Photo by Adem AY via Unsplash
CV NEWS FEED // Though teens and young adults today have more access than ever to updates on current events via social media and the internet, many young Catholics at the FOCUS SEEK24 conference this week said that staying updated on Church news is important but not always a priority for them.
The 11,000 college students at SEEK are a small sampling of what the next generation—and the future—of the Catholic Church looks like. While most students said that it’s important to stay updated on Church events in some way for the sake of evangelization, many added that it isn’t necessary to stay informed to be a good Catholic.
Nicholas Azar, a student from Tennessee, told CatholicVote that as faithful Catholics “we should know what’s going on.” But he also added that getting involved with Catholic politics isn’t necessary for raising up the next generation of the Church, since discussing Church events tends to cause division.
“I need to be able to raise my [future] family and my children in a godly way and I think you can raise a family and have them be very devout without them being involved in politics,” he said. “I don’t think you need to be super in the know to be a good Catholic and to raise the next generation.”
George Todd, another student from Tennessee, said that it’s important to stay updated for evangelizing and ministering within the Church.
“It’s our Church and we should know what the Church is teaching, especially when it’s something doctrinally,” he said, adding that Fiducia Supplicans is a good example of why Catholics should stay informed.
“We need to know how to address people who maybe aren’t Catholic and if they hear about it [Fiducia Supplicans] we need to be able to respond to them well,” he continued. “A lot of people thought that the Church was allowing homosexuality now and we need to be informed enough to tell them that no, they didn’t.”
Todd added that as the next generation to minister to the Church, it’s also important for his generation to be authentic witnesses to the truth for their children.
“When we get older we’ll all be fathers or mothers of some kind, either spiritually or biologically. Our generation raises the next generation,” he said. “If we want the next generation to be more Catholic than today then we’re going to have to be good fathers and mothers through being actively at Mass and living out our faith as good witnesses and inspiring people to do the same in our community.”
Jackie Ballard from Seton Hall University acknowledged that staying updated is important, but said that “information should never be our main goal.”
“It’s something that should be supplementary to a way of life that you already live out,” she said. “It’s more important to fall in love with Jesus first of all and then to form yourself in your faith and find community and begin to live out your faith than it is to stay informed. If you’re living in love with Jesus and you’re just serving in your local parish, that’s ok and you don’t need to ‘know everything.’”
Gabrielle Scheberle, a youth minister in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said that staying updated about Catholic events is vital for her work among teens.
“Pope Francis will be quoted in the media and it’s pretty one-sided or it’s the world’s interpretation of what he says and it can be really confusing for a lot of people,” she said. “Having good resources for my youth and being able to explain what the context was, what he’s talking about, and knowing what’s going on with our brothers and sisters across the world can be really important.”
Frances Shields, a student from Kansas State University, said that staying informed is important but added that it’s hard to find reliable and trustworthy news outlets. According to Shields, finding information takes a lot of sorting and time spent online, which is something that her generation is good at.
“I feel like as young people we have more of a grasp on the internet,” she said. “Yes, it can be a downfall, but we are also able to sort through it all and find what’s actually true. In a sense our voices can carry more in being able to help other young people around us and our families to be more understanding.”
However, Shields added that being up-to-date on smaller events in the Church isn’t necessary to be a good Catholic.
“I feel like it’s not essential because the Church has been around for so long and the essential teachings are not going to change,” she said. “One priest we were hearing from lately was talking about how everything going on with same sex blessings is a distraction that comes from the devil.”
She continued:
Even though it’s coming from the church a lot of this debate and stuff that we’re talking about isn’t what we should be focusing on—not the tiny discrepancies and words in the document. It doesn’t change doctrine and it doesn’t change our faith, and that’s what we need to focus on more. You can be out of touch but still know the basic teachings that are never going to change.
