In the Fall Issue of the Engaging Mind, Hearts, and Hands newsletter, two articles were shared about the challenges of adolescent evangelization and catechesis especially in the venue of parish programs. Two perspectives are presented below.
By Bryan Reising
Director of Religious Education and Adult Faith Formation
Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota
In 2007, 672,426 students attended Catholic high schools across the United States. In that same year, 732,917 public school students received religious education at some level. With 67,515,016 Catholics in the United States and around 20,000,000 more inactive Catholics, there are many more public school teens receiving no catechetical formation. How many receive no formation?
According to the Census Bureau, there are about 33 million high school age students in the United States (public schools, charter schools, parochial schools, private schools, home schools, and dropouts). Catholics in general make up about 24% of the total population of the United States. This adds up to about 7.900,000 teens who are Catholic. According to this calculation, that means nearly 6,500,000 Catholic teens are receiving no faith formation at all!
What can we do? How can we reach these teens and their parents? It is hopeful that in the years to come, more people will lend their expertise and creativity so that Catholic parishes can share the faith, invite more to the faith, and involve more with sharing the faith! In addition, parishes and dioceses need intentional planning for missionary outreach. In the meantime, here are some resources that may help:
Evangelization Resources
• Cultivation Ministries: This organization, headed by Frank Mercadante, helps to form youth ministry teams to reach out to more youth and to effectively minister to them.
• Systematic Integral New Evangelization (SINE): This resource founded by the late Fr. Alfonso Navarro, MSpSC helps parishes and even entire dioceses to become more evangelizing. This is an excellent site to study ways to evangelize the Spanish-speaking teens.
• LifeTeen: Life Teen is centered in the Eucharist. This popular program also features suggestions for catechetical sessions to be held after Sunday evening Mass.
• TEC (Teens or Together Encounter Christ) is a weekend retreat experience for older adolescents and young adults designed to facilitate an experience Christ and his Paschal Mystery.
• NET Ministries (National Evangelization Teams) is groups of young people who give retreats and portray the Gospel message through drama and music. They travel to many parishes and dioceses around the country.
• RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adultis a process with roots in the early Church and made new again because of the Second Vatican Council. It is a process for those who are called to become Catholics culminating in the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil.
• Home Visitation: This is a ministry that more and more Catholic parishes are using to reach out to the lost, the Catholics we miss, and those without a church home. It also builds up ecumenical relations. The Diocese of Wheeling, West Virginia produced an excellent film: “Home Visitation: Building Relationships, Building the Kingdom”
Don’t forget to use all of the media—print and otherwise—to get out the Word of God: newspapers, letters, mailings, phone calls, radio, billboards, television, the internet, text messaging, pod casting, and more ways in the future. Special mention in this area is directed to agencies that are providing beautiful and meaningful commercials to those Catholics we miss.
The students in Catholic high schools usually receive five days a week of catechetical instruction. The public high school students receive catechetical formation from once a week during the school year to once a month if at all. There is real question about when and if publishers will provide materials that address the new doctrinal guidelines approved by the United States Bishops but that are also geared especially for teens in parish programs (see accompanying article).
What can a parish do? The resources listed above are helpful and many publishers, including Ave Maria Press , do provide resources especially for the parish market. But we need more especially designed materials.
I believe the potential for adolescent catechesis is great when considering those who do not go to Catholic high schools. For publishers, youth ministers, catechists, and parents, it takes a real commitment to ensure that the faith is being past on in an adequate manner. I believe there is a need to create curriculum that can be used in traditional and intergenerational religious education settings. I believe there is a need for catechist friendly manuals in order to help the catechist make the most out of teaching the faith. I believe parents need to have the tools for family activities to engage their teenage children with the faith. I believe community building and faith-building activities for and with youth can be useful when they are just hanging out. In addition, online resources and DVDs can be of service as more and more teens rely on technology for information. How about a Catholic Wikipedia?
Let us continue the conversations and create new resources to reach out to our youth and provide good catechetical experiences!
What Publishers Can Do to Enhance Catechesis for Non Catholic School Teens
In various conversations throughout the course of the year, mainly with diocesan religious education leaders, we are often asked “what new catechetical programs we have in the pipeline for parish teens.”
The question is a tricky one, especially with the inclusion of the word program in the question.
In the mid 1990s Ave Maria Press published such a program, Developing Faith. It was intended as a catechetical centerpiece for parish youth ministry and a compliment to Confirmation preparation processes. It was created as twelve eight-week courses, complete with “Participant Books” for the teens and “Director’s Manuals” for the parish leaders. In the years Developing Faith was on the market, our research found fewer and fewer parishes that 1) employed trained youth ministers and 2) included a comprehensive catechetical component to their youth offerings. Many parishes had no youth program whatsoever.
As Church leaders from many arenas (bishops, diocesan, scholarly, parish, publishers) undertake a serious discussion this coming week of the issue of Adolescent Catechesis, Ave Maria Press is committed to participating to the dialogue, assimilating the results, and readying to produce materials that will reach the many teens cited in the article by Bryan Reising.
To this end, Ave Maria Press is publishing Catholic Essentials: An Overview of the Faith in 2009. It is outlined and written based on the Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework For the Development of Catechetical Materials For Young People pf High School Age produced and approved by the United States Catholic Bishops in 2007. Designed as a handbook for teens who attend both Catholic and non-Catholic high schools, it is accompanied by a manual with lessons for that also function for both schools and parish programs.
Also, currently, on the Ave Maria Press website are specially designed lessons that distill current textbooks—all in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church—for use in parish programs. Many of these lessons include references to current issues and contemporary news articles that allow catechists and youth ministers to develop lessons that are both engaging and comprehensive. Visit the Ave Maria Press Religious Education website and search for “Parish Religious Education Adaptations” (for example) under the links for each subject area/text.
