YOUNG ADULTS. GATHERED & SENT OR SENT & gathered

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1 1 Bernard J, Lee, S.M. Professor of Theology St. Mary s University San Antonio, Texas bleesm@stmarytx.edu YOUNG ADULTS GATHERED & SENT OR SENT & gathered Since the Conference in Tubingen, Roman Catholicism has chosen a new Chief Shepherd. Pope Francis I, who, for many, harkens pastorally back to Pope John XXIII. The election of our new Pope brought to mind my course in Church History at the University of Fribourg, in the fall semester of 1964, with Professor Doctor Marie- Herve Vicaire. This was a time of incredible excitement over Vatican II, in session at the time. With some examples (which 50 years later to do not recall in any detail!), he said that there have been very, very few Councils called, to move the Church forward (Like Vatican II); most were called to addressed serious problems. The move-forward Councils, he said, caused huge enthusiastic excitement; but after some ten or so years the institution became fearful and suspicious of so much change and movement that it began to quiet the excitemen, and the movement. A student asked what happened then to the council, was it over. No, said Pere Vicaire, but (he observed) it would take fifty or so years, for new leadership to move into position who did not know the Church well in the before-the-council days. I believe that the formation of priest groups in Austria, Germany, Holland, Australia, the United States, etc. largely by priests

2 2 in their 40s, 50s and 60s, may constitute this voice of recall to Vatican II. While Pope Francis is above that age group, his life has been spent in Latin American, away from the European ferment. This is also the first time in a very long while that a member of a religious order has been elected Pope, and the first time ever for a Jesuit Pope. While it is very early in a new Pontificate, many are wondering whether the reconvening of Vatican II Church life may not be immanent! One of the things being noted in the American church is (while (new and perhaps tentative) growing faith interest among some young adults. I see it in my students here at St. Mary s University. This is very early and preliminary, but I surmise that there is some large potential for gathering these interests into community. These are reflections I have added since the Tubingen Conference, perhaps (only perhaps ) suggesting some new potential for young adults and base communities. Now I return to the reflections I offered at the international meeting in Tubingen.

3 3 YOUNG ADULTS GATHERED & SENT OR SENT & gathered We can justly consider that the future of humanity lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to provide coming generations with reasons for living and hoping... God did not create us for life in isolation but for the formation of community. It has pleased God to make us holy, not merely as individuals without bonds between us, but by making us into a single people. Gaudium et Spes, #31, 32, passim. Young adults are not angry at the church. They are simply distanced from it. Young Adult Catholics, Dean Hoge, et al. I am honored by your invitation to speak to issues about base communities in the United States Catholic Church. While there are some 38,000-40,000 base communities in the U.S. Catholic Church, rather few of those members are young adults (late teens, twenties and thirties). It s a good bet that for some generations, those who follow today s young adults will also resemble them, which will have profound effects in the development of Christian/Catholic culture in the United States, (but with clear resonances in wider Western culture, or so I postulate). But that s a guess. For now I focus on young adults in current American culture. In the United States there are about 50,000,000 young adults. A fourth of this large group, some 12,500,000 young adults, selfidentify as Catholic. Only 17-19% of these younger folks are fairly regular participants in Catholic life (about 20-22% for older Catholics). The 80+% who are not regular participants nonetheless claim Catholic identity. In many ways Catholic is a cultural as well as a

4 4 religious identifier. That has been a regular pattern for some time now. About a dozen years ago, assisted by very substantial grants from Lily Endowment, a team of four sociologists, one anthropologist and six theologians planned and carried out research concerning small Christian communities in the U.S. Catholic Church (some 38,000-40,000 of them). We counted those who meet at least every three weeks most meet every week (especially Hispanic communities) or every two weeks. We also tried to identify and count those who felt both gathered and sent. We did not ask for ages, but it was clear from the community meetings we attended that young adults were a noticeable minority. Our hope is especially to reach some of them through Campus Ministry in the 220 Catholic institutions of higher learning in the United States, and through Newman Centers in public universities. I am the current Board President of the Small Christian Community Collaborative, a national organization. In our strategizing, we are formulating a strong emphasis upon young adults. This is a new central priority for us not a sole priority but a privileged one. I can say clearly that while traditional SCC members (the elder groups) do care about the shape of the world outside of their gathering, they tend to be more attentive to being gathered than to being sent (in mission). The social scientists in our research team judged this interest in gathering with others to be a response to the strength of individualism in U.S. culture, named already by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s and by multiple social scientists regularly ever since I have in mind especially the work of Robert Bellah.

