NAPA, Calif. — Do young Catholics know their faith? The vast, enthusiastic crowds at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro suggest that many college students and teens are passionate about sharing their faith with an often spiritually indifferent world.

But back in the States, Church leaders acknowledge that the task of the New Evangelization is still in its infancy, with many self-identified Catholics confused and ignorant about basic teachings. The U.S. bishops are very concerned about reaching young people and identifying approaches and specific programs that have a record of success.

The urgency of this mission was on display at the Napa Institute July 31-Aug. 4, at the “Equipping Catholics in the New America” conference that included a panel of Church leaders who were honest yet hopeful about the catechetical challenges ahead.

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, a panelist, offered one story that underscores the need for basic education in the faith. One priest he knew gave a presentation that cited Gospel passages — only to have someone from the audience ask, “What are the Gospels?”

Church leaders have stepped up efforts to overcome generations of weak catechesis, but their efforts are hampered by the aggressively secular message of mainstream media and mass culture. Further, the steady advancement of moral relativism, combined with the sharp decline of sacramental marriage, has deepened fears that a whole generation of young Catholics will form adult lives with little thought for their cradle faith.

From Sunday homilies to diocesan catechetical education to college-based missionary outreach, the bishops are looking at every possibly strategy for drawing the young into a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ and an appreciation for the beauty and truth of the Catholic faith.

“Society and the media have embraced relativism,“ acknowledged Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver. “We need to help our people to see that there is an objective truth.”

Archbishop Aquila gave a catechesis at World Youth Day, and at the Napa Institute panel discussion, he described an exchange that revealed the younger generation’s confusion about the meaning and purpose of marriage. Yet the experience, he said, also identified a possible path for engaging young people.

An African asked Archbishop Aquila, “Why is the U.S. forcing homosexuality on us?” Yet others in the crowd wanted to know more about Church teaching on marriage and why there was a problem with same-sex unions.

“I shared that it all has to do with the dignity of the human person and human anthropology,” said the archbishop, one of nine U.S. bishops who attended WYD Rio.

“We won’t even bring God into it,” he recalled telling the youth. “Just look at your body. A man’s body is made for a woman, and a woman’s body is made for a man.”

“The media is the one forming our young people,” he told the participants at the Napa Institute. “As I responded, one could see the lights going on.

“Most of the young people had never heard of the three goods of marriage: fidelity, procreation and permanence. When you pull out procreation, the others fall away.”

“They began to make the connections,” he added. “I pointed out that a same-sex couple can never procreate.”

The dearth of that elementary knowledge underscores the vast challenge that confronts Catholic leaders and educators.

 

Primacy of the Family

And while some of the faithful question whether the U.S. bishops should continue to publicly resist same-sex “marriage,” Church leaders stress that the family remains the primary vehicle for transmitting the faith from one generation to the next, and if they walk away from that fight, the faithful will suffer.

“The family is the way of the New Evangelization. It starts there,” said Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who spearheaded a two-year effort to deepen respect for Catholic teaching on marriage and secure an amendment in the Minnesota Constitution that defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

However, during the 2012 election, Minnesotans did not approve the amendment, and the state Legislature subsequently legalized same-sex “marriage.” And now Minnesota’s Catholic leaders, like those in other states where same-sex unions have been incorporated into legal marriage, must continue to present Church teaching without the benefit of state law upholding natural marriage.

“Seventy percent of our young people don’t believe that same-sex persons should be excluded from the reality of marriage,” said Archbishop Nienstedt. “We went through this, and I will tell you that the level of emotion is extraordinary. It is almost impossible to get people to talk about it in a rational way.”

 

Personal Encounter With Christ

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has emphasized that the New Evangelization must be rooted in a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. And Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wis., noted during the panel discussion that, in private conversation, “I try to move to the core of things. Evangelizations is not a program; it’s a way of life.”

When people come to see him to argue about Church teaching, he related, “I usually say, ‘Have you met Jesus Christ risen from the dead in a personal way that has changed your life?’

“I have had people say, ‘Bishop, thank you very much. I don’t talk that way.’ And some are mystified. That is where it begins. We need to give witness to Christ, who is at the center of our lives.”

However, the cultural disconnect between young and old Catholics has prompted an increasing number of bishops to turn to groups like Focus (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), which sends young Catholic missionaries to college chaplaincy programs.

 

Youth-to-Youth Evangelization

Archbishop Nienstedt reported that both Focus and a local group, St. Paul's Outreach, were working within the archdiocese to engage college students.

“If you have a peer talking to a peer, using their own language and examples, they are often more effective,” he said.

During Holy Week, local seminarians decided to go out two by two across the University of Minnesota campus.

“Out of 200-plus people who were engaged, only one said they didn’t want to talk,” he said. “These kinds of initiatives are very powerful because they are young people talking to young people.”

Archbishop Aquila applauded the work of Focus on college campuses, and he reported that, in Denver, they had begun to reach out to the homeless as well.

“Focus would go to the park and share with the homeless,” he explained.

Later, he said, one homeless man came back to thank a member of Focus for inspiring him to stop drinking and get off the street.

“My hope is in the young people, because they have seen the brokenness and relativism. And when their hearts are caught on fire, and they discover the love of Jesus and their true dignity, they will spread it,” said Archbishop Aquila. “It begins in smalls ways and then grows.”

 

Broadening the Reach

Church leaders also emphasized the need for faith-sharing programs that present the gifts and value of sexual complementarity, as the culture promotes efforts to separate gender from sexual orientation and “gender identity."

Several bishops suggested that Blessed John Paul II’s theology of the body still needs a larger audience, and Archbishop Gomez specifically noted the work of Endow (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women), which organizes Catholic study groups for women and girls that explore the nature and dignity of women and their role as culture-formers.

Yet, while catechetical outreach remains the primary responsibility of the local bishop, Archbishop Aquila stressed that the faithful must also embrace the New Evangelization.

“Some of the laity have taken it up, but many have put it on the back burner,” he said, while ”some Catholics in politics insist their faith doesn’t influence anything they do or say.

“We are responsible for renewing and deepening our own faith, and then we can begin to call others into a relationship with the Lord.”

Joan Frawley Desmond is the Register's senior editor.