5 Ways to Draw Young People Back to God

welcome back to the word on fire show I'm Brendan Vaught the host and the content director here at word on fire Catholic ministries we're getting near the Christmas season we're right here in the middle of Advent and I'm joined by Bishop Robert Baer and Bishop Baron good to see you hey Brandon always a great pleasure to be on with you now I mentioned at the last episode that you had just returned from this big gathering of us Catholic Bishops in Baltimore we didn't get a chance to talk about that so maybe give us an update how'd that go for you it's good you know they're it's a they're important meetings we cover a lot of ground in recent years of course the sex abuse scandals have always been you know at the center of our preoccupation how to deal with that institutionally this year I had the opportunity to address all the bishops on this famous issue that you and I've talked about many many times of the unaffiliated the young people especially leaving the church so that to me was kind of a highlight and and the fact that so many bishops responded to that presentation of course you were part of it too I took a lot of you know encouragement from that what I like best about those meetings is the chance just to get together with the brothers you know so we bishops do meet together quite frequently and I think that's good for us and good for the church anyway for me it was the end of a very long period of obligations and speeches and trips this fall was exceptionally busy and that was kind of the last stop so I was kind of happy to come home and and you know unwind a little bit what the previous bishops meeting you gave an overview of what your Committee on evangelization and catechesis had accomplished and it was supposed to be sort of a very short presentation 10-15 minutes but then during the Q&A session all the bishops were lining up and asking question after question and affirming and celebrating and encouraging and pretty soon returning to like an hour plus long thing we saw the same dynamic at this most recent November meeting you gave a 15 minute presentation short of showed a short little video clip and then there was a panel discussion and once again it went way over time there there's no much interest in energy among the bishops on this topic which was encouraging to see so I thought for this podcast episode we'd walk through your presentation again this was directed just at the bishops and you were describing five ways to draw nuns or young people in general back to the church and again you were directing this at the bishops themselves what should the bishops be doing in their own dioceses so let's jump in suggestion number one get young people involved in the works of justice I guess first of all why did you choose to lead with this with this suggestion you've you have a bunch of them and we'll cover some here that'll be familiar to listeners but this isn't one you typically lead with why'd you decide to lead with it here well I because in so many of the surveys it's clear that young people get the church's commitment to social justice they don't get our sexual teaching and that's course topic for another day I mean why that's true and what we should do about it but it's very clear they like the church's commitment to the poor and the homeless and the hungry they like Catholic Relief Services they like Catholic Charities they get that to me it's it's a it's a no-brainer in a way because start with the thing that people readily find most attractive about Catholicism and there are thousand reasons why at this point in our cultural history people find the works of justice so appealing it's not always been true let me go in other parts of our parts of our history and other aspects of the church's life would be probably more appealing for a hundred different reasons this one now is okay take advantage of it in other words I would recommend not leading with the things that young people find most off-putting about us but let's lead anyway with the things they find most readily attractive a point I made with the bishops and I made it explicitly in reference to the sexual teaching I'm not saying by any means OS jettison that forget about our sexual teaching who needs it no no I'm with Reynold Hillenbrand who is my predecessor at Mundelein seminary as rector way back in the 1940s there's a tight link in fact between the church's call to justice and the church's sexual teaching so we'll get there you know so this is a marathon not a sprint right when it comes to evangelization how do you draw people in but I'd say maybe the first part in that marathon start with justice because they get it readily and I think they'll respond more favorably one of the things you encourage your brother bishops to do in their diocese is is not just to get young people involved in the actual works of the corporal works of mercy but to also lift up social minded Saints and you've mentioned a few of these who are some of the Saints that you think best embody this tradition but the great thing Brandon as you well know is they run right through our great tradition so this goes back to the Hebrew prophets go to Ezekiel and Daniel and Isaiah and Amos and Hosea I mean the great Hebrew prophets that's where this whole thing comes from it comes roaring up of course into Jesus himself who readily accepts the the title of prophet and and speaks those same truths then Church Fathers have people read Ambrose have them read John Chrysostom you'll find very strong