5 5 Those of us who are regularly involved with young adults in American Catholic Universities are hoping to initiate some intensified focus upon a conversation about strategies. Instead of gathering those interested in their faith and in connecting with others, we are proposing to use social interest and social commitment as the gathering dynamic making the world better and safer, touching profound human need. In a phrase, to start with being sent, and when there is some cohesiveness that begins to show up, to invite an exploration of community, of being gathered of interpersonal religious commitment--as both a bonding and sending dynamic of faith. Full Christianhood is necessarily gathered and sent community and mission belong together. Some of us are guessing that for today s young adults Catholics, sending will attract attention sooner than gathering. There have been a number of books in recent years on young adult Catholics in the U.S. Catholic Church (bibliography attached). I quote from one which has help formed my work with young adults: While young adult Catholics rank social justice high in what they regard as essential to their faith, the relationship between social justice and a specific Catholic identity remains unclear... If the relationship between social justice and a specifically Catholic identity were more immediate to young adult Catholicism, their perspective might be more concerned with structural approaches, aggregate effects, power, and institutional systems in keeping with contemporary Church teachings regarding social justice. (Young Adult Catholics, Dean Hoge et al., Univ. of Notre Dame Press, p This clearly corresponds to my experience of young adults. This is not so much a simple lack of interest in institutional religion, but a piece of the times.

6 6 (S)ignificant numbers of young adult Catholics today no longer see the Roman Catholic church as unique or essential, the pope as necessary, the Church s structures as important, or tradition as a source of objective truth... This is not exclusively a failure of leadership. It is part of the larger alienation of all authoritative institutions that is taking place in all American religious communities, p I have tried to name what I believe are two issues in the U.S. Catholic Church. One is that the majority of our 40,000 base communities are more attentive to gathering than to being sent (but gathering does indeed play a redemptive role vis-a-vis American individualism). Second is that young adults deserve some prioritized attention vis-à-vis their social agency in the world, and base communities are a way of connecting social agency with Christian hearts, heads, and feet. sound I am an ordained Marianist. This order, the Society of Mary, was founded in Bordeaux, France by le Pere Guillaume Joseph Chaminade, in the aftermath of the French Revolution. This was the dramatic ending of feudalism in civil structures, but not, unfortunately, in ecclesial structures. Chaminade began to gather Catholics in small groups, base communities in today s terms. They ran the gamut of ages. But he had a penchant for young adults because, in his words, young adults are the artisans of whatever world comes next into existence. He meant both the civil world and the church world. Those instincts have shaped the reflections that precede. Young adults, said Fr. Chaminade, are the artisans of whatever world next comes into existence.

7 7 While I have focused my reflections on young adults Catholics, I do so with huge gratitude for efforts and resources in U.S. Catholic culture for base communities. I have in mind the work of Fr. Art Baranowski and National Alliance of Parishes Restructuring into Communities, The national and international work of Renew, the Pastoral Office for Small Christian Communities (Hartford, Connecticut), the Marianist Lay Network of North America. These and multiple other SCC connections are listed in the Appendices of my book, The Catholic Experience of Small Christian Communities, which summarized the research supported by the Lily Endowment, a report upon a research project carried on over three years by a team of five social scientists and six theologians.

8 8 GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Below is a small bibliography of books that report sociologically and insightfully into the religiosity of young Americans. The multiplication of such publications probably hints at the complexities of the inner-life of today s young adults. D Antonio, William; Davidson, James; Hoge; Dean; and Wallace,Ruth. Laity: American and Catholic / Transforming the Church. Sheed & Ward. D Antonio, William,; Davidson, James; Hoge, Dean; and Gautier, Mary. American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church. Sheed & Ward. Hoge, Dean: Dinges, Johnson, William, Mary; and Gonzales, Juan. Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice. University of Notre Dame Press. \ Kinnamen, David. You Lost Me: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Church... And Rethinking Faith. Baker Books.. Pearce, Lisa; and Denton, Melinda Lundquist. A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America s Adolescents. Oxford University Press. Smith, Christian, with Patricia Snell. Souls in Transition: The Religious & Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. New York: Oxford University Press. Wuthnow, Robert. After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty- Somethings are Shaping the Future of American Religion. Princeton University Press. Wuthnow, Robert. Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America s New Quest for Community. Macmillan Free Press

9 { 9 SMALL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES & RELATED ISSUES IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES Bernard J. Lee, S.M. Bibliography Lee, Bernard. The Becoming of the Church: A Process Theology of the Structure of Christian Experience. Paulist Press Lee, Bernard, with Michael Cowan. Dangerous Memories: House Churches and Our American Story. Sheed & Ward Editor of The Eucharist, vol. 3 of Alternative Futures for Worship. The Liturgical Press. (Also General Editor of the 7 volume series.) Lee, Bernard. The Beating of Great Wings: A Worldly Spirituality for Active Apostolic Communities. Twenty-Third Publications Lee, Bernard. The Future Church of 140 BCE: A Hidden Revolution.. Crossroad Lee, Bernard and Michael Cowan. Conversation, Risk & Conversion: The Inner & Public Life of Small Christian Communities. Orbis Books-Maryknoll Lee, Bernard. Habits for the Journey: A Mystical and Political Spirituality for Small Christian Communities. North American Center for Marianist Studies Lee, Bernard, with Peter Eichten and Michael Cowan. eeking Justice: Participating in the Public Life of Faith. Buena Vista Lee, Bernard & Michael Cowan. Gathered and Sent: The Mission of Small Church Communities Today. Paulist Press.