National Newsmakers to Speak at Men of the Immaculata Conference

Baton Rouge, LA – Three dynamic speakers, including the Rev. Larry Richards of the Diocese of Erie and pro-life activist Mark Houck, will headline the 2024 Men of the Immaculata Conference in Baton Rouge on Feb. 17, 2024, at St. George Church, 7808 St. George Drive, in Baton Rouge, from 7:30 a.m. to 2:35 p.m. 

“We do a blitzkrieg,” said Warren Dazzio, chair of the event, which is expected to draw more than a thousand men. “We want to make sure that we’re charging them up so that they can go out and make a difference in their communities, their families, and their parishes.”

Richards, author of “Be a Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be” (Ignatius Press 2009) and founder and president of the Reason for Our Hope Foundation, will be key to the conference’s tactical goals. “He's very direct,” Dazzio said. “He's not going to beat around the bush. He's going to say, ‘Guys, we gotta get in gear and save our families and save our culture and save our world. And it starts by us being holy men and women.’”

Houck, a radio show host and father of seven who made headlines in 2022 when he was arrested and indicted on federal charges related to shoving an escort outside of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, will also speak. “The night before his trial, Houck spent the whole night before the Eucharist,” said Dazzio. He was acquitted of all charges the next day. 

The event’s local speaker will be Deacon Michael Parker, business administrator of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary in St. Amant, La., and Baton Rouge director of Vagabond Missions, which brings the gospel to inner city teens. “One of our desires is to start reaching out to a younger audience and get some of the younger guys, too,” Dazzio said. “Deacon Parker is a perfect fit.”

The conference will include Mass celebrated by Bishop Michael G. Duca, Eucharistic Adoration, praying of the rosary, the sacrament of reconciliation, and lunch prepared by Chef John Folse, who made international headlines in 1988 by opening a restaurant in Moscow during the presidential summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev and in 1989 by becoming the first non-Italian chef to create the Vatican State Dinner in Rome. 


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