PORTIUNCULA ORATORY, INC.

Our ministry helps persons connect personally with Jesus and with one another through a collaboration of ordained Catholic priests and trained laity. Priests expert in theology, philosophy, morality, and ethics serve as spiritual directors and leaders of small groups, while laity trained in Positive Christian Dialog™ / Connect-Talk® guide its interpersonal and intrapersonal practice. Together, we form a training community that models and passes on what we have received from Christ through workshops and ongoing Christian community.

Learn Our Guiding Principles

Our Mission

Portiuncula Oratory, Inc. is a lay-initiated Catholic nonprofit organized exclusively for religious purposes.

We provide Jesus-centered workshops that strengthen the Domestic Church, grounded in both Old and New Testament Sacred Scripture—especially through Bible, Love Letters from Your Father (Books of John), the exegetical works of Romuald B. Simeone, together with accompanying materials, videos, and workbooks—and lived through ongoing conversion: turning from the seven capital sins, practicing the opposing virtues, and living from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Our work integrates Jesus-Centering in all aspects of life. We follow Him overtly as we turn toward Him through Scriptural insight and personal application.

What makes this work distinctive is that it is not merely a prayer format, a discussion technique, or a method alone. It is a set of philosophies and attitudes that applies what Jesus shows us.

Positive Christian Dialog™ / Connect-Talk® develops stable Christian community and teaches ways of living, listening, sharing, and responding that lead to ongoing growth and reliable transformation.

Our founders developed this corpus of materials over more than 60 years at a high level of professional development in Scriptural exegesis, the Church Fathers, genetic (cause & effect) history, doctoral-level psychological practice, and applied pastoral theology.

The evangelization component has also been tested across many different fields and has proved fruitful in parishes, retreats, jails, children and youth groups, parenting, adult faith formation, Bible study, prayer groups, leadership development, religious communities, and especially marriage healing.

Its goal is to help people move beyond temporary groups, surface-level relationships, and isolated Christian living into stable, ongoing connections. In that kind of community, spouses learn to become true daily best friends, children begin to receive the love they are seeking, parish groups develop into safe and honest friendships where people can share more openly, and religious men and women form support groups marked by unconditional acceptance, mutual help, less triggering, and a culture committed to eliminating the negatives and inequalities, even though no one lives that perfectly all the time.

This work is further supported by books and videos published by our ministry partner, Dialog International Press, LLC.

Who We Serve

Married Couples

Married couples and families, moms and dads, seeking Jesus‑centered connection and love in their home, reconciliation of family ruptures, and restoration of shared partnership participation in interactive family life.

Priests

Priests and religious living in community who desire deeper fraternal communion, relationally safe sharing, and renewed missionary zeal for marriage and the Domestic Church.

Professionals & disciples

Professionals and disciples who want to witness Christ and evangelize within their own sphere of vocation, learning how to be effective through Positive Christian Dialog principles and attitudes.

What We Do

Workshops, books, and videos that teach and model Connect‑Talk® / Positive Christian Dialog (PCD), as well as structured sharing groups—whether a marital dyad or a small group—that provide guardrails to create emotional safety and protect vulnerability.
Expert workshops and formation experiences that give participants practical tools to pass on and foster affirmative attitudes through which people experience being seen, heard, and validated in a way that aims to protect against rejection, keep things positive, and promote equality and commitment as friends.
Leaders are also trained in containment techniques and de-escalation strategies.
Replicable formation that can be implemented by trainees in their homes, parishes, convents, and religious communities. Priests can create follow-up Lectio Divina sharing groups in their parishes and even in their religious communities, according to our specific research-based techniques that have been piloted over the past 60 years in the founders’ development and in private psychological practice.
Workshop-based resources designed for duplication and careful expansion as local leaders become equipped, so the work can go forward even without workshops.
Consultation support package for Scripture‑based sharing groups and Franciscan‑style Lectio Divina communities centered on the Books of John, for a set fee.

Join the interest list for upcoming workshops and Scripture‑based groups.

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Support the work financially as we build the infrastructure for sustainable formation.

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