NCYC 2025
NCYC plays a vital role in forming future priests of the archdiocese
Transitional Deacon Khaing Thu incenses the 16,000 Catholic teenagers worshipping on Nov. 22 at the closing Mass of the National Catholic Youth Conference at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Seminarian Casey Deal, left, assists Deacon Thu. At right, transitional Deacon Samuel Hansen stands at the altar in the stadium. All are archdiocesan seminarians. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)
By Sean Gallagher
The Archdiocese of Indianapolis has made a name for itself in the Church in the U.S. It hosts more large national Catholic events than any other diocese in the country.
The National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) has been held in the archdiocese every two years since 2011. The Fellowship of Catholic University Students’ annual SEEK conference was held in Indianapolis in 2019, drawing some 17,000 Catholic young adults to the city. And more than 50,000 people gathered here in 2024 for the National Eucharistic Congress.
Father Eric Augenstein, archdiocesan director of seminarians, says that all of this puts the archdiocese in a unique position as it forms its seminarians for ordained ministry.
“It really gives them the opportunity to serve the Church and the young people in a way that the daily life of a seminary doesn’t allow,” he said. “It provides opportunities for them to engage with and have conversations with young people, with bishops and priests in a setting that’s much bigger than what the seminary is.”
Father Augenstein, who also ministers as pastor of Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Parish in Indianapolis, said that about 50 seminarians assisted at NCYC in a variety of volunteer capacities. About half of them were archdiocesan seminarians. They coordinate the confession room at the conference, assist in liturgies and with clergy hospitality, direct pedestrian traffic and serve in the general volunteer pool.
“As priests, we’re called to serve the Church and the needs of the Church. Archbishop [Charles C.] Thompson often reminds the seminarians of the importance of thinking with the heart and the mind of the Church, not just what they know and what they’re comfortable with, where they live or grew up at,” Father Augenstein said. “And so, in a sense, when the larger Church comes to us in Indianapolis, our seminarians are able to experience what that looks like and be able to expand their understanding of the Church to help them in their future ministry.”
Long before a young man becomes a seminarian, though, his heart and mind has to become open to the possibility that God might be calling him to be a priest. Father Augenstein said that NCYC is a setting where that openness can emerge.
“For a lot of our young people, they come to NCYC and have the opportunity to see priests and religious and interact with them in a way that is bigger than their parish, to see the bigger Church and a bigger number of priests and religious,” he said. “That can be impactful on discernment.
“It opens them to see that the Church is bigger than their parish. Sometimes, that can help them understand that their call might be bigger than what they thought it was going to be.”
That was the case for transitional Deacon Khaing Thu, a member of St. Mark the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis who expects to be ordained an archdiocesan priest next June.
He has served at NCYC four times as a seminarian. But before that, he attended it twice as a student at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis.
“Praying together with tens of thousands of other young people from around the country had a great impact on me,” Deacon Thu said. “In the second time, especially, I was very serious in my thinking about the priesthood. Coming here reaffirmed me in my decision. It strengthened me to say ‘yes’ to God’s call to enter the seminary.”
His perspective on NCYC changed as a seminarian.
“I began to see the participants as the people that I would be serving one day,” Deacon Thu said. “As young as they are, being so energetic and on fire for the faith, they remind me of the time when I was a participant. It gives me hope and encouragement to really serve as a priest for them who are really thirsting for God. They want to be nourished with the sacraments.”
If Deacon Thu wants to know what it is like to come back to NCYC as a priest, he need only talk to Father Liam Hosty, ordained an archdiocesan priest last June and now serving as parochial vicar at St. Ann Parish in Indianapolis and St. Thomas More Parish in Mooresville.
Like Deacon Thu, he attended NCYC while a Roncalli student and then served at it as an archdiocesan seminarian.
“The presence of priests and religious and their joyful witness at the conference was instrumental in my discernment of the priesthood,” Father Hosty said. “In adoration and confession at the conference, I received so much.”
As a seminarian, Father Hosty began to see on a large scale in his service at NCYC that “the Church offers to young people what the world can’t give them. The Church offers them Jesus, which is his mystical body, the Church.”
Father Hosty added that his ministry as a seminarian at NCYC also “helped me to continue on with the first call that was planted in me as a young man, to know that this was the path that God was calling me to.”
Now as a priest, he was happy to come back to the conference and serve in a new and expanded way the teenagers whose place he was in years ago.
“I now know how fulfilling it is now as a priest to come back,” Father Hosty said. “It’s exciting. Now I can offer something more than I could as a seminarian, which is the sacraments. I also have the experience to know what the conference is about, to keep it Christ-centered.”
Ten years ago, Deacon Thu took part for the first time in the closing Mass of NCYC as a teenager, looking at the altar from afar while joining in prayer and worship with all of the thousands in Lucas Oil Stadium.
This year, he stood at the altar beside the closing Mass’ principal celebrant, Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Perez.
“During the Mass, I was a little nervous, but above all, I felt I was exactly where I needed to be,” Deacon Thu told The Criterion. “I felt truly at peace because I have answered God’s call to serve at this altar. My vocational journey, moving from the seats of a participant to the role of a deacon, is a testament to the greatness of how God can work through all of us.
“As a teenager, I sometimes shuddered at the possibility of becoming a priest, but I never stopped listening to God. And I am glad I didn’t stop listening, because I am now the happiest that I can ever be, serving the Church alongside so many dedicated young Catholics.”
Father Benjamin Syberg, administrator pro-tem of Holy Angels Parish and St. Rita Parish, both in Indianapolis, is confident that there were young people at NCYC this year who are future priests and religious.
“In a way, there’s this purity and simplicity in the young people,” he said. “They’re the same. They’re always excited and so loving, joyful and prayerful. So, to see such good young people, I know that, in some of them, there’s a call.”
(To learn more about archdiocesan seminarians or about a vocation to the priesthood in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, visit www.HearGodsCall.com. To read an article about Pope Leo XIV’s message on vocations to NCYC participants, visit www.archindy.org/ncyc.) †
See more stories from the National Catholic Youth Conference here
