ROME — The Pontifical Council for Culture spent its last session tackling the problem of emotional illiteracy among younger generations and discovering how to restore that among the youth.
“If people learn how to experience intimacy on a natural level, then they are going to be disposed to it on a supernatural level, on a spiritual level,” said Pia De Solenni, just before delivering the final talk for the council’s Feb. 6-9 plenary assembly in Rome.
“Pope Benedict said at the start of the Year of Faith: ‘The crisis in faith is happening at the same time as the crisis in the family.’”
“You can’t ignore that,” she stressed in a Feb. 8 interview with Catholic News Agency.
During the session, De Solenni was asked to speak to the council about the “emotive alphabet of youth.”
“It’s a term that doesn’t exist in English,” she explained.
“The council came up with it really as a proactive measure. In Italian and English, and I’m sure in other languages, there’s a lot of talk about emotional illiteracy — ‘analphabetismo.’”
The Pontifical Council for Culture decided that it wanted to look at what the emotive alphabet would be since, as De Solenni put it, “you need to know the letters before you put them together to make words and sentences and stories.”
Of particular interest to the council was how lower emotional intelligence can impact young people on the spiritual and human levels.
As she delved into the latest research on the topic, De Solenni looked at the work of Daniel Goleman, a researcher that she described as “the grandfather of emotional intelligence,” and another psychologist researcher, Jean Tweng.
Tweng found that anyone born during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s was shaped by the "Boomer Generation," which she calls “Generation Me.”
“It’s not just the individualism, but also the whole self-esteem thing — everybody’s a winner. Everybody gets first prize on the soccer team,” De Solenni explained.
“It’s created this whole culture of people who think they’re very entitled, think they’re very special, and then the world comes crashing down around them because the rest of the world doesn’t think the way they do.”
Goleman, she related, “talks about emotional intelligence, the ability to relate to others and to know oneself.”
Surveying modern society, Goleman highlights negative social indicators that are present and indicate the lack of emotional intelligence.
“The positive thing for youth is that the emotive alphabet is something that has been true throughout history and for everyone,” De Solenni remarked.
“It’s the desire to love and be loved, the desire to be in relation, the desire for intimacy.”
But De Solenni explained that these changes have not left Catholics untouched by any means.
“What’s happened is that we’re at a point in history where families by and large are not succeeding at this,” and Catholic schools aren’t either.
The result is that “you have a whole generation of children that are Catholic in identity, but they don’t know their faith. They’re part of the hook-up culture; they look just like the secular culture,” she said.
Searching for a solution, De Solenni talked to people who run successful youth-ministry programs at the high school and college levels.
She found that they all have three things in common that build up emotional intelligence.
The ministries that are successful always build relationships, teach the faith in a challenging way and impart a life of prayer.
Following De Solenni’s talk, the council discussed her findings and then wrapped up the assembly with prayer.
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More psychobabble gobbledy-gook masquerading as serious thinking in the Church. Advances our salvation and that of others not one inch. We just have a generation with no flippin common sense.
Excellent article! Thanks so much. I have been blessed to witness what could transform the lives of our families, parents, and their children. It is done by living simply, loving as we are called—sacrificial lives, and returning to Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Turn off or remove your tv. Don’t listen to music other than classical. Live and love your Catholic faith. Pass it on through homeschooling (up to 5th or 6th grade) and either (a) entroll your children in The Lyceum School, in So. Euclid, OH, or (b) get in touch with the founder of The Lyceum School, Mark Langley, or its current headmaster, Luke Macik to provide you with what is necessary to start such a school…Euclid, Theology, Philosophy, Greek, Latin, and so on, are taught which mature the minds of their students—they teach them how to think. This will be life-changing for families, for The Church, for nations…this is the new evangelization (a return to what ought to be taught required for the Church Militant). Please, do yourself a favor and check out their website, for they are successfully preparing Catholic students to thirst for knowing God.
http://www.thelyceum.org
The ability to transcend culture by embracing Faith.
