19-year-old Wyatt Olivas, an American student, half-jokingly drafted a letter explaining to his professors that he needed to recover from his work at the Vatican before resuming classes.

With a smile, the Pope agreed to sign, writing "Francis" in his tiny handwriting. It's true, you are important," Francis told him.

Olivas thanked him for inviting him and thus giving a voice to that group of young people who - as he had mentioned in interviews before the event in Rome - often feel somewhat cut off from decision-making in the Church.

Olivas is a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, a missionary at the Catholic youth programme Totus Tuus, and a catechist in his home diocese of Cheyenne,

He was supposed to leave Rome on Monday, October 30th, arriving in the USA early Tuesday morning. But his lecture room is a three-hour drive away, and the potential for snow on the roads made the drive uncertain. Read more

It's a fascinating question.

A couple of recent articles in France have contemplated the so-called resurgence of left-wing Catholics, who are identified as young, ecologically sensitive, and - some of them - even very left-wing. They are also distant from their rather conservative Church.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are those who say we must pay more attention to young Catholics who go to church, those who are more sensitive than their elders to rituals, sacraments, prayer, and who are nostalgic for tradition.

This weekend, this second group will be the main participants in the Pentecost Chartres Pilgrimage, known as the "Pilgrimage of Christendom", organized by traditionalist movements.

Once again, people will boast about how many people attended this pilgrimage, arguing that this is the kind of conservative Catholics young people long for.

They pray, but differently

In a recent article published in La Croix, Father Pierre Amar underlines this divide between "young" and "old Catholics", a divide that also emerges in all parishes from the debates on the synod.

The "old" are more attached to involvement in society, the young more to prayer and liturgy, without abandoning charity work.

By the way, imposing opposition by explaining that the "old people" are not concerned about prayer and liturgy is silly.

The graying generations are the ones that fill the pews at Sunday Mass. And as far as I know, they are going there to knit! So they pray, but differently.

Basically, these questions reveal two things.

On the one hand, young people are very diverse; which we already knew. On the other hand, and above all, there is the anxiety - and even panic - that Catholics feel in the face of the strong and brutal reduction in the religious practice of young people.

Wondering for hours if young Catholics are more to the right or more to the left is like trying to find out if the handful of Trotskyites are more Lambertist or Frankist!

The truth is cruder: there are almost no young people left in the Church. And we can endlessly argue about their political and liturgical choices...

Our concern should not be about the political views and liturgical preferences of the few young people who actually come to Mass on Sunday. Rather, we should ask where all the others of their generation - the majority - are.

Do young people feel at home in a Church with so many moral norms?

For a long time, the finger has been pointed at parents, guilty of not having passed on the faith. This is a bit reductive.

Such a massive trend cannot be explained by the inability of parents to transmit their values and what gives them life.

After all, in other areas, they manage to do so quite well.

We must have the courage to ask ourselves certain questions: do these young generations, who are concerned with a great deal of tolerance towards all life choices, feel at home in a Church with so many moral norms?

Can young women, who have grown up in a feminist culture, feel part of the liturgy as it is currently celebrated?

Then again, is the language of the institution and of churchgoers accessible, understandable, and, above all, relevant to the young people?

The Gospel message is anything but bland. Yet it elicits, at best, only polite indifference among the youth.

Instead of endlessly arguing about the young people we already find in our churches, perhaps it's time to take a greater interest in all those who don't come.

• Isabelle de Gaulmyn is a senior editor at La Croix and a former Vatican correspondent.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

One for these people will be Gina Dao-McLay. She'll turn 18 on September 27.

She said she would be focusing her vote on climate action and poverty.

Dao MClay also said people were talking about the political parties' policies, and they were also very interested in the referenda on cannabis legislation and end of life choice.

She is co-director of a campaign group Make It 16 calling for a lower voting age.

"We should be able to have a say about issues which affect us like climate change. We are being overlooked in decisions being made," Dao-McLay says.

She has been campaigning for the change since she was a high school student attending St Mary's College in Wellington.

She was at the nation-wide campaign launched at parliament in September last year.

At the High Court in Wellington on August 24 Make it 16 requested Justice Jan-Marie Doogue make a declaration that the current voting age was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act.

"Extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds would uphold human rights and give us a more representative, better democracy," Dao-McLay said before the hearing.

Doogue reserved her decision and said it would need considerable thought.

