Questions on the future” “

“The young should find their roots in the Church but at the same time be open to others. Those who have responsibilities in the Church should help them find a direction in their life”, suggests frère Alois Loeser , prior of the Taizé Community. Frère Alois was one of the participants at the preparatory meeting for the Third Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu (Romania), held in Rome from 24 to 27 January, under the auspices of the Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC). We interviewed him. What are European youth asking of the Church and what’s their attitude to ecumenical dialogue? “It’s very important that we should listen to the young, because there’s a great hunger for spiritual life among them. But often they don’t seek for it in their own tradition, in the Church, and go to look for it elsewhere. The young should find their roots in the Church instead but at the same time be open to others. The young today are asking themselves what’s the meaning of their life, and what direction to give to their existence. We, who have responsibilities in the Church, must help the young to find a direction for their life, on the basis of faith”. Is their more interest than before for ecumenism among the young? “Unfortunately there’s no interest in the complex and difficult questions posed in this field. The questions posed by the young are quite different: spiritual and existential questions. They ask how the faith may support their decisions. We must link these two worlds if interest in ecumenism is to be revived. Ecumenical dialogue has made much progress, even though there are still many questions to be resolved”. What are the hopes of the Taizé Community in this ‘journey’ towards the Assembly in Sibiu? “Our main hope is to discover more profoundly that Christ unites us, in a kind of spiritual ecumenism. The need now is to deepen our faith. And all the Churches feel this need today. So we are seeking a concrete spiritual path to deepen the faith with the young”. What does the present and future of the Taizé Community hold out? “Great continuity with the process begun by frère Roger. He anticipated the future in many fields. So we’ll continue along this path of accompanying the young. We don’t have all the answers and the questions are so daunting today: existential problems, suffering, unemployment, lack of a future… The young have a need to be accompanied and we will continue along this path through our annual youth meetings. We will have a Taizé European meeting at Zagreb, in Croatia, at the end of the year and another at Calcutta, in India, in October. Today we need to look beyond the horizons; we must go towards others to revive hope. In recent years we promised to go towards the other continents. We did so back in the Eighties in meetings in Asia and Latin America, which were then suspended. Now we want to resume these meetings because the attention we pay to Asia, Latin America and Africa is crucially important for the future”. Of course, now you have a great responsibility on your shoulders… “We are still in a state of shock following the death of frère Roger, but at the same time we have received so much support from all over the world and been strengthened by the wonderful experience of unity among us brothers. We have felt ourselves to be ‘one heart and one soul’. This is not an unrealisable ideal: we have recently experienced in our community that it’s really possible to experience this unity. This gives us courage to continue. The youth meeting in Milan at the end of the year also encouraged us greatly. Some 50,000 young people attended it. This confirmed to us their wish to continue along the path opened by frère Roger”. What do you think of the Pope’s encyclical? “I was very glad that the encyclical should touch so central a theme of the Christian faith, and a theme that is central also for today’s youth who ask themselves: what really is love? What does it mean to love? I am also delighted by the way the Pope tackles the question, explaining that eros and agape cannot be separated. It’s great to be reminded of this Christian message, unfortunately for too long forgotten”.