The Catechetical Review - Communicating Christ for a New Evangelization

Articles Under: Youth Ministry

To find out more, go to www.steubenvilleconferencescom/youth or call 740-283-6315 or email at [email protected] .Read more
As Christians, we are called to affirm the dignity of each human being. This dignity has its beginning from our first moment of existence, when each of us receives the gift of life itself. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person—among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life” (2270). Made in God’s image, each human being possesses an intellect and will, along... Read more
Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed the theology of the body (TOB) as perennial truths revealed by God through ancient biblical texts, but he also noted that this pedagogy of the body “takes on particular importance for contemporary man, whose science in the fields of bio-physiology and bio-medicine is very advanced” (TOB 59:3). [i] While he acknowledged the value of modern science for certain kinds of truth, he cautioned that such science does not develop “the consciousness of the body as a sign of the person” because “it is based on the disjunction between what is bodily and what is... Read more
“Whenever you are united, you have marvelous strength. Whenever you are enthused about life in common, you are capable of great sacrifices for others and for the community.” [1] Immediately upon reading Pope Francis’ words in Christus Vivit (“Christ Is Alive”), I had them highlighted and underlined, with “WORKCAMP!” written emphatically in the margins. What the Holy Father had written in his apostolic exhortation to young people describes our diocesan WorkCamp so perfectly that for a moment I wondered if he had heard about our program. Each year in the Diocese of Arlington, more than a thousand high school students,... Read more
N o one gets into youth ministry because they love administrative office work. And while I do have a handful of colleagues who have truly mastered the art of the Google spreadsheet, I know that for many of us sitting in an office inputting medical information is not what we had in mind when we signed on to ministry. Most of us would rather grab coffee with a student than spend our days tracking down adult volunteers to ensure they’ve completed their Safe Environment paperwork. I’ve often heard the statistic that the average shelf life of a youth minister is... Read more
When you began working in the Church, how many friends did you have who were also serving in ministry? For me, it was several dozen. These youth ministers, Catholic school teachers, missionaries, and seminarians all began their work with so much zeal for the mission ahead of them. Yet, nearly ten years later, I can count on one hand the number of those friends who are still involved in full-time ministry. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. Most of these friends of mine devoted several years of their lives to a university formation and tens of thousands of dollars to be... Read more
St. Thomas Aquinas explained the imagination as “a storehouse of forms received through the senses” that are later called to mind. [1] St. Augustine considered it as a form of “spiritual vision,” distinct from our corporal and intellectual senses. [2] St. Theresa of Ávila described it as one of the most important powers of the soul. [3] Each of these Doctors of the Church spent ample time writing on the power of our imagination and its relationship to the life of faith. They understood that our imagination is part of our physical and spiritual nature. As such, it can affect... Read more
Most of us who serve as catechists in a religious education or youth ministry program share some common attributes: Our faith is important to us. It has served as a compass for our life; We want others to come to know the beauty of the Catholic faith; We answered a call for catechists—sometimes generously and sometimes reluctantly, only because we are aware of our limitations. It’s vitally important to the life of the Church that our faith is handed on to the next generation with fidelity and accuracy. But it’s not always easy. Sometimes we are blessed with people who... Read more
“When you love something so much, you talk about it. You can’t contain it. If you find something that you think is the greatest thing in the world, what teenager is quiet? There are none.” When I encountered that quote, my outlook on youth ministry changed. It was the day I realized that something was missing in our parishes. It was why, despite hundreds of thousands of Catholic teenagers attending youth groups, camps, and conferences every year, young people were still leaving the Church, some as young as ten years old. [i] As those of us in the pews are... Read more
As I write this article, I'm nursing the tail end of a mild bout of COVID-19. I don’t share that for pity but to point out how much the world has changed in the past few years. Before this decade, I didn't know what a novel coronavirus was. Everything I understood about pandemics was mainly picked up from disaster movies. Social distancing was only a dream my introverted wife possessed in her heart. And the virus that demanded fear as it first swept across the planet is now so common that it's possible to write an article while infected. Though... Read more