Timothy Busch speaking at the first annual Napa Institute. Credit: Patrick Novecosky.
The Fourth Annual Napa Institute will bring together cardinals and other clergy and lay leaders this July for spiritual enrichment and discussion about the challenges of Catholic leadership today. “The Napa Institute was created to offer a deeper understanding of the Catholic faith in relation to the next America,” Timothy Busch, the Napa Institute’s chairman of the board, said Feb. 18. “This year’s theme will explore economic justice, beauty and the arts, and reason and faith, and who better to lead these discussions than the who’s who of Catholic leadership.” The July 24-27 gathering will take place at the Meritage Resort and Spa in California’s Napa Valley. Mass celebrants and speakers for the event include Cardinal James Harvey, archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls, and Cardinal William Levada, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A panel of bishops will discuss the new evangelization and Pope Francis; the panel will include Cardinal Levada, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, and Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami Curtis Martin, president of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, will deliver the event’s keynote address. There will be daily Masses in various rites at the Meritage Resort’s Estate Cave, as well as Eucharistic adoration at Our Lady of Grapes Chapel, and opportunities for confession. The event will have dozens of educational seminars and opportunities for fellowship and networking. The gathering will feature a performance of the play “Faustina, Messenger of Divine Mercy” from St. Luke Productions. Musician Eric Genuis will perform during a Trinitas Cellars wine reception and dinner. The Napa Institute’s first conference, held in 2011, focused on the possible characteristics of the “Next America,” including increased secularism and antagonism towards religion. Registration fees for the 2014 event run at $1,700 per person.