By Gilbert Choondal, SDB –
Face 1: The Blue Whale Challenge
The number of victims falling prey to the infamous “Blue Whale Challenge” has been on a significant rise in India. A Class 9 student in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district would have also met a fate similar to those who had already succumbed to the deadly game’s sinister challenges, were it not for the timely intervention by a teacher from his school. According to The Times of India, the boy, who is a student of Jatia Government Senior Secondary School, had already hit the advanced stages of the challenge, by the time his involvement in the game was discovered. A Google Trends Report for the past 12 months showed that India had seen the highest number of searches related to the Blue Whale Challenge in the world!
Face 2: The Child Saints of Fatima
A hundred years ago, in Fatima, (Portugal), three children: Lucia Santos and the siblings Jacinta and Francisco Marto, were reported to have received the first of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary while they were tending the family sheep. The children, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, died young, victims of the Spanish flu epidemic that was then devastating Europe, but their little town became a meeting place for countless pilgrims. On Saturday, 13 May 2017, the two children were canonized by Pope Francis in a large outdoor Mass in Fatima, becoming the youngest saints in Catholic history who were not martyrs. Francisco and Jacinta, aged respectively 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them there while they were grazing their sheep.
These are two extreme instances of the realities confronted by our children today. However, between these two extremes there are several other faces that emerged within the span of last one hundred years. To understand our children today, we need to know who they are in this third millennium and how we can accompany them.
What is Gen Z?
Gen Z or Generation Z is the demographic group (born after 2000), which is much more popular than Gen Y (called also Millennials, born between 1980-2000). There have been several changes in the world scenario since the start of the Gen Z. Due to its features and benefits; it is also called i-Generation and Homeland Generation. Furthermore, since the arrival of this Gen Z was after the Millennials, it is also called Post-Millennial.
Indian students in this age group consider smartphones to be a most important gadget, they use Facebook more than any other social media platform, and prefer WhatsApp to every other instant messenger. These are among the findings of the ‘TCS Gen Z Survey,’ conducted by the Tata Consultancy Services. This generation has used the internet from a very early age. If we were to categorise the members of Gen Z, we find that they are considered to be extremely comfortable with technology from its very inception. Furthermore, interacting on the websites of social media has also been one of the favourable hobbies of this generation. It is rated as the best generation amongst all, with regard to its ability to socialize.
India has roughly 200 million children under the age of 18, and 69 million of them reside in urban areas. These young people have a very different childhood compared to the one their parents experienced. The afore-mentioned study also adds that 40 per cent of urban children regularly dine out at expensive restaurants and 23 per cent use their parents’ credit cards to buy new things. We may question how they handle relationships, and feel that they spend too much time on the social media. On the other hand, we hear stories about their alertness with high-speed learning and social abilities. This is the first generation of digital natives who have grown up living the profound human experience of the social media.
They are the children of Generation X and Generation Y. To be reasonable, we don’t have very much of an idea about the character or characteristics of Generation Z, since they haven’t been on this earth for too long a time. Generation Z is anticipated to be exceptionally connected, living during a time of high-tech communication, technology-driven ways of life and productive utilization of web-based social networking. Much of what we think about Generation Z is either derived or the result of a conclusion and the truth will emerge only after some experience and time.
The Amoris Laetitia Approach towards our Children
The forthcoming Synod 2018 is going to reflect on Gen Z and Gen Y (those between the ages of 16-29). The Lineamenta of the Synod 2018 rightly points to these generations as the Digital Generation (born in the era of smart phones and social media), the Second Generation (different from that of their parents) and New Generation (subject to the influence of Globalisation). Moreover, the recent Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, has elicited many exhortations from Pope Francis with respect to understanding and accompanying these children in our families.
I wish to mention four of his core exhortations for parents and pastors with regard to educating our children.
- Moral Formation
Pope Francis warns the parents not to delegate the moral formation of their children to others. “Parents rely on schools to ensure the basic instruction of their children, but can never completely delegate the moral formation of their children to others” (Amoris Laetitia 263). He encourages parents to be aware of their children’s goals, desires, and dreams. Francis speaks about cultivating a “good habits and a natural inclination to goodness” (Amoris Laetitia, 264) in their children, including delay of gratification, or what Pope Francis calls “the habit of foregoing an immediate pleasure for the sake of a better and more orderly life in common” (Amoris Laetitia 264).
