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

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Restore Early Church Literature, Canons, Discipline, and enforce Catholic Teachings on many subjects.

Let us look at what made us great, so we can cure what is making us low.
 
Some Catholics are unaware of how we got from point A to B, meaning today.
 
PatK63 said:
The church needs to clearly define its teaching on homosexuality. Define how we love the sinner while hating the sin. Youth go to college and meet peers who have same sex attraction and accept them. They believe the church is being unfair.

We need to be able to explain that we don’t make the rules, God does, while accepting the sinner.
It would help if we could explain where SSA comes from. It is not an easy fix!
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I think that was done in the Catechism:

No condemnation:
1861 … However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.
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Disordered acts cannot be approved:
2357 … Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
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Acceptance of people:
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
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  1. Pray to the Holy Spirit
  2. encourage vocations and make sure parents do
  3. Emphasize confession and try to make it convenient
  4. Youth need to know the church cares about them
  5. Offer more youth groups and more opportunities for youth to get together and have fun
    6.Explain the church’s teachings and don’t just teach the what’s
  6. Allow opportunities to talk about the scandals
 
It is indeed appropriate for mass and personally I like it.

Gregorian chants came about in the 9th or 10th century, so before that there could have been music sung at the mass that were not Gregorian chants. Are these songs less appropriate for the mass since they are not Gregorian chants?
 
Sarcelle said:
Gregorian chants came about in the 9th or 10th century, so before that there could have been music sung at the mass that were not Gregorian chants.
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There indeed were. Gregorian chant was not invented in Rome, but in the Frankish Empire, it displaced the earlier Old Roman chant.

Also, Gregorian chant evolved and was later largely supplanted by various forms of liturgical music. The Gregorian chant of today is a 19th century recreation based on historical documents. We know that the musical theory of medieval Gregorian chant was very different from anything we are familiar with. The monks who recreated Gregorian chant did a lot of scholarly research into the matter, but even that had its limits and there will always remain gaps in the knowledge that have to be filled by educated guesswork.

As for Old Roman chant, we know very little about it except what we can gather from some psalters written hundreds of years after it had already been abandoned. Music scholars have attempted to recreate it, and you can listen to their recreations on YouTube.

Before Gregorian Chant, there was also Gallican chant, a chanting tradition from the Frankish Empire. We know extremely little about it, and mostly from what we think are its influences on Gregorian chant.
 
This is what I have seen.

Young people who may or may not know a lot about the “academic” part of the Church, the catechism, the seven parts of the Mass, etc. And do good things for other people, especially the poor and oppressed.

And this is how they get to Heaven, which is a comfortable (altho possibly boring) place compared to Hell.

And people who commit bad sins are going to Hell.

Then these young people go to college, and they find that atheists and other people are not so bad, and that there are a lot of people committing sexual sins but who are still interested in the poor and oppressed, and some of those people are oppressed because of “who they love.”

And it seems like suddenly there is no point to doing all the Catholic stuff. Why get up early to go to Mass when you can sleep in and then join your fun-loving friends? Why reserve some time for prayer when a member of the opposite sex is interested … And interesting?

And the people at the Church are so judgemental, and your new friends do not seem to be lacking anything by not being Catholic?

A lot of people have talked about the music or the language or the architecture or the teaching or … but only a couple of comments touched on the fact that we all seem to be failing to pass on what makes being Catholic better than just being good.
 
There are many young priests who are using social media to reach young people and I think it is working!
here is one…


and another https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKBL7GTDGu8se5Wml5n85WA?&ab_channel=FrRobGalea

as for what to do in our parishes…there is a tendency for some parishes to close in on themselves, to not reach out, to just be to themselves. one parish does absolutely no community outreach,
nothing. just closed in on themselves. and this is a problem
Pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit! 🙂 Offer TLM
So beautiful
 
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catholic03 said:
I am a teenager. I attend a state school, encounter discrimination for being Christian. But I am just about as passionate you can get. The Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The Pentecostal ecclesial community down the road led by the motorcycle riding megachurch pastor is not how they worshiped in the New Testament, or how God wishes us to worship.

One of the biggest issues in the Church is extremely poor catechesis. When I was confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2012 as a child, the only things I knew was that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and Pope Benedict XVI was our shepherd and leader of Christ’s Church on earth.

I learnt nothing about the trinity, or the Holy Spirit. It is only through my own study of the scriptures, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Roman Catechism that I have learnt my faith.

Catechesis is rather bad in the Church and needs to be improved. This is why people are leaving, due to poor instruction in the faith.

I am blessed to have found the truth in the Catholic Church. It is hard as a teenager to live by the Church’s teachings in this world that encourage us to do whatever we want, but I am proud to say that I support each and every doctrine of the Church.

Teenagers who know the faith do exist, but the numbers will grow smaller and smaller if catechesis stays as it is.
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Since you are “in the trenches” at the point where many start leaving the Church, I would like to hear your thoughts on the following:
  1. Do people in your age group believe in/care about the afterlife?
  2. Do people in your age group, when confronted with what the Church teaches about morality (especially sexual morality), answer back with “the Church should worry about the priests that abuse boys” line of deflection?
  3. Jason Evert, a chastity speaker, stated that many young people leave the faith once they become sexually active. Do you find that to be happening in your age group?
 
