You're the Church. Young people are leaving in droves. What do you do?

[edwest211]

What do you suggest?

 

[AlmaRedemptorisMater]

It’s strange, I live in a western city and the parishes around here are growing with young people, single and married. Yes the TLM is growing, but the NO parishes that are conservative in nature are doing quite well. Maybe our experience is not indicative of a larger trend, but I do think that young people will return to the faith.

 

[steve-b]

What do you suggest?

One suggestion,

Homilies from The pulpit focused on addressing the hot issues like we had pre Vat II. Followed up with articles or links to articles about these issues placed in the bullitin as well, given after Mass.

 

[edwest211]

I think all concerned need to be very specific about what the ‘hot issues’ are and put them in some order of importance. Thank you for your reply.

 

[virgo]

This is a tough question. How DO we inspire young people to either stay in or come back to the church? I work with teenagers, and these are some of the things I notice or have been told:

21st century youth are very anti-authority, as well as very information-savvy. This means that many of them rebel against any institutions that tell them what to do or how to think (in their eyes)–and I think that is how they interpret the Catholic church (even the word ‘magisterium’ sounds dictatorial to them).

They also know their way around the internet, which means that many of them are able to do their own research into the origins of much of our church’s theological tenets. To them, the fact that these ideas stem mostly from meetings of cardinals during the middle ages decries a lack of ‘authenticity’–another huge factor for them. And then, of course, it’s easy to find all of the ugly history stuff (Inquisition and Torquemada, Irish nuns in the 1950s “laundries,” decades of the sex abuse crisis)–it’s all out there easily found, not hidden in documents at the Vatican or hush-hushed like in generations of old.

So, these are some things that I know young folks struggle with. And it’s understandable, so I try and offer a blend of compassion and validation along with some corrections of commonly held mistaken ideas. Just some things to think about.

So how do we staunch the flow of young people leaving for these reasons? I wish I knew! Maybe some transparency on the part of the Church, maybe study groups at local parishes, maybe offering some parish Q & As or panel discussions where they can ask questions and get some good answers.

This is a great question.

 

[edwest211]

This is not difficult. Start a day/night for We Have Answers for You. Hold it at a Catholic gym or other appropriate place. Get those questions answered. Get well-trained people to host and invite young and old. Just do it. Write those questions down afterwards. As time passes and with good word of mouth… I think it will have an impact.

Just a suggestion…

 

[Economist]

I can only offer an idea. No matter who the target audience might be, try to speak their own language. Make the starting point something that they already accept, and build on it. Not much of an advice for the practical solution, I know. But as a principle it might lead to results.

 

[snarflemike]

Music is rarely the main deciding issue, one way or the other. Arguing about superficialities like music or worship style is like arguing about the placement of deck chairs on the Titanic.

Superficialities? Vatican II seemed to disagree strongly when it said:

“112. The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.
…
113. Liturgical worship is given a more noble form when the divine offices are celebrated solemnly in song, with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active participation of the people.”

 

[snarflemike]

I’ve seen some responses (can’t find them now…) that suggest that the most important thing is to teach the faith more fully and clearly. That is, appeal to young people via the truth of the Catholic faith. That’s all well and good, nobody could disagree, but it should not be assumed that this is the only or even the best way for every person.

The Rabbi of Rome was inspired to convert to Catholicism after WW2 due to the goodness of the faith, as lived out by those Catholics who risked so much to save Jews during the war. And I was inspired to return to the Church based on the beauty of her sacred music tradition. There is no one-size-fits-all. There is no first-A-then-B order that works for everyone. But based on my own experience I do agree with Bishop Barron that in our age, evangelizing through beauty can be the most effective, because so many people do not want to be told what is true, or what is good.

 

[stpurl]

Probably it’s already been addressed, but you know, ‘young people’ are not the be-all and end-all. We ‘oldsters’ saw plenty of our elders ‘leave’ in the early 1970s on, then our ‘contemporaries’ and now our ‘children’.

And one of the things that I honestly think is part of the reason that they, or anybody, leave --and that is the heavy-handed attempts to be ‘relevant’ to a projected group. . .usually ‘the young’, but anything from ‘women’ to ‘disaffected’ to any other ‘niche group’.

I don’t recall Jesus pitching His message to “Jewish youth”, “Jewish men”, “Jewish women”, etc. He didn’t have to emphasize certain parts of His message to ‘core groups’, or make sure that He had mission statements crafted to appeal, with whatever buzz words had been determined by marketing experts to be ‘drawing cards’ to attract the desired demographic.

I for one am getting so sick of Catholic bulletins, websites, books, and messages from priests and bishops which basically mimic the kind of ‘mission statements’ and agenda of any generic social service group, where statements are so broad that they are virtually meaningless, and where everything is happy love caring community service that’s all outward and where God, if He’s seen at all, is nodding in the background at how great WE are, and where it is all about “life on the earth of which we are stewards” and our ‘journey’ which itself is about ‘earth’, never about Heaven, unless to assume we all wind up there!