things about care for the poor and justice and so on Thomas Aquinas my hero you know says something which I think still takes the breath away of a lot of people today which is yes we have a right to private ownership of property but when it comes to the use thomases of your private property the primary consideration should always be the common good Wow I mean most people today it seems to me like in the capitalist West wouldn't readily think that was a notice my property I should use it you know for first to my advantage and then if I have some left over but Thomas is knowing the use of it it's the common good that should be your first consideration now come up from Thomas all the way to the the social Magisterium of the Pope's from leo xiii all the way through francis i hold up those people as well as someone you talked about in your own writing store a--they day the 20th century one of the great prophets you might say of social justice and mind you Dorothy day the link between social justice and prayer and the mass and the Eucharist and the Saints you know the mystical life she was not a one-size you know hey everything's social justice it was on the contrary so I think all those people can and should be lifted up we've got this tradition let's use it what would you say to the objection and I think one of the bishops raised this during the Q&A period that hey I'm all for involving young people in you know serving in soup lines helping the homeless and the sick but that won't in and of itself introduce them to Jesus Christ what do you say to that objection well true true enough but it's not the Omega it's the Alpha you might say it's the first step it's a opening of a door I've always said justice in itself is evangelical e ambiguous because anyone of good will even an atheist of goodwill can be attracted to the works of justice Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims and Protestants and and everyone else can be attracted to justice so right in itself it's not well I guess I'd urge this Brandon it's the the insight from the very early church how these Christians love one another so what is evangelical e compelling is when people watch the activity of Christians for the sake of the poor and and working for justice that becomes attractive and that is evangelical a quite relevant so it's the beginning at the end it's a first step not the last step isn't that you would know better than me in the early church that was one of the most striking signs of the Christian community was how they loved not just each other but the people on the margins right because he thinks that we would say of course are morally outrageous like if a child was born the child is some you know deformity that it that he was left out on the hillside he was just exposed to the elements well in the ancient world that wasn't considered a bad thing to do that was that was the right thing to do and when Christians came along and said no that that's not right and we're gonna in fact rescue these children that was a very arresting move in the ancient world that got the attention of ancient society and then they began to wonder okay who are these people and why are they acting this way and that's of course an evangelical a compelling move alright we're talking about five ways to draw young people back to God that was way number one get young people involved in the works of justice way number two is to use the via pulchritudinous the way of beauty why did you tell the bishops that beauty is perhaps a more effective route of access today than goodness or justice yeah I've just said of course that justice does have a alluring quality which it does but I've also argue and I think there's something to this that of the three transcendentals I mean they're the true the good and the beautiful the beautiful in a way is the least threatening so even if you say hey look here at the work of justice and you ought to do this some people might say well I mean come on who are you to tell me what I should be doing and if you say look here's the truth of the matter you should believe it a lot of people would get reactive to that but the beautiful is just something you look at right it's it's less threatening just look at it look at this beautiful thing whether it's a work of art it's a it's a poem its literature it's it's an icon it's the liturgy itself sometimes you know just drawing someone into a beautiful church you know you're not telling them what to think or how to behave you're just showing them or bringing someone to mass if that mass is really beautiful and that can lead them then on the the path they could say well where'd this come from what world produced something like notre-dame Cathedral I didn't come out of a vacuum that came out of a rich culture well what is that culture who are these people what do they believe and why so the beautiful can lead you in the example Brandon I've often used as as Charles Ryder you know from Brideshead Revisited they create evil and Juan Avalos an agnostic like a lot of people today kind of a cool rationalist and he's first intrigued by the beauty of this great manor house Brideshead which was the home of this this Catholic a family by the end of the novel spoiler alert I suppose if anyone was Brideshead Revisited by the end of the novel Charles accepts Catholic doctrine but it's a long law journey it commenced with the beauty of bright said which symbolizes the beauty of the church and then he by a long process began to explore where'd that come from and he