Norseman82 said:
Catechesis is rather bad in the Church and needs to be improved. This is why people are leaving, due to poor instruction in the faith.
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Agree! and they can not teach what they do not know. My instruction came from Fr Robert Barron’s Catholicism series in 2014.
 
Why are any of us Catholic? Because we love Jesus Christ. We have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Here’s 3 wrong replies: “clarify the teaching on homosexuality, return to Latin Mass, and the opposite of the first, allow women priests”.

None of those have Jesus in them. The Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus founded. And, I can’t imagine someone who would choose to convert after they get beaten in an argument on gay marriage. Or birth control. Why do we believe what we do on gay marriage, or contraception, or anything? Because ultimately we’ve fallen in love with the Church. And the only good reasons to fall in love with the Church, is by knowing Our Lord and His Mother.

So… Catholics aren’t very good at brining secular, not particularly religious Americans into relationship with Jesus. Evangelical Protestants are. They’re good at evangelizing and we’re not. What they do is have small groups. We should make Catholic bible studies, prayer groups, pro-life clubs, etc. Geared towards people 15-30/35. Groups where the small numbers of young faithful can invite the uninitiated, the uncatechized, the non-Catholics, lapsed Catholics.

Invite them to groups where they can encounter Jesus. Then they can go to Mass with other people from these groups. So they’re not just sitting in a pew by themselves, with whatever heretical beliefs they may have from our culture.

So again, why are we Catholic? Ultimately because we’re following Our Lord. If people leave the Church, we’re just not doing a good job of making disciples of all nations. Make them disciples. Preach the Kerygma of the Gospel. That message is unchanged for 2,000 years. The world needs Jesus. Jesus is the answer to all the worlds’ problems.
 
  1. Not the best person to say this. Totally not the best person to do this.
  2. But please don’t beat yourself up. You were trying to do good for them, right?
  3. Didn’t you mean well and try to do good. If anything, can’t this just end up as a teachable moment for the future? (Okay, I know that sounds bad, sorry for the backhanded advice especially since I’d like to see a response).
  4. If you’re close to them, can’t you still be there for them and thus maybe even serve as a backdoor back to Church?
  5. And if it’s any consolation, don’t many still have Faith (which you still perhaps had a positive effect on even if it doesn’t seem so) and now have a relationship with Christ, just not necessarily with the Church? Either way, please don’t beat yourself up for trying to do good!
 
No one really cares about the afterlife. At least 3/4 of people my age are atheist.

They love to talk about the abuse scandal. A common way to refute my arguments seems to be that it is the fault of the Church that some priests fell short of the gospel.

Very sad. Pray to Mary.
 
ratio1 said:
But does anyone actually care to ask what young people want and what they are unhappy with etc. All I’ve read so far here is what WE think we should do.
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Speaking as a millennial I can tell you a few things I want to see. More emphasis on tradition.
  1. Don’t try to be hip and modern, I go to mass to receive moral and spiritual instruction, not to hear priests attempt to keep up with modern pop culture.
  2. More clear communication on homosexuality. Speaking as someone who is a practicing Catholic who happens to be gay I have encountered a lot of catholic laity who have no idea what the church actually teaches on the topic. And in today’s world gay people are a part of everyday society. My mere being is not sinful, the acts are.
  3. Latin mass offered at least once a month. Millennials like myself are living in a wasteland of artificial simplicity. We want complexity and beauty. If large parishes like mine offered a Latin mass at least once a month I guarantee you more young people like myself would show up. Novus Ordo has its place but when all you get is novus ordo you’re really missing out.
  4. More relatable homilies. A lot of priest’s homilies are frankly lacking. Now I’m not saying I want priests to dedicate their entire homily bashing me over the head with modern pop culture. But I would like priests to give homilies on issues like homosexuality as I mentioned in point 2. Homosexuality is a big issue and the way the church talks about the issue is dated and not going to click with millennials. I’m not saying change the teaching, but update how it’s discussed and offer something more than Courage, let Catholics that are closeted know they don’t have to hide the fact that they’re gay/have SSA. And what better way to do that than through relatable modern homilies.
  5. Stronger emphasis on the intellectual side of Catholicism. Promote great thinkers like Chesterton, Aquinas etc. Make it clear that science and Catholicism aren’t in conflict and distance Catholicism far away from the outrageous fruit coming from super evangelical circles like young earth creationism and denial of evolution.
 
Probably acknowledge the reforms of the 1960s didn’t have the intended benefit which it states in the introduction to the GIRM. My grandfather used to say noone even asked for reform so why did they do it? I would say a reform of the luturgy would be beneficial and also adults should realize having hip music at church really isn’t what anyone is looking for. That was something that drove me from the novus ordo to begin with. Realize young adults live in a crazy world and knowing who they are and being proud of their traditions is a beautiful thing. Ecumenism is fine but not by sacrificing who you are.
Stop teaching this watered down catechesis too. Seriously. It is a recipe for people to leave.
 
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