Burnt-out youth?

High levels of alcoholism and violence, unwanted pregnancies as a result of widespread sexual freedom, huge debts accumulated already during the years at university: judging from the statistics, youth in England and Wales seems really in crisis. But that is not the picture painted of youth today by Helen Bardy, director of Catholic Youth Services, the youth pastoral agency of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. Now in her thirties, full of enthusiasm, with a great deal of experience of working with young people in the Catholic Church and in public life, Helen explains that “these youngsters are a minority. Of course most youth rebel against their family during adolescence, that’s natural, but in actual fact they want roles and responsibilities that they end up assuming”. On the Catholic side, there’s no lack of commitment to youth or any reluctance to speak to the new generations using a language closer to their life but without perverting the “Message” proposed also through events and initiatives. Thought is already been given to the next World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008. “The hope – says Bardy – is to send a contingent of 3,000 youth”. Meanwhile the most important Catholic youth rally in England in the last 25 years was held in Birmingham on 14-15 October. The road to Sydney has begun. Is there a hunger for spirituality among English youth? “Yes, and it’s very strong and growing. CASE, the Catholic agency for evangelization, receives many telephone calls and electronic messages from young people who want to know more about God, about the angels and saints, because they have developed a spirituality of their own that also comprises these ideas. The problem of the English Catholic Church is that it has always been a minority church, less well known and less well organized than the Church of England. Catholics are very active, but are less used to stopping to think of a strategy. The Church does not have a plan on how to bring young people into the Church and has limited resources”. What rapport do young people have with the Catholic Church? “The young perceive the Church as boring and many no longer attend Catholic schools despite their high quality. It was primarily in the schools that the formation of Catholic youth in the Sacraments, Communion and Confirmation took place, but now so many young people no longer attend our schools. The parishes, which now face for the first time the task of forming youth, don’t know how to get organized. There is undoubtedly a gap in formation at the parish level. After First Communion and Confirmation no provision is made for youth”. And how do they relate to those of their own age belonging to different religions? “Many Catholic youth live, work and study alongside young people of other religions. These contacts help us a great deal, because they propose to the Church a new approach to the new generations, also to those of other religions. The young, as we know, are less hidebound, more open-minded, than adults”. How can the Church begin talking to the new generations again? In England and Wales the Church has always had a long tradition in the field of justice and peace. CAFOD, the Catholic charity of aid to the Third World, attracts many young people and the youth section of “St. Vincent de Paul” has obtained phenomenal levels of participation in recent years. In parish schools and universities 120 groups are involved in voluntary service to the elderly and the sick. During Advent this year, to celebrate the anniversary of Paul VI’s “Populorum Progressio”, we will launch a project called “live simply”. Its aim is to combat consumerism with an alternative lifestyle that resists the current obsession to earn more in order to get more. A special Sunday will also be dedicated to youth: “National Youth Sunday”, which this year falls on 26 November, feast of Christ the King. This year’s theme is social justice. We have worked in close contact with CAFOD to produce a series of events with a strong social message. We are trying to acquire more spaces, not just in the sense of physical places, for youth in the parishes. Changes are also taking place in the languages we use: in music, for example, the more traditional hymns are often abandoned in favour of more gospel, more modern rhythms”. How did the idea of the Birmingham meeting that attracted 4,000 youth originate? “The bishops have long been thinking of a meeting of this type and the idea was supported by the Catholic Young People’s Forum, a group that represents the Catholic youth of England and Wales and that thought it could be a way of sharing the experience of World Youth Day with those who had been unable to participate in it”.