AT St Bridget’s and in most parishes there is a crisis of youth. It can no longer be assumed that, though most of them are good people, that they frame their life around anything much like the faith most adult believers hold. That is, in Jesus Christ as the divine face of God on earth and the Church and sacraments as the visible continuation of that presence revealed by God.
Too much negativity is often associated with the life choices and values and lifestyles of young people and, as with their adult parents and relatives, there is much about being ‘modern’ that exposes itself to criticism. This includes criticism from the church, its priests and other leaders, though they themselves have been exposed through the abuse scandal and closer optics on their own manner of living.
The lives of young people, though singled out, are not uniquely shaped by a pervasive modernity (including materialism and narcissism) that does not also captivate other adults in similar but different ways.
Although young people are less likely to attend Mass and the sacraments or even to see the value of prayer and Church rules and social mores, they very often do self-refer as ‘spiritual’ and find spirituality in their own ways; music and nature and even technology can resource this spirituality.
For others it is more traditional and, for a few, by reference to a liturgy and culture that freezes the church in a past now gone. Most were not even born when the Catholic liturgy was in Latin and followed the Tridentine rite.
In reality, the Church and its Scriptures are not of this time either. They are from the past and much of what we adults value as faith and values is also from the past, that is, not from the present now.
If that situates the Church outside the interest range of young people then their lives will struggle to find a meaningful place for this faith. Catholic families and schools, also good parishes, can and will influence young people towards an often rich appropriation of the Catholic faith.
However, many do still fall away, even when they have these positive influences strongly at play in their lives.
We might think that young people will ‘come back’ to this faith when it is time to marry and have a family but sacramental marriages are fewer and children are delayed. Marriage itself is under stress, economically, emotionally and institutionally. We should caution ourselves about ‘wishful thinking’.
Positively, a core group of young people do find faith a rich and vital part of life and they will be key to the church in the future. But it will likely be a smaller church than in the past.
We see this already in Australia and it is even more evident in Europe. The natural transition from modernity to secularisation is gaining pace and, with it, the alienation of religion to a smaller segment of social life.
Pope Francis, and the Church in general, have seen this process taking shape. (The Pope may even see in young people an allay in bringing change to a church often stuck in old formulas from the past).
In a unique move, the Vatican has decided to by-pass, to some extent, the National Conferences of Bishops and give young people the opportunity to help set the agenda for the next major Synod of Bishops in Rome.
Cardinal Baldisseri, from the Secretariat to co-ordinate the Synod, based in the Vatican, has indicated that a website will be launched in March that will allow young people to honestly raise questions and share their views about life and faith within the Church.
He indicated that their input, in addition to the input from Bishops, would frame the working document (instrumentum laboris) that will decide the discussions at the Synod in October 2018 around the topic Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment“. While I personally wonder about introducing vocations to the topic, lest it cloud the waters, I think it is an excellent initiative to try and uncover the real issues unsettling young people or, at least, measuring their indifference to the faith.