As a committed, regular-mass-attending Catholic parent, I want my sons to grow up in the church and stay in the church when they become adults. We've gone to church every week and they've attended Catholic schools since kindergarten. We love the parish we attend, and it has some great youth programs. Yet, they aren't so sure about Catholicism.
I understand that teenagers and young adults doubt; they have to find their own faith, and that's natural. And I'm aware that close to half of young adults raised in a particular church end up switching churches or stop attending altogether. I wonder why this is? Just what is it about religious formation that we are getting wrong when half of the kids later abandon it?
And then this past Sunday I read an article in the New York Times about a young teenager who wasn't raised in a church at all, who decided he wanted to start attending. The article said that 54 percent of such kids end up choosing a church at some point.
So half the kids raised in churches leave them, and half the kids not raised in churches join them. What does that mean for us parents, and for religious educators?
For me, I think it means that I have to more explicitly link our family's values to the church; I think that will help my sons make some connections. What are those values?
We're not perfect, and we're not going to expect or demand perfection - just that you give it your best shot. And when you do fail at something, we're not going to abandon you or give up on you. We're going to talk about it, see what can be done to fix or improve it, and keep on moving forward.
The church isn't perfect - which is easy to see these days. But we're not going to abandon it; we will work in our local church to make it better and to help it keep moving forward to do its work. Perfect doesn't exist around here, so let's not expect it - neither in us and our family nor in the church.
There's more than one way to be 'family'. We have our way, and it works pretty good most of the time. Other families are different, and they work too. There's more than one way to 'be' Catholic. Our way works for us, and it's different than some other people we know. And it's different than what some of your religion teachers have taught; they were teaching you about what they think is best, and that's not the only way.
We don't always agree with each other; sometimes we don't like each other much, either - but we're still a family. Mom and I love each other, and have been committed to each other for a long time but now and then we fight about things. Doesn't your brother get on your nerves sometimes? Through all this, we stick together as a family because the love we have far outweighs the difficulties among us.
Same goes for people in the church - there are all kinds of people, and sometimes we will disagree and sometimes those disagreements will be pretty serious. It's love that keeps us coming back to worship together because we're better together than apart.
Our family has changed over time. Sometimes it's been slow, sometimes pretty quick. Sometimes the change is in others, sometimes it's in us; often it's all of us changing in response to each other and the issues we're facing. But we are not the same family now that we were 10 years ago, or even 10 months ago.
The church changes over time, too. It changes slower than families, but the change is there. Sometimes the change is in us, and often the change is all around us. Read-up on what church was like in the 70's or 50's; it was a lot different in centuries past.
Well, that makes sense to me. Would it have made sense to me as a teenager? I think so - but that's been a long time ago.
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