Next month, Pope Francis will host a synod of bishops on the
theme of "Young people, faith and vocational discernment."
This may seem uncomfortable, even incongruous, given the crisis
the church faces today. Some have asked the Holy Father to put off this synod
and concentrate instead on the meeting he has convened for next February to
discuss the crisis.
For my own part, I think there's a strong argument for going
ahead with the synod on youth right now. The faith of the world's young people
is precisely what the present crisis is destroying. It will not be enough,
though it is certainly necessary, for the church to root out the evil in her
midst and bring about some semblance of justice. She also needs to tend to the
generation whose faith in God has been impaired.
Here at The Catholic University of America in Washington, we are
giving a lot of attention to the role of the laity in the church and what they
can do to right the ark in these rough seas. Theologians are looking at "Lumen Gentium," the Second Vatican Council's
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
It is not an accident that that document speaks first about the
people of God, before going on to discuss the roles of the hierarchy and the
laity; "Each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one
priesthood of Christ." Out of this crisis may come a new understanding of
that prophetic observation.
This is an important inquiry. But let us not overlook the fact
that the most important thing the laity can do to rebuild the church is to
raise their children in the faith. This isn't a novel observation. "Lumen Gentium" itself observes that
"the family is, so to speak, the domestic church. In it parents should, by
their word and example, be the first preachers of faith to their
children."
A child may see her bishop only at confirmation, her parish
priest only once a week. Until she goes to school, her parents are with her day
and night. Before she begins to speak, they teach her how to pray. They bring
her to Mass when she is more interested in Cheerios than in the
sacrament.
Elizabeth Anscombe, the great analytic philosopher and mother of
seven, has a wonderful essay about teaching children the doctrine of
transubstantiation. It's best done at Mass, she says, when a child is just
learning to speak. At the moment of consecration, the child can connect the
thought and the action: This is Jesus now before us. And implicit in the lesson
is our belief in the divinity and the resurrection of the Lord.
No one but a parent can do this. The priest can't interrupt his
own celebration of the Mass to offer the explanation. The teacher in a
classroom has missed the moment; the lesson becomes abstract.
And none of them has the massive reserve of trust a parent draws
upon in teaching lessons of faith. I'm a grandfather, and I still find myself
invoking my mother's axioms about putting silver knives in the dishwasher and
handling colicky babies.
This may be the most important advantage parents have in handing
on the faith at the present moment. Catholics are experiencing a crisis of
confidence in the hierarchy. The loss of trust does not go all the way down. If
we earn our children's faith in us, we can still be heralds of the faith. My
sense is that this extends to our parishes as well, the communities where
Christian families live their liturgical life.
Let's make sure we are worthy of the trust reposed in us. There's
a lot riding on it right now.
Garvey is president of The Catholic University of America
in Washington.