It’s a bit of a cliché to say that youth are the future of the Church but it doesn’t make it any less true

Last Saturday I had a look at Life on the Rock, the youth-oriented show of US Catholic network EWTN. Though full of good material I felt it wouldn’t appeal that much to young Catholics, except for the most committed. The style is a bit stiff and there needs to be more young voices as well as co-presenter Bro. John. The central interview was really good, with Peter Range, Director of the Office for Life and Justice in the Diocese of Toledo. His contribution was well measured as he suggested ways for right and left to find some common ground in the polarised political landscape of post-election USA. A range of issues was important but the right to life was ‘foundational’. Apart from the abortion issue he was strong on a human dignity approach to immigration – as Catholics in the USA, he said, we have all been immigrants. He referenced a time when he saw the awful poverty in Ecuador, visiting a school built on a dump, where, to quote Gandhi, people were so hungry that God could only appear as bread.

Youthful

Another face of a youthful Church in Ireland was to be found on last Sunday’s televised Mass (RTÉ One). The fine contemporary liturgical music was provided by gifted young musicians and singers under the direction of composer Ian Callanan. Much of it was from Callanan’s Mass of St Catherine. I liked the particularly apt opening hymn ‘All Are Welcome’, the Kyrie, the wonderful version of the Serenity Prayer and the uplifting recessional ‘Go Out’. The Mass was celebrated with reverence by Fr Eamonn Bourke, chaplain to the students of UCD.

On the latest episode of All Walks of Life (RTÉ One Friday) Mary McAleese interviewed young athlete Ciara Mageean in the beautiful scenery of a pilgrim walk in the Ards peninsula in Co. Down. Mageean was enthusiastic about the Catholic Faith of her upbringing, where the influence of parents, grandparents and her local parish community was obviously strong. She has had tough times with injury and dreads the possible cancellation of the Olympics, already delayed by a year due to Covid. Mrs McAleese raised the question of Mageean’s brother being gay, and referenced what she regarded as the ‘difficult attitude to gays’ in the Church. This experience made Mageean question the Church and she had come to something of an à la carte approach – ‘I choose what I want to take from it’. She had been invited to a Vatican conference on sport and religion but that also had been postponed or cancelled. McAleese couldn’t resist – advising Mageean not to tell them her views on gay rights or she’d be ‘uninvited’ like she herself was.

‘I’d like to talk to them about it’, said Mageean. She said the Church relied on her to baptise her future children and bring them up in the Faith, and she wanted to do just that, unlike many of her peers. She thought the Church should ‘listen to their own folks’. On this issue, especially as it relates to young people, I feel the Church needs to find ways of expressing and explaining its teaching in a contemporary way – even after that it may still be found challenging.

Baptist

Young Sheldon (RTÉ One, Friday) also turned its attention to youth and religion – this time in a Baptist context. Sheldon, a young atheist, doesn’t want to go to Summer Bible Camp (his sister Missy is quite OK with it), but his very religious Baptist mother Mary insists. He gets a sudden interest in Bible Trivia when a rival prodigy seems to know more than him. There ensues fierce competition for prizes like a Psalm verse bookmark and a Noah’s Ark rain poncho, as the almost ever cheerful Pastor Jeff tries to rustle up some Bible enthusiasm. Missy wonders about God, hell and ‘monkey heaven’ while Sheldon insists on his atheism, being a champion of science and buying into the unnecessary notion of a conflict between religion and science. The show is endearing, moving and funny, but its take on religious faith is often jaundiced. It could do with a character who is religious and rational, and more nuance would help, though young Sheldon himself isn’t much blessed with that particular quality.

PICK OF THE WEEK

Songs of Praise

BBC One Sunday 14 February 1.15pm

Love and Lent: marking both the start of Lent and Valentine’s Day.

In Concert

EWTN Monday 15 February 6am

Holocaust Symphony No. 3: World-renowned pianist and composer Richard Nanes performs a powerful meditation of the Holocaust. Martin Bookspan delivers a commentary.