However, even if the declaration is made it would not change the law - Parliament would still need to do that.

That was the path taken to change the voting rights of prisoners. A small group of prisoners secured a declaration of inconsistency in the Supreme Court in 2018 before parliament changed the law so that prisoners sentenced to less than three years could vote.

Predominantly around the world, the voting age is 18.

Source

• newstalkzb.co.nz
• tvnz.co.nz
• stmw.school.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

The captions for the photos were all similar: "Confirmed in Christ!" or "He did it! A full-grown Catholic, choosing his own faith."

It was nice to see photos of happy families celebrating a sacrament.

Far better than any of the political posturing that usually occupies Facebook.

But as I went to bed that night, continuing to scroll mindlessly through social media, a thought kept running around my mind: "I hope all those teens stay Catholic."

Perhaps because of my profession as a Catholic speaker and writer and practitioner of ministry or because I taught many of those young people just a few years before or because I am a mom or even just because I am a faithful Catholic, in the midst of being so happy that so many in my diocese were newly confirmed, I had a feeling of fear in the pit of my stomach that many, if not most, of those young people will disaffiliate from the faith and walk away from the church in the next few years.

The reasons for their disaffiliation will be varied.

Some will leave because they will not find a good faith community when they go to college.

Others will walk away because their parents are not there to encourage faith in their lives.

Some will get hung up on intellectual challenges, unable to reconcile reason with faith.

Still others will leave because they never truly believed in the first place, having no real relationship with Christ or love of the Eucharist.

How do we keep them, or anyone really, Catholic? To keep them, we have to stop asking that question in the first place.

I could not fall asleep that night as I kept thinking, "I hope they stay," because I was bothered by my fundamentally flawed question.

I should not start with the question, "What will make young people stay Catholic?"

I should first be asking, "How can I engender a love of Jesus within their hearts?" Because it is that love of Jesus that will make them stay—it is what keeps any of us here.

Confused and scared, two believers once wandered on the road to Emmaus, away from Jerusalem and away from what they did not understand, perhaps seeking solace in a place less chaotic and noisy and scary than where they were coming from.

On that road they meet Jesus, who listens to them, teaches them, shares a meal with them and inspires them to rush off to tell others of their encounter with him.

They cannot help but proclaim the Gospel with their very lives.

When a young person is introduced to Jesus by someone who knows him themselves, they come to realize that Jesus is someone who loves them, longs for them and is close to them, and they become captivated by him.

Their hearts will and do begin to burn. Disciples grow; they are not born. Continue reading

• Image: Journey Online

In both African nations, younger adults are 3 percentage points more likely to identify with their faith than their elders, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center of religious feelings among older and younger adults.

The study, which finds that younger people the world over are generally less religious than their elders, determined that the pattern is generally reversed where prosperity and life expectancy lag.

Life expectancy in Chad and Ghana is among the lowest in the world.

The survey of 106 nations, drawn from 13 studies undertaken over the past decade, shows that nearly everywhere else, young adults are drifting away from the faith commitments of their elders.

The gap appeared to be widest in most economically developed countries.

"We're not able to say, ‘This is the law of religious change that we can deduce from this evidence," Conrad Hackett, the lead researcher for the Pew study, said. "It's rather, ‘These are the general patterns we see.' There are exceptions for sure."

In the overwhelming number of countries, said Hackett, the difference is quite small. "The average gap is modest in size, but the size of the gap in many countries is quite dramatic."

Canada leads all countries with a 28 percentage-point difference between younger and older people on the question of whether they affiliate with a particular religion.

Denmark, South Korea, Australia and Norway follow.

In the United States, younger adults aged 18 to 39 years are 17 percent less likely to claim a religion than adults aged 40 and over.

The study, which examined three additional measures of religiosity in addition to religious affiliation — the importance of religion to people's lives, daily prayer and weekly worship attendance — found some surprises.

While it is generally true that in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America the gap in religiosity between young and old is narrower, it's not true for every measure.

In Lebanon, when younger and older adults were asked if religion was "very important" in their lives, there was a 20 percentage-point difference; in Iran it was 9 points and in Nigeria 6 points.

The survey offered a number of intriguing theories, besides economic well-being, for why young people so often lag in religion. Continue reading

• Image: Amazing Facts

Periera is a Salesian priest and secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands Commission for young people.

