Inspired by the movie "Top Gun: Maverick," a D.C.-based youth ministry is using a weekendlong camp to build mentors and strengthen the bonds between Catholic fathers and their sons.
The annual "Top Gun Father and Son" camping event welcomes dads and sons for a mission to grow closer, strengthen their relationships through challenges and reflections, and partake in faith-filled adventures.
Encounters, Convictions, and Your Decisions (ECYD), an international Catholic association of adolescents with the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, hosts the annual weekend at Camp Castleton in Virginia for boys in fifth to eighth grade and their fathers.
The event is only one of the fruits of ECYD, which also carries out other youth clubs, camps, leadership trainings, and gatherings.
Father Vito Crincoli, LC, the director of the ECYD Leadership Training program in D.C., told EWTN News the ECYD ministry is "based on the spirituality of Jesus calling you to be his friend."
"It's an international movement," he said. "In Washington, D.C., in particular, we've been putting a lot of emphasis on forming dads to be mentors for our clubs."
"One is because we don't have as many priests as we would like to run the youth ministry. But also, above all, we want to create vibrant apostles, vibrant laypeople, to run youth work. And because men really want to be mentors."
"We've noticed in these past years of our ministry that there's been such a desire for the men to want to be involved. And we saw that precisely through the father-son weekends we do. It awakens something in them."
Men "want to do more," Crincoli said. "They want to give more."
Finding unexpected inspiration from film
While the camp grew out of the desire to minister to Catholic men, it was ultimately a fictional adventure film about U.S. Navy aviators that set the idea into motion.
After noticing a "father and son tone" in the 2022 film "Top Gun: Maverick," Crincoli was inspired to bring together families for the event, which now welcomes anywhere from 20 to 40 fathers and sons.
Crincoli was inspired by the relationship between the film's characters Pete Mitchell and Bradley Bradshaw, better known by their call signs "Maverick" and "Rooster."
While the two Top Gun pilots are not related, Crincoli noticed a bond between them that is unique to a father and his son.
In the movie, "Maverick is trying to be the best dad he could be for Rooster. Experiencing his own limitations, but also just trying," Crincoli explained. "And then Rooster is looking for the type of dad he wants: 'I need a role model in my life. Someone who can guide me.'"
"We're really trying to tell the dads: 'Be a dad as a mission.' It's a mission of love. The whole idea of Top Gun Father and Son is that you and your son are a team. You're preparing your son for life."
"That's what Maverick was doing with Rooster. He was preparing him for battle."
Top Gun Father and Son
While at the camp, the group has previously been joined by members of the U.S. Naval Academy, including a Catholic former Top Gun pilot who "gave a talk to the dads about learning to fly with your kids — learning to fly with them through life."
A pivotal part is the "moment where the dads earn their wings," he said. "We had somebody donate real Navy wings to us."
"It's a ceremony. We'll have the wings on the table, the flag, the dads line up and then … the dads become 'Top Gun dads'" and "they get their wings." It "begins the mission of the weekend."
To help the participants live out the mission, the dads have "a training camp," Crincoli said. "In that training camp we have different activities."
The activities include anything from dodgeball and nighttime "missions" to quiet time in prayer. The weekend includes "different dynamics and different adventures" to create fellowship and teamwork between the fathers and sons.
During dodgeball, "it's the fathers and sons as teams against each other," Crincoli explained. "But then, if their son gets hit with the ball, the dad has to go and rescue his son."
"There's even a night mission that the son and the dad have to do together. There was one year that we did a mission where the dads and kids had to crack codes and to find the missing pilot. But they have to do it together — the son and dad."
The event also includes father and sons giving each other their own call signs and explaining why they chose them for each other. It's a "dynamic of 'How well do you know your son, and how well does your son know you?'"
Along with the mission-center games, the group most importantly spends time in prayer throughout the weekend.
The "most beautiful" part of the event is when "we have the adoration — father-son adoration together," Crincoli said. "The dad and his kid, they both come up to receive the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. It's a very intimate moment."
"Then we have the finishing Mass. And after the Mass, the dads and the kids are together," and "it's the award ceremony."
Then, "the dads give their wings to their sons" and "as they're pinning the wings to their son, they're praying over their kids. They're blessing them. They're encouraging them."
The many 'lights' that come from the event
The last day includes "a debriefing with the dads," Crincoli said. "We sit down with the dads and we start asking them, 'What has this weekend been for you?'"
"The dads begin to express different comments," Crincoli said. He further reflected on some of the past insights he has heard from fathers.
"The men say, 'It is great to be with men that believe what I believe.'"
"Another, he goes, 'It's beautiful, it's great, to be with men who are strongly Catholic, who are bonded by their sons, and that we could be a community.' One of the dads said, 'I really want to be a mentor in this because ... this is an extension of my fatherhood.'"
After the weekend, "they come back," Crincoli said. They come back as mentors for ECYD clubs or take part in its other camps.
"There are so many different lights that come from this," he said.
The next annual Top Gun Father and Son will be held the weekend of Oct. 17–18. It will include the presence of members of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former Navy Seabee chief who will support the weekend with leadership and inspiration.
