"Pick-and-mix": and after?” “” “

“Pick-and-mix”, that’s the life-style of many young people in Europe today, in post-modern Europe, says Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor , archbishop of Westminster and vice-president of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE), in his report to the plenary session of the 10th Symposium of European bishops. Theme of the report: “Evangelizing the young in a post-modern Europe”. We give a brief résumé of it below. “Pick-and-mix”. How does a young person live in post-modern Europe? The immediate reply is “fairly well”. Levels of education and access to it, especially for the middle classes, have been raised. For those who have time and money, new ways of enlarging their horizons are being constantly invented. Most young people would place range of choice, immediacy, opportunities on the asset side. But there’s the danger that in exploiting these opportunities to the maximum, they themselves may end up being exploited. For those who are “fortunate” enough to be able to afford a pick-and-mix life-style, disenchantment usually follows. They perceive that what is on offer on the consumer market, but also in the liberal à la carte approach to morality and sexuality, is the freedom to navigate in an infinite and illusory current of pseudo-choices. There is little or nothing that gives real satisfaction in this. In the depths of their heart the real questions remain unanswered. “What is truth?” The old certainties are being questioned and often undermined. Pilate perhaps unconsciously revealed himself as the first post-modern thinker with his famous question: “What is truth?” Truth is no longer “accepted”. It does not necessarily have a need to be demonstrated as objective. For objectivity does not exist. Your truth is yours, mine is mine. And none of the two is more true than the other, only different. In this fugitive and unstable mix of personal possibilities and choices a new and powerful logic is introduced, supported by the global marketplace and by advertising. The logic of consumption. Now we are all merely consumers. Choice, choice, choice is the menu of the post-modern. We are identified and we identify ourselves increasingly with what we have, with our life-style, with the opportunities we can permit ourselves or which we can offer to our children and with the choices we make. And less and less with our context, with our cultural credos, with the moral values we have received. What we had been used to call “truth” is ever more frequently perceived as just one among a series of possibilities. Where to meet Christ. It’s as if we were all ready, elegantly-dressed, with a thousand and one possibilities at our fingertips, but without anywhere to go. So does the post-modern lead us to return to God? Evangelizing, in every age, means promoting the personal meeting with Jesus. In the second place we need to rediscover the idea of Church as a safe haven, both for us and for those we would like to be able to meet. A crucial means for evangelization is also the community, now threatened by an excessive emphasis on individuality and on self-expression. We need to rediscover our faith in the community and our respect for the community as a place of healing. Four commitments. The challenge I pose to the bishops is that of assuming four commitments: first, meeting the young once a month in an open style, to discuss together their concerns; second, encouraging young people to share their unique gifts (in particular the gifts of joy, the capacity of healing and forgiveness) in a community context for a period of time; third, having, as bishops, a small share in the life of such a community in a regular manner; and fourth, exploring in an explicit way the challenge of the post-modern in the particular context of the local Church, in prayer, in the reading of Scripture, in conversations with the young and in homilies.