Meeting for 2011 National Catholic Youth Conference on 11/6

The youth who are attending the National Catholic Youth Conference and their parents must attend a meeting on November 6th, 12:30-1:30pm, in the basement, to finalize plans. Contact Laura Zoeller with any questions.

The National Catholic Youth Conference is an exciting, biennial three-day experience of prayer, community, and empowerment for Catholic teenagers and their adult chaperones. The schedule includes keynote addresses, concurrent and workshop sessions addressing a wide variety of topics. There are also opportunities for liturgy, reconciliation, prayer and worship, recreation and special activities such as concerts, exhibits, and the interactive thematic park.


National Catholic Youth Conference ~ Called To Glory
Indianapolis, Indiana ~ November 17-19, 2011

Teaching Teens to pray the Rosary

Convincing a group of teenagers to sit still and pray the same prayers over and over again isn't always an easy task.

Youth ministry really can be incredibly fun.  Meeting new people, playing games, and going on trips can be an important part of any solid youth ministry program.  However, leading the teens to form a real relationship with God and teaching them how to live the Catholic faith has to be the central element of any solid, Christ-centered youth ministry program. 

Teenagers can play games and hang out with friends anywhere and on their own time, but youth group needs to be different than any other club or group in order to make an impact, and to become a priority  in already busy lives.  It's tempting to pack youth group meetings with sports and games to attract kids and keep them “happy,” and believe me, I've been there. 

It's easy to seek the instant gratification of smiling, laughing teens that leave a fun-filled meeting proclaiming that “Youth group rocks!” It's also tempting to recoil from the potential rejection that accompanies proposing a “boring” activity. When we as youth ministers reflect on our mission and examine our priorities, we know that leading the teens to God is more important than running a frisbee tournament, even one of epic proportions.

Through trial and plenty of error, I've come to find that a good structure for a youth ministry program is one that is consistent, simple, and that allows for lots of teen participation.  Teens also like to know what to expect. Props, videos, music, and flashing lights can serve a purpose, but a regular routine that consistently incorporates an element of prayer can be a good way to get young people used to praying on a regular basis. Socializing, fun activities, and prayer can all be part of your program, but each in moderation, and with purpose. 

Most Catholics are very familiar with the rosary as a form of prayer to the Blessed Mother Mary in which the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be prayers are repeated while different events from the lives of Jesus and Mary are contemplated. Blessed John Paul II encouraged recitation of the rosary during his papacy, even saying that it was his favorite prayer. But how can we even attempt to convince already skeptical and easily bored teenagers that the rosary is relevant today?

I first started praying the rosary regularly with my youth group when I was in high school, and I know how important that exposure was to me.  Through my own experiences with my youth group, I came up with a few different tips that can help make the rosary part of your youth group meetings. 

1) Rosaries for all- Before you start, make sure you have enough rosaries for everyone along with a How to Pray the Rosary guide.  There are many different guides available but this one is clear,  printable, and easy to photocopy: www.newadvent.org/images/rosary.pdf

2) Start small- Start by praying one decade a week- but don't stop there! Once your teens become comfortable “rosary pros,” encourage them to take on the challenge of the entire rosary.

3) Active participation- Get everyone involved! Model how to lead a decade (the leader announces the mystery and says the first part of each prayer).  Then choose five teens to lead the five decades.

4) Pray with purpose- Why do we pray? What is prayer, and what is its purpose? Many teens do not pray because they don't understand the purpose, or even how to pray. Review the section of the Catechism on Christian Prayer (Part 4 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p4s1.htm)  and incorporate it into your explanation of prayer and the rosary.

5) To Jesus Through Mary- In the meditations and prayers of the rosary, the Blessed Mother is leading us to Jesus and teaching us about her son. The Scriptural rosary incorporates Scripture passages that accompany the mysteries to each prayer of the rosary.  Check out an example here:  http://www.rosaryarmy.com/?page_id=582

6) Pray with Music- Danielle Rose is a talented a Catholic musician and songwriter who wrote and recorded a song for every mystery of the rosary on her album titled “Mysteries.”  Check out the album here: http://www.daniellerose.com/music

7) Make your own!- Rosary Army is a 501(c)3 non-profit Catholic organization  that promotes making twine knotted rosaries and distributing them.  They have very clear instructions and videos on how to make your own twine rosaries.  http://www.rosaryarmy.com/?page_id=39

While I cannot guarantee that your teens will never complain about praying the rosary at youth group (I wish!), taking the time to explain why the rosary is important, and your efforts to make this beautiful tradition of the Church relevant to your teens, really will make a difference.

Jessica Harris graduated from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2008 and works as a youth minister and high school religion teacher in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

Irish bishop: Catholics not passing faith to next generation

Catholic New Service:

Irish society is not just suffering from the sex abuse scandal but from a failure to pass on the faith to the younger generation, said the archbishop of Dublin.

"We have to completely, radically change the way we pass on the faith," Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told Catholic News Service May 16. "Our parishes are not places where evangelization and catechesis are taking place."

The archbishop traveled to Washington to present the Order of Malta Inaugural Lecture, "Faith and Service: the Unbreakable Bond." During his speech and in remarks to CNS beforehand, he spoke of the declining practice of the faith in Dublin -- 18 percent of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass -- and of the need to give young people responsibility in the parish to reinvigorate them.

Archbishop Martin has served in Dublin since 2003 and presided over the uncovering of hundreds of past cases of sex abuse and the mishandling of priest abusers, but he says the problem goes deeper than abuse.

The Catholic Church runs 90 percent of the elementary schools in Ireland. Yet if only 18 percent of Catholics attend Mass, he said, he has to wonder about the commitment of Catholic teachers.

