Setting the Context for this Commentary: One of the on-going discussion topics we have been exploring here at Catholica Australia has been the lack of success of the institutional Church in its communication outreach to young people. It's a topic that is presently far from exhausted and as editor I have a number of initiatives in the planning stages to advance the discussion further and which we will now see next year in the pages of Catholica, particularly with the focus on World Youth Day. Today's commentary has come about more serenipitously in a conversation I struck up earlier in the past week on the CathNews Discussion Board with Peter Marendy, who is also a member of the Catholica community. I find Peter's view worth listening to, even if I don't always agree with them, as firstly he is, as it were, "working at the coal face" with young people as a teacher of RE in a Catholic Secondary School; secondly he is a self-evidently deeply committed person to his work and concerned for the sort of issues that constantly surface in our discussions here; thirdly, he is writing from the perspective of a committed member of the Greek Orthodox Faith and as he has indicated at a number of points recently in various posts he considers himself a "non-Catholic" albeit passionately committed to educating Catholic youth in their faith. The actual discussion started with an exchange about the value of World Youth Day and I have included here the initial post of Peter responding to some comments of mine and then my response to Peter where I put to him a number of questions more pointedly seeking his perspectives as a teacher of Religious Education in a Catholic Secondary College. I submit the real focus of today's lead commentary is Peter's extended reponse to those questions which you will find towards the end of this commentary.

Brian Coyne Editor, Catholica Australia

A General Editorial contextual point: Before you embark on the commentary could I make one further general editorial point as to the thrust of what we are endeavouring to do here at Catholica with this extended discussion on Catholic Education. I spent six years working in one of the better Catholic Education Offices in Australia as media officer. Rightly or wrongly it is my perception that the general set of beliefs held by those who teach in Catholic schools differ from what the "official party line" is that the Bishops are expected by "head office" to uphold and impart to our children and young people. I have picked up this perception through listening to many teachers over nearly a decade and a half and I respect the reluctance of staff in the Catholic Education system to speak out openly about the things they believe and feel free to talk about privately. This perception is not only held by people like myself. Readers of Catholica will more than probably be aware that earlier this year the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, or someone acting under his thinking or authority, endeavoured to introduce an "Oath of Fidelity" that all heads of department and administrative leaders in Catholic schools would be required to swear to. The "oath of fidelity" was similar to the commitment that bishops or priests make. In the end the proposal was dropped. It doesn't take the insight of an Einstein to work out that the reason that proposal was even considered was because of this perception that there is widespread divergence between what our teachers, principals and other leaders in Catholic Education think and believe privately and what they are expected to subscribe to and teach semi-publicly in their classrooms. I do not believe the correction to this disjunction is to run around trying to force teachers, principals and other leaders to believe by taking "oaths of fidelity". What our institution needs to do is face honestly and squarely why this disjunction exists. If they have been unable to convince the leaders with above-average levels of academic education and exposure to theological studies of the "truths" of their propositions, they need to be asking themselves "why?" — and urgently!

Don't expect to make much headway from today's lead commentary. In many ways I think Peter's response throws up more questions than answers but I do sincerely thank Peter for the candour in his responses and I trust what he writes will help us collectively "open up" this big debate just a tad more than it had been yesterday morning. I certaintly hope to address further questions to Peter, and others, in our forums in coming days and months. …Brian Coyne, Editor

An unnecessarily pessimistic response Brian

Posted by Peter Marendy on December 10, 2007, 4:38 pm, in reply to "Re: Do you think these WYD's are the Churches farewell parties?"

Hello Brian.

While the statistics do seem to strongly support your pessimistic assessment about the relationship between WYD's and Church attendance, I don't accept your categorical dismissal of their usefulness. Firstly, I find it curious and a tad contradictory for you to dismiss such an alternative method of evangelisation and community worship for a person who is a strong advocate for ICT based alternatives to traditional forms of worship. For instance, the Franciscans Friars Minor in Australia have a great WYD related website promoting their own WYD celebrations (www.franciscans.org.au/wyd/). Why is the multi-faceted WYD initiative so obviously inferior to your Catholica product?