It has been my experience the catechesis was tossed out with the Baltimore Catechism. Catholics who don’t know their faith voted in culture of death!
“The ministries that are successful always build relationships, teach the faith in a challenging way and impart a life of prayer.”
OK, so where are the examples that would help illustrate those three key elements?
Unless Catholics want to live within their own Catholic culture like the Amish or a cloistered monastery it is very difficult not to have to interact with secular culture in order to persevere or even survive occupationally, financially, socially . The benefits and pleasures of secular society conflict with Catholic culture (Jesus said,“you are in the world but you are not of the world”) but also assimilate Catholics into worldly values/pleasures of life as if God won’t mind “a little bit of sin now and then”. Publicly elected Catholic politicians are a result/necessity of Catholic assimilation in a nationally minded secular culture in order for Catholics to be accepted by society at large. Some of those Catholic politicians have even gone so far as to outrightly go against Church/Biblical(ie:Jesus Christ) teachings in order to be elected to or remain in public office. They no longer are in office to protect and defend the needs of Catholics but have become corrupted by a worldly viewpoint to further their political goals/needs.
Last year my wife and I went to see a movie “under stars” in a public park. There were quite some numbers of teenagers. We were watching “Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock. We were shocked to notice that these youngsters could not recognize facial emotions, and are [nervously] laughing at scary moments. We had, after the movie, two conclusions - either these kids could not recognize emotions for they got used to texting and Skyping or they got used to gore in the new horror movies, and the old ones are just funny.
Hence why I homeschool my 10 children…we have to work together to get everything done. Everyone has to help, everyone has to not only learn to deal with eachother, but to care for and love eachother…simply because everyone in the house is valuable and of worth..no one is the “most important”. For time immemorial that was how people learned to be “socialized” within their families first and then the greater communities, the church..the town/city ....and one’s country. Not just an ‘A” in math is prized…but the 10 year old kid who makes lunch for everyone without being asked because he knows that Mom is busy with a sick and cranky baby. Now THAT is emotional intelligence!
When Parents do not know their Faith accurately and in entirety - they obviously can not pass the Faith on to their Youth appropriately.
CCC: ” 2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. ....”
Far too many adults are disobeying the instruction of Pope Benedict in Motu Proprio “Porta Fidei” (paragraphs 11) which states we all should read and study the “CATECHISM of the CATHOLIC CHURCH, Second Edition”.
We can study the CCC at home, there are no legitimate excuses.
After we have read it in entirety, we should use it as a reference frequently.
No Catholic home should be without a Catholic Bible and the CCC.
Ciao, Pia!
Come stai?
Mi ha piacuto vedere la tua foto e leggere l’articolo del tuo lavoro circa il tema di “emotional inteligence” nel giornale, “National Catholic Register.”
Tanti saluti,
Leslie Malek
This kind of study is important. I raised my children in church and taught them to pray. As adults they struggle so much with how to handle dealing with the people around them. Emotional strength is learned, but there must be a desire to do so.
@Anon2 - Blessed are you! I would love to have children, and homeschooling would be my first choice, except that God said no to children, my wife said no to the Church. At the very moment I only desires of my heart, and I see no way to be able to do what you do.
+
I met Daniel Goleman before I became a Catholic at a “retreat” for an organization by the name of SEVA (sanskrit for “service”). The founders of SEVA were disciples of a Hindu guru by the name of Neem Karolii Baba and included such people as “Wavy Gravy” known largely for his connection to “The Grateful Dead” rock band and psychedelics, Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert and known for his experimentation with LSD and Eastern Religions). Daniel Goleman was then a Board Member of SEVA, and I see on Goleman’s own website he lists a connection with the Daili Lama. Because of my experiences with SEVA, whenever I see a connection with Goleman in any Catholic psychological literature, though he may be a well-intentioned person, I am inclined to totally ignore it.
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