https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-vatican-worries-the-church-is-losing-the-young--and-abuse-is-just-one-factor/2018/10/02/e7076d8c-c0e9-11e8-9f4f-a1b7af255aa5_story.html?utm_term=.013cceead6bb
Pope Francis poses with children during for his weekly general
audience at the Vatican. (Massimo Valicchia/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
VATICAN
CITY — By age 9 or 10, she had her first doubts
about the faith, and not long after, she felt confident telling her parents:
The Catholic Church, Agata Leoniddi said, seemed “outdated and backwards.”
The
language at Mass was archaic. The teaching was rigid and unwelcoming. And some
of the issues most important to her — including gender equality — were not
discussed in church, where the leaders were entirely male. Agata, now age 12,
had spent her childhood in the church, but more and more she was reaching the
conclusion of so many young people in the developed world who have abandoned
organized religion and, in particular, the scandal-riddled Catholic faith.
“I
don’t think the church understands my generation,” said Agata, who lives in a
village among rolling hills 50 miles outside Rome. “We are not like our
grandfathers.”
The
failure to attract and retain young people has become a central focus this
month as the Vatican holds a major summit on the topic of youth within the
faith. Among the pressing questions is whether an institution often criticized
as out of touch can regain relevance for a younger generation — and whether the
church’s power brokers are willing to listen to what those people have to say.
At a
particularly divided moment for the church, the discussion doubles as an
ideological debate over the church’s future, particularly on the extent to
which Catholicism should modernize its teachings on sexuality and gender under
a pope who has been pushing to adopt a more inclusive tone.
The
other key issue is whether the carefully stage-managed event — more than a year
and a half in the making — will address clerical sexual abuse. Some outsiders
say the discussion can be meaningful only if bishops take on the topic, rather
than waiting for a February church meetingon abuse. Pope Francis
recently acknowledged that scandals were driving the young away from the
religion.
The archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, called on Francis in August to
cancel the youth meeting altogether, saying the bishops have “absolutely no
credibility” to address the topic.
Pope
calls for global meeting on sexual abuse
In an unprecedented move, Pope Francis called
Sept. 12 for senior Catholic bishops to attend a global meeting on sexual abuse
in February. (Reuters)
The
month-long advisory meeting of several hundred leading bishops, known as a
synod, begins Wednesday and is closed to the public. Three dozen carefully
selected Catholics between ages 18 and 29 also have been invited — a number
that Cardinal Sérgio da Rocha, one of the organizers, said was limited by the
space inside the Vatican meeting hall. The event is not believed to include any
lapsed Catholics, but one of the synod attendees said he sees the result of
defections all around him.
“I am
almost reliably the youngest person in any church gathering I go to — and that
is a problem,” said Jonathan Lewis, 32, the assistant secretary for pastoral
ministry and social concerns at the Archdiocese of Washington. “That’s why this
synod is so important. Young people feel lonely and anonymous in our churches.”
Polling and data suggest that the
abandonment of organized religion is a defining trait of the world’s young —
and even in predominantly Catholic countries such as Italy, Mass attendance is
on the decline. In Vasanello, Agata’s hometown, “those who go to church are
looked at as freaks,” said Fabio Santini, a university professor who leads a
church-
affiliated youth scout group.
Agata
is part of that scout group, and she says at moments she feels at home in her
church. She has been going there for as long as she can remember. Only now, she
is attending Mass less often. She thinks gays and lesbians should be more
welcomed. She thinks women should be ordained as priests. Her parents say she
will drift back to the church as she gets older. Agata says she probably won’t.
“The
fact that it’s just men [as priests] — it was like that when the church was
formed,” she said. “It’s so old-fashioned.”
Estonian youth await the arrival of Pope Francis at Kaarli
Lutheran Church in Tallinn, Estonia on Sept. 25. (MAX ROSSI/Reuters)
For
decades, the Catholic Church has been trying to reshape its message for a
younger audience, though without much success. A Vatican document prepared for
this synod emphasizes the importance of “listening to young people” and
mentions many of the challenges facing that generation: poverty, environmental
degradation, technology, even fake news. The document — which will be debated,
revised and then voted on — also touches on hot-button social issues, though
without much clarity.
“Many
believe that ‘the sexual question must be discussed in a more open and unbiased
way,’ ” the Vatican’s document
says. Some church watchers say it is the first Vatican text to use the term
LGBT; the document says that some “LGBT youths” want to “experience greater
care by the Church.”
Amid
that agenda, Chaput, a high-profile conservative, has called on the church to
discuss abuse, writing in an Italian newspaper that a
meeting “dealing with youngsters and sexuality should also tackle — in an
honest and thorough manner — the roots of clerical sex abuse involving minors.”
Another
American who was supposed to attend, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, withdrew
from the synod as he deals with the consequences of an abuse scandal in his
archdiocese, involving recently resigned cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
Meanwhile, a Dutch bishop has said he is boycotting the event because of the
Vatican’s handling of abuse.
The
Catholic Church this year has faced a series of abuse-related cases that, taken
together, suggest that the Vatican has not done enough to hold accountable higher-ups
who protected abusive clerics. In August, an archbishop accused Pope Francis of
knowing about McCarrick’s alleged sexual misconduct five years ago and taking
no action. Neither Francis nor the Vatican has responded to the allegations.
“The
pope is remaining silent: that’s incomprehensible, truly incomprehensible,” the
Dutch prelate who is boycotting, Bishop Robert Mutsaerts, told LifeSite News, a
conservative Catholic publication. “And then carrying on with the agenda. . . .
If there’s one thing we cannot do, it is that.”
At a
news conference this week to kick off the synod, a journalist asked Cardinal
Lorenzo Baldisseri, one of the organizers, how the issue of abuse would
influence the event. Baldisseri did not directly talk about abuse in his
answer, but he said the church had a chance to show its worth to the young.
“The
church is not represented by some who do wrong but something more important and
fundamental, since, as they always say, the church is saint and sinner,” he
said.
Stefano
Pitrelli contributed to this report.
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