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Missionaries for the Culture Project, Sami Boehm and Mitchell Bonvillian, give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at St. Augustine Catholic School on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.
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Missionaries talk to area students about dignity

THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN

Missionaries talk to area students about dignity

Ohioans voted Tuesday to write abortion and reproductive rights into the state constitution.

Though election season is up, Sami Boehm is still fighting to spread her beliefs about human dignity — specifically among the younger generation.

“I want to talk to students about this. Students need to hear this and I greatly, greatly desire to be the one to share it with them,” said Ms. Boehm, a second-year missionary with the Culture Project. The initiative strives to "restore culture" by proclaiming dignity and encouraging virtue, according to its website.

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Originally from Wisconsin, Ms. Boehm was placed on a team of five missionaries to serve in schools and parishes across the Diocese of Toledo, which covers 19 counties in northwest Ohio.

The Culture Project has permanent placements in five Catholic dioceses — Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Omaha, Neb. — and has served in other dioceses as well. Bishop Daniel Thomas invited the organization to serve youth in greater Toledo in 2015, a year after the project launched.

“We’re almost part of the curriculum for Catholic schools here,” Ms. Boehm, 23, said. “I have so much respect for Bishop Thomas. I think he just fights for people to hear truth; he's not afraid of that.”

The Toledo team gathered with missionaries serving in other dioceses for a training in Long Island, N.Y., at the beginning of the school year and settled into Bowling Green in mid-October. They almost immediately began to give talks, and their schedules can range from five to 15 talks each week, Ms. Boehm said. Last year, they gave about 215 talks to around 60 schools and to additional parishes, she said.

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One of Ms. Boehm’s first presentations this fall was given at St. Augustine Catholic School in Napoleon, where she and Mitchell Bonvillian, 22, shared their Human Dignity talk with a group of five 7th and 8th graders. They’ll visit the school multiple other times in the coming weeks to bond with the students during lunch and free time and to share two more talks: Sexual Integrity and Social Media.

St. Augustine has welcomed Culture Project missionaries for the past few years, said Principal Ginny Minnick.

“It's very comforting for me to know that [the students] have a place and a space to talk about it,” Mrs. Minnick said. “Our content goes right along with the Culture Project. What we're educating our students in on religion and history and anything else that has parallels is going to be the church teachings.”

During the recent talk, Ms. Boehm and Mr. Bonvillian interacted with the students, sharing reasons to celebrate the human person with anecdotes such as there being a one in 400 trillion chance a person is alive and that nerve impulses can travel faster than a Formula One race car. They defined human dignity as it being fundamentally good that the human person exists, and thus that people deserve to be treated with love and respect.

"We really just want to give them an appreciation for their own creation. If they can just even get a glimpse of the miracle of what they're seeing and that whole process of the human development, like that was all of you guys once,” Ms. Boehm said in an interview. “It's so intricate; creation is so perfect, and only could have been put together by our creator."

The missionaries outlined fetal development from fertilization and gave examples of times people’s dignity was not upheld — students recognized slavery and concentration camps from their history lessons, and also racism and bullying from their own lives. The missionaries then delved into abortion, human trafficking, and pornography.

In the sexual integrity talk, students are divided by gender and a respective missionary discusses topics such as lust, chastity, and living out the natural desire for love.

In the social media talk, missionaries discuss pornography, sexting, mental health, and self worth with the students. Ms. Boehm noted that very few middle and high schoolers today are not on social media.

The missionaries offer an opportunity to submit anonymous questions, which Ms. Boehm said opens the conversation to these difficult topics.

"'Am I a bad person if I've watched pornography?' or 'Am I going to hell if I had sex before marriage?' I've gotten those questions so many times," Ms. Boehm said, noting that she'll then assure the student that they are good and they are loved. "Those are my favorite questions to answer because it's so hopeful."

Culture Project missionaries get some pushback, she said, especially on the topic of abortion.

"We want them to know [that] we don't agree with those opinions, but we respect them as a person and the opinions that they have. Because of that, we would love to have a conversation about it," she said. "That's another opportunity for us to speak truth to them."

She added that some parents don’t want their children hearing these talks, which she attributed to them being in denial about what their kids have been exposed to.

“I wish we could live in a world where you could shelter your kids from everything, but we don't, and so it's better that you have these conversations with them, even at a young age, before they're set to have these conversations with someone else who might not be telling them what you would want them to hear,” Ms. Boehm said.

She said it's helpful that the missionaries are younger because they grew up in a culture similar to what today's youth are experiencing.

"If we're not talking to them about these messages, it's their parents or their teachers that are,” she said. “They can do a great job, but they can't relate to it as directly as the [missionaries] do."

The Culture Project also recruits missionaries from the Toledo area including St. Ursula Academy alumna Daniella Gilbert, who was placed in the Archdiocese of Omaha this fall, and Leipsic native Lily Kamphaus, who previously served as a missionary and now oversees both Ohio teams.

First Published November 12, 2023, 3:30 p.m.

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Missionaries for the Culture Project, Sami Boehm and Mitchell Bonvillian, give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at St. Augustine Catholic School on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
St. Augustine Catholic School 7th and 8th graders have a moment of prayer before listening to missionaries for the Culture Project give a presentation on human dignity on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
Missionaries for the "Culture Project," Sami Boehm and Mitchell Bonvillian, give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at St. Augustine Catholic School on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023 in Napoleon, Ohio. A national effort of the Catholic Church, Culture Project missionaries visit formal and informal young adult settings to speak about sexual integrity, including topics of abortion, pornography, human trafficking, and more. THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
Missionaries for the Culture Project, Sami Boehm and Mitchell Bonvillian, give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at St. Augustine Catholic School on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
St. Augustine Catholic School 7th and 8th graders listen to missionaries for the Culture Project give a presentation on human dignity on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
Missionaries for the Culture Project, Sami Boehm and Mitchell Bonvillian, give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at St. Augustine Catholic School on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
Missionaries for the Culture Project, Sami Boehm and Mitchell Bonvillian, give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at St. Augustine Catholic School on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
Principal Ginny Minnick listens to missionaries for the Culture Project give a presentation on human dignity to 7th and 8th graders at her St. Augustine Catholic School on Oct. 24, in Napoleon, Ohio.  (THE BLADE/PHILLIP L. KAPLAN)  Buy Image
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