By Gretchen Keiser

A remarkable variety of parishes and missions were represented at the Nov. 19 workshop on Life Teen, hopeful that the experience gained in the Southwest can benefit Catholic youth in the Southeast.

A team of 10 people from Holy Cross Church in Atlanta included two priests, a deacon and a new parish youth minister, Dennis Ruggiero, among others.

A veteran of teaching and youth ministry in Miami, Ruggiero said the parish is looking into Life Teen as a model, but didn't mince words about the state of youth ministry across the board in the Catholic Church.

"Protestants are 20 years ahead of us in youth ministry -- we're really behind groups like Young Life ... That's why I think Life Teen is exploding" as a model for Catholic youth ministry, Ruggiero said. He praised the program's emphasis upon forming a community for young people and upon transforming the heart, rather than teaching knowledge of the faith alone.

Father Frank Giusta, pastor of St. Mark's Church, Clarkesville, said the North Georgia parish had been watching the development of Life Teen in suburban Atlanta churches since last spring and was now planning to launch its own.

Accompanied by parishioners Sue Klopfenstein and Tommy Crosby, he envisioned having a Life Teen Mass one Sunday a month, and said he has already won a commitment from several musicians to provide the liturgical music geared for teenage groups. He estimated 22 teens in the parish would be involved.

Crosby and Mrs. Klopfenstein said Catholic youth in Clarkesville are a true religious minority in their high schools. "Out of 2,000 students at a high school, possibly 25 are Catholic," Crosby said. "A lot of teachings in the rural Baptist areas are that Catholics are a cult. (The Catholic students) hear this."

They brought St. Mark's youth to a Life Teen Mass at St. Theresa's parish in Douglasville and "they loved it," Mrs. Klopfenstein said. Eleven were attending the Life Teen Youth Rally at St. Ann's Nov. 20, where they would see and pray with hundreds of other Catholics their age.

The two adults hope Life Teen will enable the parish to teach teens more effectively and help them reciprocate the many invitations they receive from friends to attend Protestant church services.

Iris Rodriguez, pastoral associate in the Hispanic ministry office of the archdiocese, was enthusiastic about the Life Teen Mass being "a bridge that would bring people together" crossing cultural and language barriers.

She found it reminiscent of bilingual Masses celebrated at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Atlanta when the late Father Brent Bohan was assigned there.

Father Jim Fennessy, pastor of St. John Neumann parish, Lilburn, where Life Teen has been the model for over a year, said about 800 people were coming to the Sunday evening Life Teen Mass each week, including families and other parishioners who prefer the liturgy.

He credited parish youth minister Patti Jugenheimer for the work that had been done to develop a community for young people in the parish. The Life Teen, which she introduced, "brought a liturgical dimension and music and that helped."

He has been impressed by the reverence of the young. As all the teens gathered around the altar for the consecration of the Mass at one liturgy he invited the crowd to remain standing rather than kneel on the floor. To his surprise it was the people in the pews, hearing his words, who remained standing. But the teens around the altar all knelt.