Vatican City, Sep 16, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As preparations continue for next year’s Synod of Bishops on young people, the Vatican hosted young adults and global experts for a seminar in Rome aimed at listening to the experiences of youth from around the world.
“So far we can see everyone allowing us time. The progression from the first day to today, is that they’ve given us more time to speak and given the microphone to the youth to share their thoughts and feelings,” Caroline Montefrio, 28, told CNA Sept. 14.
“And I guess that’s a direction led by the Holy Spirit to know that the Church really wants to listen to us.”
Bishop Fabio Fabene, undersecretary of the Congregation of Bishops, told CNA that “the Church is the mother, so she needs all her children and in particular those who are young because they are the present moment of the Church and the present moment of our society and the world.”
“And they’re also the future, our future, our hope, of the Church and of the world as well. If we manage to give this testimony of happiness, of joy, and of life lived to the fullest, I believe we will also manage to walk with our youth and proclaim Jesus as well.”
The Sept. 11-15 seminar was led by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, and included young adults from almost every continent. The schedule included presentations from experts as well as time for young people to share their experiences.
Small working groups made up of people of various ages and vocations also were a large part of the week’s work.
Topics during the preparatory seminar included, among other things, technological advancement and migration and their effect on youth. Originally from the Philippines, but raised in Dubai, Montefrio said that the challenge of migration is something that she could relate to.
“I know there are other youth like me, who lack that sense of identity. Because you’re not from this country, and you’re also not from your home country,” she said.
“To know that the Church focuses on your identity as a son or daughter of God and your identity as part of the bigger Catholic Church, that’s a good starting point to know where you are in life and how this leads up to your purpose in life.”
Because the theme for the October 2018 General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is formally “Young People, the Faith and the Discernment of Vocation,” vocation was a large topic at the seminar, and something various young participants named as important elements of their lives.
Ashleigh Green, from the Diocese of Broken Bay, Australia said that she thinks the process of finding your vocation is necessary for living “a full and meaningful life.”
“Because at the end of the day, everyone has a purpose and everyone has something to contribute and God has a plan for everyone, so it’s up to all of us to search for what it is that God’s calling us to in our life.”
Green said that one thing that helped her in discerning her vocation, besides prayer and time in silence, was the presence of good mentors in her life.
Kerishé Higgins, 29, and a youth director in Jamaica, also noted the importance of accompaniment. She mentioned that at a time when she was deeply struggling with her faith, lack of support was very apparent.
“At that moment, there was no one who was journeying with me, there was no one who was walking with me,” she told CNA. “And so you see the need for that accompaniment. That person who understands the faith, who is trying to live out their faith.”
No one is perfect, she acknowledged, but what is important is that you have a community of people who are all trying to live out the call to sainthood, to holiness. “That constant striving,” she said.
Her hope for the outcome of the synod is that “we recognize that as a community each person has a part to play and that we play that part.” But to do that, young people need the support of the Church, she said.
Particularly in education and training to help people understand what their role is, how they can contribute, even how they can contribute to the development and support of another person in turn – whether that’s in their own neighborhood or across the world in a place that needs help.
“And I think that’s what I have personally been trying to do and that’s what the synod is trying to teach us, to tell us how is it that we are going to try to live out this call to holiness, that it’s not just one-on-one, but it’s a community,” she said.
“And that’s what the Church should be. It should be that home of community where we come together and we journey and we grow and we love each other.”
Green said that in Australia they carried out a survey of 15,000 young people, and one issue identified by participants as important to their lives was mental illness. Green said she thinks the loss of community is one reason for the high rates of mental illness.
“To experience that community in our parishes through all of the various liturgical aspects and the social aspects is something that’s really, really important.”
The seminar follows a conference in April which focused on World Youth Day, but also included two days of presentations and discussion on the preparatory document for the 2018 synod.
According to an April 6 statement, Cardinal Baldisseri said it’s important to note that the upcoming synod is not being put on by young people or about them as subjects of study, but that it is for them, and that is why it is important they are included.
“A lot of young people, particularly in Australia, give up on the Church before even giving it a go, out of fear that they can’t talk about the issues that are important to them. That they wouldn’t feel welcomed in the Church,” Green said.
“So I really hope that from this synod, more young people do feel like they have a place in the Church and that they don’t have to fit into a small box to feel like they’re welcome here. And that’s what Pope Francis has been emphasizing all along, that this synod isn’t just for young Catholics…but that it’s called a synod on youth and that it’s for everyone.”
Alexey Gotovsky contributed to this report.