"If people are being prepared for the sacraments by people who don't frequent the sacraments, there's a real problem there," Archbishop Martin told CNS.

He reiterated what he has said often in the past, that "young Irish people are among the most catechized and the least evangelized."

"Unless we address it, we're not going to have a next generation of young Catholics," he said.

"We're suffering from some of the products of being a mass Catholicism in the past. We're still living, in some ways, as if that were the case today," he said.

In his speech near the Georgetown University campus, Archbishop Martin said he believed the secularization of Irish society was quite advanced, and he spoke of what it means to live as a Christian citizen.

"If we start out in ... reflection on the place of faith in our culture with the conviction that God's grace is present and can be found even within a world marked by human sinfulness, then our vision of the place of the faith in society changes, and the entire framework for the presence of Christians in society takes on a new shape," he said.

"Christian commitment means getting your hands and your shoes dirty," he said. "The Christian in society is not just another social commentator, but a witness to another way of living."

He said Christian commitment "must not be limited to the occasional outburst of global solidarity" after natural disasters or "the more militant enthusiasm engendered around protest meetings."

"For the Christian, solidarity and sharing should be the stuff of every day, an imperative and not just an option, a daily imperative and not an occasional awakening of conscience," he said.

"Faith and service constitute an unbreakable bond," he said.

"Defense of the faith is about living the faith without being afraid," he said, adding that it means knowing that faith can improve all aspects of life.

In his CNS interview, Archbishop Martin spoke of the need for training volunteer laypeople to start relieving priests of some of their extra tasks so they can focus on priestly duties. Laypeople "bring a richness to ministry," he said, and where he has full-time laypeople working in parishes, they have increased the numbers of volunteer laypeople.

He said Irish young people are "extremely generous, dedicated."

"Parishes where young people are present and committed are parishes where they've been given responsibility," he said. "And the parishes which treat young people where they say 'You come on our conditions,' that's just not working."

Lent and the 'Friday' video

By Brian Caulfield, editor of the website Fathers for Good

By now you may have seen or heard about the YouTube viral video of the young teen singing her repetitive pop tune “Friday,” which has logged some 100 million internet hits in a few short weeks, and still counting. 

When I first saw the video, I thought it was a clever spoof on how inane pop music has become, with mind-numbing rap tempos and listless lyrics saying that today is Friday and tomorrow is Saturday and then comes Sunday – the sort of learning curve my youngest son followed in preschool. But apparently the song is not a spoof and kids are taking it seriously.

True, the music of the young is often disdained by their elders. I can recall my parents’ raised-eyebrow disapproval upon hearing the “Yeah, yeah, yeah” of the Beatles in the early 1960s, but at least the song “She Loves You” followed the traditional pattern of Western storytelling, starting with a problem (“You think you’ve lost your love”), a conflict (“She said you hurt her so”) and a resolution (“Apologize to her”). In contrast, the “Friday” video has no story, no personal conflict outside of the young people choosing “which seat can I take” and no resolution. The message is “Party … Party … Party…Yeah!”

I find it interesting that the video began to gain traction on YouTube on March 11, the first Friday of Lent. Throughout these 40 days, the “Friday” video has been amassing “hits” and serving as a sort of shadow negative to the Lenten message of fasting, abstinence and almsgiving. The YouTube teens are coiffed and scrubbed to perfection while they parade for one another in fancy cars, glamorous clothes, palatial homes and glittering ballrooms – with no apparent adult supervision.

Where in this scenario is there room for Lent? Fasting vs. fast cars. Abstinence vs. indulgence. Almsgiving vs. conspicuous consumption. Self-examination vs. self-absorption. Given these choices, what would most teens – or your teen – choose?

A common response of parents to the challenges of our culture is to say that you can’t keep kids in a bubble or protect them from every danger. While it’s true that bubble wrapping your youngsters is bad for their moral growth, you also don’t want to send them out in a thunderstorm without a raincoat. And right now the culture is pouring upon our children, and much of what is falling is like acid rain.

I admit that the juvenile “Friday” song is an easy target for parents, and it’s more a reflection of the culture than a destructive agent. After viewing the video for a few internet minutes, you may feel as though you’ve been smeared with soda pop and bubble gum, but no serious damage has been done to the soul. True music will survive this minimal assault, no matter how many more millions view it.

Yet the super-viral video is part of a larger media trend that is undermining the values that most parents – especially religious ones – seek to transmit to their children. With Holy Week upon us, we parents should assess the messages our kids are receiving from us and from the culture. What will we do – or what can we undo – to give our children the proper moral and religious foundation? In the popular idiom of our day, “Which seat will I take?”

* Brian Caulfield is editor of the website Fathers for Good, an initiative by the Knights of Columbus that features regular articles, videos and other multimedia on the subject of Christian fatherhood. A father of two young boys, Brian writes on the spiritual truths found in daily life and the issues men face while striving to live out their vocation.

Vatican challenges youth to use social media to create new Renaissance

From Catholic News Agency 

The Secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on Social Communications says he wants to challenge young Catholics to “be geniuses and creators of a new Renaissance” using social media.

Monsignor Paul Tighe likened the blossoming of social media to the ancient architectural wonders created during the first Renaissance. “The magnificent churches of Rome were built during the first Renaissance using the new technology, art and engineering of the time. Young people can now do the same today using the wonderful new technologies at their disposal including new media,” he said in an April 15 interview with CNA.

The pontifical council Msgr. Tighe works for was established in 1948 by Pope Pius XII primarily to monitor and critique the film industry. Since then its work has expanded as modern forms of communications have proliferated. Presently the Council is helping to overhaul the Vatican’s presence on the Internet, bringing all the Church’s major news agencies together onto one website. That includes the newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano,” Vatican Radio and Fides news agency.

