Speaking of Youth
Hugh Menton – Greater Los Angeles Chapter
Our Maryknoll family is aging. We have discussed this for several years, often with a related discussion—how to reach younger people. Efforts have been made, but with limited success.
A recent parish experience, helping to facilitate a Synodal listening session, brought me into a space with young people, particularly 14 to 17-year-olds. About half of our parish participants in the Synodal listening session were in this age group, and many of them, like my oldest granddaughter, were confirmed a few weeks later. So, what did our youth say around the various topics of our parish listening session? Their responses to the Synodal questions included these comments:
Speaking and Listening
The Church has ignored the LGBTQ community and doesn’t accept gay people for who they are. The gay community does not feel as welcome because they can’t be married in the church.
Women have been excluded especially with leadership roles in the Mass. Can’t there be women priests?
The Church has ignored and excluded people who are divorced who are not able to receive Communion.
The Church has excluded people from other religions.
We have excluded people of color through racism.
We exclude and ignore people who don’t believe everything the Church teaches.
We judge people when they are working out their faith and what we believe.
A few of our young people stated that we have ignored our own Catholic school teachers, and we need to support them financially so that their salaries can compete with public school teacher salaries.
Celebrating
The Mass is too long.
We should have more time of silence for reflection.
We would like homilies that are short and tightly focused, with very specific points and ties to popular culture.
If we were more connected to the Mass, we would better understand the message and be able to apply it to our lives, and appreciate our friends and family more.
Going on Mission
Having mandatory service hours is a good thing in our schools and in Confirmation, because it makes us give of our time, and we always feel good for helping someone out.
Although sometimes we felt uncomfortable doing service, that was when we had the opportunity to grow.
Have your Affiliate Chapter members heard the voices of youth? To what actions are the youth calling the Church and Maryknoll? How will your Chapter or community respond?