comes eventually to faith so that's my model there of the via pulchritudinous which by the way is Pope Francis's language one thing I liked when you were speaking to the bishops is you said we need beautiful buildings and beautiful churches of course we need beautiful music but this saying to my heart especially through word on fire you said when we're trying to reach the unaffiliated we also need to have beautiful websites beautiful videos you know you're speaking to bishops who run parishes and dioceses what is your diocesan website look like what are the videos you're putting out because for many young people that's the first impression they're gonna have of the church in your area like it or not that's the portal to for an awful lot of young people let's say they've got a question or they're for whatever reason intrigued or they're angry or whatever it is what's anyone under the age of forty or forty-five now gonna do they're gonna go to a website what does the Catholic Church say about this well what's your website like when they go to it is it just you know text is it some unimaginative layout you know better than I I mean your generation what makes a website compelling to people and so I told them yeah that's not a trivial matter how much money and time are you putting into your website are you putting some of your best and brightest people on the website because that's where they come they're far more likely to come to a website than to just wander into your church building you know they might and that's great so the church building should be beautiful put the website you bet you bet whenever I'm speaking to priests or consulting with bishops I just posed this theoretical question how much do you spend on landscaping around your church buildings versus how much do you spend on graphic design video your website not saying they have to be equal but as you say far more people are going to discover you online than offline super important and and you're right about the investment thing years ago a spiritual director of mine said a very important point of spiritual discernment at the end of each month is look at your visa bill because it'll tell you a lot but what's that what are you spending your money on and I've never forgotten that that whenever I get my visa bill my credit card bill and I I do I look okay what if I what was i spending money on because that will tell you what you're prioritizing so for a parish look at your budget what are you spending money on what if we asked that budgetary question with this issue of the nuns in mind all the time what are we how are we investing in this problem of finding the unaffiliated I raised that point during the panel discussion you know that you've shifted your language we used to say you and I a couple years ago this is the number one most pressing it pressing issue for the church today but now we've acknowledged okay the abuse crisis probably has taken the first slot but this is right on its heels when you look at most Isis in parishes they've invested a lot of time and a lot of money into that number one problem they have full-time staff members dedicated to safe environment training victim reporting you know counseling all sorts of stuff but the question of how much have we invested for that number two problem I think is still outstanding are we hiring people whose full time job it is to focus on bringing back the nuns right if we're if we're just focused on on buildings and programs and infrastructure I mean fine I get it totally get it but you need people to inhabit these buildings and to use the infrastructure so if we're not going after the people what's the point of shoring up the infrastructure all right let's move on so we're talking about five ways to draw young people back to God number one was get people involved in the works of justice number two was to use the via pulchritudinous the way of beauty three which will be no surprise to listeners here stop dumbing down the faith you've long said that the de-emphasis on the intellectual has been a pastoral disaster why is that whenever I can and I'm always reluctant as you suggest your brand to bring it out cuz it's not I sound like a broken record I've been saying this for so long I told the bishops that I said I know you've heard this from me a million times but you know that's the way it goes repetition mantras - deorum the Romans said repetition is the mother of studies and so if you want a point to get across you've got to repeat it and I use that phrase a lot on purpose that the dumbing down of the faith has been a pastoral disaster because gosh you know we drive a wedge stupidly in my judgment between the intellectual in the pastoral and that is deadly because in fact this D emphasis on the intellectual has redound it very negatively in our pastoral work the church fathers they weren't academics in our sense they were pastors I mean the greatest thinkers for the first five centuries of the church's life we're all pastors for the most part you know bishops but we call them today probably pastors of big parishes so it has indeed been a pastoral disaster that we've dumbed it down and you don't need to take my word for it every single study shows it that young people saying I got all these questions are never answered what about this what about that science disproves religion all these frankly often elementary questions and I don't mean that to be condescending or to denigrate those who ask them but these are questions that could have been cleared up on