Pope says the Church looks to young people
to revitalize the Church in her mission
Adapted from
February 7, 2013
The Holy Father received participants in this year's plenary session of the Pontifical Council for Culture today, and reaffirmed that "the Church has confidence in young people, she hopes in them and in their energies, she needs them and their vitality, to continue to live the mission entrusted her by Christ with renewed enthusiasm”.
The theme of the three-day plenary session which opened yesterday afternoon is "Emerging youth cultures".
The Pope spoke of the current difficulties facing young people today, such as rising unemployment, marginalization from society, the dangerous obsession with celebrity cultures and growing tendencies towards individualism.
These phenomena he said are “effecting people on a psychological and relational level”, the result of several factors, such as social media, that are leading to an increasingly “fragmented, cultural landscape”.
Thus, the Pope noted “the uncertainty and fragility that characterize so many young people, often pushes them to the margins, rendering them almost invisible and absent in the cultural and historical processes of societies” and even “the religious dimension, the experience of faith and membership in the Church are often experienced in a private and emotional perspective”.
At the same time the Holy Father warned against a stereotype view of youth cultures and noted their many “decidedly” positive aspects, such as young people's generosity and courage in helping those most in need.
Yesterday's opening event for the plenary was a 'first' at the Vatican, as it was in the form of a rock concert performed by an Italian pop group that now specializes in Christian music.
The Italian group “The Sun” entertained the audience - cardinals and bishops who are members of the Council, led by its president, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, council consultors and various lay participants - in the Aula Magna of LUMSA university
[Libera Universita di Maria Santissima Assunta - Free University of the Most Holy Mary of the Assumption]. They later also took part in a round table discussion led by French anthropologist David le Breton.
In an attempt to further encourage new channels of dialogue between young people and the Church, Cardinal Ravasi, is inviting young people to send questions and comments on emerging youth cultures to him, for the duration of the Plenary, using the twitter hashtag # Reply2Ravasi.
Here is a full translation of the Pope's address:
Dear friends,
I am truly happy to meet you as you begin your work in the Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture, during which you will seek to understand and analyze, as your President said, from different perspectives, 'the emerging youth cultures'.
I greet your President, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, and thank him for the kind words he addressed to me in your behalf. I greet the members, consultors and all the collaborators of the dicastery and wish you profitable work that will offer a useful contribution to what the Church does in confronting the concerns of young people.
As it has been often said, it is a complex and highly articulated reality that cannot be understood only within a homogeneous cultural culture, but rather in a horizon that can be called 'multiversal', which is defined by a plurality of views, of perspectives, of strategies.
That is why it is correct to speak of 'youth cultures', considering that the elements that distinguish and differentiate cultural phenomena and environments prevail over those they have in common.
Indeed, a number of factors concur to shape a cultural panorama that is increasingly fragmented and in continuous and very rapid evolution, in which the social media are not extraneous - those tools of communication that favor and sometimes provoke precisely the continuous and rapid changes in mentality, in customs and in behavior.
Thus, there is a widespread atmosphere of instability in the cultural sphere, as in the political and economic - the latter marked by the difficulties young people have in finding work - that has an impact above all on the psychological and relational level.
The uncertainty and the frailty that mark so many young people not uncommonly push them towards the margins, make them almost invisible and absent in the historical and cultural processes of society. Ever more increasingly, this frailty and marginality are expressed in phenomena like drug dependency, deviance, and violence.
The affective and emotional sphere - that of sentiments - and that of corporality (the body) are strongly conditioned by this atmosphere and by its consequent cultural outcomes, expressed, for example, by apparently contradictory phenomena, such as the spectacularization of intimate personal lives and individualistic, narcissistic self-enclosure in one's own needs and interests. Even the religious dimension - the experience of faith and belonging to the Church - is often lived in a private and emotional perspective.
But decisively positive phenomena have not been lacking. The generous and courageous initiatives of so many youth volunteers who dedicate their best efforts to their less fortunate brothers; the sincere and profound experience of faith of so many young men and women who bear joyous witness to their belonging to the Church; the efforts they have shown, in many parts of the world, to help build societies that respect the freedom and dignity of everyone, starting with the youngest and the weakest.
All this is comforting and helps us to draw a more precise and objective picture of the youth cultures today. Therefore, one cannot be content with reading youth cultural phenomena according to consolidated paradigms that have since become commonplaces, or to analyze them with methods that have become useless, starting with cultural categories that have become dated and inadequate.
