The Church in India continues to respond to the demand of faith-life integration of the young people. Today, it requires the adaptations of the Gospel in the soil and the settings, where the youth are found. With the present situation of indifference, division and incoherence in the young people, this paper offers a systematic practical steps for an ideal and adapted Youth Pastoral Plan (YPP) in the Indian context faced with the challenges of the cultural and religious pluralism.
It invites the Church to make radical option for a Youth Ministry (YM), giving attention to the cultural and religious problems, and find ways for co-existence in peace and unity, for the Kingdom of God. YM starts from the last, from the needs and from the hopes of the underprivileged youth. It requires, therefore, collaboration with all the available energies of the Church – movements, groups, associations, and the world of the lay and consecrated adults.
Fr Soroj Mullick, SDB presents therefore, certain criteria for an YPP for the dioceses\regions, objectively directed, taking into consideration the present youth perspectives with the cultural presuppositions, and lead towards certain criteria, structures, methods, content and lines of action.
Instead of going backwards, filling gaps, a new Youth Ministry (YM) with new paradigm and with a priority to youth, has to emerge through Church debate and co-responsibility, without of course, overthrowing the structures. Within an endangered Church the YM calls for an end to clericalism, diversification of ministries and get in touch with grassroots realities.
Such YM will be nourished by encounter. The human person in the young and the message of Jesus Christ are central to YM. The Church has to be with the fractured, forgotten and scorned youth. They represent a minority, a new generation. There cannot be separation between them and the structured Church hierarchy. All Christians, young and old, as baptized human beings, are equal.
Jesus Christ and the Church can meet the need of the young people for meaning, model and mentoring. Youth too can contribute their energy and resources for building the kingdom of God. As Pope Francis calls the young to become ‘missionary witnesses’, the Church needs to change YM’s paradigm through its self-diagnose. It is up to the People of God (Church) to innovate.
Along with violence and destruction there is fast progress in science and technology. Yet the human instincts remain natural and crude. In the midst of routine political killings, populist nationalism, divisive religious sentiments, hate propaganda, we need to think broadly for our youth, and enable them to rise above such instincts and forge a common human identity.
As Pope Francis writes, “[A]n authentic faith […] always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it. […] If indeed ‘the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics,’ the Church, ‘cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.’” (Evangelii Gaudium, 183).
Youth all over provide with an extraordinary value to both the community and the world. The current generation of youth is more motivated and committed than ever to spreading God’s word. As individual many youth go through the process of re-examining their belief system and become certain of their life choices. There are full-time youth ministers who themselves have gone through this process of transformation and decided to dedicate themselves in the service for the youth to encourage further leadership in the Church.
In fact, the young people have demonstrated positively in answering to the present challenges that the Indian society presents to them. It is an assignment of communion of the Christian community (Church), and accompanies them in their walk of maturation in the faith, transmitted through human mediation according to the logic of the sacramentality. According to Percival Holt, President of ICYM , who attended the Synod on Youth, “The Church needs to kindle the sparks of the young people into the right flames.” Youth need wise guidance of elders who can enable them “to fall in love with Christ and his Church and become a leader and inspiration to many.”
Acknowledging positively the role of youth, an ideal model of a Youth Pastoral Plan , following the proposals of the Synod document on youth, 2018, noting the Indian situation, could be a legitimate contribution for the growth of all the Youth Pastoral activities in all the dioceses of India, because it becomes an effective response to the demands of the entire youth world in the Indian context.
It is not only an intra-ecclesial need, the interest goes towards all the young people in as much as they are the ‘careers’ of what the Church feels the need to respond to, as an obligation. As the Church in India is trying to respond to the demand of faith-life integration of the young people, it requires the necessary adaptations to offer them the truth of the Gospel like a beatific mystery and the liberation to know, live and share with others, with conviction and courage, for the proclamation of the evangelical message.
In the present situation of incapability, indifference and the incoherence in not knowing how to apply faith in daily life, we propose here few practical suggested steps for an ideal YPP in the Indian context which needs to be adapted according to contexts faced with the challenges of the cultural and religious pluralism.
To be continued…
Fr. Soroj Mullick, SDB, a Salesian priest from the Kolkata Province. He has a Licentiate in Catechetics and a Doctorate (Christian Education) from UPS, Italy. He has number of years of teaching experience in college and in the formation of future priests. Besides, he has written number of research papers and articles, and has 25 years of Ministry in India and abroad as Educator, Formator, Retreat Preacher, Editor and engaged in School, Parish Catechetical & Youth Ministry. He is now an assistant priest in Bandel Basilica, rendering pastoral and catechetical ministry to the parishioners and to the pilgrims. He can be contacted at [email protected].