Vatican City, Mar 19, 2018 / 10:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis opened this week’s pre-synod meeting telling youth to hold nothing back and to have the courage to ask the “raw” and direct questions about life, love, and vocation.
In the March 19 opening session for the event, Francis told youth to let their questions come “without anesthetizing” them.
“The strong questions of ours can have a process of being played down in tone,” or asked in a “polite way,” he said, but urged the young attendees to “be courageous” and to “say the raw truth, to ask the raw questions.”
He spoke to French youth Maxime Rassion, who is not baptized. Rassion said he was facing doubts about his career and struggles to find a deeper meaning in life, asked what he can do to figure out where to start.
In his answer, Pope Francis noted how many youth have fears about similar questions, and said there is a need for discernment. However, “at this point, many ecclesial communities don’t know how to do it or they lack the ability to discern.”
“It’s one of the problems we have,” Francis said, and urged those in positions of pastoral authority not to be afraid to let youth “take everything out” that they are thinking or feeling, and to listen to the blunt questions that young people may pose.
“Accompany them so they don’t err,” he said; and on the other hand, he encouraged youth to find someone they can talk to about their experiences.
Talking is important, but “you can’t talk to everyone about everything,” he said, and told them to find someone “who is wise, who isn’t scared and who knows how to listen” to help them sort through the questions they have.
“It’s important to open everything, to open everything, not to put make up on your feelings,” he said, and cautioned against closing in on oneself, which “weighs you down and takes your freedom.”
“Let your feelings come up, don’t anesthetize them, don’t downplay them; look for someone wise [to talk to] and discern.”
Pope Francis spoke at the opening session of the March 19-24 pre-synod meeting, which has drawn some 300 youth from around the world to talk about major themes for the upcoming Synod of Bishops on “Young People, Faith and the Discernment of Vocation.”
Youth in different states in life are in Rome to participate in the event. Priests, seminarians, and consecrated persons will also participate. Special attention will also be given to youth from both global and existential “peripheries,” including people with disabilities, and some who have struggled with drug use or who have been in prison.
At the end of the gathering, notes of the various discussions throughout the week will be gathered into a comprehensive concluding document, which will be presented to Pope Francis and used as part of the “Instrumentum Laboris,” or “working document,” of the October synod.
In his opening speech for the March 19 session, Pope Francis told youth that “your contribution is indispensable” for the preparation of the October synod gathering.
Too often young people are talked about without being spoken to, he said, stressing the importance of having a “face to face” meeting where they can share their thoughts and desires.
“It’s not enough to exchange some messages or share some nice photos,” he said, adding that “youth must be taken seriously!” Too often youth are left alone, he said, and cautioned that in the Church, “it must never be like this.”
“We need to regain the enthusiasm of the faith and of the flavor of the search. We need to find again in the Lord the strength to recover from failures, to go forward, to strengthen confidence in the future.”
“We need to dare [to take] new paths, even if it involves risks,” he said, adding that risk is necessary because “love knows how to risk; without risk a young person grows old, and it also makes the Church grow old.”
Because of this, “we need you young people, living stones of a Church with a young face, but not using makeup: not artificially rejuvenated, but revived from within,” he said, explaining that the purpose of the synod is to accompany youth.
“Be assured: God trusts you, he loves you and he calls you,” Francis said, saying the Church, in the synod, must learn to have “new ways of presence and closeness.”
After his opening address, Francis heard testimonies from five young people: Tendai Karombo from Zimbabwe, Nicholas Lopez from the US, Cao Huu Minh Tri from Vietnam, Annelien Boon from Belgium, and Angela Markas from Australia.
The Pope was then asked questions from five youth, one of whom was a young Nigerian woman named Blessing Okoedion who was brought to Italy four years ago as a victim of human trafficking.
After suffering the “hell” of forced prostitution, she was finally able to escape and find healing with an order of religious sisters. In her question to the Pope, Okoedion said many of her clients were Catholics, and asked how youth can be made aware of the problem of trafficking, and how to fight the “sick” mentality that reduces women to being the property of men.
In his response, the pope said human trafficking is “a crime against humanity” which is ultimately “born from a sick mentality.”
“The woman is exploited,” he said, noting that “today there is no feminism that has been able to take this out of the unconsciousness” in societal thought. “It’s a sickness of mentality, it’s a sickness of social action, it’s a crime against humanity.”
Pope Francis then asked forgiveness “for all the Catholics who commit this criminal act.”
“I think of the disgust these young women must feel when these men make them do anything,” he said. What women endure is “unbelievable,” he said, and called the practice a form of “slavery.”
In response to a question posed by Argentine youth Maria de la Macarena Segui, who asked about education initiatives and what youth can do to make their encounter with the Lord last over time, the pope stressed the need for an integral education.
Francis said there is need for educational initiatives that follow a “head, heart, hands” model, and which “harmonize” these three aspects into a solid foundation for the person that takes intellectual and charitable formation and turns them into action.
He also responded to a question posed by Ukrainian seminarian Ylian Vendzilovych, who asked how young priests should act amid the “complex realities” of modern society, and questioned how someone preparing for ordination can differentiate between what is good and what is wrong in society.
Francis stressed the importance of community in the life of a priest, and pointed to the many priests who serve their parishes alone or in remote areas. In these cases, it’s important for both the priest and the parishioners to make an effort to build a communal relationship, he said.
“A priest is a testimony of Christ to the extent that he is a member of that community,” he said, adding that if there is not community in a parish, “the bishop needs to intervene.”