Why do people leave? Because many priests, parishes, and people are following only part of the Catholic faith, and not the whole. We can get fellowship, social work, cultural practices, and the kind of superficial Christian ‘stories’ from many secular places (and it’s often done better). We can only get authentic Catholic teaching and liturgy and then, following, all the above, from priests, parishes, and people who will offer ‘the whole deal’, and for decades now, that deal has been watered down, eviscerated, and wrenched into the current state that has led in the US to widespread abandonment.

 

[Inquisitor85]

Music and architecture is honestly irrelevant, there are much, MUCH bigger issues at play. Fundamentally the Church’s problems are twofold; trust and belief.

Trust- people outside the church need to feel the church is a safe space that they can take their children to. The Church has to address it’s own past, before people will trust it again. I’m aware that it was tiny minority of members of the clergy that abused children, but the Church has to be seen to be doing more to address it’s past sins, fundamentally this is about optics.

Belief- in this day and age preaching from on high will get you nowhere, you need to give a reason for people to believe you. For example if you say I should follow the teachings of Jesus, fine go ahead, but give a solid reason for me to do so. (Preferably with more depth than a poster on another forum who once told me to “Just read John 3:16 and believe.”)

Just to clarify, I’m not saying Churches are unsafe places, I’m saying the public perception is that they are. I work in a blue collar environment and the “jokes” are pretty common and very uncharitable.

 

[Thorolfr]

For millennials that are gay they see the Church as being hostile to their mere existence because poorly catchacized Catholic laity don’t know what the catechism says or haven’t read what Humanae Vitae says. I think that’s an issue of evangelization, which means the Church needs to change tact in how it interacts with the laity on the issue.

I highly doubt that very many gay millennials would be attracted to the Catholic Church even if they knew what the Catechism says with all its talk about their sexuality being “disordered”.

 

[NateLue]

catholic03,

I must commend you on your love of God and the Church that Jesus founded.

I taught CCD for many years and taught teens mostly. I agree that catechesis was a serious problem and I questioned why these 13-18 year olds who had made their first communion did not have the slightest idea of what the Eucharist was, what the sacrament of Reconciliation was. I would ask them when the last time they had gone to confession was and most of them had a puzzled look in their faces. Many even had no idea how to pray the Act of Contrition. Some also did not even know how to make the sign of the cross, or how to pray the three basic prayers: Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.

Many came from broken homes, or from homes where parents were not married, didn’t know it was a mortal sin to deliberately miss Mass on Sunday because their parents would not take them to church. They came up with all sorts of excuses as to why they could not attend Mass.

Also the liberal material that was used (I would not use it at all) that taught only how to be good, respect others, etc. One even had a list of pictures of people that should be admired as they were doing the will of God. It included John Lennon, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, the song “Imagine” and compared Harry Potter to Jesus Christ. This material would change the gospel readings to fit the material world.

I would tell my students that I was NOT going to water down the teachings of the Church (I would use the CCC mostly) and would call sin a sin. I would teach about the love of God.

I pray that you will become a CCD teacher and zero in on the teachings of the Church.

May God bless you.

 

[OnAJourney]

That’s not an accurate representation of the position though. It’s the acts that are considered intrinsically disordered.

 

[QwertyGirl]

Hairsplitting, to most who are gay.

 

[GordonP]

Hairsplitting, to most who are gay.

Not only. Also to most who are not gay.

 

[OnAJourney]

Well no it’s not. There’s a distinction to be made between the individual and the acts of that individual, as well as their intent.

 

[GordonP]

There’s a distinction to be made between the individual and the acts of that individual, as well as their intent.

The distinction means little, if anything, who do not consider the acts themselves wrong or sinful.

 

[Thorolfr]

That’s not an accurate representation of the position though. It’s the acts that are considered intrinsically disordered.

Yes, it says that the acts are “intrinsically disordered”:

tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”

But then in the next section is says:

This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial.

So, a homosexual inclination itself, is “objectively disordered” and homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered”. That means that both the orientation itself and acting on it are disordered but one is “disordered” in the object to which it is directed, i.e. another man (this makes me think of the 1998 gay themed movie with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, “The Object of My Affection”) and the other is disordered in itself.

It also says in “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons”:

Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil.

So, although the inclination might not be a sin according to the Catholic Church, church documents nevertheless make it sound like something that is pretty awful. I doubt that most gay millennials would feel good hearing all of this stuff about their sexuality and “intrinsic moral evil” and how it is “objectively disordered”.

 

[Alightforalltosee]

That’s the goal!