Christopher French (center) participates in the Catholic Worldview Fellowship in summer 2023. French is a Diocese of Owensboro seminarian from Bowling Green. COURTESY OF JAN CIELANGA, ZWEIZUDREI FOTOGRAFIE
Seminarian learns how to evangelize the culture through study abroad program
BY CHRISTOPHER FRENCH, SPECIAL TO THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
This summer I had the opportunity to study abroad in Europe through the Catholic Worldview Fellowship. This was a program that brings college students together from across the world to study for three weeks in Germany and one week in Rome. It was an awesome experience.
The mission of the program was to form, network, and empower talented college students to evangelize the culture through an experience of the Catholic worldview. I, and 35 other fellows, learned about those nebulous terms: worldview, culture, and evangelization.
Through cultural outings, to various cities and churches, those nebulous terms were made concrete through personal experience. From this experience we learn how to best evangelize based on the strengths and weaknesses of our own personalities. It’s not all classwork, however. There was a lot of fun to be had during the program like biking in the Netherlands, living in a German castle, eating lots of gelato, scootering throughout Rome, and attending a Papal Mass. (Just to name a few.)
I would highly recommend this program to any college student interested in deepening their faith and understanding of what it means to have a Catholic worldview. As it says on their website “To change culture takes true leaders; to evangelize culture takes apostles.” At the Catholic Worldview Fellowship, you learn how to be both.
Students attend Mass while participating in the Catholic Worldview Fellowship during summer 2023. Christopher French, a Diocese of Owensboro seminarian, attended this year’s fellowship. COURTESY OF JAN CIELANGA, ZWEIZUDREI FOTOGRAFIE
Christopher French is in first theology at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in southern Indiana.
Originally printed in the September 2023 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
