Over fifty years ago, a group of boys made a Pledge of Friendship with Christ in ECYD for the first time. Since then thousands of adolescents have encountered the Lord and decided to walk together with him. Many of them are now parents, priests, and consecrated laymen and laywomen who fondly remember that first invitation from Christ who approached and asked them, “Do you want to be my friend?” This friendship is the heart of ECYD – a pledge of friendship with Christ and with one another, to build a new world according to the Gospel.
Today, there are about 4,300 ECYD youth, in fifth grade through high school, currently participating in clubs, events, retreats, and camps across North America, and about half of these participants have made the ECYD Pledge of Friendship to Christ and have joined ECYD. And it only continues to expand: there are approximately 140 ECYD teams across the United States and Canada, with new teams popping up regularly in new locations, fostering the growth and development of ECYD and its mission.
In November of 2024, Fr. Michael Picard and Fr. Kenneth LeBlanc of the Legionary community in Calgary, Alberta travelled to Regina, Saskatchewan for the Feast of Christ the King, where 11 young people made the ECYD Pledge of Friendship. Although Regina has had a vibrant Conquest Boys Club for over 25 years, this is the first time that ECYD has been introduced into the section. Mark and Kirsten Joubert, who help to run the Challenge and Conquest Clubs in Regina, knew that they wanted the youth to take an extra step of intentionality and commitment in their own faith lives.
“We have great clubs here in Regina, but we wanted the youth to take that step of accepting Christ on their own. We understood the pledge as a way for the youth to take ownership of their faith, making Christ the center of their lives. ECYD was the missing link – the link between the Challenge and Conquest clubs and Regnum Christi. As we look to the future, we know that ECYD will play an important part in the growth of Regnum Christi here and in helping to fulfill the mission of loving Christ and serving the church, and it’s exciting to see how God is working in the lives of our young people!”
Fr. Patrick O’Loughlin took the Pledge of Friendship himself at an ECYD convention in Cornwall, Ontario when he was just nine years old. “I still remember where I was standing in the chapel, because it was a landmark moment in my life. It’s really cool now as a priest that my ministry is actually being able to facilitate those experiences in ECYD.” Today, Fr. Patrick works out of Atlanta as the Director of the ECYD Life Department, a national team that serves and supports the growth and development of ECYD in the territory by offering support to the local ECYD Directors, adult formators, team leaders and members. This team, made up of ECYD leaders from cities across North America, meet regularly to grow the ECYD identity and plan programming and events. Some of these events include ECYD Mission Corps, a month-long summer missionary program for high school students, national conventions, international trips and pilgrimages, a national sports tournament in Indiana for middle school boys, and the Ignition Retreat, a five-day retreat for high school boys held at the Legionary seminary in Cheshire, Connecticut.
Fr. Patrick also credits ECYD’s trajectory of growth over the past few years to the decade-long Regnum Christi renewal, which gave the team an opportunity to reset and regroup, and to renew their own resources and organization. And throughout this renewal, the identity of ECYD became clear:
“ECYD is not just a program. It has programs – like Challenge, Conquest, the Leadership Training Program, and Knights of the Altar – but it’s more than something that kids attend. It’s something that they become a part of, that they bring into all the different areas of their life. It’s the Regnum Christi charism, articulated and adapted to adolescents who are living the charism in their own lives, at their own age.”
In ECYD, the RC charism is expressed fundamentally through cultivating friendship with Jesus, a friendship that resembles the same relationship the apostles themselves had with Christ. “We want them to have the same experience of Jesus that the apostles had, knowing that Jesus is their best friend and their King, someone who loves them more than anything else in the world,” says Fr. Patrick. “But also, they should feel challenged, called, and summoned to follow their King, to help build up his kingdom, and to go on this adventure with him.” This friendship and call is, indeed, the ECYD identity and vision: “We are ECYD apostles with a fire in our hearts: we proclaim to the youth of our world, ‘Christ our Friend, Christ our King!”
The ECYD plan for North America focuses on the years leading up to 2033, the 2000th anniversary of redemption. By this time, they team is planning and praying to have over 100 high school students from North America serving as ECYD missionaries. Over the next several years, ECYD will be rallying the youth of North America and Asia to prepare and celebrate the 2000th Anniversary of Apostles in 2033, taking up Matthew 28:16-20, the Great Commission, as their playbook, with the Apostles as their patrons. The “Apostleverse 2033” campaign will be a sharing of testimonies, apostolic ideas and experiences, challenges, and charism-soaked reflections to assemble youth and inspire them to be the heroic apostles that the world needs today.
To hear Fr. Patrick O’Loughlin speak more about the vision of ECYD, watch his interview with Br. Matthew Artall on YouTube.
To find out more about the pledge of friendship, read the essay “The pledge of friendship with Christ and with each other ECYD: The Regnum Christi Charism lived by adolescents”.
To learn more about ECYD, visit their website at ECYD – Regnum Christi. Find out about upcoming ECYD conventions here.