We find ourselves facing a reality that is as complex as it is fascinating, that must be understood profoundly and with a great spirit of empathy, a reality whose fundamental bases and lines of development we must be able to grasp.
For instance, looking at the young people in so many nations of the so-called Third World, we become aware that with their cultures and their needs, they represent a challenge to the globalized society of consumerism, to the culture of consolidated privilege that benefits only a limited circle of people in the Western world.
Consequently, youth cultures are 'emerging' even in the sense that they manifest a profound need, a plea for help or even, outright 'provocation', that cannot be ignored or overlooked either by civilian society or by the ecclesial community.
For instance, I have manifested several times my concern and that of the whole Church for what we call the 'educational emergency', alongside other 'emergencies' that affect the various dimensions of the individual and his fundamental relationships - emergencies that cannot be answered in ways that are evasive or banal.
I think of the growing difficulty in the field of employment, and the effort at the same time to meet responsibilities that they have taken on. This would result - in terms of the future of the world and all mankind - in an impoverishment that is not just economic and social, but above all, human and spiritual.
If young people can no longer hope and progress, if their energies, their vitality, their capacity to anticipate the future, are not harnessed in the dynamics of history, then we will have mankind folded in on itself, devoid of confidence and a positive look at tomorrow.
While we are aware of so many problematic situations which directly touch the faith and belonging to the Church, we wish to renew the expression of our trust in young people, reaffirm that the Church looks at their condition, their cultures, as a reference point that is essential and unavoidable for her pastoral action.
For this, I wish to state anew some significant passages from the Message that the Second Vatican Council addressed to young people sd s motivation for reflection and stimulus for the new generations.
First of all, this Message stated: "The Church looks at you with trust and love... She possesses that which constitutes the strength and the beauty of youth - the capacity to be joyful about any beginning, for self-giving without expecting a return, for self-renewal in order to be able to set off on new conquests".
And the Venerable Paul VI addressed this appeal to the young people of the world: "It is in the name of this God and his Son Jesus that we call on you to widen your hearts to the dimensions of the world, to listen to the appeals of your brothers, and to ardently place your youthful energies in their service. Do battle against every kind of selfishness. Refuse to give free rein to instincts of violence or hatred which generate wars and their sad procession of woes. Be generous, pure, respectful, sincere. And with enthusiasm, build a world that is better than the present".
I too would want to reiterate it forcefully: The Church has confidence in young people, she places her hopes in them and their energies, she needs them and their vitality in order to continue with renewed impulse the mission entrusted to her by Christ.
I therefore sincerely wish that the Year of Faith may be, even for the younger generations, a valuable occasion to recover and reinforce their friendship with Christ, which will give rise to joy and enthusiasm for the profound transformation of cultures and societies.
Dear friends, in thanking you for the commitment that you have generously placed in the service of the Church, and for the special attention you are giving to young people. I impart to you from the heart my Apostolic Blessing. Thank you.
Vatican Radio's translation may be found here:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/02/07/pope:_the_church_has_faith_in_young_people/en1-662747
CNS has a background story on the pop group that opened the plenary session - a Christian rock band that is not exactly typical of the contemporary music scene but does reflect an emerging trend... The story of the group's conversion is inspiring. Band leader Lorenzi's informal survey of his blog followers also reveals a lot of what young Italians today think about the Church.
Cardinal Ravasi asks rock band to perform
so Council members can have a 'feel'
for contemporary youth culture
By Carol Glatz
Left, Cardinal Ravasi at the news conference on Wednesday to present the plenary; and right, with the Italian band 'The Sun' before they performed for the Council last night.
VATICAN CITY , February 6 (CNS) -- When the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture said he wanted to listen to what today's young people had to say, he wasn't afraid to hear it belted out at 100 decibels.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi invited members of the Italian rock group, The Sun, to speak their minds through music to the cardinals, bishops, lay members and advisers of the council, as well as to a large contingent of foot-stomping, cheering young fans.
The band's 30-year-old lead lyricist and singer, Francesco Lorenzi, confessed that despite being used to playing stadiums with tens of thousands in the audience, knowing "we'd be playing for cardinals, bishops, ambassadors and journalists, we didn't get any sleep last night."
It was the first time a Vatican dicastery had a rock group as the "opening act" of its plenary assembly -- usually a routine, speech-filled, sit-down affair where members come together a few days days to discuss a relevant theme.
But if the culture council was going to discuss "Emerging Youth Cultures" for their plenary at the Vatican Feb. 6-9, then what better way to get a feel for the subject than by inviting young people in, the cardinal said.
