A few weeks ago John Allen sat down for pizza with
SOME YOUNG CATHOLICS IN THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS.
His observations of them were refreshing (EXCERPTS):
What became clear is that these young people are deeply "intentional" Catholics, meaning that in this day and age, their faith is not something they picked up in the air, but the result of a personal process of thought and decision. They didn’t start out as believers and only later discover that some aspects of church teaching are counter-cultural; they know the broader culture is hostile to some of what the church stands for, and have made a conscious decision to embrace it anyway.
All expressed deep admiration for Pope John Paul II.
Pushing these young Catholics to dig deeper, to look at the church "warts and all," I learned that their frustrations are rarely the ones that journalists and sociologists usually assume they should have — teachings on birth control and homosexuality, for example, or power in the church.
Instead, their major complaint seemed to be with pedagogy and communications.
Religious education and preaching, they said, rarely offers the meaty content that a Catholic needs. Further, they said, even when the church does provide solid content, it rarely does so in an accessible, engaging way.
In other words, these 20-somethings share something of the desire of the Vatican II generation for a more "modern" church — but, unlike Baby Boomers, by "modern" they mean technological sophistication and savvy about engaging the cultural debate, not doctrinal change or structural reform.
So things are looking up for Catholic orthodoxy–at least among this group of young Texans.
But they did have some complaints:
Several expressed frustration, for example, with the limited use made by the Vatican and the U.S. bishops of the Internet.
Maria Fredericks, 19, an honors major, said she had occasionally visited the Vatican Web site, but that it is "difficult to use" and largely offers lengthy texts.
"I want bullet points," she said. "I want easy-to-digest pieces. I want this to be presented in ways that will actually reach people."
When I suggested that putting a couple of them to work for an afternoon would likely produce a much snappier Internet operation for the church, heads nodded aggressively.
And these insightful young Texans are putting their fingers on something we all know: The Vatican website, such as it is . . . well . . . stinks.
I mean, <hyperbole>a lobotomized web designer with one half of his brains left in a glass by his toothbrush in the morning could do better.</hyperbole>
The current site is way too focused on art and dignity and far too little focused on functionality (not to mention having timely updates and translations).
But there’s good news, everyone! According to Zenit, there’s a new Vatican web site in the works:
The Vatican is planning to launch a new Web site this autumn, aimed at bringing together the faithful so they can interact, says Business Week magazine.
The publication in its May 8 issue reported that the Web site will include personal news updates, e-learning programs, and areas set aside for families, young people and parishes.
It quoted Sister Judith Zoebelein, the editorial director of the Internet office of the Holy See, saying: "People will be able to find each other and work together online, and then go back and use what they have learned or done in their own communities" [SOURCE].
Let’s hope that the new site fulfills its promise . . . and what it needs to be!
Once JP the Great is canonized, I recommend him being called “Patron Saint of the Youths” or some such moniker.
When they update their web site, I hope they improve the search engine. I usually just use google, and do a boolean search of the document and Vatican.
Yay for Texas Catholics!!!
And amen on the update of the Vatican sites. I don’t ever steer people towards it who have questions about Catholicism. There are usually ten sites that answer the question better. Maybe now that will change.
Here in Central Florida at least at the UCF campus I am seeing much the same thing and I can say that it is very heartening. We have a mass on campus at 6 on Sunday Evenings and have several hundred in attendance on a regular basis and these are kids who are SERIOUS about their faith. It really does give me a lot of hope that Mother Church is in very good hands moving forward and it is a great credit to JP the Great.
I am in agreement with the observations in the article, the changes the Church needs to make is in getting the message out about who and what we are and most especially in educating our own. I was a product of cradle Catholicism with a grade school education in Catholic schools and CCD through confirmation and I was incredibly weak in my knowledge of the faith and don’t remember too many of my “teachers” being on fire to teach the important stuff. I was ripe for being pulled away from the Church by my well meaning protestant friends and had it not been for very negative experiences with some of them who found out I was a Catholic I don’t know that I would have ever gone back and really explored my faith and fell in love with the Church in the way I do today.
The Vatican site makes for a good reference library for an experience Catholic scholarly type but not someone exploring the faith from the outside or even a novice Catholic. Actually most of my referrals are to things more contemporary in nature like catholic.com.
Those Texans represented my husband and myself well, too – we’re apparently the token “young Catholics” (24 and 25) at our otherwise graying parish. I particularly liked the phrase “deeply intentional Catholic” – spot on!
The Vatican site definitely has a poor user interface, but I appreciate having the entire Bible, Catechism, and other documents available for searching (using Google with site:vatican.va). I particularly like the concordance feature for the Bible and for the Catechism at http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM – there are actually two copies of the Catechism on the site, and the full-featured version is not the first one in the search results. A bit aggravating!
I often copy the text of some of the documents and paste into more readable formats for my own use (hope the Pope doesn’t mind!).
Thanks for the tip, Leah.
I must say I can agree. As a 22 year old, bapistized as an infant catholic, I can tell you I learned more in the last two years from reading after having faith challenged by protestants. All I remember from CCD was watching moves, hearing about how much God loves us (important stuff–but not quite deep enough since love was never really defined), and actually having debates.
If I was an ounce less stubborn or I did not have a friend dragging me back into the faith, I’d be probably be a protestant now. We just are not given the tools during formation in this day and age. No one sticks with something that is easy and unchallenging. Just think of the last time you played tick-tac-toe.
I have had the pleasure of hearing Bishop Aymond (bishop in those parts) speak. He is an excellent bishop, and I sincerely hope the Church continues to be guided by he and others like him.
Mr. Puccini, one of the interviewees, incidentally, is a product of the Jesuit high school in Houston, and a good representative of what comes from there.
