The Church of the future is young

It’s time to switch on the lights for youth ministry, writes Colm Fitzpatrick

Earlier this month, Archbishop Eamon Martin spoke to thousands of young people from across England and Wales about the power of faith, and the vital role that they play in evangelisation today. Addressing around 10,000 Catholics at the 2019 Flame Conference in Wembley’s SSE Arena, Dr Martin said: “You my young friends are in the heart of God and in the heart of the Church…you are personally called to holiness.”

His message was a radical call to transformation – young people should open up to Jesus, and act courageously on this divine encounter.

The Church, of course, is tasked with creating spaces where this encounter is made more accessible, and also providing spiritual resources by which young people’s faith can develop and deepen. It can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing only on this latter point, where the Church throws its energy into those young people already converted, leaving behind the many who are religiously disinterested.

And yet, according to Belfast youth worker Brian McKee, who works with some of the most disadvantaged young people in the North, the Irish Church has fallen squarely into the convenient hole. Speaking about the growing problem of gangland violence among teenagers, he says that the Church here has consciously “turned its back” on the young people at the edges of society, leaving a “vast bulk” untouched by Christ.

Uncomfortable

“The Church can’t afford to turn its back and that’s what we’ve done…young people at the edge, who are uncomfortable to be with,” Mr McKee tells The Irish Catholic.

He suggests that today’s youth ministry is more focused on “inside” events like liturgies or pilgrimages where the Faith is already present among young people, rather than outreach to the apathetic or groups who are often disregarded as unchangeable, like gangs. As a result, he says the Church has “abdicated” its responsibility to young people on the street by deciding to swim in safe waters, instead of jumping in the deep end.

It’s a bold claim, and one that many people would sympathise with – but it doesn’t paint an entirely accurate picture. Firstly, it puts Ireland’s youth ministry, which is varied and dynamic, into one box; and secondly, it undervalues the important contribution of “inside” events like liturgies and pilgrimages such as World Youth Day.

While Derry’s Bishop Donal McKeown recognises that there is “certainly on the side of clergy, a lack of confidence in how to engage with young people”, he says that in his diocese there are very strong youth programmes that are “good” at reaching out to those on the fringes, and that the actual challenge is keeping people interested in the Church.

This challenge has become increasingly difficult in modern times, he tells this newspaper, as young people find it harder to believe in the transcendent, there’s a general mistrust of organisations and institutions, and the sordid history of the Irish Church has made Catholicism unpopular.

To remedy the drop in young people subscribing to the Faith, Dr McKeown says that one-off large scale events won’t work that are independent of “an ongoing process of faith formation”, pointing out that there always needs to be preparation and follow-up. This can be achieved through a “larger and strategic approach” to ministry, where youth workers and religious don’t work in isolation of one another, but nationally coordinate together.

By placing youth ministry in a larger context, where leaders can discuss what works, learn from the mistakes of others, and bring different youth groups together, ministry can become much more effective.

Bishop McKeown adds that creating a safe environment where young people can come together and discuss their Faith is the best pathway to religious revitalisation in Ireland.

“The whole idea of having groups of young people who are growing in Faith together, influencing and evangelising one another, seems to me to be the obvious way forward, particularly in our own context where we’re not making young disciples for Jesus in sufficient numbers,” he says, noting that it may be easier for them to reach out to their own generation, rather than older groups.

“They can be disciples together, they can be journeying together and they can be sharing their own faith journey together, as well as building friendships and building self-confidence and developing the whole usage of the spiritual vocabulary,” Dr McKeown explains.

Echoing these sentiments, Fr Alan Neville MSC, youth minister for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, says that outreach and evangelisation are vital, but that they must be complemented with faith development work.

One concrete example of how this can be facilitated is through initiatives like ‘Nightfever’, where on designated nights, Mass is held in a city centre church, and afterwards, the church is filled with candlelight and prayerful music. Volunteers invite passers-by on the street to come inside and light a candle of their own, and many stay to enjoy the peaceful and prayerful atmosphere.

“I think there’s an awakening now at the moment, whereas before so much of our youth ministry was actually focused on catechetical preparation for first Holy Communion and Confirmation and that’s not really youth ministry, that’s catechesis within a school – and what we have the awareness of now is that actually we do need to provide full engaging youth ministry that meets young people where they are, but then kind of introducing them to the richness we have in our Church,” Fr Alan says.

He adds that this vision and openness to reaching out to young people in Ireland will be progressed by religious groups and leaders joining forces to create better events and outlets where God can be encountered.

“Now is the time, this is the moment, this is the time when we either decide that we’re actually going to get out there and to engage young people or we’re just going to put up the chairs and switch off the lights. Now is the time.”