In relationships, words matter. They can heal or hurt relationships. So he insists on using words that heal and build relationships. “In the family, “three words need to be used. I want to repeat this! Three words: ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Sorry.’ Three essential words! … Let us not be stingy about using these words, but keep repeating them, day after day … The right words, spoken at the right time, daily protect and nurture love” (Amoris Laetitia, 133). Finally, moral formation should be grounded on loving experiences and in a loving manner. “Moral formation should always take place with active methods and a dialogue that teaches through sensitivity and by using a language children can understand. It should also take place inductively, so that children can learn for themselves the importance of certain values, principles and norms, rather than by imposing these as absolute and unquestionable truths” (Amoris Laetitia, 264).
2. Sex Education
Pope Francis talks about the sex education of children in the context of education to love. “It is not easy to approach the issue of sex education in an age when sexuality tends to be trivialized and impoverished. It can only be seen within the broader framework of an education for love, for mutual self-giving” (Amoris Laetitia, 280). We also have to realise that “a new and more appropriate language” is needed “in introducing children and adolescents to the topic of sexuality” (Amoris Laetitia, 281). One of the reasons for sex education is to bring back the old value of modesty which is considered not a value in the changing society of today (Amoris Laetitia, 282). Sex education should also include respect and appreciation for differences and especially for body which has become a commodity in media today. In this context, it is good that local church and institutions take up seriously the talks of St. John Paul II on the Theology of the Body to the level of families. Theology of the Body is the topic of a series of 129 lectures given by Pope John Paul II during his Wednesday audiences in St. Peter’s Square and the Paul VI Audience Hall between September 5, 1979 and November 28, 1984. It constitutes an analysis on human sexuality, and is considered as the first major teaching of his pontificate.
3. Media Education
The language of the media is different. It is the language the youth love. They are faster using their thumbs texting out WhatsApp on a cell phone, than adults can articulate it orally. The most recent sector of the media, social media, is making impact on human life. A mature way of dealing with the social media requires a proper media education to confront this mental pollution as styled by Pope Francis. “True wisdom, as the fruit of self- examination, dialogue and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature” (Laudato Si’, 47).
Amoris Laetitia recommends that parents to watch their children in this regard. “Parents need to consider what they want their children to be exposed to, and this necessarily means being concerned about who is providing their entertainment, who is entering their rooms through television and electronic devices, and with whom they are spending their free time” (Amoris Laetitia, 260).
However, he cautions against over-controlling the environment of children, observing that, “what is most important is the ability lovingly to help them grow in freedom, maturity, overall discipline and real autonomy” (Amoris Laetitia, 261). He also warns of the role of the media in moral formation of the family. “Sad to say, some television programmes or forms of advertising often negatively influence and undercut the values inculcated in family life” (Amoris Laetitia,274).
4. Faith Education
Pope Francis exhorts parents that raising children calls for an orderly process of handing on the faith (Amoris Laetitia ,287). Passing on faith was familial in Biblical tradition. This tradition included memorisation, telling stories and rituals. Amoris Laetitia mentions about the Haggadah tradition that existed in Jewish family. This is in the form of a dialogue accompanying the rite of the Passover meal (Amoris Laetitia, 16). The journey of faith begins in the family. In fostering domestic spirituality, the most important factor that is repeatedly mentioned is teaching to pray (Amoris Laetitia, 227, 287, 288, 318). He even considers the best form family catechesis as family prayer. “Hence moments of family prayer and acts of devotion can be more powerful for evangelization than any catechism class or sermon” (Amoris Laetitia, 288).
He reminds the parents not to impose faith habits among children but to propose in a language of their experience. “Education in the faith has to adapt to each child, since older resources and recipes do not always work. Children need symbols, actions and stories. Since adolescents usually have issues with authority and rules, it is best to encourage their own experience of faith and to provide them with attractive testimonies that win them over by their sheer beauty. Parents desirous of nurturing the faith of their children are sensitive to their patterns of growth, for they know that spiritual experience is not imposed but freely proposed” (288).
Summarising Act: Accompaniment
If I can summarise the entire exhortation of Amoris Laetitia in one word, it is Accompaniment. The Ministry of Accompaniment is very dear to Pope Francis. One can notice this ministry mentioned from his very first document, Lumen Fidei to the present one Amoris Laetitia. Reflecting on the theme of faith, in his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis says, faith is an experience of accompanying presence of God. “To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence, a history of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light” (Lumen Fidei 57).
Continuing the same reflection in his first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, he says our mission is to accompany others. He exhorts pastors and laity on “the need to accompany with mercy and patience the eventual stages of personal growth as these progressively occur” (Evangelii Gaudier, 44). No one walks alone. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone” (CCC166). It is basically a journey of relationships that begins from childhood, young life, adult years and old age!
The article is used with permission from The New Leader.
Fr Gilbert Choondal, SDB, former President of Indian Catechetical Association, is a professor of Catechetics at Kristu Jyoti College, Bangalore.