Secondly, who cares if few WYD attendees don't become regular worshippers after this event ends. Maybe their Faith has strengthened because of their involvement — who knows? How could you measure this anyway Brian? Using statistics is a blunt instrument. For a person who forcefully butts-heads (metaphorically speaking) with traditional-minded Catholic clergy, it seems strange for you to be so enamoured of Church attendance statistics to support your attack on WYD's.

Anyway, that's my two-bobs worth.

Peter M.

More "two-bobs" and some questions for you Peter...

Posted by Brian Coyne on December 10, 2007, 7:15 pm, in reply to "An unnecessarily pessimistic response Brian"

Peter,

Thanks for your thoughts. My views on this statistics business, I have to confess, are changing.

One thing I have always believed is that at the end of all our discussing, our hand-wringing, our wondering, our surveying and our analysis there is only one statistic that finally matters. The trouble is we even find it hard to agree on what that is. Let me have a stab although I know some people, even some Catholics would disagree with this today. The only statistic that finally matters is how many humans "find God"? But what do we even mean by "find God"? Some would have a picture in their heads of people "sittin' up in the clouds having the big party with all their long dead rellies and God — catchin' up on old times". Others would have more nuanced visions of heaven, paradise, salvation or the after life. Increasingly there seem to be many who are basically not interested in the afterlife and see it as fundamentally being about the Kingdom Now and "finding God" in the present moment. In a very real sense we have no reliable tool to measure the ultimate effectiveness of any religion. The statistics of on-going Sacramental participation rates have been at best only a pointer towards something that is ultimately not able to be measured, or they have been some kind of pointer as to how effectively the institution has kept contact with its constituency (or otherwise).

I honestly don't believe all the people who have drifted away from the institution are damned. In fact I suspect increasingly that a lot of them are doing a heck of a lot better these days in "finding God" than many who have stayed. I honestly do believe the institution has been "leading us up the garden path". Many left in it are basically "playing a game and kidding themselves" — they're playing "power games" to pick one of the principal themes in Bishop Robinson's book, they are no longer seriously interested in the pursuit of truth, they're playing a game about bolstering the institution and have swallowed their own propaganda. Others are playing a game of social conformism that they try to pretend is "religion and spirituality". It actually has nothing whatsoever to do with "finding God". It's all about finding certitude and psychological comfort. Others again are "sticking with the institution" and still trying to discern the ultimate truths, and "find God" but as each day goes by they seem to become more and more disillusioned.

I possibly agree with you that if some good comes from WYD it is probably more likely to be occurring in the programs being run by the religious orders and other peripheral organisations rather than those being run at the Official level. The religious orders today, it seems to me, are far "closer to the people" than the diocesan and official Church is. They're basically less caught up in the power game of constantly "trying to please the boss and not make any waves". Their focus tends to be on the stuff that really does matter and not this game the institution seems caught up in of constantly trying to prove that the institution never makes mistakes, never needs to apologise and never needs to correct its flawed thinking of the past, and needs to reverence all previous popes as though they are God incarnate, infallible in everything and incapable of human frailty and error.

The problem is that the vast majority of the people in the world are not dumb and stupid. They can see through all the "games" today. That's why most of them have left. If anything, young people are more astute about these things than my generation or earlier generations. They have excellent bs detectors and hypocrisy detectors. I think by and large Catholic schools are doing a great job but as soon as young people get out of school it becomes apparent to them within about five seconds that the stuff their teachers were trying to enthuse them about (which they did believe) is not actually the agenda of the old men that run the bigger institution. It's little wonder they leave. Similarly all the good work done by the religious orders and these other peripheral groups associated with WYD is in many respects a waste of energy because once young people get outside the gates they again quickly perceive that "the old men" are basically playing their own little (actually it is a pretty "BIG") game that is simply light years removed from what the religious were telling them. The young people are not stupid. They know who sets the ultimate agenda and it ain't the people they were listening to in these peripheral WYD initiatives or in their classrooms with their teachers who also are "much closer to their people" than the clerics up on the bridge of the ship are.

