A conversation I had with a parishioner the other day went like this:
Me: "So you're saying that my confirmation students can't have one of the two service time slots you promised them, but a group, the majority of which are not parishioners, can keep their four slots?"When I started preparing to design a curriculum for the final year of a confirmation program I read a great deal about the theology of the sacrament. One essay sticks with me. In his book "A New Look at the Sacraments" William Basuch includes a chapter describing the murkiness of confirmation theology. Not only is it not well grounded in scripture or the life of Jesus, like say baptism, anointing, or reconciliation is, confirmation, in fact, has no clear theology. Throughout history culture and circumstance reordered the practice of a bishop laying hands on and anointing a person with Pentecost's spiritual Advocate so many times that the ritual practiced today (and the process leading to it) is beyond misunderstood - it is blatantly ineffective to the point that it's detrimental to the future of the Church.
Parishioner: "Well, they have a legacy."
Me: "Our kids ARE our legacy!"
Parishioner: "Are you serious?"
A more traditional Catholic might argue that the "graces" of the sacrament (love, joy, peace, etc.) will work on the hearts and souls of it's recipients, even despite their own motivations. I beg to differ. The last time I checked kindness, goodness, temperance and so on were learned habits, not supernaturally granted attributes. Sacraments, I'm told, are ritual actions that point to and participate in the life of Christ. Maybe a "going-through-the-motions" confirmation process, like what most churches have today, points to a life in Christ, but it surely doesn't help our kids desire, or form habits, to participate in the life of Christ.
The confirmation program we developed, inspired by Pedro Arrupe's call for Jesuit education to "form men and women for others", hoped to place our students in the heat of the many efforts to build a kingdom of justice made by the parishioners of my parish; hoped to prepare them to carry the uniquely Christian flame of justice - forgiveness, healing, and communion - to the world. Opportunities for service and justice education were schedule. A classroom curriculum that weaved together confirmation, Ignatian Spirituality, and social justice was designed. Young adult mentors were recruited. But, I am told, our children our not our legacy.
Here is a fact. "85% of the kids we confirm today will leave the Church before the age of 30," reports the Dynamic Catholic Institute. "Oh," you say, "they'll be back when they want to get married or have kids." No, they won't. There are 18 million more Catholics today in the US than in 1972, but there are 60% fewer weddings in the Church. That doesn't even include the couples who register, marry, and then stop coming in a year. Why do they leave? Because we don't work hard enough to keep them! 10% of catholic teens go to youth group. Is it because their parents won't bring them? No. They don't come because the programs we offer lack resources, (adequately) paid staff, meaningful events, or priority in parish life.
Our kids our our legacy whether we admit it or not. If we don't start acknowledging this, then our legacy is a dying Church. Our legacy is not the meager amounts of justice that we brought to the world through charity or advocacy - it is the people we leave behind to carry that torch. And if the people we leave behind aren't prioritized, then flame of justice we so ardently champion will surely smolder. There is a genius to the Catholic faith, but it must be passed on from generation to generation through relationship, not by inadequate faith formation programming. Until Catholic adults come to see this, our Church, and the justice it strives to bring, are at great risk.
Pray for our youth, but more importantly, pray for the Catholic adults who are blind to the importance they can play in forming the future Church.
