Courtney McGrailYoung Catholics need like-minded peers in order to survive a “toxic”, “antic-Catholic” environment writes Bro. Conor McDonough
Bro. Conor McDonough
Some time back, I wrote a piece about the experience of being a young religious in modern Ireland for a website. I pointed out that the Church’s loss of institutional power in our society is not all bad, and that its marginalisation enables us more easily to reach those on the margins of society. Several commenters under the article had a similar response to this point, saying, more or less: “Stay on the margins, that’s where you belong, and don’t dare try to come in from the cold and try to influence Irish society again”.
This profoundly anti-Catholic attitude, which goes far beyond the desire for a healthy secularity, is broadcast in stereo by some of the loudest voices in Irish society.
For those already well-formed in the faith, such an antagonistic situation can provide opportunities for the exercise of a certain humility. But for young believers, even for those from practising families, being brought up in daily contact with this attitude is less an opportunity for humility than for real humiliation.
For these young Catholics, their anti-Catholic peers (and the celebrities they follow) are likely to be as vocal in opposition to the Church as they are ignorant of her reality.
How do these fragile youth respond to such a toxic environment? In my experience I’ve seen several different results. One is to believe sincerely, but keep one’s faith private. Another is to resent even being a Christian – when faith is what makes one stick out, and incapable of joining in fully with the mainstream, there’s a tendency to practise it with increasing reluctance and even bitterness. And a third response is to reduce all tensions between faith and mainstream culture simply by practising the former while adopting all the attitudes that make up the latter.
None of these responses will endure in the long term, none of them are likely to result in articulate, confident, happy, culture-changing Catholics. What can we do, then, to help young people in our parishes, schools and families respond bravely and appropriately to the dominant culture? What kind of counter-cultural communities should we be trying to build as incubators for apostles?
Formation
In my own life formation, there were two main communities, other than my family, which provided me with the means to be a confident Catholic: Youth 2000 and Fisher House (the Catholic chaplaincy at Cambridge University).
Youth 2000 – by means of its festivals, retreats and prayer groups – introduced me to wonderful role models who led me to the ‘heart of the Church’: prayer, the sacraments, conversion. At Youth 2000 festivals, especially, I encountered an innocent exuberance which was simply better and longer-lasting than any ‘buzz’ offered by other parties or festivals. Aside from the overall ambience, I had wonderful conversations at Youth 2000 events which showed me that the work that God was doing in my life was being done also in the lives of others. I was no longer a lonely disciple.
And at Fisher House I was able to bring all the questions asked by my non-believing friends, to bring them to conversation with smart, thinking Catholics, and be guided to the extraordinary wealth of Catholic culture – music, art, literature, philosophy and theology – which, taken as a whole, provided a more than sufficient answer to the nagging of atheists.
Here was beauty, truth and goodness of which I could be proud, and which I could confidently share.
We can no longer imagine that the faith can somehow be caught by accident. Given everything that young Catholics are up against, they need more than a laissez-faire attitude on the part of their leaders in the Church.
Life of virtue
They need communities in which they can pray, read Scripture, learn to answer objections to the faith, form friendships rooted in Christ, discover the life of virtue, and drink from the well of the sacraments.
Our young fellow pew-dwellers are being raised in a war-zone, they need all the armour and training we can give them. After all, we have something worth fighting for.