Msgr. Tighe now wants young Catholics to realize the potential of this digital age.

“The first thing is that for young people ‘new media’ isn’t actually new. It’s just everyday life to them. So I want them to have a sense of how things were before and how exciting this digital age actually is. It has big potential,” he said.

He also noted that the social media can be used to draw people to Christ. “It’s interesting how the new technologies are being used by young people as a way of seeking friendship with others. That’s not just a cultural phenomenon. It’s actually in our nature – made in the image and likeness of God - to seek friendship. I’d hope young people can then open up to that ultimate other, God, through the same means.”

Msgr. Tighe pointed to websites such as “Sacred Space” which, he says, provide online “silence and solitude” for anybody seeking God.

Meanwhile, the project to bring all the Vatican’s media outlets onto one website should be complete by Easter Sunday this year.

Pope urges youth not to abandon God

The Catholic Review

Pope Benedict XVI urged young people not to abandon their faith in God because of the “attacks of evil” within the church.

“Carry intact the fire of your love in this church every time that men have obscured her face,” he said in a foreword to a new catechism edited specifically for young people.

The new “Youth Catechism,” also called “YouCat,” will be included in each pilgrim backpack for World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid.

The pope said he wanted to supplement the Catechism of the Catholic Church by translating it “into the language of young people and make its words penetrate their world.”

In the foreword, the pope urged everyone to study the catechism “with passion and perseverance” either alone, in study groups or in exchanges with others online.

Today’s Christians really need to understand their faith more than ever before in order to resist modern day challenges and temptations, he wrote.

“You have need of divine help if you do not want your faith to dry up as a dewdrop in the sun, if you do not want to succumb to the temptations of consumerism, if you do not want your love to be drowned in pornography, if you do not want to betray the weak and the victims of abuse and violence,” he wrote.

“You must know what you believe; you must know your faith with the same precision with which a specialist in information technology knows the (operating) system of a computer; you must know it as a musician knows his piece,” the foreword said.

While not specifically mentioning the clerical sex abuse crisis, the pope acknowledged the effect it has had on the faithful and said “the community of believers has been wounded in recent times by the attacks of evil” and sin in the heart of the church.

“Do not take this as a pretext to flee from God’s presence; you yourselves are the body of Christ, the church!” he told young people.

Motivated by love, speak the truth

From Catholic Womanhood

We live in a world that prides itself on allowing each person to have his or her own “truth,” a world where somehow, mysteriously, everyone can be in the right, all of the time, and there are no absolute or objective truths.

This idea is most commonly known as relativism, and Catholic theologians continue to strongly denounce it. Pope Benedict, then as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, stated in 2005 that “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.”

As anyone who has ever been a teenager can attest, young people are particularly swayed by their egos and desires. Simply, they like to do what they want. As serious Catholics know, allowing our lives to be ruled by selfish impulses results in an emptiness that can only be filled by knowing and loving the Lord, who is the “Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). However, under the “dictatorship of relativism,” the youth of today fall into the comfortable, if unsatisfying, belief that everyone can be right and no one can be wrong.

Today, the relativistic beliefs of the young often persist into adulthood, while those who have strong convictions and stand up for them are seen as single-minded fundamentalists who need to become more “tolerant.”

In my role a youth minister and high school theology teacher, I hear the opinions of young people on a daily basis. Understandably, many young people object to the so-called difficult Church teachings on pre-marital sex, contraception, and even sacramental issues because they do not fully understand the reasoning behind the Church's positions. Young people need to be told, boldly and unapologetically, the effects of buying into the world's empty promises, and the real and true happiness that comes from following Christ, but in an approachable way that they can understand.

However, sometimes I find that boldly proclaiming the truth is easier said than done. Working with teenagers is a difficult balance of relating with them and their experiences, “engaging the culture,” and giving them the truth that they really need to hear. It is easy to get caught up with forming friendships with the youth and come dangerously close to forgetting the purpose of our work. I've formed great relationships with the teens in my youth group, but calling them out on real issues has yet to become my strong suit, especially when so many young people believe that moral absolutes are a matter of opinion.

Recently, a discussion on the importance of attending Sunday Mass came up at a youth group meeting. A girl mentioned to me that she rarely attended Sunday Mass. She gave the timeless excuses of being too busy, not having a ride, and never going with her family. Since Sunday Mass is a non-negotiable issue for Catholics, missing it for anything other than a grave reason is a mortal sin. But, as I looked back into the excited face of a girl who had been diligently attending youth group, Bible study, and helping to lead retreats, I was faced with the almost insurmountable challenge of calling her out on it.

Very few people actually enjoy telling people they care about that they are objectively wrong about an opinion or a practice, especially when our culture tells us that disagreeing with someone on a moral issue makes us intolerant. We're afraid of rejection, of doing more harm than good in telling someone the truth. After a few deep breaths, I told my young friend, firmly, that if she was serious about living a Christian life she had to go to Confession and start going to Sunday Mass every week.

Although I did not enjoy this conversation, God knew what he was doing when He told us, through the words of St. Paul, to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

My young friend is not only attending Sunday Mass every week, but started bringing her family members, and goes to daily Mass before school whenever she can. In my human weakness, and fear of rejection, I was so afraid of what my youth group teen would think of me, that for a second I lost sight of who I am doing this for. Pope Benedict tells us, “Do not be afraid to talk of God and to manifest without fear the signs of faith, letting the light of Christ shine in the presence of the people of today.”

This especially applies to parents of teenagers and those who work with young people. Teens are faced with the lies of the world every single day. We cannot be afraid to tell them what they need to hear, motivated by love, and convicted by the truth found in the person of Jesus Christ.

