Responding to the searching of the young: that is the most pressing question that the young address to the Church, according to the German-speaking youth delegates at the 10th Symposium recently held in Rome. In the view of Ute Theisen, delegate of the diocese of Cologne, in Germany, what the young ask for is the “chance for those who seek to be given certainty and faith”. Emphasizing the particular situation of his country where “great opportunities for the development of the ecumenical process” exist”, he added that “it doesn’t matter to what confession” the young belong, so long as “they’re there”, because “they represent, indeed they are, the Church of today”. For the bishops of the former DDR, who find themselves working in a particular situation, what’s important is “being there, guaranteeing freedom to the young, and helping them in moments of despair” and when they ask us “what must we do?”. As the bishops themselves affirm: “We realize they’re really young when they ask us: ‘who were the Communists?'”. Another demand they need to address is that of accepting “the challenge of prophecy and responding to the fundamental questions about the meaning of life. For, as noted by Janique Blattmann, Swiss delegate, in seeking an answer to these questions, “the young often turn to the sects, or to the radicals of the right”. According to Istvan Seregély, Hungarian bishop, the priority commitments of the Church to the youth in his country are “helping them to choose the direction to imprint on the future, assume full responsibility, swim against the tide in society, and giving them the capacity and the joy to live the faith to the full”.
