Young want to be heard, invited, challenged

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While the Catholic Church seeks to help earthlings reach their true home in heaven, too often it treats its younger members as if they were from another planet, a top Vatican official said.

“Young people can find themselves in a lot of local churches on the margin of things, with a lot of people who don’t speak their language, who treat them as if they just descended from Mars,” said Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

For many young Catholics, World Youth Day can be the one church event where they have the time, space and camaraderie they need to start pondering the way God wants them to live their faith in the church and in the world.

Added to the simple fact that they’re sharing an experience with hundreds of thousands of their peers from around the world, the event provides them with opportunities for liturgical and silent prayer and catechesis.

“Then within that they also meet young people who have entered into the dialogue we all have to have with our Creator, asking, ‘What would you have me do?’” the archbishop said.

They will meet young people who already are finding “realization, freedom and joy in religious life or priesthood,” he said.

The Aug. 16-21 celebration of World Youth Day in Madrid will be the first international youth gathering to feature a special papal meeting with religious women under the age of 35. Some 1,500 sisters will have their meeting with the pope Aug. 19. The next morning, the pope will celebrate Mass with about 4,000 seminarians.

The gatherings, Archbishop Tobin said, are important for those considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life as well as for those who already have embarked on their journey toward vows or ordination.

The key thing, he said, is that there is follow-up and support after World Youth Day is over.

Any contact any religious has with a young person “is a vocational moment,” because youths are “trying to sort it out,” to see where they fit in, he said.

Religious need to listen to young people, be clear about their own identity and invite the young to see for themselves if the community would be the right fit.

“That’s it in a nutshell,” the archbishop said.