QUINCY -- Jesus's eyes were staring intently with a powerful expression, his finger pointed directly at the viewer. Beneath that finger were the words: I WANT YOU.

The poster, imitating the iconic image of Uncle Sam, hung over the Knights of Columbus's booth at the Boston Catholic Men's Conference. About 550 people attended the conference at the Boston Marriott Quincy on April 18, the second since its revival in the archdiocese in 2025.

"What's so funny is that men wait until the last minute to buy tickets," said Mark Carey of the Men of Divine Mercy, who organized the conference. "So, we had a lot of people coming in this morning, just buying them as they walked through the door."

He said it is important for men and women to have faith-based conferences like this.

"I do believe that the Lord has something special for both men and women, separately and together," he said.

He hoped that men across the archdiocese will be inspired by the conference to start their own parish prayer groups like the Men of Divine Mercy.

"We'd love to see more men coming together to pray and share their faith," he said.

Speakers at the conference included Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, an EWTN host known as "the dynamic deacon" for his international preaching; Society for African Missions Father Dermot Roache, who served in rural Africa and inner cities in the Northeastern U.S., including Boston; John Edwards, founder of Just a Guy in the Pew, an apostolate and podcast for evangelizing lay Catholic men; and Father Leo Patalinghug, a priest and chef with his own cooking show on EWTN. Father Patalinghug sold signed copies of his cookbooks "Dining with the Saints" and "Spicing Up Married Life." The latter offers marriage advice along with recipes.

Throughout the conference, vendors, including Friends of the Unborn, Massachusetts Citizens for Life, and the Men of Divine Mercy, were promoting their ministries in the hall. A small business called Holy Family Candles sold beeswax depictions of saints with wicks sticking out of the tops of their heads. The Daughters of St. Paul sold children's books, including manga hagiographies, "The Pursuit of the Pilfered Cheese" (part of a series about Sister Seraphina, a nun who is also a mouse), and "The Light They Left," part of a trilogy of vampire stories written by a Daughter of St. Paul in Florida.

During the afternoon session, Carey introduced a panel discussion with four "Knights of St. Joseph" he had met through his men's group. Each of them had gone through a personal tragedy that tested, and ultimately strengthened, their faith.

"These men have become brothers every Monday night we have met, and it's been an incredible journey," Carey said.

The first was Michael Sullivan, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq.

"Although I returned home in body, I was totally broken in spirit," he said.

His spirit was broken long before he joined the Marines, he said, despite growing up in a household surrounded by extended family.

"Just because I was overwhelmed with love and had a great family, it doesn't mean that things were perfect," he said.

His parents divorced when he was young, and his father died of an opioid overdose shortly thereafter. Nine-year-old Sullivan couldn't understand why his father would do such a thing. His mother remarried "a good guy," but he later developed an alcohol addiction.

"Although I was showered with love, my house was screaming and yelling and fighting," he said. "It wasn't a place where you could find peace. And as a young man, I just started acting out."

He stopped paying attention in class and got into fights with his schoolmates. Joining the Marines turned out to be the best decision he ever made, he said. He landed in Fallujah in 2006, after the brutal battle that had taken place there. Upon his return to the U.S., he had PTSD from both his childhood and his military service. Drugs and alcohol were his way of self-medicating. He had no faith and was angry with God for what had happened in his life, until one night when, alone and contemplating suicide, he asked God for help. That's when everything changed. He met Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart, who convinced him to start going to Mass daily. He has also been on pilgrimages to Medjugorje and Lourdes.

"If there's anyone here today who's fighting a battle that they don't want to tell anyone about, I relate to that, and I ask that, if I could give you any advice, offer it up to God and have God walk you through that," he said.

Steve Baird grew up Catholic in Braintree, attending Mass regularly with his family and later with his wife, Meaghan. She had a miscarriage, then later gave birth to a daughter, Nora. When Meaghan's grandmother died, and she became pregnant with a third child, the Bairds stopped attending Mass. After miscarrying a set of twins, Meaghan became pregnant with twins again in 2019. In 2020, Colin was born healthy, but Thomas died at birth.

"He was so beautiful, and we spent the time with him, and they took him away, and we said our goodbyes," Baird said.

Mother Olga offered to pray over Thomas's body.

"We had to tell the girls and try to explain to a five-year-old and a seven-year-old that one of their brothers is coming home and not the other," Baird said. "And it was honestly the worst time of our lives. Every day was just more grief."

They were simultaneously happy to have a baby boy and devastated to have lost one. Mother Olga wrote the Bairds a letter thanking them for letting her pray with Thomas, and that she felt God's presence in him. The Bairds started going back to Mass after that.

"Through Thomas, God came back into our lives and gave us Mother Olga and gave us back our faith," Steve said.

Steve Bonica's daughter, Priscilla, was a three-sport varsity athlete and high school basketball star until she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She slowly lost her ability to play basketball, then her ability to speak and walk. Her dreams of playing basketball in college were dashed. Priscilla died in 2023. Priscilla's death brought Bonica closer to his surviving children. One day, while walking a dog that Priscilla wanted to use to comfort other children in the hospital, Bonica asked God for a sign. He saw rows and rows of white flowers.

"At that moment, I felt like, she's okay," he said.

The final Knight of St. Joseph to speak was Jarlath Waters, father of Quinn Waters, "the Mighty Quinn," whose struggles with cancer since the age of three have inspired an outpouring of support across the South Shore and beyond. When Quinn was diagnosed with cancer a second time, the Waters were angry.

"We decided to take faith as being a better option than being angry, to get back to church and get back into praying, and she pretty much showed us the way to carry our faith," Waters said.

Joining Carey's group was "the most healing and therapeutic" thing he had ever done.

"We were all like dented cans," he said. "We were going through our own struggles."

While on a visit to Ireland in 2025, Waters had a seizure and collapsed. He woke up in a Dublin hospital surrounded by family. His wife Tara, his "rock," arranged a flight to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had brain surgery. He's currently on his sixth round of chemotherapy. Having a child with cancer made it easier for him to deal with his own. He is still trying to strengthen his faith and stay positive.

"I'm painfully aware of how short life is, how we need to be grateful for every single day that we get the opportunity to wake up," he said.

The conference concluded with a vigil Mass celebrated by Archbishop Richard G. Henning. In his homily, the archbishop said that contemporary culture is an endless barrage of messages encouraging an easy life.

"What's most worthwhile, meaningful in our lives, requires blood, sweat, and tears, hard work, sacrifice," he said. "This is the truth of the cross, and one that challenges us, particularly in our own culture."

He said that the young Catholics he meets on college campuses want to be challenged and strengthened in their faith. Many of them were challenged and strengthened by the pandemic, which "unveiled for them the emptiness of the life that they were being encouraged to live." Archbishop Henning said he has also found that the majority of Catholics on campus are men, the opposite of parishes, which tend to be majority women. These young Catholic men are active in campus life and in evangelization.

"I hope that we are doubling down in the faith," the archbishop told the men at the conference. "I thank you for the witness that you give and have been giving. You were doing it when it wasn't fashionable."