The phenomena of 'Bieber Fever'

From The Catholic News Agency 

Okay, I admit it. I have Bieber Fever. I caught it from my preteen daughter after I took her to see “Never Say Never.” It’s a low grade fever, though I’m thinking of starting a men’s support group. It’s not his music (which is decent), it’s his potential as an accidental evangelist of millions of preteens that has me excited about him. Did I say millions? I meant tens-of-millions.

I’ve been in youth ministry for 13 years and I’ve never seen a craze sweep through teen culture like the one this kid has started. I simply mentioned his name during a talk at a recent junior high rally. I’ll never do that again. The 60/40 split of ecstatic cheers verses infuriated “off with his head” screams was literally deafening. It took some time to regain control of the room.

No one is neutral in the world of preteens. They love or hate him with a strange obsession. Perhaps the obsession is because preteens feel that he alone represents them in the realm of the famous. And perhaps their feelings run so high because this generation seems to think that realm is all that matters—though that’s a cultural tragedy for another article. But whatever the reason, preteens are obsessed. His video for “Baby” is the most viewed Youtube clip of all time, with 471,280,334 hits as of last week. It’s steadily climbing toward a billion.

Given the potential impact this kid can have on countless young souls, I breathed a sigh of relief after seeing “Never Say Never.” Thank God, he’s on “our side” for now. Bieber isn’t trying to evangelize. He’s just a good Christian kid who is trying to be himself, and his movie sends some messages that teens need to hear.

Unlike “faith-based” movies that sometimes ungracefully insert Christianity into the picture, “Never Say Never” presents faith as a very natural part of daily life, and it does so without trying. The teen icon and his mom pray multiple times throughout the movie. He even leads his friends in grace in a public restaurant. It’s clear that faith is a part of who he is and that he’s not ashamed of it.

The movie highlights the preeminent importance of family life. Justin’s family isn’t a perfectly intact one, but mom is ever backing him on the road and his grandparents love him to death. The movie also accurately depicted how the proud tears of his dad meant more than the screams of a million fans.

In an era where kids make gods of their pop stars, “Never Say Never” portrayed Justin Bieber as a human being. Once he steps off the stage, he’s just a kid. It showed him playing with friends, trying hard to stay normal, and studying with a tutor on his tour bus.

This movie sends a clear message that success isn’t free—a much needed lesson for a generation that tends to think that the world owes them something. Sure, Bieber displayed an unusual amount of God-given talent from age two and was “discovered” on Youtube, but he works like a dog, and the pop-umentary makes it clear that if he didn’t, his talent would take him nowhere. It depicts his painful desire for a normal life. It shows him sick as a dog for days on crowded tour bus. There’s even a scene where his vocal coach offers him an out if he wants to stop sacrificing so much. He chooses to press on, knowing that ongoing success and ongoing sacrifice will continue to go hand in hand.

The most powerful message from the movie comes from Justin’s mom, Pattie Mallette: "I want Justin to be able to find his identity and worth, not from what he can do, but from who he is.” Preteens are often so desperate to be someone that they tend to forget they are someone.

I’m not holding Justin Bieber up as a preeminent theologian. I’m not canonizing him either. Nor am I saying he’s beyond falling. But if Christians just let him be a good, God-loving kid without trying too hard to make him their poster-child, if the record industry doesn’t force him into the confines of a cookie-cutter liberal agenda, and if the family who loves him is able to keep him out of temptation’s way on the road, Justin will be an accidental evangelist for years to come.

Those are some big “ifs.” I’m praying for you little brother.

* Christopher Stefanick is director of Youth, Young Adult and Campus Ministry for the Archdiocese of Denver. His personal website can be found at www.chris-stefanick.com.

Teaching religion on the "frontier"

From Patheos Catholic Portal by Matt Emerson

A teacher at a Jesuit prep asks his media-saturated students what makes someone blessed or happy. The answers created a shocking new set of beatitudes.

The word "frontier" summons images of vast and vacant land ready to be built upon and cultivated, images of early Americans galloping across amber waves of grain, excited to stake their claim. We hear the word and we think of big families persevering in strength and virtue, simple white churches and one-room schools. We envision a world waiting to be shaped.

"The frontier" is the metaphor the Society of Jesus recently selected to frame the position of Jesuit education in the modern world. Last summer, at Santa Clara University, the Jesuit Secondary Education Association (JSEA) sponsored a week-long colloquium entitled Jesuit Mission: Sent to the Frontiers. A Jesuit educator myself, I attended the colloquium. Throughout that week and long after, the metaphor troubled me: Does a frontier, I thought, accurately capture the landscape on which students learn?

A little over a semester into the new school year, having reconsidered the colloquium and its guiding metaphor, I am convinced the image is inadequate.

The most compelling evidence for this belief comes from my students. While covering the Sermon on the Mount, I had students read the Beatitudes from the Gospel of Matthew and then create a list of "Modern Beatitudes." I told students to imagine the perspective of, for example, the head of MTV or the publisher of a popular magazine. From that perspective, I asked, what makes someone happy or blessed?

Here are examples of what students wrote:

Blessed are they who have problems, for they will be given attention.
Blessed are those who get pregnant at 16, for they will get a TV show.
Blessed are they who have money, for they will have anything they want.
Blessed are those who are angry, for violence is the only way to power.
Blessed are those who don't eat, for they shall be "beautiful."
Blessed are those who play music, for they bring joy to the world.
Blessed are those who are intelligent, for they gain respect from their peers.
Blessed are those who overcame drinking and drugs, for they will be on Oprah and Dr. Phil.
Blessed are those who get plastic surgery, for they shall remain ever young.
Blessed are those who have many Facebook friends, for they shall never be lonely while surfing the internet.
Blessed are the stoners, for they will not have to deal with reality.

