Young Catholics Meet a Man Who Understands Them
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Posted: Friday, April 25, 2008


ARTICLE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch  
Publication Date: April 24, 2008

There was an unusual intimacy in Pope Benedict XVI's remarks to the 25,000 cheering young pilgrims who converged for last week's papal youth rally in New York. Appearing happy and at home with his young listeners, Benedict spoke to them as too few of their elders do: He spoke as one who understands them from the inside.

This is important to young Catholics, whose affection for the pope and attraction to traditional Catholic teachings and devotions often is dismissed as naiveté or rigidity. At 81, Benedict understands a fundamental truth about fervent young Catholics that many of their middle-aged elders miss: Their enthusiasm for the faith is not about rejecting the world. It is about embracing a radical commitment to God that inspires them to influence the world with Gospel values.

"Sometimes," Benedict confided to his young audience, "we are looked upon as people who speak only of prohibitions. Nothing could be further from the truth! Authentic Christian discipleship is marked by a sense of wonder." That wonder permeated the New York youth rally as it has permeated World Youth Day gatherings for more than two decades. The youthful crowds turn out for Benedict, as they did for Pope John Paul II, for the same reason that young Catholics across America are rediscovering the rosary and Eucharistic adoration, forming reading groups to study the early church fathers and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, joining Catholic lay movements and religious orders that stress fidelity to church teachings, launching Bible studies and chastity clubs on secular campuses and working to bolster religious education programs at Catholic parishes.

They are hungry for God. They are seeking transcendent truth and reliable moral guidance. And a growing number of them have come to believe that they can find both in an unreserved embrace of their Catholic faith and its most demanding moral teachings.

As I discovered while interviewing hundreds of these young adults for my book, "The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy," most of them are not products of a religious ghetto or fundamentalists seeking refuge from a world they fear or loathe. Many are highly educated and worldly-wise. They have had broad exposure to the pluralism, materialism and secularism that characterize our culture today. And that exposure, rather than squelching their religious impulses, has intensified them.

Interviewees frequently told me that in the process of encountering a vast array of conflicting worldviews, they began to ask questions about life's meaning that led them to examine traditional religion for answers. Others described an "early mid-life crisis" that left them searching for more than money or worldly success. Still others spoke of an emptiness that engulfed them in the midst of a promiscuous party lifestyle — a lifestyle that left them unsatisfied and yearning for God. In their embrace of an orthodox, countercultural faith, they found not an escape from world but a lens through which to view it and a vision with which to transform it.

These highly committed young believers are a minority in their generation, as the anemic Mass attendance rates of young Catholics attest. Yet their grass-roots movement has become a driving force for church renewal.

Benedict acknowledged this repeatedly last week, as he urged young Catholics to continue their joyful witness to the faith. "You are Christ's disciples today," he told them. "Shine his light upon this great city and beyond. Show the world the reason for the hope that resonates within you."

Through their jubilant public prayer, the young Catholics gathered in New York did just that, buoyed by the words of a man who understands them more intimately than most.

-- Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St. Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.