Now, if only they had done it in College Station instead of Austin…
I totally agree! As a 24 year old revert my freshman year of college I can tell you with heartfelt glee the seriousness of devotion my generation has to Mother Church and to the late Holy Father. He was our Pope, the only one we had ever known. The men cheered with abandon at St.John Viennay Seminary when we heard it was Ratzinger named Pope. As I have explained it to my parents generation and my grandparent’s generation, it is a religion to us again, not just a culture. It is a choice, I hope I am making myself clear on this but it seems to my observation my mother and her family are Catholic because everyone else was too and that was just the way it was. Believe me, I think God for that, it means the Faith was passed on, but that cultural devotion had a lack of education in it for the layity, my generation and the generation right ahead of me (29-35) are more educated as to exactly what the Church Teaches and have wholeheartedly embraced it. It fills us up and rings true for us that were born in a very bitter and empty world.
Gosh, please warn us if you’re going to link to an evil site like Natl. Catholic Reporter. I feel dirty.
I look forward to the revamped Vatican website.
“Maria Fredericks, 19, an honors major, said she had occasionally visited the Vatican Web site, but that it is “difficult to use” and largely offers lengthy texts.
“I want bullet points,” she said. “I want easy-to-digest pieces. I want this to be presented in ways that will actually reach people.”
Oh! Oh! I did always like the Q&A Baltimore Catechism. AND NOW THE COMPENDIUM!!
SHE WANTS BULLETS?? WE’LL GIVE HER BULLETS!!!
Amen to your comments about the current Vatican website, Jimmy. It really stinks.
I agree. The Vatican website should take a few pointers from the EWTN website. Especially the document library they have.
I’m not surprised by these young Catholics. Back in the mid-nineties, at the World Youth Day in Denver, I remember seeing about 500,000 young Catholics who were willing to sleep in tents, and stand out in the rain to be with the Holy Father. When I heard them chanting” “John Paul Two, we love you!” I knew I was looking at the future of the Church in America. I have a lot of confidence in them.
“‘I want bullet points,’ she said. ‘I want easy-to-digest pieces. I want this to be presented in ways that will actually reach people.'”
This sentiment really pokes at my Dominican core and makes me want to shout: “There are no easily digested pieces in the Catholic faith!” I understand her point; however, it is exactly this sort of intellectual laziness that gets us bumper sticker theology and half-assed philosophy. Catholicism requires us to engage our brains and deal with the complexities of trying to understand reality as it is. Each thread of our faith is intimately tied to every other thread and trying to “bullet point” the threads ultimately unravels the clothe.
Fr. Philip
To bad they interviewed teasips.
Couldn’t agree more IA_ and David ;). Even so it’s great to see young, active Catholics seeking knowledge about the Faith.
Can I say a word for the Vatican website? It is not supposed to be for the instruction of teenagers or for basic catechetics. It is supposed to give reliable versions of basic authoritative church documents – which it does – and these documents are supposed to be accurate in treating the important and difficult issues they discuss. That means they have to be complex, use advanced theological and philosophical concepts, and be carefully phrased; in a word, they have to be hard. Expecting them to be in bullet points is moronic.
Will the separated brethren be kept separate from the new site? 😉
I am afraid the new Vatican website will be just another cause for schism. You’ll have your traditionalists who love the old site and mock the Novus Site-o on the one hand, and relativists who abuse “the spirit of Vatican website II” to justify all sorts of crazy, disrespectful downloads.
The above is a joke.
I think now is the time for the youth to speak out. There is a certain generation of priests in charge who lack the cultured sensitivity of the young ones. They may think that because we are not burning bras and picketing their sermons that we wholly approve of their limp-wristed theology.
The thought would never cross their minds that silence is not approbation but a congregation of people praying quietly for their conversion. Perhaps now is the time to somehow respectfully disagree? Somehow …
About the media: it is very true. More than just websites, we need DVD roms loaded with multiple translations of the Septuagint, Vulgate, the Douay-Rheims and other reliable modern translations. Why don’t we have this yet? It is a shame!
Also, I would love to animate Aquinas’ Five Proofs as part of an instructional system. Imagine First Cause being a sequence of events played backward until the beginning of time. Suddenly, these very basic ideas would become accessible to even the very young — it would start a new renaissance of ideas reuniting art, science, and philosophy and make whole generations impervious to the slanted arguments portraying the Church as hostile to science and progress.
While I can animate, I do not know how to use Flash to make the video. Alas!
I guess I’m a radtrad when it comes to the Vatican website. I was actually just commenting to my wife last week on this. The design is cool, all circular and stuff, and I’ve never really found it difficult to navigate. I mean there’s a search engine right there on the main page.
I like the current VA site — but then I always know exactly what I’m looking for (usually encyclicals) and exactly how and where to find them. I hope their new site isn’t all columns jammed with snippets like nearly all news Web sites. I hate that. Give me substance, not snacks.
And I’d like to put a word in for another good bunch of strong, faithful Catholic youth — my son and his classmates at Father Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor. One small example: he’s attending a 16th birthday party for a classmate that begins at her parish church with Holy Mass! Is that cool, or what? That’s the future of Christ’s Church! YAY!
‘thann
Ted!
I didn’t know that you were in the Orlando area too!
It seems that the resurgence of faith in Orlando and the UCF area seemed to occur around 1995 or 1996. That’s when the “Neuman Club” (nobody knew what that meant) became the “Catholic Campus Ministry”. (I believe the parish of Sts. Peter & Paul helped out a lot with that, when Fr. David started saying masses at UCF.) Sadly, my last year at UCF was `96 – up until then, I was not involved much because there wasn’t much to be involved with. Things have changed a lot! (Thank you, Holy Spirit, for moving in our community and among our youth.)