Teen pregnancy, plastic surgery, drug use, "problems," technology, social networking sites, violence—this is the stuff that a group of 15- and 16-year-olds believes its culture prizes. This is the stuff our students walk into, and out of, and back into, every day.

A second assessment has proved equally revelatory. In a faith inventory my sophomore scripture classes filled out last semester, students revealed they rarely go to church, rarely pray, and find organized religion of minimal or no value at all. Their gateway into transcendence is not church, sacraments, or prayer; for most of them it's music, the saints of Rolling Stone, or the virtual fair on Facebook. And while the irreligiousness of teenagers might be expected, the faith inventories indicated that students' attitudes are usually shared by their parents. Mom and Dad generally do not attend church or do so only sporadically, and they have generally lost a connection with a faith community. (In fact, not even official representatives of the faith can be relied upon for affirmations of belief: on a retreat I attended last semester, the Franciscan concluded his homily in the closing liturgy by saying, "God doesn't care if you're Catholic.")

With headphones stuffed into ears, devices fused into hands, and images and advertisements invading eyes and ears without ceasing, today's frontier is more New York City than Cheyenne. Our students don't walk home to vacant, green lands with grazing cows and rows of corn; they drive past Subway and Jack n' the Box, Ford dealerships and Best Buy. In their free time, many of our students tan themselves in the glow of the iPad or the violent movements of a video game.

And what kind of games? On the retreat I mentioned above, a few seniors spoke about one game in which a player can tie a prostitute to a train track.

Consider the contrast: St. Ignatius of Loyola opened up shelters for reformed prostitutes; now, students at schools inspired by his faith play games that involve killing them.

In today's frontier, houses of worship are not simple churches but tiny cathedrals retrievable from pockets, christened "smart phones." On this frontier, students rarely build; the frontier builds for them. For example, YouTube plays videos as soon as the web site is accessed and provides, without end, related content. Wikipedia offers bolded and underlined links to key terms and concepts, ensuring that students rarely distinguish the trivial from the essential. Microsoft Word fixes spelling mistakes instantaneously and now recognizes sentences in the passive voice.

Today, releasing a "sex tape" (see Kim Kardashian) is a savvy career move and wearing raw meat (as Lady Gaga recently did) is considered fashion, not lunacy. In fact, the more bizarre the behavior, the greater the attention: Oprah Winfrey called Lady Gaga a cultural and spiritual leader andTime magazine named her one of the most influential people of 2009.

The challenges are obvious and daunting. In this boundary-demolishing context, where sex tapes build resumes and raw meat makes dresses, where is there room for a stable concept of human dignity? How can we persuasively invite students to believe that men and women are created in the image and likeness of God? How can we expect our students to appreciate their intellect and their spirituality when most of what they read and hear respects neither? How can we expect them to care about sacrifice or the reality of sin? In this world, what has become of the idea of temptation?

I have no clear answers to these questions, but before we offer responses, we must know where we stand, which is not on an empty terrain waiting to be shaped and converted. We are in New York City and the Vegas Strip, an Apple Store and an American mall. If this terrain is a frontier, it's been long settled.

Mom unplugs teens for 6 months no phone, internet or TV

from theblaze.com

Susan Maushart lived out every parent’s fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers.

For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games. The eerie glow of screens stopped lighting up the family room. Electronic devices no longer chirped through the night like “evil crickets.” And she stopped carrying her iPhone into the bathroom.

The result of what she grandly calls “The Experiment” was more OMG than LOL — and nothing

As Maushart explains in a book released in the U.S. this week called “The Winter of Our Disconnect” 

(Penguin, $16.95), she and her kids rediscovered small pleasures — like board games, books, lazy Sundays, old photos, family meals and listening to music together instead of everyone plugging into their own iPods.

Her son Bill, a videogame and TV addict, filled his newfound spare time playing saxophone. “He swapped Grand Theft Auto for the Charlie Parker songbook,” Maushart wrote. Bill says The Experiment was merely a “trigger” and he would have found his way back to music eventually. Either way, he got so serious playing sax that when the gadget ban ended, he sold his game console and is now studying music in college.

Maushart’s eldest, Anni, was less wired and more bookish than the others, so her transition in and out of The Experiment was the least dramatic. Her friends thought the ban was “cool.” If she needed computers for schoolwork, she went to the library. Even now, she swears off Facebook from time to time, just for the heck of it.

Maushart’s youngest daughter, Sussy, had the hardest time going off the grid. Maushart had decided to allow use of the Internet, TV and other electronics outside the home, and Sussy immediately took that option, taking her laptop and moving in with her dad — Maushart’s ex-husband — for six weeks. Even after she returned to Maushart’s home, she spent hours on a landline phone as a substitute for texts and Facebook.

But the electronic deprivation had an impact anyway: Sussy’s grades improved substantially. Maushart wrote that her kids “awoke slowly from the state of cognitus interruptus that had characterized many of their waking hours to become more focused logical thinkers.”

Maushart decided to unplug the family because the kids — ages 14, 15 and 18 when she started The Experiment — didn’t just “use media,” as she put it. They “inhabited” media. “They don’t remember a time before e-mail, or instant messaging, or Google,” she wrote.

Like so many teens, they couldn’t do their homework without simultaneously listening to music, updating Facebook and trading instant messages. If they were amused, instead of laughing, they actually said “LOL” aloud. Her girls had become mere “accessories of their own social-networking profile, as if real life were simply a dress rehearsal (or more accurately, a photo op) for the next status update.”

