Students are well able for more substantial content
As the academic year comes to an end I’m reminded of a conversation I had a couple of years ago during a dinner in Dublin. The group at the table included several young professionals – barristers, consultants, accountants, stockbrokers – who had gathered for an after-work bite to eat on a Friday evening.
After politics and sport the conversation eventually turned to religion. Unusually, everyone at the table was a practising Catholic, and what happened next was telling.
People began to share stories of why they had decided to continue in the practice of their faith at a time when most of their peers had drifted away. Some spoke about the influence of a grandparent or local priest. Others attributed it to their involvement in a local youth group or university society.
However, there was one feature in common: a latent anger regarding their experience of religious education in secondary school. Put bluntly, they felt that they were Catholic today in spite of – not because of – their religious formation at school.
At the heart of their complaint was a disappointment with the intellectually unchallenging presentation of the Faith to which they had been exposed.
One girl pointed out that her Leaving Certificate English course demanded a precise knowledge and understanding of Shakespeare’s Hamlet but there was nothing comparable expected of her in Religious Education class.
Reluctance
Another mentioned that even at Junior Certificate level he was expected to study works such as T.S. Eliot’s Lovesong of Alfred J. Prufrock and Tennyson’s lengthy Lady of Shallot and yet there seemed to be a reluctance to demand anything similar in RE.
It begs the question, are we underestimating young people’s ability and interest in the rich intellectual elements of the Faith?
The encouraging reality is that students are well able for more substantial content. I’ve seen how groups of teenagers enjoy Augustine.
Indeed it would take a hard heart or a dull head not to respond to the stirring, “Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient ever new.” Similarly, I know a school chaplain who reluctantly (by his own admission) showed Fr Robert Barron’s Catholicism DVD series to his non-exam 5th year class recently and was delighted with their response.
Certainly, the intellect cannot be the sole focus of forming people in the Faith; the head needs to be balanced against the hand (service) and the heart (prayer). Nor can schools be expected to do all the work.
But it’s probably fair to say that we need to ‘up our game’ when it comes to our approach to faith formation.
Language of faith
Many secondary schools have already signed up for a new public speaking competition, ‘Young People Find Language for their Faith’, set to begin later this year. The competition is organised by the Knights of St Columbanus and is being run on a 32-county basis. The local heats take place in November with the provincial finals and All Ireland final next spring.
Initiatives like this are a practical way of helping teenagers develop the confidence to talk about their faith publicly. The topics are diverse and include titles such as: Tweeting the Gospel – a new opportunity for the Church, How to involve teenagers in the life of the Church, and Forgiveness – the most difficult virtue?
It’s also hoped that participation in the competition will count as credit towards the successful Pope John Paul II Awards.
The competition is a very welcome development and it will be interesting to hear the young people’s responses to the topics. More details from spsc2015@gmail com
Summer schools
I was in a coffee shop on the N7 last weekend and bumped into a young, happy and habited Dominican on his way to the annual St Thomas Aquinas summer school in Knockadoon in east Cork. The event, organised by the Aquinas Institute of Ireland, aims to introduce students to the thinking of the great theologian. This year’s week-long summer school will gather young adults from all over the country for lectures and seminars on Aquinas’ approach to moral theology.
Next weekend (July 4-6) many more will attend the first Evangelium conference to take place in Ireland. ‘Explaining the Catholic Faith in the Modern World’ is the theme for the gathering in Maynooth.
Evangelium was established by two English priests, Fr Marcus Holden (Archdiocese of Southwark) and Fr Andrew Pinsent (Diocese of Arundel & Brighton). Fr Andrew previously worked at the famous particle physics research centre at CERN in Switzerland. Evangelium’s aim is to teach and explain the Catholic faith. Thereís plenty of information about the initiative on www.evangelium.ie
Itís heartening to see groups of interested and committed young people coming together to learn more about their faith and, in doing so, addressing a need of our time.
