In my life, it seems that most young Catholics become Catholic in name only. If you were to ask them if they are Christain, most of them, if not all would reply, “Certainly!”, and if you asked them to which faith they adhere, a similar number would reply, “Catholic”. Most of these young Catholics, however, cease to attend Mass (or at least cease to attend Mass regularly), and as many of you mentioned and from what I have observed in my high school, many are simply absorbed into the secular culture.
In my opinion, this is due mainly to the sad reality that my fellow young people are not really being taught what the Church believes, and why we believe it. I cannot accept the notion that most young people leave the Catholic Church solely becasue it is not emotionally/visually stimualting. We should never assume that the only way to keep young people in the Church is to adopt the hip hop minstry techniques employed by many Protestant churches. We will keep kids in the faith by teaching them the faith.
Really teaching them the faith. Young people have just as much affinity and hunger for the Truth than any other person, be they nine or ninety nine.
The problem is, when young people are not being taught the Truth by those to whom the responsibility to teach the faith has been charged (ie Catechism teachers and parents), they will begin to search for the Truth in other places. Many of these misled youngster make their way into the dynamic, but often laden with materialistic and secular techniques and ideologies, youth groups of various protestant denominations. Although the youngsters most certainly do not encounter the whole Truth in these setting, I suspect they embrace their teachings for a few reasons:
a) They are attracted by reality that many of these churches mimick mainstream secular culture in their worship sevices and youth groups to “grab em’ all in”. Why is this attracting? Because a church of this character is very similar in some to the stimulating Western culture into which they have been immersed every day of their lives.
b) These inviting, stimulating techniques are integrated with in frequent Bible studies and various other attempts to make the faith more relevant to today’s culture. The irony of this is that regardless of the millenium in which we live, God is still Truth, and His laws and teachings still apply. There is a difference between reiterating truths that the Church has held since its birth in words that make them more culturally relavent, as the Catholic Church does, and comprimising any aspect of the truth to make the now “partial truth” seem more culturally relevent as many Protestant churches do.
Amor est essentia
Katherine Anne
One reason why Catholics search for the Truth in other places is their lack of knowledge and understanding about the Catholic faith. And the hip hop ministry techniques are just so attractive to them, especially since some of these people find the Mass “boring”.
