October 2020 - The ‘Now of God’:

The Church has a duty to understand what young people face today

Deacon John Brannon

For young people to truly impact the world, the Church must help them through the issues of “the now” — their experiences of being young and the concerns facing them as a young person in the 21st century. For the Church to be relevant and impactful for youth and young adults, Catholic leaders must become aware of young people’s realities and develop practical ways to respond to their concerns. While each person is responsible for their own choices, the Church has largely created a culture where youth are ignored or segregated, rather than embraced and integrated. Barna research indicates that 61 percent of young Christians disengage from the Church in their 20s. Pope Francis has said, “Young people frequently fail to find in our usual programs a response to their concerns, their needs, their problems and issues.”

The Catholic Diocese of Lexington is no exception to this phenomenon. Church leadership can be guilty of the expectation of wanting to meet youth where they think they should be, rather than meeting them where they are. God is calling us to include young people as emerging leaders in the Church today. We must recognize the need for future leaders in the life and mission of the Church.

This is a multi-faceted strategy to bring Jesus Christ, the message of hope, to our middle school, high school and college campuses throughout the diocese, while empowering ministry, equipping leaders and encouraging community. These efforts are subsidized through the Diocesan Annual Appeal, which provides funding for programing and resources serving parish communities in these efforts throughout the diocese. Our diocese is diverse in both membership and territory, and within its vast territorial diversity, we also find diversity in ministry needs and issues where “one size does not fit all.” What works for a parish in Lexington is not necessarily conducive to one in eastern Kentucky.

We find in many eastern Kentucky parish youth groups the experience of a single Catholic student within a high school. This reality is becoming increasingly the norm. There are many contributing factors to this reality, from the exodus of young people and families from the region to the minority status of our faith tradition. This is evidence of two major types of realities facing youth and young people throughout the diocese: stage of life concerns (internal) and current reality (external) concerns, or the experience of the present moment.

These realities at times will overlap, but it is important to know the distinctions between realities that emerge from human development and those that emerge from today’s culture, and most importantly, how to respond and accompany youth and young adults. One example of this reality is the collaborative efforts of three east- ern Kentucky parish communities: Holy Cross (Jackson), Mother of Good Counsel (Hazard) and Holy Family (Booneville). These parish communities have joined forces in ministering to their collective youth and young people in a “regional” or “cluster” ministry model, building a foundation of connection to provide opportunities for youth to learn their Catholic faith, grow in community and serve with a spirit of Christian service.

The events and realities of living in any age impact the lives of youth and young people more significantly because this is a time in their lives when many external challenges can have lasting repercussions. As a result, parishes are challenged to respond with care, and with the urgency of the moment, to the realities facing young people in the present moment. One way the diocesan Youth, Young Adult and Camp Ministry Office responds with care is to provide affordable resources for parishes to use in ministry, especially those engaged in “regional or “cluster” ministry models. These opportunities are a result of the support of the Diocesan Annual Appeal.

Pope Francis describes youth as “the age of choice” and suggests they should not be “afraid to take chances and make mistakes.” Working for the common good and living the present — these too are youth ministry themes embraced by the Diocese of Lexington, along with a call for young people to be “protagonists of change” and “courageous missionaries.” At World Youth Day 2019 in Panama, Pope Francis said, “You, dear young people, are not the future ... (but) the now of God.” While it may be easy to dismiss issues that every young generation will experience as they mature from youth to young adulthood, and though each generation responds to these concerns in their own way, we need to remind ourselves that these are pastoral concerns exhibiting themselves in new ways. We must recognize that God’s Spirit is already active in our midst in this generation of young Catholics, the “now of God.”