Maushart admits to being as addicted as the kids. A native New Yorker, she was living in Perth, Australia, near her ex-husband, while medicating her homesickness with podcasts from National Public Radio and The New York Times online. Her biggest challenge during The Experiment was “relinquishing the ostrichlike delusion that burying my head in information and entertainment from home was just as good as actually being there.”

Maushart began The Experiment with a drastic measure: She turned off the electricity completely for a few weeks — candles instead of electric lights, no hot showers, food stored in a cooler of ice. When blackout boot camp ended, Maushart hoped the “electricity is awesome!” reaction would soften the kids’ transition to life without Google and cell phones.

It was a strategy that would have made Maushart’s muse, Henry David Thoreau, proud. She is a lifelong devotee of Thoreau’s classic book “Walden,” which chronicled Thoreau’s sojourn in solitude and self-sufficiency in a small cabin on a pond in the mid-1800s. “Simplify, simplify!” Thoreau admonished himself and his readers, a sentiment Maushart echoes throughout the book.

As a result of The Experiment, Maushart made a major change in her own life. In December, she moved from Australia to Long Island in New York, with Sussy. Of course, the move merely perpetuated Maushart’s need to live in two places at once: She kept her job as a columnist for an Australian newspaper and is “living on Skype” because her older children stayed Down Under to attend university. Ironically, the Internet eased the transition to America for Sussy, who used Facebook to befriend kids in her new high school before arriving.

Another change for Maushart: She‘s no longer reluctant to impose blackouts on Sussy’s screentime. “Instead of angsting, ‘Don’t you think you’re spending too much time on the computer? Don’t you think you should do something else like reading?‘ I now just take the computer away when I think she’s had enough,” Maushart said in a phone interview. “And now that she‘s been on the other side and remembers what it’s like, it’s less of an issue.”

Maushart realizes that living off the grid for six months is unrealistic for most people. (She also admits getting her kids to go along with it partly by bribing them with a cut of proceeds from the book, which she planned to write all along.)

But she encourages families to unplug periodically. “One way to do it is just to have that one screen-free day a week. Not as a punishment — not by saying, ‘I’ve had enough!’ — but by instituting it as a special thing,” she said. “There isn‘t a kid on the planet who wouldn’t really rather be playing a board game than sitting at the computer.”

Evangelizing the youth...feed my sheep

from patheos.com by Tony Rossi

Chances are that the leaders in your parish have asked the question, "How can we get young people more involved in the church?" As part of a Catholic Young Adult group myself, I know that question doesn't have a one-size-fits-all answer. However, two guests I've interviewed onChristopher Closeup had suggestions they've seen work.

The first is Bob Lesnefsky, also known as the award-winning Christian rapper Righteous B. Though he enjoys making music, his real passion is a youth program he co-founded called Dirty Vagabond Ministries. Describing its approach as "incarnational ministry," the program places missionaries in an urban area to live among the people and meet them wherever they are.

Lesnefsky said, "We show up at a park with a grill and start grilling hot dogs and feeding people. The first time, we just see them and get to know their name. Over weeks or years, it eventually builds relationships and develops into a friendship. It's much more effective for me to share Christ with someone who considers me their friend than someone who I knock on their door and try to give them a five-minute plug. These are people we have an authentic relationship with. There's an element of trust that happens before we even tell them about God. They begin to see we care for them outside of whether or not they ever come to the Church."

One of Dirty Vagabond Ministries' core principles is that "the greatest intimacy with Christ is found in the sacramental life of the Church." Lesnefsky admits that many inner-city youth don't have a foundation of faith, so exposure to Church and the sacraments can be "a little jarring" for them. But by sharing family-style meals and attending Mass together, these young people undergo "a beautiful awakening."

Another person who's had great success in this area is author and speaker Mark Hart, who's also known as "The Bible Geek." Through his work with the program Life Teen, he is helping young people "form their Catholic identity in authentic and joy-filled ways."

Hart acknowledged that one of the challenges of getting young people to Mass is that they're a screen-based culture that's always texting or online. He told me, "We (shouldn't) wonder why young people are bored at Mass when they're constantly stimulated the other 167 hours a week." Hart's solution, however, isn't to make Mass entertaining but to help our "individualistic culture . . . appreciate how communal God designed us to be."

Hart has discovered that "Modern teenagers . . . want depth. They want deep relationships; they just don't know how to have them. They're really drawn to the mystical. When you start walking them into the mystical elements of the sacraments and the depth and breadth of the mysteries of the church, their hearts become enlivened." Hart sees part of the problem in reaching youth to be adults who talk at them, not to them. He points out, "We should take a lesson from Christ on the road to Emmaus. He walked and listened before He taught."

Despite the challenges of reaching teens, Hart concludes, "People talk about all the negatives of teenagers (but) . . . I am consistently amazed and blown away by the quality of our young people."

It's easy to lament the lack of young faces at Sunday Mass, but complaining doesn't accomplish anything. Instead, consider the insights of Bob Lesnefsky and Mark Hart and try to build on what they've shown can work.

Former New York model Leah Darrow quit on the spot when she realized she was about to ‘lose her soul.’

from ncregister.com

Gospel singer-turned-pop star Katy Perry recently raised the ire of some parents when she performed a segment for preschoolers on Sesame Street in a dress that appeared to have a plunging neckline (it was actually a flesh-colored mesh that went to her neck).

Singer Lady Gaga, in one of her many outrageous publicity stunts, appeared on the September 2010 cover of Vogue Hommes Japan wearing only pieces of raw meat strung together to create a skimpy bikini (she also turned heads when she wore a somewhat more modest meat dress to MTV’s Video Music Awards in September).

The entertainment industry has long presented attractive young female performers in various states of undress to millions worldwide, often to young people on whom it makes a significant impact.

