Chicagoland

Catholic Scouts learn about their faith through activities

By Michelle Martin | Staff writer
Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Catholic Scouts learn about their faith through activities

Members of Cub Scout Pack 91 from Palatine join their pack leaders in a "Fishers of Men" outing at University of Saint Mary of the Lake and Mundelein Seminary Campus on Sept. 17, 2022. The Catholic committee on scouting hosted a fishing day for scouts and met with seminarians. The scouts had the opportunity to fish for their merit badge-partial and Cub Scouts: Duty to God all ranks badges. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Tyler Moser fishes with Robert Holtrane near the edge of the lake. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Deb Sitz checks in on Lucas Heaton. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
The pier on the lake. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
From bottom: Russell Smith, unidentified, Lucas Heaton, Max Kim, Jennifer Kim, Andrew Kim, Jeremy Heaton, Tyler Moser, and Robert Holtrane fish from the pier. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Lucas Heaton gets a little help from his dad Jeremy Heaton. Jeremy is our Cubmaster for Pack 91 at St. Theresa School, Palatine. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)

For members of groups affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, Scouting offers a chance to explore their faith along with the values enshrined in the Scout Oath and Law.

Cub Scouts and members of older Scout groups, both of which now include girls and boys, can complete Catholic religious emblem programs designed to help them learn about and connect to their faith.

“If you look at the Scout law, those 12 points, being trustworthy and loyal and reverent and so forth, and being a good Catholic, you need to live all those things,” said Deb Sitz, chair of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Catholic Community on Scouting. “If you live by the Scout oath and law, they run in parallel for what it means to be to be a good Catholic person.”

John Gorsica, 15, of St. Mary of Vernon Parish in Indian Creek, sought out the opportunity to earn the religious emblems that he was eligible for after joining Cub Scouts in third grade. The emblems do not have to be done by a whole troop; an individual Scout can work on them. Cub Scout religious emblems are designed to be worked on by a Scout and their family.

Gorsica, now a Scout, said he is glad he and his family took the initiative to work on the emblems.

“I made that effort because I wanted to not just have Scouting and I wanted to not just have church,” Gorsica said. “I wanted to have a portion of it that combined them together. I found a lot of amazing people who were in Scouts and were Catholics. It was great to be able to talk about not just camping and Scouting but also to talk about faith and values.”

Father Brendan Guilfoil, associate pastor of Mary, Undoer of Knots Parish and a member of the Catholic Committee on Scouting, was a Scout and a Scout camp counselor as a young man, and he said he uses what he learned in his ministry every day.

“Faith and Scouting overlap a lot,” he said. “You can apply the things you’ve learned in Scouting and bring them to a place of faith.”

Older Scouts also have the option of participating in the St. George Trek, a sort of combination backpacking trip and vocation retreat usually held every two years at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico, although it was not held from 2017 until this year, first because of wildfires in New Mexico and then because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Catholic Committee on Scouting selects two Scouts each time the trek is held and covers the cost of the program and travel.

This year, Gorsica and Matt Donohue, 18, of St. Mary Magdalene Parish in Blue Island, did the 50-mile mountain trek. The two were in different groups, each led by a priest and a seminarian or religious brother.

Gorsica said the religious emblems he earned, including the Ad Altare Dei for Scouts and the Pope Pius XII for older Scouts, have shown him new ways to live his faith.

“I think they’ve been very helpful, to see the options I have available and the options that I have to serve the people around me,” Gorsica said. “The Pope Pius XII [emblem] is very focused on the vocational aspect. The St. George Trek was very much incorporating that into a real setting, and seeing what actual people have done and seeing the paths they have taken.”

Donohue said he didn’t do the religious emblems until he was past Cub Scouts, because his family wasn’t aware of the program for younger children.

“When I did Ad Altare Dei, it was something that taught me some things I had already known and mentioned some things that I hadn’t been aware of,” said Donohue, who is completing his senior year of high school at home. “Through the formation aspect, I was able to have a better understanding of it.”

Donohue said the St. George’s Trek — which he was supposed to do in 2019 — taught him more about himself and the people around him.

“You learn about the character of the people you’re with, and about your own character,” he said. That includes whether you can keep a positive attitude in difficult circumstances, such as when it has rained the last 4 miles of a day’s 10-mile hike, or whether you persist and keep trying when something does not work the first time.

Tammy King, the committee chair for Cub Scout Pack 55 at St. Raymond de Penafort Parish in Mount Prospect, said the pack has encouraged all of its members to work on the two religious emblems they can do for at least a decade.

While the emblems are a good fit for a pack sponsored by a Catholic parish, King said, they are completed at home.

“The parents have to commit to doing the activities, too,” she said, noting that each emblem requires a time commitment of about six hours.

The first, the Light of Christ emblem, is usually completed by Scouts in second grade, because it coordinates well with first reconciliation and first Communion preparation. The second, the Parvuli Dei Award, is for Webelos who are about to move on to be Scouts.

Most of the Cub Scouts want to do the emblems when they reach the proper years because they have seen others get them.

“It’s kind of the culture of Scouts that they look to the older kids for leadership and example,” King said.

While Cub Scout religious emblems are presented in the pack, or sometimes at a parish Scout Sunday Mass, the emblems for older Scouts and the St. George Award for adult leaders are usually presented during a special ceremony at Holy Name Cathedral, Sitz said.

“That’s our biggest event,” Sitz said. “Being in the cathedral is very important. For many of our scouts, they’ve never been at the cathedral before.”

Topics:

  • boy scouts

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