The future, a disturbing word” “

“Any generation may be evangelized”… That’s the starting point of the reflections of Cardinal Godfried Danneels , archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, on European youth, stressing their “life-styles” and describing the role of the Church as their “travelling companion”. Individualism. Young people suffer from “generalized individualism” in our age and seem “not to give any thought” to solidarity. Society for them is “an agglomeration of millions of individuals”, each person “is alone in the crowd or at most huddled in the affectionate warmth of a relationship that is often very transient”. Religion and Church. The list of the “grievances” of the young is very long, but “persons beyond all suspicion” are not lacking: Mother Teresa, Dom Helder Camara, the abbé Pierre, Sister Emmanuelle. Some Christians, too, “have got something”, as if they were “inhabited by a hidden mystery”: in the silence of an abbey “one feels good”, some monks are likeable… Music. The young “navigate in music”, it’s “omnipresent”. “The words don’t matter, it’s the sound that counts, “the euphoria of Friday evening”. But there is a downside: “after the evening in the disco, the batteries are often run down; the music stops, loneliness returns. After the dream, the phosphorescent colours and the euphoria-inducing noise, the young person finds himself alone sitting on the edge of his bed. It’s the time to ask questions: about the world, about man, about oneself. And there are no interlocutors present to begin an interior journey”. Image. “First an orgy of lines, forms and colours. This uninterrupted flow of images and sounds continuously arouses strong emotions”. “Imagination takes power!”. Yet, “every so often one has a sudden desire to have a clear vision, to have the flow of images filtered and purified”. Body. A “golden idol” that is worshipped, that no longer has secrets: nor is there even any longer any “curiosity about sex”. Pragmatism, therefore, “as in politics and in religion”. “Long live the family!”. What has changed since 1968 is the “attitude to the family”. Even if they criticize it, the young “believe in it”: more than work, love, travel. The home is the nest, the therapeutic place for the healing of all diseases”. There’s a real “return to the family”, today, even if it is often “very sick and full of pathologies”. Future. It’s “a magic word”, for the young, but also “disturbing”. They are afraid: “unemployment, war, the destruction of the environment, old age, the return of racism”. But it is “the infernal pace of daily life” that especially fills them with dread, and the many “prophets of doom”. “Navigating against the tide”. Teaching them to “navigate against the tide: that is the fundamental objective for the evangelization of the young. The Christian is “a counter-voice” in society: not a spectator, but a person who commits himself in society and in politics, “believes in the future”, is involved in “resistance”. The first step to follow in evangelizing the young is that of “involvement in social work”. Witnesses of love. “Telling young people the truth of the Gospel”, but “with great love”: that is the task assigned to adults by Danneels. The new generations “have a need for principles, for a precise framework of thought and code of conduct”, for witnesses, for the “conviviality” of a group to which they belong (family, school, youth movement, prayer group) and for other “forms of human and religious socialization” (such as World Youth Day). A particular way of looking at things. Christians have a particular way of looking at things”: it is the “the way of looking at the invisible” that is lacking in contemporary man. The young are “very responsive to gospel values”: the problem is finding a language adapted to them, “new words” that come from men and women endowed with “prophetic prestige”. And from a Church that may be for them “like a mother who loves them and has faith in them”.