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Friday, May. 02, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — The National Association of Church Personnel Administrators held their annual convocation in Salt Lake City, held April 27-29 at the City Center Marriott.  Prior to the conference attendees enjoyed a tour of the Cathedral of the Madeleine and participated in a Mass celebrated by Bishop Oscar A. Solis at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church.

In his welcoming remarks at the Mass, Bishop Solis said, “It is our great joy to host this wonderful meeting of co-workers in the vineyard of the Lord. It is a great honor for us for you to come to our diocese.”

NACPA officials appreciated the warm welcome from the bishop and the diocese, they said.

“Bishop Solis, from day one, when he found out we were coming, has been generous financially; his staff has given to us whatever we need, and he spent time with us at the reception on Sunday,” Executive Director Regina Haney said. “He came and people loved that he did that, and he’s funny, and he related to them.”

NACPA President Anabelle Baltierra is from the Diocese of Los Angeles and worked with Bishop Solis when he was an auxiliary bishop there before coming to Utah. 

“The energy, the outpouring of response to what we’re trying to accomplish for Church HR, as we call it, has been incredible,” she said of this year’s convocation, adding that the organization works to deliver resources and education to its members.

The convocation’s plenary speaker on April 28 was Sister Norma Pimentel, MJ, an advocate for immigrants, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and recipient of numerous humanitarian awards. Speaking on “Creating a Culture of Compassion and Kindness in the Workplace,” she said she hoped the title of her talk “is exactly who we’re called to be and what we would need the most today in our Church, with all that is happening and now what we’re going through.”

Sr. Norma went on to share some of her own experiences. One particularly poignant experience happened more than a decade ago when, at a detention facility that housed children who were not accompanied by their parents, she convinced the guards to let her pray with the children. 

“All the little kids around me looking up at me with their faces full of tears, crying and telling ‘Get me out of here, please.’ I just start to cry,” she said. “I just couldn’t understand that. Here in the United States, we are doing that, and today we’re probably doing something even worse. The officers were looking inside, and they too were crying when I walked out of that room. The officer in charge tells me, ‘Thank you, sister, you helped us realize they’re human beings.’”

“Somehow we forget our own humanity when we’re trying to do our jobs,” Sr. Norma said. “Don’t you ever forget that yourselves. You do your job. Remember every person that walks into that church is a person God wants you to treat with dignity and respect. That’s what we’re called to do.”

‘[The] persons of God in us must come out, must be given away, must be shared with every person that you encounter,” she said. “From the moment you get up in the morning, with your own family, the people you encounter along the way when you go to work, those people that come to your office, the people that you work with, it must be reflected there, because if it isn’t, then we’re failing to show that image and that likeness of God in ourselves.”

The plenary speaker on April 29 was Zip Rzeppa, an author and former sportscaster. He also is the founder and executive director of Mater Media, vice-president of MERS Goodwill Industries, executive director of the St. Louis Society of St. Vincent de Paul Archdiocesan Council and managing director of Angels’ Arms.

Rzeppa spoke on “Building a Discipleship Culture: Strategies for HR Professionals in the Workplace.” 

While breaking down discipleship into several components — faithful, redemptive, transformational, persistent, healing and inspirational — Rzeppa shared stories of his journey back to faith along with those of several other people he knows well.

In his own life, after a successful sportscasting career, Rzeppa lost everything and found himself in a dark place, he said.

“Friends, God has a way of getting our attention; at this point, he had my total attention,” he said. “He was about to send me on a journey I never envisioned and never would have asked for before.”

Of the stories he shared, Rzeppa said, “You can take these stories and the power and principles behind them that they represent and bring them into the workplace and inspire yourself and your employees in different ways to build that culture of discipleship, wherever you work in, whatever diocese you work in.” 

The convocation workshops focused on leadership, management training, budget development and strategic planning. Among those attending were several staff members, clergy and school principals from the Diocese of Salt Lake City. Nell Cline and Dolores Lopez were members of the organizing committee. 

Cline, assistant to the vicar general Father John Evans, has helped plan the last three NACPA convocations.

“It was so nice to have everyone here, mostly Catholic, and to be able to pray together and have a Mass together and even at dinner to talk about your faith,” Cline said of convocation. “It’s just refreshing that you can bring your faith and not put it out there in the door before you come in.”

Lopez learned a lot at the convocation that she will be able to use as the diocese’s HR director, she said. 

“We’re learning about AI (Artificial Intelligence), we’re learning about benefits,” she said. “We’re learning about the problems that all the rest of the dioceses have, problems just like us, and so they’re similar.”