Michael Kelly
Bishop Robert Barron 
Ask any Catholic serious about their Faith what the biggest challenge the Church faces is and they will almost universally say a variation of the same thing: reaching out and engaging young people. Often when a priest is assigned to a new parish, he will be met with earnest parishioners who implore him “you’ll have to do something for the young people, Father”.
It’s a familiar challenge and one that the Synod of Bishops in Rome is addressing all this month.
Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the sprawling Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Long before this appointment, he made his name as a modern-day Fulton Sheen bringing the Gospel to the masses via the internet. Dr Barron has clocked up an impressive following and his style is engaging as well as challenging. He faces head-on common critiques of the Faith and draws on the Church’s rich tradition as well as contemporary culture.
His ‘Word on Fire’ ministry has been responsible for bringing many people to the Faith and helping countless Catholics rediscover their faith. He is one of the participants at the Rome Synod and had interesting things to say about the lack of challenge young people often feel when presented with Catholicism today.
Science
He pointed out how in his experience many young people leave the Church for intellectual reasons. “Chief among these are the convictions that religion is opposed to science or that it cannot stand up to rational scrutiny, that its beliefs are outmoded, a holdover from a primitive time, that the Bible is unreliable, that religious belief gives rise to violence, and that God is a threat to human freedom,” he told the Synod.
He went on to insist that he hopes “it is clear that arrogant proselytising has no place in our pastoral outreach, but I hope it is equally clear that an intelligent, respectful, and culturally-sensitive explication of the Faith (‘giving a reason for the hope that is within us’) is certainly a desideratum”.
Bishop Barron points to recent research that showed that among the major religions, Catholicism was second to last in passing on its traditions. “Why has it been the case, over the past several decades, that young people in our own Catholic secondary schools have read Shakespeare in literature class, Homer in Latin class, Einstein in physics class, but, far too often, superficial texts in religion?
“The army of our young who claim that religion is irrational is a bitter fruit of this failure in education,” he warned.
He told his fellow bishops that a new form of apologetics has to arise from the questions that young people concretely ask rather than being imposed from above. It would also have to look at the interface between faith and science and challenge the oft-held view that technological advances are in conflict with belief.
Bishop Barron also argues that the Church has to do a better job at showing off the beauty of the Faith to young adults.
“Part of the genius of Catholicism,” he said, “is that we have so consistently embraced the beautiful — in song, poetry, architecture, painting, sculpture, and liturgy.
“All of this provides a powerful matrix for evangelisation. And as Hans Urs von Balthasar argued, the most compelling beauty of all is that of the saints. I have found a good deal of evangelical traction in presenting the lives of these great friends of God, somewhat in the manner of a baseball coach who draws young adepts into the game by showing them the play of some of its greatest practitioners,” he said.
Some people will sneer at Bishop Barron’s observations and think them trite or superficial. However, he has a wealth of experience and success to back up his claims.
If young people – exposed to so much – are challenged in science class, English and history but then find themselves faced with colouring books and word searches when it comes to religion classes is it any wonder they have looked in the box that has been presented to them as the Faith and found it empty?
Michael Kelly is co-author of a new book with Austen Ivereigh – How to Defend the Faith – Without Raising Your Voice – it is available from Columba Books.
