Can you help with praying with Boy Scouts of different faiths?

[KimberlyAnn0218]

I am chairing my sons’ Religious Emblem program for Boy Scouts. We have a great group of kids and parents. We are not sponsored by a church, but by a VFW. This makes facilitating this program a little trickier.
We have a small group of Catholic scouts, a large group of Lutherans (2 denominations) and 2 Unitarian Universalist Scouts. We had a committee meeting and planned everything out with a focus on promoting unity and understanding and lots of dedicated time to work on the appropriate faith emblem. I have had lots of email run-ins with one of the UU mom’s. That made me think of group prayer for this activity. I have a 2 part question:

1. If we do have a group prayer with 2 UU scouts (one has made it pretty clear they are not Christian) what is the most respectful way to lead prayer?
2. If the UU families decide they do not want to utilize the same meeting space as the Lutheran and Catholic group and I just have those two groups of Christians, how do I most respectfully lead prayer? Do we teach the Catholic boys not to sign themselves, etc.

Thank-you!

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Friend,

Well, you are pretty limited as to what you can say, other than addressing God as God and a few platitudes, ending with “Amen.” If you want the Catholic boys to make the sign of the cross, others may be offended. This should not have to happen.

I say, give it up! Your son deserves nothing less than belonging to a Catholic scout group. This is what happens when one belongs to an inter-faith group. His Catholicism is the most precious gift he has. There is absolutely no reason for it to have to be watered down. You are in my prayers.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.