Bringing Back the Fallen-Away Young Catholics. Why don't people ask us why we left in the first place?

[Melinda_Selmys]

Deo Gratias42,

I can really sympathize with what you’re saying here. I was briefly involved in a youth ministry group about 12 years ago. Myself and several other young converts/reverts went to the meeting and said very much the same things that people are saying on this thread, i.e. that the youth want genuine spiritual food, not sappy pap. We were also more or less ignored by the baby-boomer Catholics who insisted that we were the minority, and that what most youth want is guitars and pizza nights.
A lot of my friends who turned away from the Church got involved in Neo-Paganism and other forms of spirituality that appealed because they actually had a sense of genuine mystery, of contact with the transcendent, and of spiritual experience. I think that it would be possible to include that in some of the “guitar Mass” types of spirituality, but only if the guitar masses actually used guitars as guitars, if the Christian rock on offer had some of the moving qualities of good rock music instead of just a superficial similarity combining lacklustre religious sentiments with aesthetically null pop-iness. And of course there’s also the problem of patronization. I was speaking once about my own adolescence, and I mentioned things like suicide, sexual identity, etc. – that is to say, the things that young people are actually thinking about – and the reaction of other adult Catholics was something along the lines of “Wow…that’s really heavy stuff to be thinking about so young.” I don’t know if it’s true that older Catholics really had a much more innocent youth, or if they’re just reverse engineering their own adolescence in order to fit with tropes about the natural innocence of the young, but I know that when I was in high-school/my early twenties, I was dealing with real, tough issues. So far as I can see, this is pretty much the norm for people in the youth crowd.
In short, Catholic outreach to youth has to actually address real youth, and it has to do that by listening and paying attention to what those youth have to say – and especially to what youth who leave the Church have to say. The small minority who stay in the Church are the small minority who find what we’re already doing effective. We don’t need to do more to keep those people in the pews. What we need is to listen to the people who the “Lift Jesus Higher” movement is not working for, to find out what’s not working, and why, and how it can be improved.

 

[JDee]

I can understand when posters are frustrated by lack of catechesis. I grew up in the 70’s-80’s and it was Jesus loves you, rah, rah.

The last couple of years I have been on a learning mission. The more I learn, the more I need to know more and with the help of God’s grace my children are going to understand more (actually, my 10 year old knows more today than I did until a few years ago!) I found the grade school here in Ontario to be great at Catholic education but I have been very disappointed in the High School.

My eldest daughter is still a Catholic and very devout but it is inspite of the Catholic high school education. She calls after class or we talk at home and she is so frustrated by the teacher and her class.
For example - the poor catechesis - “I don’t think it is fair that the Catholic Church won’t let you marry someone who is outside the faith” - the teachers answer? “I don’t know why they won’t” You could almost watch the other 29 kids in the class become anti-Catholic due to misinformation. It goes on to the session that you have to make up your own mind about your moral choices and then they go on a website that gives you a quiz on what type of birth control is right for you and it is 2 clicks away from Planned Parenthood. My daughter almost walked out of class after her objections were dismissed. .

The poor and watered down or inncorrect teachings are no way to keep someone in the Church - what is the point. Poorly taught or lukewarm Catholics are not the best teachers and cause so much damage.

 

[cjmclark]

I can understand when posters are frustrated by lack of catechesis. I grew up in the 70’s-80’s and it was Jesus loves you, rah, rah.

The last couple of years I have been on a learning mission. The more I learn, the more I need to know more and with the help of God’s grace my children are going to understand more (actually, my 10 year old knows more today than I did until a few years ago!) I found the grade school here in Ontario to be great at Catholic education but I have been very disappointed in the High School.

My eldest daughter is still a Catholic and very devout but it is inspite of the Catholic high school education. She calls after class or we talk at home and she is so frustrated by the teacher and her class.
For example - the poor catechesis - “I don’t think it is fair that the Catholic Church won’t let you marry someone who is outside the faith” - the teachers answer? “I don’t know why they won’t” You could almost watch the other 29 kids in the class become anti-Catholic due to misinformation. It goes on to the session that you have to make up your own mind about your moral choices and then they go on a website that gives you a quiz on what type of birth control is right for you and it is 2 clicks away from Planned Parenthood. My daughter almost walked out of class after her objections were dismissed. .

The poor and watered down or inncorrect teachings are no way to keep someone in the Church - what is the point. Poorly taught or lukewarm Catholics are not the best teachers and cause so much damage.

A large part of the problem here is that no one else is volunteering. It’s easy to sit back and be judgmental of individual parishes (or the Church as a whole) and their catechesis programs, but you find a lot less hands in the air for volunteers to help fix them.

