Franciscan at Home

My high school students often objected to a moral teaching by protesting, “But if they really love each other….” “If two people really love each other, why can’t they have sex before marriage?” Or, “Why can’t two people of the same sex get married if they really love each other?” Or, “If a girl’s parents really love her, they won’t make her give up her future to have a baby; they will help her get an abortion.” Or, “isn’t mercy killing a loving thing to do, because you want to end the suffering of someone you love?” Such assertions reveal a lack of understanding of the true nature of love and limit the definition of love to feelings, especially feelings of affection or sympathy. This narrow understanding presumes that one must acquiesce to another’s request to prove “real love.” To help them recognize their mistake, I often asked them “What is love?” They responded by singing a popular song by that name…a song whose lyrics contribute little to answering the question it asks.

A catechesis on love that begins with a clear definition can resolve many misconceptions about love’s true nature and can help the student live the vocation to love.

When we address the topic of peer leadership in youth ministry, the conversation can be all over the board. Some use the term to speak of peer leadership roles, like older teens helping with junior high or the Confirmation program. Others refer to the actual formation of the teens, and still others refer to service projects and empowering teens for social justice. It will be helpful in this discussion to give some definition to what we are actually talking about. To do that, I’d like to look at the overall process of evangelization.

As a veteran youth minister in the Catholic Church, I have found myself at various times struggling with the seeming ineffectiveness of my ministry. Over the years, there have been numerous “shifts” that I have experienced in parish-based ministry that have made the task of reaching teens more and more difficult: increased parental control and influence, increased moral relativism among young people (recent studies show that 91% of teens surveyed do not believe there is an absolute truth[1]), increased confusion over basic questions about faith, the chaotic and busy lifestyles of teens and their families, etc. These challenges have led to frustration and even the disillusioned feeling that I wasn’t accomplishing anything. I definitely was not achieving the primary goal: making disciples of the teens I was ministering to. I began much research and study in search of a new approach—one that is rooted in a discipleship mentality.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus… proclaim the word; be persistent whether it be convenient or inconvenient… for a time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:1-2)

When I think of talking to teens about the Church’s teaching on same-sex attractions, that verse comes to mind. It seems to be something young people won’t “tolerate,” a subject that is very “inconvenient” to talk about. But we are charged, like Timothy was, to witness to the truth and proclaim God’s love. The moral teaching of the Church is clear on this matter; how we should go about sharing that teaching is not. Here are a few key things to keep in mind as you address this important and sensitive topic.

Pope Francis shocked the world when he said that he didn’t want to talk about homosexuality. In an interview translated into English and published by America magazine, he said, “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

At first blush, it seems like the Holy Father is dodging the issue. But what he’s actually doing is trying to focus the conversation back to Jesus Christ. He goes on to say, “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things… The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

The Gospel must first be proclaimed in a “simple” way, and from that will flow our understanding of “moral consequences.” When we try to address the issue of same sex attraction outside of the context of the Gospel message, it’s like putting the cart before the horse. There’s a difference between catechizing teens about same sex attraction and educating them. Education is information for information’s sake; catechesis is about intimacy with Jesus Christ.

Twenty years ago my parish priest expressed an ardent desire to have a parish youth group. He reserved the newly refurbished parish centre on Friday nights, advertised in the parish bulletin and patiently waited. About 10 years passed until the day when I came to him and suggested we start a parish youth group. My own children were of youth group age and I was concerned about the lack of provision for them to grow in the faith beyond the celebration of Mass and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Delighted, he said yes and that was it—I was left to start up our parish youth ministry. I have to admit that at that time, I had energy and enthusiasm but no actual knowledge of what Catholic youth ministry should be other than what I had experienced, or read about in books about Christian youth work. I had been involved in youth ministry since I was 17 but each and every youth group had been so very different. If you are in England – does this sound familiar? I suspect so. Many of us volunteer or are asked to volunteer but we don’t really know if the Church has anything particular to say about what Catholic youth ministry is. We might read blogs, look at websites, find information which is local to the country or diocese in particular, read the key texts and authors in the field. But what does Holy Mother Church herself say? Does She say anything on the matter? The short answer is: She does.

