Thousands of members of the Catholic educational community from throughout the United States heard the message of Lasallian education recently at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. The occasion was the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, an annual gathering that is the largest of its kind in the world. The four-day-long event brought together some 15,000 students for its “Youth Day” kick-off and more than 25,000 religious educators for 72 hours of workshops, lectures, liturgies, and networking.
The District of San Francisco was one of only 225 invited exhibitors at the Congress. Brother George Van Grieken, Director of Vocation Ministry, who organized the exhibit and spent four days at the Congress—mostly on his feet, shaking thousands of hands and making numerous new acquaintances—offers this report: