About 50 people — adult and young adult leaders and high school participants — were on the campus of Benedictine University at Springfield from July 14-19 for Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI), which is sponsored by the Office for Vocations.

This year's session was led by long-time leaders Becky Bauerle and Missy Mark. Father Brian Alford was spiritual director and newly-ordained Father Hyland Smith was assistant spiritual director. Brian Pekovitch was a presenter and was in charge of technology and John Barrett was facilities director. Three seminarians and a number of former CLI participants acted as group leaders.

"The primary focus of CLI is to strengthen our relationship with Jesus," explains Mark, who is both a parishioner and youth minister at Ss. Peter and Paul Parish in Collinsville. "Then the leadership skills will flow from that."

CLI takes place every summer, usually during July, and has been running in the Springfield diocese for more than two dozen years. Each day of CLI was filled with practical leadership training, guided spiritual development, and hands-on exercises that help participants put their new skills to use right away. Mass was celebrated every day and participants were held to a tight schedule from early morning until late in the evening.

Of course, the participants enjoyed other activities like a movie night, scavenger hunt, relay, a question and answer night with the religious, and a closing dance.

For Father Alford, who is the new priest secretary and master of ceremonies for Bishop Thomas John Paprocki and associate director of the Office for Vocations, CLI has become a mainstay in his summers — and he is happy about it.

"I began working with CLI in 2007 when I was a seminarian," he says. "I've only missed one year since I started." His role as spiritual director was to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, teach some of the sessions and "of course to offer spiritual guidance to the participants and the team throughout the week."

As associate director of vocations, he says promoting religious life is "certainly something I was attentive to." He was pleased that Father Smith, parochial vicar at Our Saviour Parish in Jacksonville, was there to help.

"When you have a newly-ordained priest there it is especially nice," Father Alford says. "He is experiencing so many new things as a new priest. He is a great witness and example to everybody as well."

CLI attendees also spent time with seminarians Adam Prichard, Wayne Stock and Michael Meinhart as well as Sister M. Veronica McDermott and Sister M. Mediatrix Bexten, both Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George. Father Alford, Father Smith, Father Zach Edgar and Father John Titus — all diocesan priests —were available for reconciliation one evening.

"We had a nice mix with the priests, seminarians and the sisters there," Father Alford says. "It is good to have young priests and seminarians there as well as the sisters. It's important to have the young women religious there for the girls to have that encounter. The sisters bring a lot of energy to CLI. That's an attractive thing ... to have both men and women there who are so joyful in their religious vocations."

Bauerle, who is a member of Mother of Dolors Parish, Vandalia and youth minister for Mother of Perpetual Help Parish, Maryville, says she is especially pleased that Father Edgar and seminarian Stock are both from her home parish and were both former CLI participants.

"I feel very blessed because I had both of them at my parish and then at CLI," she says. "I don't mean to sound too proud, but I feel like they are kind of the fruits of my labor. It just makes you feel good.

"When the kids come to CLI, we start talking about discernment and what they want to do with their lives, so I think CLI is a good bridge for talking about things," she says. "You know, I really don't think most parents know how to talk to their kids about religious life. So if they are interested in knowing more, the boys can talk to the priests and the girls can talk to the sisters."

However, no matter what the young people choose for their adult roles in the church, Mark says this year's CLI participants are bound to do well. "This group was just amazing. They came in on Sunday evening and there was just this sense about them; we knew they were going to be focused and they bonded right away. They have been extremely respectful and it has been a joy to work with them."