Comments on: Youth and the Church: Half Empty or Half Full?

By: Today on NPR: More Of the Same From Catholic Apologists. « Act of Reparation

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:40:14 +0000

[...] is really no small wonder Catholicism is losing steam here in the United States, and even more so in Europe. Donna Bethell can condescend, insult, and [...]

By: Botolph

Botolph — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 01:56:44 +0000

Generations have been ‘catechized’ [well or not well] and ‘sacramentalized’ however, when were we/they evangelized?

Evangelization, while given many meanings, fundamentally is the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, Crucified and Risen from the dead and the source of the Life Giving Spirit. Evangelization invites and challenges the individual to both on-going conversion and faith. Bottom line, it is an encounter through the proclamation of the gospel with Jesus Christ as Lord calling the individual to new life [being born from above, being justified-sanctified, reconciled-a few ways of expressing it] and into a community of disciples: the Church.

Centuries ago, with the Christianization of Europe, it was deemed necessary to change the evangelizing mission of the Church to a ‘pastoral maintenance paradigm. For better or worse Christendom has ceased to exist [what is meant by some as a post-Christian world] Now living in a post-modern and ‘post Christendom world’ the culture not only does not support but in many cases is inimical to the Gospel message.

Although there were movements within the wider Christian world and within Catholicism that led up to it, Vatican II marks a watershed moment in the history of the Church. What was awakened by the Spirit in the Council was the necessity of the Church to return once again to mission. In fact, Vatican II spoke of the Church as the mission of the Son and the Spirit.

It has taken fifty years for this fundamental ‘turn’ to begin to really take shape. More and more Catholics are aware of the mission of the Church and each individual member of the Church-that mission which is fundamentally ‘evangelization’

The millenial generation is simply the latest generation to come to adulthood. They are no more nor less religious in nature than other generations. The difference however is the ‘soil on which they sprouted’. The further away from the Gospel their parents were, the more susceptible they are to the forces of secularization or even various forms of neo-paganism alive and well these days.
If their faith formation was weak or excessively rigid [both are real problems] then their hearts, minds and interests will seek fulfillment somewhere else.

The harvest is ready. Every single person has been redeemed in Christ [in all that this means] objectively speaking. Yet they do not know Him nor this good news [gospel] and so have not YET come to acceptance and growth in this in faith hope and love.

We need ask the Lord to stir the embers and little fires within us to become a blazing inferno which does not destroy but gives life and love in Christ and the Spirit.

By: Darel

Darel — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:18:02 +0000

The numbers for Catholics is not surprising. Catechesis is notoriously awful across the American Catholic landscape and many of the traditional and characteristically Catholic cultural practices which kept members close to the Church over the life-cycle (rosary and other devotions, scapulars/medals, meatless Fridays, choirs, etc.) have vanished. When nearly half of all nominal American Catholics don’t believe in (or even know the teaching of) the Real Presence, what else would you expect?

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:02:48 +0000

As a millennial myself, I’d imagine that both of these things are at play but that mostly what’s going on is that people are simply less religiously inclined. Some people will make it back to church eventually (especially in the South, I’d guess), but there’s definitely been a decline in religious sentiment over the years. My peers have largely not been raised as much more than nominally religious, with church on Christmas and Easter and only occasionally otherwise. Or even if their families went to church every week, they were not Christians in the full sense of the word; they went to church, but did not strive to live as Christians the rest of the week, did not acquire any more Biblical knowledge than that taught in Sunday School, etc. Those thus raised have very little, therefore, to go back to–even if they would have called themselves _______ in their childhood. (Note, too, that children are much more ready than anyone else to simply accept the label of the religion they have been told is theirs.)

On the other hand, I am proof that people DO go back, since I spent the first few years of college not going to church at all before finding my way into the Catholic Church. (Though I still would have identified as “Christian” if asked; I was merely being rebellious and lazy.)