Damascus summer camps celebrate 25 years of bringing youth to Christ

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CNA Staff, Jul 13, 2025 / 06:00 am

When St. Paul encountered Christ on the road to Damascus, his life was changed. A Catholic summer camp ministry based in Ohio — but expanding around the country — hopes to give young adults the opportunity to have a similar, life-altering encounter with Christ, but with the help of paintball, zip-lining, and Eucharistic adoration.

Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, Damascus summer camps has grown from 63 campers in a parish-based effort to 7,000 campers across multiple locations — with a new location in Maryland opening soon.

At the summer camps, youth spend six days away from their ordinary lives getting to know Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith better. For the organizers of Damascus summer camps, anything can be a vehicle for teaching about Christ — even rock climbing.

But it’s not just one week, according to organizers. The “adventure” continues on long after the kids grow up.

Dan DeMatte, co-founder and executive director of Damascus summer camps, told CNA that “high-adventure activities will lead to a high-adventure faith.”

“We believe our faith is meant to be deep, contagious, and joy-filled,” DeMatte said. “Jesus Christ calls us to live a great adventure through the life of the Holy Spirit!”

From 60 to 7,000

The idea for Damascus summer camps came about when many local kids in central Ohio would attend a nondenominational camp where they would have “a personal encounter with Jesus,” DeMatte said.

“As a result, many of them would come home wanting to leave the Catholic Church because that other church was ‘better,’” DeMatte said.

Damascus founders wanted to create something centered on the Catholic Church “where young people could have an encounter with Jesus through the very life of the Church, through the holy Eucharist, confession, lectio divina, and Mass,” DeMatte explained.

“We wanted them to experience the fullness of the Catholic faith rooted in an encounter with the living God,” he said. “And it worked!”

“We created a high-adventure camp where young people had a true encounter with Jesus, and their lives were forever changed,” DeMatte said.

That was 25 years ago. Since its beginnings with about 60 campers, demand has grown rapidly. With an annual waitlist of more than 2,000 youth, Damascus struggles to keep up. This summer, it hosted nearly 7,000 campers total.

Damascus also offers year-round retreats, conferences, off-site preaching, missionary opportunities, and worship events, enabling them to serve more than 30,000 youth, young adults, and families. Damascus has more than 250 missionaries who serve year-round in ministries for parishes, schools, families, and dioceses across the country.

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“When parents saw how their children’s lives were changed, they too wanted an encounter, and that’s when we started offering adult retreats,” DeMatte said.

Damascus has locations in Ohio and Michigan, with a new location opening in Emmitsburg, Maryland — but DeMatte hopes to continue to expand.

“We would like to see a high-adventure Catholic camp planted within an eight-hour driving distance of every Catholic young person in the nation,” he said.

‘No one is alone’

Damascus doesn’t just offer an experience. It teaches young people to pray, fostering what DeMatte called “a hunger to attend Mass and Eucharistic adoration.”

The goal is to “awaken a heart for adventure and foster courage and self-confidence as foundations for an abundant Christian life,” he noted.

Damascus also emphasizes the Holy Spirit, encouraging young people to “start to recognize the promptings and convictions of the Holy Spirit in their everyday lives,” DeMatte said.

“Our campers don’t just learn about the Holy Spirit, they become intimate friends with the Holy Spirit,” he said. “They know who he is and how he is our advocate.”

What makes Damascus unique is the model of accompaniment.

“Our team models a spirit-filled life of joy, reflecting God’s individual love for each person through personal attention and accompaniment,” DeMatte said. “No one is alone.”

The adventure continues: A lingering effect

When asked about the effect of the camp on youth, DeMatte quipped: “In these 25 years, what haven’t I seen?!”

“They not only hear the voice of God speak to them about their identities, but they are also filled with the Holy Spirit and sent forth on a mission, just like St. Paul,” he said.

Attendees often bring home with them a “missionary zeal,” DeMatte said. They start worship and adoration nights, host Bible studies, or get involved in social charities, “igniting a fire of greater conversion within their homes, their parishes, and their schools,” DeMatte said.

The fire continues into their adult lives, according to DeMatte.

“I’ve seen countless young faithful Catholics go into lay ministry, study theology, work full time as pro-life advocates, join ministries that serve the poor, the suffering, the sick, and those neglected by others,” he continued.

More than 51% of attendees say they are open to discerning a vocation after attending, DeMatte noted.

“I’ve seen young sixth graders hear the voice of God while sitting before Jesus in adoration on the sands of our beach, and now they are serving him at the altar as a holy priest,” he said. “I’ve seen young women fall in love with Jesus and grow up to become religious sisters.”

“I’ve witnessed many vibrant happy Catholic marriages, coming forth from missionaries who met each other and fell in love while on mission,” he added.

The data support this.

More than 98% of campers last year said they believed in the Real Presence, compared with the national average of about 27%, DeMatte noted.

Daily prayer also becomes a bigger priority for campers.

“Before camp, 27% of campers incorporated daily prayer into their lives,” DeMatte said. “After camp, 82% of campers said they are extremely likely to incorporate daily prayer into their lives.”

In addition to the central Ohio and Michigan locations, Damascus Summit Lake is set to open for campers in the summer of 2026 in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Kate Quiñones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a fellow of the College Fix. She has been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Denver Catholic Register, and CatholicVote, and she graduated from Hillsdale College. She lives in Colorado with her husband.

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