It’s scandalous, and a waste of time and talent, says model and Catholic speaker Leah Darrow: “There is no benefit in watching circus freaks perform. They’re using their God-given talents in unproductive ways.”

Says Darrow, “When I ask teens, ‘Are their outfits appropriate?’ They say No. But I tell them when they watch their videos over and over, they’ll begin to think the way they dress and act is no big deal. In one of Lady Gaga’s videos [Alejandro] she dresses as a nun and eats a rosary. That’s not entertainment; it’s just a bunch of sleazy images.”

Darrow herself was once a part of the upscale fashion world in New York City and was a contestant on the reality TV show America’s Next Top Model, but had a change of heart and now works speaks full time about chastity, modesty and women in the Church.

“My focus is on helping women be the best they can be,” she said.

Read more here...

Parents pay attention to what your teens are listening to...

from catholicnewsagency.com by Christopher Stefanick

The lessons packed in the love songs that are getting the most radio play today all seem to have a similar theme: if it isn’t dysfunctional, it isn’t love.

Take the song "Grenade" for instance, wherein Bruno Mars sings a litany of pains he’d endure for his beloved, ranging from catching a grenade, to throwing his hand on a blade, to taking a bullet through his brain. His beloved is evil, it seems. According to the song she’d “smile in (his) face then rip the brakes out of (his) car.”

Her response to his “loving” rant is total indifference. He goes so far as to lament that if his body was on fire she’d watch him burn in flames. Yet, despite all this, at the end of the song he still sings, “I would die for you baby, but you won’t do the same.”

It seems that Bruno has so effectively broken the stereotype of the emotionless, standoffish male that he has become the psychotically needy girlfriend. Good boy, Bruno. Contemporary, feminized society has trained you well in the ways of “manhood.” The lesson of this song is clear: if it isn’t co-dependence, it isn’t real love.

In a recent drive to work I turned the radio dial in a vain attempt to avoid Grenade only to find it on three other stations. Moving on…

In one of the most popular songs of 2010, "Breakeven," singer Danny O'Donoghue laments after a hard breakup, “I’m still alive but I’m barely breathin’.” Everyone who has had their heart broken can relate with those words. But he goes on to sing, “What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you?” Romantic words? Yes. Emotionally healthy words? No.

No offense Danny, but if the best part of you was her I can see why she dumped you. While a couple is called to unity, individuals still need to maintain autonomy for a relationship to be stable and lasting. If people lose themselves in one another, soon there is no self to give to the other. The lesson of "Breakeven": if it isn’t enmeshment, it isn’t love.

In the song "Animal" by Neon Trees, vocalist Tyler Glenn sings, “We’re sick like animals…I won’t be denied by…the animal inside of you…Take a bite of my heart tonight.” Tyler, you and anyone who looks like you won’t be dating my daughter. The lesson of this song is echoed in countless others: if it isn’t promiscuous, it isn’t passion.

And Miranda Cosgrove, a Nickelodeon (i.e. children’s TV channel) actress, in "Kissing You" sings to her boyfriend before an audience of millions of pre-teen girls, “When I’m kissing you it all starts making sense!” And answers to questions like, “Are you the one I should trust?” become “crystal clear…when I’m kissin’ you.”

The lesson of this song is that physical intimacy is the way to discern if a given relationship is the right one. I hate to break the news to you, Miranda, but that feeling you’re getting while kissing him is oxytocin. It’s a neuro-peptide released during physical intimacy that decreases your ability to reason and increases your ability to bond. It produces the polar opposite of clear thinking. Furthermore, when you’re engaging in heavy kissing with your boyfriend, Miranda, I can almost guarantee that he’s not thinking, “You’re the one I should trust.” It’s more likely that he’s thinking, “You’re the one I should do more with than kiss.”

I’m not even going to attempt to tackle what most rap songs say about relationships because their content, packed with sexual deviance and hedonism that border on violence is more fitting for a hard core porn magazine or a "Law and Order SVU" episode than the radio.

I don’t mean to sound like an emotionless Spock of a man. The songs I mentioned, with the exception of "Animal," do have some redeeming themes, and they all have great melodies. But they dismantle the prerequisite for love in the minds of the desperate pre-teens who are listening: self possession. If a person is stable enough to stand on his own two feet without falling into enmeshment and co-dependence, then, and only then, can he give himself in love to another.

And if love is contained by modesty, chivalry and purity during dating and engagement, then, and only then, can it become an internal fire that nothing can put out. In the words of John Paul II, the “fire of pleasure … burns quickly like a pile of withered grass.” But the flame of purity creates a fire that doesn’t consume its host.

Thanks in large part to misguided love songs, teens tend to mistake things like co-dependence, enmeshment, and promiscuity for love. It’s funny how the things they come to look for in dating relationships are precisely the things that set them up for failed marriages.

Parents: Pay attention to what your teens are listening to and turn those songs on your car radio into teaching moments. You might get eyes rolled back at you in reply, but what that really means is: “Thanks for looking out for me, Mom and Dad.”

Christopher Stefanick is director of Youth, Young Adult and Campus Ministry for the Archdiocese of Denver. His personal website can be found at www.chris-stefanick.com.

Jammin' in Jamaica & Haiti Pictures

Archbishop exhorts parents to teach children faith and morals

Article about Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver address in British Columbia.., 


Article reads in part...

“Christians in my country and yours – and throughout the West, generally – have done a terrible job of transmitting our faith to our own children and to the culture at large,” Archbishop Chaput remarked.

“Instead of changing the culture around us, we Christians have allowed ourselves to be changed by the culture. We’ve compromised too cheaply. We’ve hungered after assimilating and fitting in. And in the process, we’ve been bleached out and absorbed by the culture we were sent to make holy.”