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When will Cardinal Fernandez be investigated for his published account of an erotic conversation he claimed to have had with a sixteen year old girl? That is hardly appropriate pastoral behavior.
Exactly, Lucy.
I’m pretty sure he’s not the one to be in charge of issuing pronouncements on any kinds of moral issues, contemporary or ancient.
The epically failed Bergoglio imbroglio grinds on.
And on.
And on…
Around the same time Francis will be called to account for his frivolous disregard for safeguarding the Deposit of Faith.
We must differentiate between the man and his work to some extent. Michelangelo, who created the famous fresco “The Creation “ in The sistine chapel , was far from being a saint. We must also allow for repentance and change. We never know what is in the heart of a man.Ones past doesn’t necessarily determine his future. We must also remember that sometimes bad men do good things and good men do bad things. Life is very messy and multi dimensional and we must be careful in passing judgment. In this case let’s see what he says and take him at his word, not reading his motives into it.
“The Argentine cardinal in his interview with EFE argued that “people who are concerned” about his work will “be put at ease” by the new document.”
To me it sounds like a habitual (sadly) Vatican’s line: “I say something that violates the Church’s teaching and all are shocked and demand explanations; I will explain nothing but to pacify them and to regain credibility I then say something in a line with the Church’s teaching on another topic so all would sigh in relief.”
This works only for those with a fragmented memory i.e. who are unable to remember bashing when they are given flowers after it, even if it is a years long cycle (bashing – flowers, bashing – flowers etc.).
The words of Fernandez and those who cover him mean nothing to me until he repents and removes his ‘FS’ and pseudo-mystical staff. Noteworthy, being on alert and discerning possible deception is not only exhausting but also damaging for a spiritual life. It is an abnormal situation when a believer should be on guard against deceptions and heresies… in his own Church.
It is detrimental for a soul not to be able to trust those who in a normal situation are supposed to be trusted. It is like not trusting your own father.
I’m with you on this, Anna.
We read: “The Argentine cardinal in his interview with EFE argued that ‘people who are concerned’ about his work will ‘be put at ease’ by the new document.”
Four easing questions about the new document:
1. Does it replace the Natural Law in its entirety with only a shortlist of prohibitions?
2. Does it explicitly support the “Catechism,” or does it confuse? Is “Veritatis Splendor” still ignored, of possibly now dismissed as a “special case”–like all of continental Africa, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Peru, and parts of Argentina, France, Spain, etc. (re Fiducia Supplicans)?
3. Is the document consistent with “Il dono della vita” (“Respect for Human Life in Origin and the Dignity of Procreation,” John Paul II/Ratzinger, February 22, 1987), or not?
The standing document offers direct and succinct answers to direct and numbered questions submitted by “episcopal conferences or individual bishops, by theologians, doctors and scientists, concerning biomedical techniques [….and in] conformity with the principles of Catholic morality.”
4. Does the document really put the disrupted Church “at ease”–by rescinding the verbose novelty in Fiducia Supplicans? Or, are the lips of Cardinal Fernandez silent? Rescind or re-sinned?
Good points. I fear that even if it seems to support orthodoxy, it will not be on the basis of innate natural law, but it will undermine moral truth by making it seem like Catholic idiosyncrasies.
I read the opening title to this piece that reads: “Vatican to publish document on ‘moral questions’ regarding human dignity, gender, surrogacy” and immediately thought it was intended as satirical.
Having tragically abused so many physically, the plan is to selectively abuse all of us theologically. This is at the hardened heart of clericalism, the very antithesis of service.
The next pontificate has its work cut out for it in clarification.
Praying for clarification though “morals” are often the umbrella under which non-religious or broadly religious societies categorize and classify what they hold to be truisms about healthy attitudes and behaviors.
The Catholic Church teaches Truth “authored” by God the Father, embodied in the Person of Jesus Christ, and moved in the currents of consciences by the Holy Spirit.
The former–morals–may bend, be distorted, or even introduced or eliminated depending on the egoism of humans; the Church teachings are immutable with respect to the fundamental knowledge and understanding of the person and personhood.
Moreover, since the origin of the Church, incredibly wise and able theologians have developed and shared Truth, emulated by great saints. Always present in authentic doctrine has been the dignity of all persons, as they are created in the image and likeness of God. (It has been individuals who for whatever reason have disrespected their own or others’ being.) Later generations have express fundamental and foundational truths in novel or timely ways to best evangelize the populace of any give time period, but the essence remains constant.
We shall see about this document…yes?
I will not read the document. Possible Heresy is not my cup of tea. Anything coming from Jorge Bergoglio or his Vatican henchmen are not to be trusted. Period.