Q&A: A Youth Worker’s Perspective

Hired positions in the Catholic Church for youth ministry are far and few between. There could be one person assigned per diocese. So I don’t think [youth ministry] is a prioirty, if I’m being very honest.

I know due to the scandals and all that in the Church they have had to tighten up; most of the resources are going to child protection. By the church’s official leadership, [youth ministry] is minimum, but I think the lay organisations in the church are definitely far more active and efficient than our own church.

I think they’ve seen it as something not relevant to them … that has no impact on their life. They have no communication even with the church. They come to school, they receive whatever religious instruction [to] make the sacraments, then they’re good until they have to get married. Literally. No one comes near them. They have no incentive to attend.

I’ll be honest, for a long time people would joke if you read the Bible, “Why? Are you Protestant? … Yet there’s the serious truth in that.

On retreats we give out Bibles, and we instruct them. But if you give somebody a Bible and [say], “There you go, Good luck,” it’s pretty difficult to make that journey on your own. Some of the people involved in the faith, I doubt they know the story of salvation. And I only unearthed that in my second master’s [degree]. Imagine that. The story of salvation, the bigger picture, isn’t really given. Because if it was, then something clicks, and they have a sense of ownership that “This is my story–God’s story, my story.”