“The central issue is whether we ourselves really do believe. Catechesis is not a profession. It’s a dimension of discipleship. If we’re Christians, we’re each of us called to be teachers and missionaries.”


“God gave us the faith in order to share it. This takes courage. It takes a deliberate dismantling of our own vanity. When we do that, the Church is strong. When we don’t, she grows weak. It’s that simple.”


Read entire article...

10,000 attend Youth Mass in Wisconsin

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay holds an all-schools Mass
on Thursday at the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon.
(H. Marc Larson/Press-Gazette)

The article reads...


Almost 10,000 students from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay had the Resch Center rocking Thursday morning as praising God took center stage.

The all-schools Mass was attended by students from 61 of the 62 schools within the Diocese of Green Bay, which serves 16 counties throughout Northeastern Wisconsin.

Officials said the event was the largest Mass in the history of the diocese and ranked in the top 10 for Resch Center attendance.

Jane Schueller, principal of Resurrection School in Allouez, helped organize the event at the center, 1901 S. Oneida St.

"Our liturgy is the most important piece of what we do as Catholics, so to have our students experience a liturgy all together (is great)," she said. "We're gathering to praise God and give thanks for all that we have: the gift of each other."

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When moms pray, good things happen-- even if it takes a good, long time

A blogger writes about "What makes them leave-- or come back?" The blog begins...

When I first began working on my latest book, "When's God Gonna Call Me Back?," I sent out a request for testimonies from people who had left the Church. Although I haven't always been as good as I would have liked to be, it was never my experience to separate from the Church. I had to learn from the experiences of others, so I asked them three questions:

 

1.Why did you leave?
2.What kept you away?
3.What brought you back?

 

In return, I promised them that I would refrain from all judgment and proselytizing, that I would protect their anonymity, and that I would ask all identifying factors.

 

As you can imagine, there was quite a variety of responses. Many of them were so heart wrenching that it was hard for me to hold back the tears – abuse, rape, imprisonment, betrayal, suicide attempts, conflict, loniliness, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, confusion. These brave individuals shared with me some of the most difficult things they have ever told anyone, and I was both humbled by them and proud of them for their courage.

 

I also was surprised by their responses – in particular the number of individuals who credited the prayers of their mothers for their return to the Church, even when they didn't know that their mothers were praying for them at the time.

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History of World Youth Day... in Madrid, Spain August 16-21, 2011

WYD organizers preparing for Madrid 2011 with Facebook, YouTube

World Youth Day organizers, who are expecting more than 2 million participants, are preparing for the 2011 event in Madrid with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and fundraisers using text messages.

Social networking sites have been key outlets "for raising awareness, mobilizing, communicating and financing World Youth Day," said Auxiliary Bishop Cesar Franco Martinez of Madrid, who is the general coordinator of the Aug. 16-21 international event.

Bishop Franco and others spoke Oct. 5 at a Vatican news conference on the preparations involved in next year's gathering.

Maria de Jaureguizar, vice director of communications for World Youth Day 2011, said, "It will be a WYD that is fully immersed in the Internet, the place where young people today meet."

"All information and all promotional materials can be found on the official website," www.madrid11.com, interested participants can plan and "interact" on special pages and accounts organizers have set up on a variety of social networking sites, she said.

As of Oct. 5, there were more than 165,000 fans of World Youth Day on Facebook,


World Youth Day organizers, who are expecting more than 2 million participants, are preparing for the 2011 event in Madrid with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and fundraisers using text messages.

Social networking sites have been key outlets "for raising awareness, mobilizing, communicating and financing World Youth Day," said Auxiliary Bishop Cesar Franco Martinez of Madrid, who is the general coordinator of the Aug. 16-21 international event.

Bishop Franco and others spoke Oct. 5 at a Vatican news conference on the preparations involved in next year's gathering.

Maria de Jaureguizar, vice director of communications for World Youth Day 2011, said, "It will be a WYD that is fully immersed in the Internet, the place where young people today meet."

"All information and all promotional materials can be found on the official website," www.madrid11.com, interested participants can plan and "interact" on special pages and accounts organizers have set up on a variety of social networking sites, she said.

As of Oct. 5, there were more than 165,000 fans of World Youth Day on Facebook.


Continue to read post...

Youth Director reflects on the first member of Generation X considered for Sainthood

  

Last Saturday, September 25, Chiara “Luce” Badano - an Italian teenager whose short life showed extraordinary holiness - was officially beatified in a ceremony outside of Rome. In his latest video for Catholic News Agency, Archdiocese of Denver youth and campus ministry director Chris Stefanick describes the life and witness of “the first member of Generation X” to be considered for sainthood.

Chiara was her parents' only child, a long-awaited daughter born in 1971 after 11 years of their marriage. She and her parents were strongly involved with Focolare, a movement with Catholic roots that promotes world peace.

As a teenager, she took great joy in life, and seemed poised for a promising future. “She had a bright life, a beautiful face - all the boys loved her,” Stefanick recounts. “She would go to coffee shops, she was into mountain climbing and tennis.”

The young woman wanted to work as a flight attendant. Instead, as Stefanick describes, her life took a course that most would consider to be tragic: “One day when she was a teenager she was playing tennis and got an excruciating pain in her shoulder … After that, she was diagnosed with a very rare, painful form of bone cancer.” Her resolve to fight the cancer was contradicted by the results of repeated tests.

Her response to the negative prognosis was to embrace God's will. “Jesus,” she prayed, “If this is what you want, so do I.” The Denver youth minister describes Chiara's response to her progressing disease: “When her beautiful hair fell out, she would hold it up in the air and say: 'For you, Jesus'.”


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