day one of a good let's say high school religion class the fact that so many young people have them says to me we have not been addressing these questions with anything approaching adequacy now you affirm that you've been banging this drum for a while about not dumbing down the faith but it's easy to say that in the abstract what would you specifically like to see say a bishop and a diocese do to raise the intellectual bar to take a good hard look at the educational programs look at the textbooks being used how our teachers and catechists being trained don't assume everything is fine because I think the studies show that everything is not fine and that bishops who are the chief teachers and catechists and theologians of their diocese should make that a top priority bring in your education people okay what are we using what are our texts how are they are they working if not why not and let's get better ones and our teachers adequately trained like I think Brandon you know you and I know this that so many young people have a range of fairly predictable call them apologetic type questions questions about God about the church about Jesus about eternal life about morality etc right how well-trained are our confirmation for mater's our high school teachers in addressing those questions I think it'd be a wonderful thing for a diocese to do is to get all their people together how about for a year long process a couple years long process like a synod but to train them in dealing with these great questions that young people have so those are a few ideas I have I'd make it a top priority you know I've always dreamed of coming up with a list of things that no child would be able to graduate from a Catholic high school or a religious education program still believing for example that faith and science are in conflict but there are no good arguments or evidence for God you know go down the list and like that's the metric by which will determine whether we're succeeding or failing in our catechesis yeah my great let's have some standards in place that wouldn't be that complicated in a way and can all of our teachers in our various programs in catechist how do they do with all these questions can they handle them persuasively you know I agree that it's you know it's not just a classroom and all that I think it's wonderful you bring in the prayer dimension and the liturgy and and that the classroom should not just be like this you know rigorous academic setting and I agree with all that all of it but these great issues remain that have to be addressed all right let's move on to number four this is the fourth way to draw young people or nuns back to the church you recommend that every parish be turned into a Missionary Society what do you mean by that Here I am following Pope Francis again you know when he said in that famous I think it was a sermon some years ago is the church is and we have to get out of the sacristy and I think unfortunately he was read there a semi anti liturgical I don't think that's at all what he meant he just meant by sacristy he was using a kind of a symbolic term to say we need to send our people out from the liturgy out from our own parochial life to evangelize but do we think brandon of our Catholic parishes that way and I go to Kathleen all my life and have been in and around parishes for my whole life I don't I don't think we we have that typically in our imagination we think of parishes as places Catholics come to go to mass above all obviously centrally important to receive the sacraments for kids to get some basic instruction to prepare them for sacraments maybe there'll be a handful of people and you know I know this most parish is a handful of people that come to specialized classes or programs and Bible or in spirituality and again I'm not saying one negative thing about any of it I'm in favor of all of it but I wonder how many of our parishes had this idea that now our ultimate purpose is to take all these people who have come for these various things and train them in discipleship and send them on mission we've got this extraordinary infrastructure in place think of all the Catholic parishes what is the number like 20,000 or something around our country well if you are a you know a military commander they said boy I got twenty thousand outpost twenty thousand camps or forts or we want to call them for which I can launch you know well we've got that infrastructure twenty thousand centers of Catholicism but do most of our people say look I've come to mass I mean that's pretty good most Catholics don't I've received the sacraments good you know and now I get on with my life no now you're being form as a missionary that's the whole purpose is to go out and draw people back but that's a change of consciousness that's really difficult but needed in this regard of turning churches into missionary hubs you've often referenced Rick Warren the pioneer author of The Purpose Driven Life he's the pastor of Saddleback Church kind of Ananda named nondenominational church there in California how does he do this in his community yeah I I don't think what the bishops I think I forgot to reference this with him but I have elsewhere I met him his couple years ago he's now he sees near me meaning he's about four hours away from where I live but I met him at his church an extraordinary fellow as you say well-known you know maybe the leading figure in the sort of mega church movement and what he said to me and I haven't forgotten it is what people know about him is