Steubenville Youth Conference marks 50 years, reaching over a million young people

In 1976, Franciscan University of Steubenville held its first youth conference on its campus in Steubenville, Ohio. This summer, the Catholic university celebrates 50 years of a conference that has changed many lives.

Since its founding, the youth conferences have helped over 1 million young people encounter Jesus Christ through dynamic talks, the Mass, Eucharistic adoration, confession, prayer, and fellowship.

The inspiration for the conference for young people came after Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, former president of Franciscan University, held a conference for priests and asked them what the university could do for them. Their response? They wanted some kind of event for young people — specifically teenagers. The next year the first youth conference was held.

“Itʼs really a beautiful testimony to Godʼs faithfulness,” Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, current president of Franciscan University, told EWTN News.

“I was thinking the other day that the teenagers that came to the first youth conferences are now in their late 60s, almost 70 years old,” he added. “So thatʼs half a century of young people whose hearts have been touched, who have encountered Jesus in the sacraments,…