Naughton: Teach youth life’s deeper realities, responsibility, and the best the Church offers

As the local Church seeks to form young people in the faith, it will be important for adults to remember their own sinfulness, teach life’s deepest realities, offer the best the Catholic Church has to offer and not allow young people to shirk responsibility, a presenter said June 5 at the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly.

“Without such an educational formation, youth who bounce from one slogan and trend of being told they can be whatever they want to be, become anxious, depressed, fragile, risk averse and eventually intolerant,” Michael Naughton told about 500 delegates at the assembly.

“A Catholic education in the formation of the youth has never been more needed today than in the history of humanity,” he said. Among other challenges, the digital world offers too many alternatives to the Catholic faith, he said.

In his talk, Naughton, the director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul and a longtime teacher, addressed the third of three focus areas for the Synod Assembly: Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young. He revisited themes he first presented during one-day Parish Synod Leadership Team Consultations that were held in parishes in February and March across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Parents are the primary educators of their children, particularly when it comes to handing down the faith, Naughton said. “What the Synod process also pointed out is that parents want and need help in this role” from the archdiocese, their parishes and their schools, he said. It’s a joint project, he said, with parents and the Church working together.

“The education and the formation of our (youth) essentially boils down to three things that I think every one of us want for our young people,” he said. “First, we want to see our young people grow stronger in the faith, not weaker. We want our families and parishes and schools to be places that witness God’s presence in how they live and preach, worship and teach.”

“Second, we want our young people to grow in moral character and virtue. We want them to have good friends who don’t bring them down to the lowest common denominator, but raise them up to their fullest, God-given potential.”

“And third, we want our young people to grow up to be adults who shoulder the responsibilities in their work for the common good and their state of life, whether it’s lay, religious or priestly. Young men, in particular, are in danger of extending adolescence, becoming ‘moys,’ man-boys. We do not want man-boys,” Naughton said.

As the Church faces disaffiliation by youths, it “must discern whether the mission and culture of our institutions and programs are passing on the best of the Church and drawing out the best in our youth,” Naughton said. “We need greater honesty and more light on what is working, and we also need to face and critique those things that have resulted in mission drift, that are not working.”

“Discerning these realities is not easy, which is why it takes the discussion and discernment that this Synod process has given us,” Naughton said. “So, God bless you as you move into this important work of the Synod on this most important ministry, forming and education our youth,” he said.

After prayer and two separate small group discussions on the third focus area, numbers were drawn and people assigned those numbers were asked to share their thoughts on one of the propositions for action, such as parents as primary educators, engaging families in parish life, comprehensive faith formation and serving others.

One delegate said she is the faith director at a parish and she struggles with the fact that her own three children, all in their 20s, are not in the Church. While there are great teaching resources, there is a need for more teachers to make catechesis really work, she said. “We have so far to go.”

“You bring experience, and heartache” to the discussion, Archbishop Bernard Hebda said appreciatively, as he listened to her and others’ ideas and made occasional comments alongside Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Williams.

One delegate suggested forming small, vibrant, communities of young people, who would in turn work to form their own disciples. “Youth leave (the Church) if they have nothing holding them there,” he said.

Creating faith support groups for struggling parents might be helpful, another delegate said. And the Church needs to do more to guide and assist people struggling with homosexuality and gender dysphoria, she said.

Several delegates suggested greater collaboration among parishes in youth ministry, and another delegate spoke in tears about needing to tell youth their lives are worth more than they know.

“We need to go back to what the disciples did,” she said. “They were just 12, not 500.”

Bishop Williams said her comments were the perfect segue to one area the archdiocese will begin working on this summer: lay apostles chosen by pastors at every parish to help evangelize. They also will be asked to help make certain that plans coming out of the Synod in a pastoral letter by Archbishop Hebda in November, followed by an action plan, are discussed and enacted.

“There is an abundant harvest,” Bishop Williams said. “What did Jesus do?” He prayed, and then he appointed 12 to be his followers and evangelize, the bishop said.

After the small group discussions and large group sharing, each delegate voted for his or her top three among the propositions. Early results indicated strong interest in adult faith formation, parents as primary educators, small groups and education about the Mass.