he's kind of a friendly guy where's the Hawaiian shirt don't call me Brevard or pastor call me Rick you know everything's very relaxed and friendly and inviting and he said right cuz that's my first move is to get people in to draw them to the church but he said I don't stop there people think that's all I do I'm just the friendly guy in the Hawaiian shirt you know no once they're in then the demands are made namely discipleship and mission in other words you're part of this church okay then you got to walk with me through courses and prayer and everything else to become a disciple of Jesus all right you're still with us now I'm sending you on mission and Rick Warren said to me if they don't do those things there they're out there off the rolls of the church in other words he's not just saying hey you're coming to service terrific no you're coming to service step 1 now what let's really get serious about discipleship and mission I don't think Brandon we Catholics have that mentality and we should alright let's look at the fifth and final way to draw young people back to the church we've talked about getting them involved in the works of justice the way of beauty stop dumbing down the faith turning every parish into a Missionary Society the fifth way you recommend it is to creatively use the new media say more about that well you should I talk about it's your it's in your your blood in a way it's not in mine but I told the bishops this when I was in Rome your goal for the youth Synod I made this argument I said look we have a crisis of disaffiliation of the young but at the same time through God's providence we have a tool now that we didn't have even even what 10 years ago a tool by which we can actually reach those who have disaffiliated so in the past people wanted a way well what can we do well let's let's try to make our the masses attractive as possible let's have programs in our parishes that might draw them back well I mean I think you and I both know that's not gonna be super effective but now through the social media listen with all their limitations and you and I know better than that probably anybody how how limited and problematic they can be but having said that they give us a means of reaching into the world of the disaffiliated and to bring a sort of winsome and compelling message from the church I've got up in my room across the hall here a print of van gogh's famous sower painting which I've always loved and I love it not just because it's a great picture but because it speaks of what I try to do which is to sow the seed of the word you know gosh what the social media give us in terms of enhanced capacity to sow the seed of the word and you and I see it all the time don't weigh that they come across our work in sometimes the most surprising ways great let's use the new media now as creatively and energetically and intelligently as we can because God's given us a tool precisely at the moment when we most need it one thing that we've recognized here at word on fire is there's kind of two dimensions of creatively using the new media one is to proclaim stuff by broadcasting videos and websites and social media posts and all that but then there's another powerful route of dialogue I'm thinking here and specifically about your read ama's engaging people like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro and all this stuff where you can use the new media to directly dialogue with people who have left the church people that would never show up to our institutions never darken the doors and that's something that I mean you don't need special gifts to put yourself out there and do it in any bishop any priest any church leader can make themselves available online right yeah and I've urged that and you know as you were talking Brannon I was just thinking you know of the negativity of that which anyone that's involved with social media understands when you open a comm box when there's the opportunity for people to comment on what you've done you are gonna get an awful lot of blowback and silliness and obscenity and so on but whenever that happens and look I find it discouraging as anybody would write but at the same time I think okay compared to what the great evangelist of our tradition faced like like bows and arrows and bullets and beheadings and writing is yeah tongue ripped out or whatever right it's not as bad as that you know so I think I can handle a few negative comments on comm boxes but you know okay that's the way it's always been from the Areopagus on is it when you proclaim Christianity and actually Paul as I've said before and the Areopagus is good because as he announces the resurrection what happens well people laugh so that's the ancient version of someone in the comm box mocking you right or they they just walk away well so it's always been so it's always been so welcome to the club you know you're standing in a great tradition going all the way back to st. Paul and coming up through the great missionary martyrs when you publicly announce the faith and you get a lot of blowback but but some listen and there's that again from x17 die anisha's and a few others listen hmm we'll hear you again on this and there are the seeds of the European Christianity which would eventually spread all over the world never underestimate what you can accomplish through these means even as you face because I mean that's the devil's always involved and always wants to be a source of discouragement okay just take it for granted but as you sow the seeds you know