substantial break in the deposit of the faith. The deposit of the faith is all the teachings
and beliefs that were passed down from each generation to the next beginning with the
apostles and Christ. Unfortunately our youth are not receiving this treasure. Thought
many of our youth are religious and spiritual, they do not know or understand traditional
Catholic beliefs such as: The Communion of Saints, Purgatory, Penance and the
Infallibility of the Pope. These beliefs have been substituted for a variety of secular,
Protestant, "homemade" and other alien beliefs. (Homemade refers to beliefs that are
being created personally by many searching youth.)
In a Catholic school you will find teens who say "I believe in the New Testament"
and also say "I also believe in Reincarnation, Horoscopes, Contraceptives, Homosexual
Marriage, and Fornication" They claim to "believe" in the scriptures, but the same
scriptures condemn, either directly or indirectly, these latter beliefs. Their faith only
matters as long as they feel it helps them. When it seems to fail, cause trials, or when it
is presented in a boring manner they reject it and find something else to believe in.
This disregard of faith comes easy when teachers are saying: "The pope is sexist and
ignorant", "White witchcraft is OK," "Watching Pornography and violent television is
OK as long as your old enough to handle it," "Only a few of the really bad people go to
hell" (All from teachers in a Catholic Highschool) What has happened to traditional
teaching? Didn't Christ say "The road to hell is wide and many travel it" ? We as youth
have been abandoned by our parents, ignored by many of our pastors, and deceived by
those responsible to teach us our faith!
Now I understand that the teaching of the faith is difficult, and I am not trying to
discriminate against those who are doing so. Neither am I saying that all teachers,
parents and pastors are like this. But, in a world with so many outside distractions we
need to be very careful in teaching our youth. If we fail, they may believe the lies society
is pushing on them. Tradition must not be looked at so lightly.
The greatest difficulty in handling this problem is that no-one wants to take the blame.
Teachers claim it's the job of Parents and Priests. Priests are blaming it on parents for not
educating their children at young ages. Parents are then blaming the Priests for not
speaking sermons to everyone's level, and teaching the kids themselves. (How can
someone speak in a way every age level will benefit?) No one will take the responsibility
into their own hands.
In reality the persons primarily to blame are the parents. It has always been church
teaching that parents are to be the first Catechists in their children's lives. They are to
help their kids learn the faith just as they teach them how to tie their shoes, brush their
teeth or learn the alphabet. It's only natural that the family be the place where spirituality
is born.
But, If parents have the attitude that the bible's boring, the pope's ignorant, and that
praying is a waste of time, then the children will learn the same attitude. And naturally
these parents won't complain, because they weren't taught either.
When receiving such poor spiritual education, children that are exposed to the secular
world have their innocence snatched. In today's material and relative world, morals and
religion seem useless. Teens are taught by the media that it's OK to be religious, but it's
wrong to try and express it to others. Religion is said to be exclusively personal. Thus
structured and organized religion is considered ignorant, oppressive and boring. "Why
should I have to believe what they tell me?" they ask.
Instead of complaining about not knowing our faith, we must take the step to learn.
Under the Code of Cannon Law 229 it states that it is our "obligation" as Catholics to
learn, know and understand our faith. Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary released with the
apostolic letter Ad tuedem Fidem ("In Defense of The Faith"), states that anyone who
denies any teaching of the church, "would therefore no longer be in full communion with
the Catholic Church"
We must be diligent to correct the past. The Suicide rate among teens has risen
dramatically in the last few years. Can this be from a lack of hope, resulting from the
lack of faith in our young? Religious teens aren't killing themselves. Also there has
been a horrible degradation in the morals of teens. This has resulted in increased levels
of teen vandalism, theft, murder, drug use, fornication, and premarital pregnancies.
Certainly teens with a moral and religious background would not be involved in such
things. The amount of teens with AIDS has certainly grown. There are very few, if any,
chaste teens who have AIDS. Parents claim their children won't obey them. Is this really
because of faulty discipline routines as experts claim, or have our youth never been
taught the Fourth Commandment?- "Thou shalt honor thy mother and thy father." If we
don't make an attempt to reverse this, the condition of society will only worsen. It is
obvious our children will lose.
If not solved quickly, this problem will wreak havoc on the Church and society. Not
only is church attendance falling at a dramatic rate, so is the amount of donations, and
vocations to priesthood and religious life. As more people start diluting their faith, the
true meaning of Christianity will die. Will they "Know we are Christians by our love" or
will the impression change? People of other faiths already have the impression that
Christians are hypocrites. This will cause serious damage to the church which will take
years to reverse. The only ones to gain from this movement is the selfish, materialist
society that wants us to let go of our morals and "Do what you will."
Yet how can we reverse this with the threats of the media bombarding our children
with anti-Christian messages every day? John Paul II has called for a "new
evangelization". This means returning to the work of the apostles as they preached the
Gospel to the pagan communities in Europe. We will fill minds with Christian
propaganda with the same tactics as society. We must return to the traditional teaching,
find what it says and stick by it. Just as Moses says to the Jews at Horeb "Take to heart
these words I enjoin on you Today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at
home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest." ( Dt. 6:6-7 )
Billy Graham said "Churches....have given their people a lot of doctrine to believe in
and have taken it for granted that their people have had an experience to go with it." If
we want people to learn Catholic doctrine, we must give them the Christian experience.
Return to daily prayer, scripture reading, almsgiving and acts of charity. By showing our
children and youth what the Christian life is really all about, they will see it is better.
Naturally they will want to change, and try to understand the faith.
The Christian life is better, Let's prove it to our youth!
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