As I've argued before I think BIG liturgies are good. They need to be an essential part of the mix if the institution is to get back on track and again start responding to both the Will of God and the will of the people it is meant to be serving. What's missing at the moment is the agenda behind why we're having a big liturgy. Most of the young people in the Western world today simply "do not believe it". They pick up the disjunctions between what the Church says, what it does and how it behaves. Only the gullible are sucked in. Many young people rock up for "the big party" or the big adventure being let loose on the world stage at their parent's expense many of whom kid themselves that this is a chaperoned event and their children will be "safe" in the care of the priests and bishops who run the Church. What I increasingly pick up, apart from the small minority who are "turned on" to an almost fanatical state of zeal is that most are largely unmoved by the Catechesis and the agenda items that are supposed to be the core focus of the endeavour.

Come on, Peter. You're a secondary school teacher surely you would agree that there is a lot of truth in my perceptions above. I suppose the logical question to ask following on from all that is what would you do if you had the power to change anything and make the Church, and the one the Church is meant to represent, Jesus Christ, more relevant in the lives of young people today? What are the chief impediments that face you as a teacher today? What, in your view, are the chief impediments that face the Catholic education system in this country today — why, for all the thousands of millions of dollar ploughed into it each year, (or is it a billion yet?) do young people emerge from our schools and quickly find little interest in "The Church"? If you had the power and influence of the Pope, what would you go about altering to change this situation?

Cheers, Brian

Here is my response Brian.

Posted by peter marendy on December 12, 2007, 4:57 pm, in reply to "More "two-bobs" and some questions for you Peter..."

Thanks Brian for your considered response.

I think the most effective way in which I can respond is by answering your questions in a systematic fashion.

What would you do if you had the power to change anything and make the Church, and the one the Church is meant to represent, Jesus Christ, more relevant in the lives of young people today?

This is a very difficult question to answer. Even if I had the wisdom of Solomon I doubt I could make much head-way in this endeavour. As implied in my previous post, I do believe events such as WYD do have merit, especially in relation to the young. If they aren't going to the Church then what is wrong with using contemporary forms of entertainment to grab their attention in an attempt to evangelise the Gospel? Since the vast majority of them aren't going to Church regularly I see it as one way forward for Christianity, not just Catholicism.

There is another difficulty I have with this question. It implies that the Church isn't currently representing Jesus. As a non-Catholic I think it best to leave that to Catholic posters to consider.

More relevant? Well, WYD is certainly one way it could do this. Let's face it — the Pentecostals' are packing them in with WYD forms of worship so why not the Catholic Church? I don't think singing kumbaya and banging tambourines will cut quite frankly.

Staging Catholic youth gatherings with contemporary music and song and coffee afterwards? How about building coffee shops and book shops right next to Churches? This may encourage the youth to hang around for awhile and meet and talk with a deacon and or priest. What about giving out prizes such as MP3 players, high quality Catholic study Bibles, etc. at the end of Church?

Examining the emerging Church movement and see what aspects the Church could fruitfully adopt. For instance, some elements of these movements have set up very comfortable places where people are invited to come and have coffee while listening to others talk about their Faith, debate about moral issues, etc. in a very friendly, non-threatening environment. This wouldn't replace the traditional Church services, but rather it would be one of their ministries.

However, all of this will be in vain if the Church doesn't passionately and clearly state its beliefs, values and practices. A limp and ambiguous Faith isn't attractive as the declining numbers of mainstream Churches attests. A prime example of this sort of decline is the hapless Uniting Church.