some fall on rocky soil some are gonna fall on the path and the birds eat them up okay okay so it goes so it goes some will mock you for sowing see how what an idiot how could you be so nosed goofy seeds okay just keep sowing the seeds and I think the social media give us a great way to do that well that sound means it is time now for our listener question if you have a question that you'd like to ask Bishop Baron we'd love to hear it just send it in at ask Bishop Baron comm today we have one from a young lady in Texas named Miriam her biology teacher is suggesting that she reads some popular atheist authors and she's wondering how to respond and what to do so here's Mary another question hi bishop my name is Miriam from Texas my biology professor is an atheist who loves to challenge my faith he is very manipulative and sometimes I feel unprepared to stand up for it he specifically told me to listen to Russell and Hitchens and I want to be able to refute this philosophy with st. Thomas Aquinas I just don't know where to begin what books do you suggest for me as a beginner seeking Aquinas apologetics thanks so much I learned so much from you that's great thank you for that question and you know it's sort of annoys me a little bit to hear that story because it's it's sort of it's very unfair in a way of that that teacher if he's fair-minded you know maybe he would even recommend here are some people that that stand against you know Hitchens and Russell and maybe have you read both of them but anyway here's the first observation Bertrand Russell was one of the great thinkers the 20th century co-wrote the principia mathematica when it comes to symbolic logic read Bertrand Russell frankly when it comes to religion he's terrible and what I mean there is he is a terrible grasp of what serious religious people same with Questor Hitchins a writer whom i admired you know on politics and culture and literature great read Christopher Hitchens on religion he was terrible religion he betrayed a deep misunderstanding a most basic you know Christian ideas now for refutation there's been a lot the good news is there have been a lot of of books and videos and podcasts and so on responding to this new atheism maybe a couple things I'd mentioned you know you might want to start if with the internet I've done a lot of things on new atheism and responding to their criticisms and talking about arguments for God's existence or I think Brandon your website right strange notions that looks into a lot of these arguments and gives counter arguments don't you have famously like twenty arguments for God's existence that are kind of yeah if you go to strange notions calm the first thing you'll see is a link that says twenty arguments for God's existence units by dr. Peter Kreeft he sort of synthesizes the five till mystic arguments but then fifteen others there yeah so look at that website but also read craved himself who was written extensively on all this I is some go-to people for me when I was a young man I read FC koppelson the great Jesuit historian or philosophy it's a little paperback book on Aquinas that might be helpful we mentioned before a friend out here dr. Eadie fazer who writes extensively and very well on Aquinas his philosophy of the arguments for God's existence now that we're getting a little technical with his you know books but I would take a look maybe at some of the internet business the internet of stuff here's another one another one go on on YouTube and look up the Hitchens William Lane Craig debates so Hitchens as you know now the great atheist but he was debated several times by William Lane Craig who's a evangelical Christian apologist who did I think I think mopped the floor with Hitchens every time he debated him so maybe watch those and listen to Craig's engagement of Hitchens I had a couple ideas but don't get bullied by your teacher I just add to those recommendations pick up Craig's book titled on guard which was written for high school and college students teaching them how to respond to atheist arguments and then from a Catholic perspective Trent horns book titled answering atheism I think it's the best Catholic book on the topic so you have a slew of homework to do Miriam but don't don't let your teacher bully you and suggest that these guys are have the last word because they certainly don't they're they're very bad on religion I don't really understand serious religion well thanks so much for listening to this episode of the word on fire show a couple of quick requests one if you have not reviewed this show yet please do takes just a couple seconds takes no money from you it's easy to do just go on iTunes search for word on fires show leave a short review the more review the shows have the the more often it recommends it to others so it's a huge help to us we'd really appreciate it second if you'd like to support this show financially and help us take it to the next level we're planning a big reboot of the studio spaces the lighting the cameras all the equipment for early 2020 but we need your help to make that happen so to support the show go to word on fire show com / patron become one of our monthly patrons and join us in this great journey of evangelizing through the world of podcasting well thanks so much for listening we'll see you next week on the word on fire show [Music]

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 67,040

Keywords:

Id: XdqHXnzLM8E

Length: 34min 36sec (2076 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 09 2019