Recently I came across this post at PrayTell, bemoaning the absence of young people at Mass. On the same day I came across this article by Maureen Mullarky at First Things in which she favorably reported on the number of young people at a Sacra Liturgia conference in New York. PrayTell is a liturgist's blog (I almost wrote "Liberal, bullying autocratic liturgist" but that would be redundant) so it's unlikely that they frequent Sacra Liturgia's conferences and listen to people expound on the benefits of Gregorian Chant. These are clearly two very different worlds so what are we to make of this?
The first option is that the young people aren't going to the groovy, hip, all-inclusive liturgies that the PrayTell crowd would gravitate to, and instead they are flocking to more traditional worship. But it's unclear that you can draw a national picture from one experience in New York (that may be heretical: I'll have to check the Catechism).
The second option is that it's just random chance. One anecdote cancels out another. One person shows up at a Catholic Mass and it's like the 4PM buffet at Golden Corral and another person shows up at a conference and it's hipster beards and tattoos.
A third option is confirmation bias. The PrayTell crowd doesn't like how things are going, or thinks that things are moving in the right direction but not fast enough. So in their gloom they attend Mass and only notice the oldsters. Maybe they see the kids around but there should be more! The Sacra Liturgia crowd, on the other hand is hopeful and confident in the path they are on so even a few young'uns in the crowd is sufficient to confirm that the have the momentum.
In fact, I'm not sure that I've seen any statistics that demonstrate that young people are in fact drawn towards traditional worship and away from Marty Haugen. For their sake, I hope they are at least drawn away from Marty Haugen. Drawn away with draft horses if necessary. From what I hear young people are not drawn to any kind of Mass, Haugenmass or otherwise.
But I'm a bit perplexed by the focus on youth. I know the youth is the future and all that, but since when do we grade our churches by how well the kids like them? Are we so inundated with advertising aimed at the youth demo that we can't think of any other metric by which to grade our parishes? Maybe instead of "how many kids are here?" we should ask "how many rubrics were broken today?" or "how many positive references to the Catechism can I find in Father's homily?" or "Would someone know without reading the plaque that the artwork behind the altar is a Crucifix?" It's an idea so crazy it just might work!
In my Bible, Jesus' Great Commission doesn't say "Go out to all the nations, attracting the youth and encouraging them to sit barefoot around the altar and call you by your first name." Nor does the Book of Acts depict the disciples leading a youth movement. Rather, it depicts adults acting like adults and coming to the faith and bringing their kids with them. Just like parents today bring their kids to Mass, come to think of it. I grew up in a Catholic school and I guarantee I wouldn't have gone if my parents said it was optional. Folk group and all (and we had one).
Honestly, until adults start acting like adults, I don't know if anything will get the youth to show up in large numbers. And the ones that show up may not be engaged. It's called "adolescence". Who knows what will happen to them later in life. We can't judge the success of a parish by the number of youth hanging about because they aren't adults. They are not making adult decisions to accept the faith and accept the life that's required when following Jesus. They're just hanging out with their friends. Then they graduate and their friends scatter to different colleges and that's that. The parish was little more than a coffee house anyway, and there's comfy couches in the Student Union so it's all good.
So don't get too wrapped up in the youth culture. We're in a Church that measures time in centuries. We can plant the seeds and water them, but it's up to God to bring in the harvest. The Church has to deal with adult issues in an adult manner because it takes an adult attitude to resist the adolescent culture we find ourselves in.
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