ABOUT THE AFC

Consecrating families to the Holy Family since 1975.

The Apostolate for Family Consecration® (AFC) supports and challenges Catholic families to grow in holiness, grow in truth, and grow together so that they can become fully alive in Christ.

We offer Catholic family vacations, retreats, and resources to lead families to an encounter with Jesus and form them in the truths of our Catholic Faith.

We share the message of Family Consecration to the Holy Family as the best way we know of for families to grow in holiness.

Family Consecration is a commitment to live your baptismal promises with the help of the Holy Family and to set your family apart for God.

Individually and as a family, you entrust yourselves to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You pledge to model your family after the Holy Family.

In return, the Holy Family comes to stay in your home and surround you with their love, protection, and guidance.

The Apostolate for Family Consecration® (AFC) is a private association of Christ’s faithful founded in 1975 by Jerry and Servant of God Gwen Coniker. While raising their thirteen children, the Conikers became alarmed by the moral decay in society. Eventually, they realized that the death culture could only be overcome by spiritual means.

The Conikers wanted to wake up Catholic families to what was happening in society and to challenge families to grow in holiness through consecration to the Holy Family.

Like many Catholic parents, Jerry and Gwen Coniker desired to raise their children with strong values and solid faith. Yet, even though God was a part of their life, they failed to make Him the true center.

After a tragedy that deeply shook the Coniker family, especially Gwen, some friends invited them to make a Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. It was only then that the Conikers began to understand the importance of a family life rooted in Christ and started to pray the daily Rosary as a family.

As Christian values in society continued to decline, Jerry and Gwen also realized that the battle against sin was not political, but spiritual.

Jerry and Gwen Coniker thought they could protect their family from the spreading moral decay by moving to Fatima, Portugal, where the Blessed Mother had appeared in 1917.

But after two years in Fatima, it was clear that God was calling Jerry and Gwen to return to the United States to begin sharing Our Lady’s call to prayer, reparation, and holiness of life with other families.

Inspired by the message of Fatima and seeking a way to strengthen and encourage Catholic families—including their own—to live and grow in the Faith, the Conikers began to ask for God’s guidance.

In 1975, after much prayer, the Conikers founded the Apostolate for Family Consecration®.

During the ministry’s founding years, Jerry and Gwen had sixteen personal encounters with Pope St. John Paul II and, with God’s help, established five international mission centers and a worldwide television network.

Today we have refocused our efforts. We provide God-centered Catholic family events, resources and support to lead families into consecration as a way of life.