What harms the Church the most is a general lack of guidance on teen/adult catechism. There are no real unifying programs and guidelines beyond the CCC, and it’s left to most to engage in self-study, which someone pointed out earlier should be a passion of those who wish to know more about their faith. This is true, but there’s a lot out there and it would be helpful to have some guidance a little more readily available. But there isn’t, and so people turn to the only resource they know…other people who are Catholic. These can be lukewarm Catholics, or they can be heart-on-fire-Holy-Spirit-burning-bright converts, but the point is that they in general are offering up their own personal interpretation of Catholic doctrine, which even with the most devout Catholic is not necessarily correct.

 

[JDee]

You are most certainly correct about the need for good volunteers. I was in that category - I thought I didn’t know enough ( and I didn’t), unsure of where to get the right info ( a wise and devout parishner gave good direction) and most of it comes from yourself. You need to hit the books, dvd’s, cd’s, internet. Today we have so much choice and ability to find info - the only thing lacking is the drive.

I have also discovered that most people will volunteer if asked face to face and be more than happy to help and learn - with direction and time they make great catechists.

 

[Deo_Gratias42]

It goes on to the session that you have to make up your own mind about your moral choices and then they go on a website that gives you a quiz on what type of birth control is right for you and it is 2 clicks away from Planned Parenthood. My daughter almost walked out of class after her objections were dismissed. .

The poor and watered down or inncorrect teachings are no way to keep someone in the Church - what is the point. Poorly taught or lukewarm Catholics are not the best teachers and cause so much damage.

Just wondering, are they still using the program, Fully Alive in religion class? I remember when I had to take that in the 90s we learned in grade 8 all about birth control and the different methods, and (I’m not making this up) that it was only to be used between two married people.

 

[cecilia97]

Confirmation is done TO you. It’s not something you do. Yes, you should have some knowledge, but remember that even the Catholic Church confirms infants so it’s not a sacrament of maturity that you need to understand or commit to. Confirming later, just to keep students in religion classes does them a disservice. They need those graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit before their teens, not at the end of them.

I see so many mature young people at our parish being confirmed at age 17 and 18, and so many priestly vocations, I have to disagree. The sacraments of Holy Communion and Confession are available to them.

 

[Waiting]

A little over two months ago I reached the big 50. If you want my answer, it is not going to be pretty. But I will try to be as charitable as I can,
IMHO
Many “late” (baby) boomers like myself did not relate to our older siblings when it came to politics, social issues, and spiritualality. They were excited at what they percieved as a “liberal” turn in the Church in the “spirit of Vatican 2” While they were excited about throwing off the ‘shackles’ of tradition and morals. We were taking a second look at what they threw into the religious dumpster.
Thier religion seemed phony, only to serve a ‘position’ in the community. While they ‘found’ what they wanted by throwing out the values our parents gave us, we were searching for those values. trying to reclaim them.
But with poor catechisis (touchy feely ‘religion’ classes at our Catholic schools at the time) we soon lost faith in the Church of our fathers. While priests and nuns were trying to look “cool” to our liberally minded older siblings, we were looking elsewhere for authority.
Some found it in atheism, others (like myself) began to be drawn to evangelical and fundamentalist churches that at least gave the appearance of a solid foundation.
Someone said once the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, each time expecting different results. Take it from someone who has been there. The answer is not more of the same thing that drove them from the Church to begin with. The answer is a proper Catechisis, and a return to Tradition.
Youth can be drawn easily to what LOOKS like the truth, but it led to even more confusion as I got older.
As age and wisdom caught up with me, I realized I needed more authority than a self-appointed “pope with a Bible”.
God is faithful and patient. through the prayers of my family I returned to the Church five years ago.
When you’re seven years old and you run away from home, it’s a lot of fun at 12 noon. But by 6pm it’s not fun anymore, you want to return home.

You are so right in why so many left the church. Poor catechesis is at the root of it. If Catholics truly understood their faith, they wouldn’t leave it. God has given us a treasure, but following Vatican II we didn’t share that treasure. I was teaching CCD then, and could not believe the textbooks that were given us in place of the catechism. They were more in line with feel good stories of people’s lives, such as Martin Luther King. These were good for extra reading materials, but contained little or no basic Catholic teaching. I resorted to planning my own lessons from the catechism, rather than the assigned text. I felt at the time that the children were being denied the essentials of their faith. What happened in short time proved me right. I’m happy that God brought you back into His fold. I hope that you are effective in bringing others back. I believe that you have the message they need to hear.