He also spoke out against the “terrorism” of gossip and clericalism, which he called a “sick mentality” that confuses the people and drives them away. “Attitudes that are not paternal, not fraternal, also worry me,” he said, explaining that when a priest becomes too rigid or worldly, “there is no witness of the mercy of Christ.”
“I prefer that a young person loses their vocation rather than being a bad religious,” he said.
Sr. Teresina Chaohing Cheng, a religious sister from China, asked how young consecrated people can balance their cultural formation and spiritual lives while fighting against a materialistic society.
In his answer, Pope Francis said good formation for a consecrated person is built on four pillars: the spiritual, intellectual, communal, and apostolic.
This means making sure religious are aware of cultural habits and trends, even those that are bad, while also having a solid foundation to help distinguish and discern what is harmful, he said.
Francis cautioned against keeping religious too sheltered and in the dark about what’s happening in culture and society, saying to “overprotect” them is not formation, but “annuls” their understanding and does them a disservice.
He said to do this “castrates” a person and takes away their freedom, and told Cheng to fight against this in her community. “Don’t overprotect,” he said, because doing so prevents people “from maturing psychologically” and from responding to people in need.
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With respect to migrants, given that the majority are Muslim, why don’t they go to those countries where their faith members live in great wealth : Saudi Arabia, UAE?
I assume this is a rhetorical question?
They don’t go because their Muslim “faith members” don’t want them and because Saudi Arabia and UAE are sand kingdoms run by psychopathic thugs.
Impressionistic wisdom of the moment, regardless if it contradicts what he said last week or yesterday or one hour ago. Never any coherent thought or understanding of anything about civilizational and economic interdependence or how improved efficiencies are dependent on economic productivity and independence from central planning. The only thing he needs to care about, his narcissism will not allow him to care about, a morally guided soul that only the Catholic truth he ridicules can provide.
But never a mention of Humanae Vitae.
Then maybe Pope Francis shouldn’t make off the cuff comments about how we’re not meant to breed like rabbits. What’s next? Pope Francis expresses concern for priestly vocations among the young? This guy went from the Vicar of Christ to quasi leader of an NGO to the head of the the mean girls cliche in high school after his treatment of Bishops Strickland and Burke. How much longer will God chastise us for Benedict’s weakness?
As much of the industrialized world is at zero population growth. Not good. I’ve got my video games and a couple pets good enough?
Elon Musk recently was analyzed on this site; I believe he recently said to the effect that the USA will end up being a nation of old folks in diapers
Perhaps refraining from giving the Eucharist to abortion-promoting world leaders would go a long way toward giving us some confidence in his statement about concern for the lack of population growth.
First of all, it is absolutely nobody’s place to make demands of how unrelated people spend their time and money. If they don’t want to have children that is THEIR business. Not YOURS.
Don’t people have free will? I find it entirely despicable when other people think it is their place to start making demands of couples in the realm of marriage and children. You are concerned about the falling birthrate? Fine. YOU have children if that’s what you want to do.You don’t get to make demands on how other people live. You don’t get to spend the money that other people work for. And you definitely have no right to lay claim to any of their time.
Maybe all of the busybodies who spend all of their time disparaging young people for the same old tropes of owning pets and playing video games needto get a real hobby and stop trying to subject innocent people to their very evil and disturbing control issues.
Says the embittered poster who is telling everyone what to think 🤔. A little self-awareness goes a long way.
OK, I get the sarcasm! You are being satirical? Right? Unless you are one of the “new Catholics” who never had a shred of exposure to actual Catholicism, so bankrupt in thought, that there is not even a capacity for sufficient imagination to conceive of a social ethos and all the factors that affect a social ethos, which would include, obviously, the effects of personal commitments of living a self-sacrificing life of virtue, as Our Lord asks of us.
This, obviously, would not involve a life committed to such things like an adolescent misinterpretation of freedom as personal willfulness rather than the opportunity to do what is right.
The government tells us more and more what to spend our money on.
Who will support older folks?
My comments are actually mostly facts and not judgment one way or another.
Who are you to say whether or not you procreate? Don’t you want human life to continue after you’re gone?
First of all, it is absolutely nobody’s place to make demands of how unrelated people spend their time and money. If they don’t want to have children that is THEIR business. Not YOURS.
Don’t people have free will? I find it entirely despicable when other people think it is their place to start making demands of couples in the realm of marriage and children. You are concerned about the falling birthrate? Fine. YOU have children if that’s what you want to do.You don’t get to make demands on how other people live. You don’t get to spend the money that other people work for. And you definitely have no right to lay claim to any of their time.
Maybe all of the busybodies who spend all of their time disparaging young people for the same old tropes of owning pets and playing video games need to get a real job and stop trying to subject innocent people to their very evil and disturbing control issues.
As usual pope Francis is not a leader on this issue but an observer only.
It sounds like this Pope wants to have his cake and eat it too. He thrashes the US for attempting to stem the flow of migrants ( who commit crime and bring in drugs. The jury is still out on terrorism but label it probable). Italy is now full of Muslims who are changing the culture and other things in a way Italians dont like. Possibly there are changes to the degree that young Italians dont see a future with children there?? Its probably why Italian young people do not want babies. I dont think it will prevent Francis from adovcating for open borders.
Italy is a beautiful country blessed with industrious people, awesome architecture, marvelous singers, high culinary culture renowned for delicious pizzas, and pastas. May Italy, the land and her people, be blessed.