jack Wall and youth minister Tom James developed Theology on Tap in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1981 to evangelize, catechize and nourish young-adult spirituality.

“We want to be about reaching people in our culture where they are and really help them find out who they are,” said Chris Faddis, co-director of the Imago Dei Foundation, which seeks to express human beings as the image and likeness of God.

Faddis and co-director Angela Mayer wanted to bring Theology on Tap to the diocese to create an environment welcoming to those afraid of being in a church.

“It’s our hope that a lot of priests would see this as a way to reach out,” Mayer said.

In the Archdiocese of Chicago, Theology on Tap events are held at parishes. As it spread throughout the country, some dioceses began to host events in local pubs and restaurants.

According to the archdiocese’s Web site, the average age of registered Catholics is 49 while the average age of American people is 34. Theology on Tap programs are working to change those statistics.

“We’re sitting down in a bar with young adults drinking a beer and talking about Jesus,” said Bill Marcotte, director of young adult ministries in the Diocese of Phoenix. He said most young adults “are looking for fulfillment, and the answer is Jesus.”

“If we can go out and reach them where they are, by the power of God, someone might hear the Gospel,” said Marcotte, who is known as the “godfather” of youth ministry by some local youth ministers.

Marcotte said he once went into a local bar with a priest to watch a Notre Dame football game. One young man saw the priest’s roman collar and boorishly asked what he was doing in a bar.

Eventually the young man came and sat next to the priest and began to ask him questions, Marcotte said. By the end of the game the priest was hearing the young man’s confession outside the bar.

“If we do this purposefully, with the idea of bringing people to Christ, this will center on evangelization,” Marcotte said. “There is a hunger for young adult ministry. The time is now.”

Fr. John Bonavitacola, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, will give his testimony at the parish during the next Theology on Tap meeting 7 p.m., July 12.

The Imago Dei Foundation has not yet set a date for the August session, but will be developing a fall program.