In 2003 I had the privilege of attending a conference with Cardinal Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, and one of the primary figures involved in the writing and editing of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I remember him commenting that those involved with creating the CCC were surprised at how well it sold, especially among lay Catholics, because the audience it was written for was primarily bishops, priests, and the catechists who worked for them.

When I was a youth minister I worked hard to put the CCC in the hands of every teen that I could. I made it a Confirmation gift, a graduation present, or gave it away at retreats. I didnʼt expect a young person to read it cover to cover, but at least it was something they could own to find answers about their faith, especially after they went off to college.

If I was in youth ministry today, Iʼd give everyone a copy of the YOUCAT instead.

Itʼs not fair to compare it to the CCC because the CCC and the YOUCAT are trying to do two different things. Simply put, the CCC is there for the work of catechetics; the YOUCAT was created to do catechesis.

Kelly Colangelo reminds us that service activities are first and foremost opportunities for serving Christ in others.

St. Vincent de Paul said, ‘Go to the poor and you will find God.’ Oftentimes we go to the poor, but we forget that we are seeking and serving Christ. But community service is to be the giving of ourselves to help others rather than just a ‘project completed’ or ‘hours counted’. As Jesus said, ‘For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve’ (Mk 10:45).

In recent years, community service and volunteering has played an integral role in the lives of young people. This may be a result of a school and/or Church requirement; but regardless, active involvement in community service is on the rise with youth. With increased participation in community service, one would hope this means more young people growing in their relationship with the Lord and putting their faith in action. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. One might suspect, in fact, that there is more and more outreach, but less of a presence of God.

Building relationships has always been the core of any successful ministry. In the Old Testament, God spoke ‘in partial and varied ways through the prophets.’[i] But in the New Testament, the Word became flesh and said to His apostles, ‘I have called you friends because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.’[ii] The Apostles were not just slaves or servants to Jesus, but friends. It is through friendship that Jesus passed the faith to His followers.

And it is through friendship that the faith is passed on today. I decided to look up ‘friend’ in Webster’s dictionary and I found two interesting definitions:

1. One attached to another by affection or esteem.

2. One that is of the same nation, party or group.

I propose that the friendships we build with teenagers today be more about than the first definition than the second.

Do the teens in our churches and youth groups feel that our affection for them is based on who they are or do they think is it predicated on their acceptance of our beliefs? Though in theory we might say the former, many of our practices suggest the latter.

In Jesus' public ministry, He not did not just want to share the Good News. He wanted to empower His followers, especially His Apostles, to do the same. And though He desired all of humanity to hear His voice, He spent most of His time with twelve men, and even more of His time with three.

This goes against every piece of advice that contemporary experts on marketing and media would propose. Were Jesus alive today, they would position Him at peak times of social networking and made videos that were sure to go ‘viral’. They'd get Him a billion followers on Twitter and even more on Facebook. He would do a world tour that would visit every continent and country, but only for a short time.

Though Jesus didn't have those media opportunities two thousand years go, I have the feeling that even if He had He probably wouldn't have changed His strategy very much. Instead of spreading Himself thin to reach the masses He would still invest most of His time in a few people who would know Him well and could replicate what He did.

The Catechism asks a question that is so simple and yet is one that many of us have never thought to ask: ‘Why did the Word become flesh?’

The amazing answer is the heart of the Gospel message and the missionary discourse that we invite teenagers to hear and accept in their lives.

There is nothing more dramatic than the story of our salvation, but in order to understand it we must tell it like any other story: in order.

What if we just jumped right to last chapters of Lord of the Rings? Frodo throws the ring into the fire. Without knowing what the ring was about, the journey they had taken to get there, or what would have happened if they didn’t, it’s just an interesting moment that seems to be important but you wouldn’t know why. And I think that is exactly how teenagers view the cross. They know it is important (because they see it everywhere), they are sorry that Jesus died and think it’s cool that he did, but so what? What does it mean to them?