"We adults, older generations, and we priests have to make an effort to not put (young people) under a sort of microscope, but go to their level and begin to listen a little to what the rhythm of their mind, their heart is like," Cardinal Ravasi told Vatican Radio.
The Sun's rhythm, created by two guitarists, a bass player and drummer, shook the walls of Rome's LUMSA University Feb. 6 as the group delivered songs about their Catholic faith such as "Onda Perfetta" ("Perfect Wave") that says: "I have a whole world full of hopes and dreams, they're illusions only if you don't believe."
While Vatican VIPs weren't dancing in the aisles, many read through the lyrics and applauded with smiles.
In between songs, Lorenzi explained the band's evolution from its birth in 1997 as Sun Eats Hours, which is an Italian saying equivalent to "time is fleeting, so get as much out of life as possible," to being voted the "best Italian punk band" in 2004.
They lived up to their name, he said, traveling the globe, opening for world-famous acts like The Cure and Ok Go and experiencing enormous success.
But instead of feeling happy, the band members were angry and barely spoke to one another, Lorenzi said, losing themselves and each other in a nonstop revelry of "alcohol, drugs and women."
Lorenzi started to turn his life around in 2007 when a night out with friends fell through, and his mother suggested he instead go to a faith formation course being held that week at the local parish.
"I know you love me," he said he told his mother, "but I want to be happy and I don't go to church to be happy."
[Now there's a Catholic mother who has kept the faith, even if, from her son's age, she must be from the generation born in the 1960s. And a grown-up son who listened to his mother, despite his reservations!]
But he agreed to just see what it was like, even though he was certain it would be miserable and they'd make him "sing awful songs."
Instead, the warm welcome and genuine joy he saw on people's faces "really struck me."
"I saw a joy I never saw before and at a place I thought was for nerds. But it was the kind of joy I needed more than ever," he said.
Bolstered by a new community, prayer, Mass and eucharistic adoration, Lorenzi's life changed completely, he said. The other band members saw the transformation and slowly -- over a period of five years -- followed suit, wanting to discover the source of Lorenzi's contagious happiness.
The band members had a new mission in life and on stage, Lorenzi said. They cut the band name down to The Sun "because it shines forever" and focused the lyrics on "what matters most in life," like love, friendship, "life after life" and faith in God.
He told Catholic News Service that people don't need to "hit bottom" before they discover the beauty of salvation.
"Jesus will come and get you, trying up until the very end, but that doesn't mean you have to hit bottom, because he'll take you even when you're doing fine," he said.
Telling council members The Sun wanted to help the Church bridge the gap with young people, Lorenzi offered a booklet summarizing the results of an informal survey he took with readers of his blog,
www.francescolorenzi.it. Over two weeks, some 25,000 people read the post, and hundreds sent responses to his three questions.
Asked "what helps attract young people to the Church?" the responses included, "credible and enthusiastic witnesses," but also pilgrimages to the Holy Land, a chance to have a personal spiritual guide and outlets for artistic expression, the booklet said.
"What do you want from the Church?" evoked responses like greater trust in laypeople, putting the great questions of life front and center, and clear, sincere honest dialogue where formality and abstract ideas get set aside now and then, it said.
"What keeps the Church and young people apart?" elicited replies like not understanding the reasons behind positions the Church takes, "ostentatious wealth," a lack of answers to people's questions and poor communication skills.
[It may just be possible that Lorenzi's informal survey has elicited more useful, actionable information from his followers than the Pontifical Council on Social Communications has done so far from the inchoate mass of reactions it has been getting so far to the Pope's Twitter messages. The newsmen at yesterday's press conference should have asked Lorenzi what he thinks of the papal Twitter initiative so far.]
"The Church has lots of beautiful things to say" about things young people care about, "but it needs to find a way to say it" and have that message reach young men and women everywhere, Lorenzi said.
But even the most stirring speech or web post can't answer people's hunger for human contact and understanding, Lorenzi told CNS.
"A great speech without contact is at risk" of going nowhere, he said, while if it's coupled with warm and genuine outreach, "the incredible can happen."
[Well, Mr. Lorenzi, our 86-year-old Pope is doing his best to provide his own 'credible and enthusiastic witness' as well as his personal outreach whenever he can, and we must hope and pray that the bishops of the world and their priests are doing their part and providing the same witness, outreach and guidance to their own flock.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/02/2013 01:13]