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.

The Catholic Archbishop of Wellington, Cardinal John Dew, is supporting their efforts.

"We all need to listen to young people about climate change," he said.

Dew acknowledged that opinions will differ about whether students should be taking time off school.

However, he thinks that engaging with one of the most pressing and urgent moral issues of our time is far more important than leaving school to cheer for a sports team or visiting celebrity.

The cardinal asked people not to focus on what they are doing, but rather on why they are doing it.

He said young people should have had opportunities for their opinions to be heard without being forced to take this action, which may have consequences for their studies.

"Despite being the group in our society who will be most affected by environmental decisions being made today, young people are telling us, as strongly and loudly as they can, that they don't feel that they have a voice in the conversation."

He said many decision-makers in the governments, businesses, community organisations and churches of the world won't be alive to experience the impact of climate change. But today's school students will be.

"They will have to live with the consequences if we over-consume the world's resources now, and if we do not find ways to keep temperature increases in check.

"The world was made by God for all to enjoy, to sustain life. That includes today's young people and future generations," Dew said.

"In justice, my generation should be handing on to the next generation what was given to us. We need to face the reality that we are not.

"Instead, we are leaving a legacy of pollution and wastefulness."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: coalaction.org.nz

Cardinal supports students' climate change protest - "Listen to them"]]> 115803 https://cathnews.co.nz/2011/11/04/disadvantaged-youth-in-bougainville-need-help/ Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:30:42 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=15036

Sister Lorraine Garasu who runs Chabai Nazareth, the only rehabilitation centre in Bougainville, has called on the PNG government to do more to help disadvantaged youth in Bougainville. The centre opens its doors to the 'Lost Generation' - people who have lost parents in the Bougainville crisis of the 1990s. She says these people have turned Read more

Religious self-identification, it seems has remained very stable, in the United States with 84% calling themselves Christian in 1991, compared to 85% in 2010.

But many embrace the title without backing it up in practice. For example, only 45% strongly believe the the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches. This declines to only 30% for those born from 1984 onwards. Only 34% of the adult public believe that there is any absolute moral truth, with barely 3% holding this among those born in 1984 and later.

These are some of the findings of George Barna, a prolific author who founded the Barna Research Group which he talks about in his book "FutureCast: What Today's Trends Mean for Tomorrow's World." Based on numerous surveys of public opinion, the book looks at where society is today on a range of social issues.

In the second book "Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood," Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, along with a number of colleagues, conducted in-depth interviews with a broad range of people in the age range of 18-23. It examines the factors that influence the beliefs of this age group and then goes on to discuss the Emerging adults' beliefs about morality, which they found, "was not consistent, coherent, or articulate."

Read Father John Flynn's review of these books in ZENIT

Image: BlackTreeMusic.com

The letter comes from the Vatican's top-ranking Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

CDF head, Cardinal William Levada said the circular would include "directives" relating to the "reception of victims", working with civil authorities, protecting children and the training of future priests.

Levada announced he would be preparing the document after it had become apparent that bishops had for decades actively shielded pedophile priests. The document is developed to help every bishops' conference throughout the world design a "co-ordinated and effective programme" of child protection and of dealing with allegations of sexual abuse.

Levada is firm that Church leaders should collaborate with local law enforcement investigation abuse cases and intends to hold up the U.S. sexual abuse protocols as a model for bishops' conferences around the world, saying they were a "real success story" that could be used for bishops as well as Boy Scouts and public schools.

A Vatican official told the American Catholic News Service in November that the circular letter to bishops' conferences would encourage reporting accusations to civil authorities but would not mandate such reporting.

Also in November, the Vatican said bishops' conferences were encouraged to develop "effective, quick, articulated, complete and decisive plans for the protection of children" and that those plans should look toward bringing perpetrators to justice and assisting victims, "including in countries where the problem has not manifested itself in as dramatic a way as in others".

Sources

• Catholic Herald UK
• Seattle PI
• The Australian
• Image: Catholic Herald UK

Where 19th-century Shakers had sung " 'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free," Mr. Cuomo offered his own lyrics: "I'm the meanest in the place, step up, I'll mess with your face." Instead of the Shaker message of love and humility, Mr. Cuomo sang over and over, "I'm the greatest man that ever lived."

The refrain got Dr. DeWall wondering: "Who would actually sing that aloud?" Mr. Cuomo may have been parodying the grandiosity of other singers — but then, why was there so much grandiosity to parody? Did the change from "Simple Gifts" to "Greatest Man That Ever Lived" exemplify a broader trend?

Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words "I" and "me" appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there's been a corresponding decline in "we" and "us" and the expression of positive emotions.

"Late adolescents and college students love themselves more today than ever before," Dr. DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, says. His study covered song lyrics from 1980 to 2007 and controlled for genre to prevent the results from being skewed by the growing popularity of, say, rap and hip-hop.

Read more of A Generation's Vanity, Heard Through Lyrics

Sexual abuse against children had increased dramatically in the past two years according to Police spokesman, Seargeant Koro Lesikimacoku, who urged the council members to help the police in fighting this crime.

"It's unfortunate that grandfathers, fathers and uncles are involved in most child and sexual abuse cases, ... the ones that are expected to be trusted to protect their young ones." he said.

Sgt Lesikimacoku said police needed the support of the society.

Source:
Fiji Times