What are the chief impediments that face you as a teacher today?

a. A lack of support from parents who are either agnostic or atheists or at best luke-warm about their personal Faith.

b. A lack of training of RE staff. RE, with some exceptions, is the subject staff get lumped with to fill-out their teaching load regardless of their level of training or any hostile feelings about it. I would hate being given a subject to teach for which I have no training. However, if all teachers in a Catholic school were adequately trained — i.e. completed a Cert IV in RE or an equivalent archdiocesan course — this wouldn't be an excuse and would make life a little easier for APRE's, Head of RE Departments, or Coordinators of RE. With few exceptions, other departments in secondary schools get teachers who are 'experts' (I use this term loosely) in their subject areas thus the heads of these departments don't have anywhere near the same problems dealing with reluctant and under trained staff. And remember, except for APRE's who are members of leadership teams, HOD's and coordinators of RE don't get paid any more than other middle managers with their 'expert' teachers but are still expected to be 'curriculum leaders'!

c. Hostile students. Students invariably don't want anything to do with a subject that "doesn't count". This attitude is most likely passed on to them by their parents who rarely see any value in RE. They send their children to Catholic schools for their perceived better discipline procedures, 'values' (whatever that means), better facilities than State schools (in comparison with order-owned schools I suspect), better teaching standards (this is a highly sensitive subject — I'm not suggesting I agree with this assessment. I know of great teachers in all systems), school uniform policies, etc. not RE. So what hope do RE teachers have? If you think teaching Year 9 English is tough, just imagine teaching Year 9 RE to boys!

What, in your view, are the chief impediments that face the Catholic education system in this country today?

I believe the increasing militancy of secular atheists and attacks from the far-left for funding to the independant sector to be slashed if not halted altogether is one of the chief impediments to this system. If the Coalition Federal Government remained in power I would have said AWA's and the Coalitions prefigured plans for further radical IR reforms (Minchim and Costello let out the bag many months ago on their plans). This which almost certainly have seen Catholic and independent school teachers on harsh AWA's (nurses also). Thank God we don't have to worry about that now.

There are probably a few more things but I haven't got time to express them effectively at this time.

Why, for all the thousands of millions of dollars ploughed into it each year, (or is it a billion yet?) do young people emerge from our schools and quickly find little interest in "The Church"?

There is an assumption in your question that the raison d'etat of Australian modern Catholic education system is to get students interested in the Church and by extension "bums on seats". I am fully aware that for some conservative Catholics this is indeed the only reason why these schools should exist (Catholic madrasas perhaps?) While I certainly agree that passing on a comprehensive undertstanding of the History, Traditions and beliefs and pratices of the Catholic Church is a vital component of Catholic education, I don't agree that it is a Catholic school's job to make people 'good' Catholics and certainly not convert non-believers. Evangelise yes — convert and indoctrinate no. Imparting the Catholic Faith within the Religion Education classroom is just one part of a broader range of objectives of Catholic schools.

Religious Education is an Educational endeavour, nothing else. Sure, an RE teacher can legitimately hope that their students may decide to practise their Faith more intently or even convert to Christianity because of their educational experiences. (Incidentally, an ACU lecturer of mine curiously even challenged the legitimacy of such a 'hope' within Catholic education. What a crock.)

A prominent reason why young people find little interest in going to Church is because increasingly society is becoming militantly secularist and thus unconducive to religious belief unless of course you are a Buddhist, which seems to be more acceptable to the PC crowd. Why in the world would a young person want to follow Christianity when it is increasingly attacked by sections of the media, entertainment industry, political groups such as the Greens and some so-called intellectuals?

If you had the power and influence of the Pope, what would you go about altering to change this situation?

I would immediately apologise to the Orthodox communion for breaking away from the True Catholic Church and brazenly placing bishops in areas in which Orthodox bishops already minister, amongst other things and ask to be readmitted on her terms!!! Only kidding.

In all seriousness, I will again leave such a question for Catholics to ponder.

Peter M.

Brian Coyne can be contacted at: Brian Coyne <editor@catholica.com.au>

Peter M Marendy is a Catholic secondary education teacher with a Masters Degree in Religious Education. He has a previously published article in the peer-reviewed Australian e_Journal of Theology looking at the current Catholic position on the Ordination of Women. His article can be found online at: dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_5/Marendy.htm

©2007 Peter Marendy, Brian Coyne, Catholica Australia. Permission granted for republication provided attribution given to original source.

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