CPMC Monthly Learning Series

Young adults are searching for meaningful ways to live their faith through service, accompaniment, and community engagement — yet prison ministry often remains disconnected from the formation pipelines already shaping emerging Catholic leaders. This conversation explores how prison ministry leaders and volunteers can collaborate with community organizations, campus ministries, and parish communities to create clearer pathways for young adults to encounter and accompany incarcerated people and their families.

Drawing on the experience of the Catholic Volunteer Network and its partnerships across service and formation programs nationwide, this session will examine barriers to engagement, practical models for collaboration, and opportunities to connect existing young adult service networks with prison ministry in new and creative ways. Participants will leave with concrete ideas for cross-organizational partnership and a renewed vision for inviting young adults into our shared mission to visit the imprisoned.

With growing recognition that culturally and linguistically responsive ministry is essential to serving the full Body of Christ, many prison ministries across the country are seeking ways to better engage Latino and Spanish-speaking Catholics as volunteers and leaders.

This webinar will offer practical strategies for recruiting, forming, and accompanying bilingual and Spanish-speaking volunteers in prison ministry. We will explore effective approaches for outreach to Latino Catholic communities, including partnerships with parishes, mentorship models, and accessible formation opportunities.

We will also reflect on how this work moves beyond recruitment alone toward something deeper: building intercultural prison ministries where leadership, prayer, and service are shared across cultures. Participants will gain insight into Latino Catholic spiritual traditions, common barriers to participation, and practical steps for creating more welcoming and sustainable ministry structures.

Whether your immediate need is strengthening bilingual volunteer engagement or building long-term intercultural capacity, this session will offer both practical tools and a broader vision for ministry.

Cecilia Flores is the Executive Director of Catholic Volunteer Network. A former community organizer, campus minister, and missionary, her work has been shaped by a lifelong commitment to building power with communities closest to the pain.

When Cecilia's best friend was arrested and incarcerated at 15, it set Cecilia on a path toward understanding how systems shape lives, and how faith communities can either reinforce those systems or resist them. That personal formation is reflected in her professional journey: from missionary work in Honduras, to youth and young adult ministry in the Diocese of Sacramento, to community organizing. She has also served as a consultant to the USCCB Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church and twice represented the United States as a delegate to the World Meeting of Popular Movements at the Vatican.

Cecilia brings to this conversation not only professional expertise in volunteer formation and young adult engagement, but the perspective of someone who has always known that the people the Church most needs to reach are often the ones least likely to be invited in.

Sr. Ruth Bolarte, I.H.M. is a member of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a nationally recognized leader in intercultural and Hispanic ministry within the Catholic Church. A native of Peru, she has served in parish, diocesan, and national leadership roles focused on adult faith formation, lay leadership development, and building intercultural competence in increasingly diverse Catholic communities. She holds degrees in theology from Immaculata University and St. Charles Seminary in Pennsylvania. She graduated with a doctorate in ministry from the School of Theology and Religious Studies from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Sr. Ruth previously served as Director of the Office of Cultural Diversity Ministries for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen, where she supported a wide range of ethnic apostolates and helped foster collaboration across cultures within parish life. She has also led Spanish-language evangelization and leadership formation initiatives for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and served as a pastoral consultant and national speaker on intercultural ministry, inculturation, and the Church’s mission among immigrant communities. She currently serves as an adjunct professor at Villanova University and continues to support ministry leaders nationwide as a Pastoral Consultant for RENEW International.