The young people challenged the bishops to spend time with them, accompany them in the reality of day-to-day life, and form and fully involve young people in the life of the Church.

They made mention of the need for good marriages that lead to stable family life.

Other speakers on Friday included:

• Mr Powes Parkop the current Governor of the National Capital District
• Ms Melissa Hitchman the Australian Ambassador to the Holy See
• Bishop Leo Laba Ladjar Auxiliary Bishop of Jayapura
• Archbishop Mark Coleridge Archbishop of Brisbane.

On Friday evening, Cardinal Parolin and the bishops and members of the Catholic Professional Society joined Peter O'Neill, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, for a special dinner.

O'Neill spoke about the invaluable role played by the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea.

He renewed his invitation to Pope Francis to visit the country.

Speakers on Saturday included:

• Prof Kaluwin Chalapan from the University of PNG
• Msgr Gerard Burns President of Caritas Oceania

On Sunday the bishops celebrated the Eucharist in 14 parishes across Port Moresby.

On Monday, a Eucharistic celebration was held for differently abled persons and Street Kids at St Charles Lwanga, Gerehu.

This was followed by a visit to La Salle Technical College, Hohola.

On Tuesday, a concluding Mass will be held at 6.30am at the Airways Hotel. A handover to the new President will be made by Cardinal John Ribat.

Source

• Supplied: Fr Ambrose Pereira
• looppng.com
• Image: Supplied Fr Ambrose Pereira

"If any politician were to use social media as a way to communicate, it would be to their detriment. It's a terrible means of conveying detailed information."

"Candidates could talk to us and introduce themselves. It's not hard to say, 'this is me, this is what I stand for'."

This contradicts the popular view that social media is crucial if politician are to engage with younger voters.

Another student, Steven Pereira, 18, said, "They need to make themselves more known to give us an idea of who they are. They need to talk to young people so they know they actually exist."

Jack Peratiaki, 18, said politics and voting was not widely discussed among his mates. He thought a lack of information about the electoral system in conjunction with little exposure to politicians meant many young people felt out of their depth when it came time to cast their ballot papers.

"They just expect us to know what to do.They should come and talk to us instead of relying on parents to tell us [what to do]."

Although New Zealand enjoys a strong overall enrolled voter turnout among young people (aged 18 to 24) is proportionately much lower than all other age groups.

In May Stuff reported that in the 2014 election, just 75 percent of eligible voters aged 18 to 24 enrolled to vote and one third of those did not vote at all.

In an opinion piece on Stuff last month Cas Carter pointed out that "In what they're calling "the youth quake," the Labour Party managed to change the prevailing view of the long-time disaffected young demographic and showed them their vote could make a difference."

Source

• Matthew Tso /Stuff
• mm-research
• Ashleigh Martin
• Image: TVNZ

It was an 18th birthday present, and he wanted to wear it straight away. But, as a teenager "mucking around … wasting potential" in west Auckland, he was dressed up with nowhere to go - but church.

"I just turned up. And I pretty much haven't missed a Sunday since."

It's a "funny story", he knows. "But when I got there, it was just real. I was connecting with God, I felt His presence, and I felt that was what was missing. Out of that, faith became personal for me."

But that service was "nothing like this", Cameron agrees, nodding his head towards the source of thumping bass on the other side of the wall.

We're sitting in a changing room at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua, which is serving as a makeshift green room - complete with a rider of Phoenix juices and scented candles - before Cameron takes to the stage to give his sermon as lead pastor of Arise Church.

"Sermon" may not even be the right word for it. An Arise service is part rock concert, part variety show, part stand-up gig ("To quote from Bruce Almighty…").

It's hard at times - like a five-minute tangent when Cameron pulls a pastor on stage for an impromptu rendition of the Frozen theme - to pinpoint just how and where the Bible fits into this slick, enormous production.

There are volunteers to guide you to a car park and a seat in the stadium; a 14-piece band, featuring seven enviably confident and well-dressed young singers; a camera crew, a smoke machine, a big screen.

God works in mysterious ways, and many of them demand a multi-plug. Continue reading.

Source: The Wireless

Image: Arise Church

"Everyone should have a nice life," she tells a small audience at a Wellington bar. "Small actions, multiplied, can lead to big change," she says.

Laura, 25, outlines her pitch for RockEnrol, a movement to increase youth voter turnout.

