From our Sunday Readings. Please feel free to share this image via social networking…

In an NCCL White Paper, Dr. Mike Carotta proposes the question “Given all that we now know about adolescent spirituality, good catechesis and youth ministry, how can we enhance Confirmation’s potential to be a more formative experience in the lives of young people?”

Mike wonders if Confirmation has quietly become very functional: the sacramental completion of initiation. Confirmation preparation seems uniformly focused on the fruits of the Spirit, some Catholic basics, the grace inherent in the sacrament, and service projects. Functional and informative.

In his article, Mike suggests that we released Confirmation prep from this narrow – and some would say shallow focus and turned it loose.  Mike wants to know why Confirmation Prep is not more inspirational and transformative.

Many of us are prepping right now for Confirmation Prep, this article should be an essential read.

In the most recent issue of The Catholic Mirror of the Diocese of Des Moines, Bishop Richard Pates introduces his first pastoral letter to the diocese. The topic is… adolescent catechesis!

Pates indicates that his prayer and hope is “that every high school aged young person in the Diocese of Des Moines will accept this gift of faith with all of its challenges and in a culture that makes endless demands of them; that all parents will welcome this process and see the Church in Southwest Iowa as partners with them in handing on faith to their children; that our parishes will embrace this gift and be fully engaged in the journey of faith with the young church of Des Moines.”

The bishop concludes “My young friends, you are essential to the vibrant life of the Church of Des Moines. Count on my support and prayer in enabling your participation in our life together.”

There was an old Ronald Reagan line that came to mind yesterday… “There you go again..”. 

So, I’m sitting in a meeting yesterday and one of the other meeting attendees leans over and says, “Hey, I saw you in NCR.” and has a printed copy of an article with him.  And, I’m thinking, “Cool, all I’ve seen of the Technology Conference article was on-line…  Wonder what it looked like in print…” and then sort of ignored it until later.

Yet, only when I looked at the April 2 section on Catholic Education did I remember the phone interview on the Bishops’ Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework for the Development of Catechetical Materials for Young People of High School Age.

The article does not appear on-line, but you can find it here.   Sorry if it seems as if I’m showing off, but I wanted the kids to know that their dad appears in the paper every now and then….

In a recent edition of America magazine, there is a William O’Malley, SJ article (link here but subscription is required) on the USCCB’s  Doctrinal Framework for the Development of Curriculum Materials for Young People of a High School Age,  Father O’Malley often writes on adolescents and faith in America.

He is critical of the document.  A counter-argument to his article might suggest that he is missing the point; that the Framework is meant directly for curriculum developers and not focused towards teachers, such as himself, the ones who will eventluallu  impliment it on the “front lines.” He suggests that the document is “pedagogically counterproductive.”

O’Malley suggests that “The Framework is inflexibly ‘top-down” perceptive, rigorously certain. It is, as theorists describe academic theology, faith seeking understanding (fides quaerrens intellectum).  That could hardly be further from our primary tasks as educators. Our audience does not have personally validated Christian faith. A majority are baptized but never converted and prefer not to be. Many have a real, albeit vague, faith in God based on their parents’ faith, but the question is too peripheral to merit personal probing.”

O’Malley describes himself as responding the the Framework “with the loyal frustration of a Panzer commander ordered to advance on Stalingrad when the oil in my tanks is (frozen into) black tar.”

Find a print copy of this article.  It’s worth a read.

Recently, the National Initiative on Adolescent Catechesis asserted that some of the ourcomes of effective faith formation with young people would include:

> Sustaining a personal relationship with Jesus Christ supported through regular prayer, faith sharing and scripture reading.
> Sharing the Good News through words and actions, through Christian service and working for peace, justice and human dignity.
> Participating fully, consciously, actively and regularly in the celebrations of the sacramental life of the Catholic Church.
> Articulating the fundamental teachings of the Catholic faith and demonstrating a commitment to learning and growing in this faith.
> Applying Catholic ethics, virtues, principles, values and social teaching to moral decision- making, life situations, and in interactions with the larger culture.
> Discerning and using their gifts to actively belong to and participate in the life and mission of the parish, school, and larger community.
> Celebrating cultural/racial and ethnic diversity as a gift from God, and pursuing the development of Christian community across cultural/racial and ethnic backgrounds in their parishes, schools, and broader communities.
> Exploring God’s call to vocation through prayer, reflection, and discernment.

To see more about this, check here.

Recently, the National Initiative on Adolescent Catechesis promoted that the following are foundational and interdependently connected elements in this process of adolescent faith formation.

> Empowered Parents and Faith-Filled Families
> Vibrant, Youth-Friendly Parishes
> Fruitful Partnerships
> Comprehensive Ministry to Youth with Intentional and Systematic Faith Formation
> Inclusion, Trust and Acceptance

To see more about this, check here.

Chris Folmsbee at A New Kind of Youth Ministry recently came across a book by Stephen Jones called, Faith Shaping: Youth and the Experience of Faith ( Judson Press, 1987).  He reports:

Faith Shaping is full of little nuggets that are not only relevant for today but are required for people who work with today’s youth.  Probably the most helpful morsel of the book for me was chapter 9 on culture shaping.  In this chapter, Jones reminds his readers “We will not do justice to adolescents unless we help them consider the shape of their emerging faith in relation to their culture.” (P.89) . . .

The trend we commonly understand as ‘youth leaving the church’ isn’t primarily about the churches tendency toward abandonment, a rise in the influence of media or the Internet or the inability to reach a post-literate generation through traditional methods.  Rather, it is primarily an issue of doubt and distrust. 

We (youth workers) have not believed in and trusted the Holy Spirit’s ministry and movements enough among youth to allow youth to be the shapers of their culture.  Instead, we’ve tried to shape the culture ourselves.  This tragic mistake has led several decades of youth toward finding ways outside of the church to practice their faith and shape their culture.  This is why students are graduating and not coming back. 

Chris’s full post is here.

Last week, the Pope met with the Italian Episcopal Conference which was meeting to examine the theme: “The educational question: the urgent task of education”.

Some of the quotes pulled from that meeting:

“At a time in which relativistic and nihilistic concepts of life exercise a powerful enticement, a time in which the very legitimacy of education is placed in doubt, the principal contribution we can make is that of bearing witness to our trust in life and in man, in his reason and in his capacity to love.”

“The difficulty in forming authentic Christians interweaves and melds with the difficulty of creating responsible and mature men and women…  Alongside an appropriate curriculum that identifies the aim of education in the light of the model to be followed, there is a need for authoritative educators to whom new generations can look with trust”.

“A true educator places himself in the front line and knows how to unite authority and exemplarity in the task of educating those entrusted to his care. We ourselves are aware of this, having been given the role of guides among the People of God, guides whom the Apostle Peter invites to tend God’s sheep and to ‘be examples to the flock’”.

Read more here.

A few weeks back, for my kids, I wrote up my own commencement speech (not that it has not been decades since I have actually given one,)

This blog’s chaplain, Father Austin, was a bit grumble-y that I posted the concepts before he actually had a chance to deliver it.  In the end, he delivered a great sending-forth working upon the themes found in Night at the Museum 2.  It’s worth checking out here here.  (Beside, it affords me the opportunity to post an Amy Adams picture on the blog.) 

Father Austin does really good stuff in tying in modern culture into his presentation of faith.  Look how he uses Beyonce’s Halo for a wedding!