The audience is a mix of smartphones and activists wearing knitted jumpers; committed environmentalists and social media addicts.

Laura talks about crowd-funding the campaign, getting musicians and artists on board, and convincing people that government is cool. "I grew up in the age of Paris Hilton and the Kardashians," she says, and government just isn't glam.

She describes RockEnrol as a "crowd-fuelled youth-led movement to try and build and activate political power for young people in Aotearoa".

"We use the cultural mediums that young people are already engaged in to try to make politics more relevant and resonant - so that's popular culture, music, events, art, things like that."

The idea is to hold events - gigs, house parties, festivals, a carnival - for which the price of admission is a promise to vote in September's election. They'll also be running marketing and education campaigns.

These measures are necessary because fewer than half of 18-29 year olds voted in the last election.Turnout has been declining in much of the world for decades.

New Zealand's numbers sit in about the middle of the OECD, so there's no crisis yet.

We're one of the easiest countries in the world to enrol to vote and cast your ballot. And yet, people are worried about what the decline means for our democracy. Continue reading.

Source: The Wireless

Image: NewsTalkZB

Your first home has never been more out of reach, if you want to live in one of the main centres - not that we have much of a choice, because high rates of unemployment and thousands of dollars of student debt mean we go where the jobs are.

Even then, we're faced with increasing costs of living and slow wage growth.

In short, our prospects are bleak, and especially so in comparison to the rosy route enjoyed by members of our parents' generation. And economist Bernard Hickey can't figure out why we're not more angry about it.

We face a political contest between the people who have to pay the bill, and the people who receive the benefits, and that is building into a clash of the generations

He calls us the "baby bust" generation: burdened by debt, held apart from home ownership, the losers of sweeping changes imposed by Roger Douglas' Labour government in the mid-1980s.

The baby boomers, meanwhile, continue to benefit from the free education and cheap property they had access to as young people.

Hickey predicts this gap between the older and younger generations will get bigger in the coming decades, before eventually coming to a head when the last of the boomers retire, and their children are left to foot the bill for their healthcare and superannuation.

"Ten, 20 years from now, the younger generation will realise they face a future of not … being as wealthy as their parents'," he says.

"We face a political contest between the people who have to pay the bill, and the people who receive the benefits, and that is building into a clash of the generations." Continue reading.

Source: The Wireless

Image: Stuff

Waikato University demographer Dr Tahu Kukutai says that New Zealand is still wasting its "demographic dividend" of young Maori and Pacific people reaching working age, as investments in health and education fail to flow through into highly paid jobs.

Dr Kukutai's data shows that Maori and Pacific incomes still show no trend towards catching up with higher-paid Europeans, and that Maori and Pacific people have lost relatively more jobs in the recent recession.

The youthful Maori and Pacific populations make up almost 27 per cent of New Zealanders aged 18 to 24, compared with only 17 per cent of the older working age group aged 25 to 64 - giving New Zealand a demographic "dividend" that other developed countries with rapidly ageing populations don't have.

But 22.7 per cent of young Maori and 20.1 per cent of Pacific people aged 15 to 24 were not in employment, education or training (Neet) last year, compared with only 9.9 per cent of young Europeans and 5.7 per cent of young Asians.

Many others have gone to Australia. Despite offsetting immigration, last year's Census revealed that New Zealand's total population aged 25 to 39 dropped by 5 per cent between 2001 and 2013. The Maori population in that prime working age group dropped by 9 per cent.

"There is a lot of unrealised potential, a lot of waste," Dr Kukutai says.

"The focus on closing the gaps tends to juxtapose groups in opposition to each other, but really what New Zealand has failed to grasp is that what's good for Maori is good for the country and that it's actually in the national interest that all those gaps that continue are remedied."

Source:

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: New Zealand Herald

You can find articles about their political views, their work habits, and their buying trends.

You can also find complaints from non-affluent Millennials that these discussions don't apply to them.

The Millennial Generation is not very religious, and Millennials are not very orthodox even when they are.

But at places like Benedictine College, where I work, you meet a hybrid version of them: The Hardcore Catholic Millennial.

They are truly hardcore Catholics. They are also truly Millennials.

Their religion does not wipe out their generation's culture any more than their culture wipes out their religious beliefs.

So, what are they like? Continue reading.

Tom Hoopes is Vice President of College Relations and writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

Source: Aleteia

Image: catholicvote.org