What this series is about...

The editor, Brian Coyne, with his sons Julian and Ben, photographed when Ben had been awarded a Vice Chancellor's Award for Academic Excellence at Murdoch University.

Our hope over this last week of 2006 is to bring you a series of reflections written by young people in their mid-20s to mid-30s on their spiritual and religious outlook today. I say "hope" as I am not yet definitely certain that all the young people I have been able to make contact with will in fact be able to submit their reflections on time. I am confident though we have an excellent start to the series with a contribution I've been endeavouring to get my own son, Ben, to write for about the last three years — LOL. I am hopeful that it might inspire other young people to put pen to paper and share with us their outlook in as honest a way as they are able to.

My hope is that this series might also provide our spiritual leaders in the institutional Church with some insight into the thinking of educated young people today — particularly those who have become disillusioned with institutionalised religion.

To set the context for the readers of this series, following is the briefing note that was sent to each of the young people...

Dear _____________,

Catholica Australia would like to run a special series of commentaries in the last week of the year exploring the views of younger people on a number of key spiritual issues. We are particularly interesting in gaining an understanding of young people who were brought up and educated in a Catholic context but who now have some disenchantment with the Catholic outlook. We'd like to run six or seven reflections or commentaries - one or two each day between Tuesday 26th and Sunday 31st December. Check out the Catholica site at www.catholica.com.au and you can get an idea of the length and style of commentaries that people are writing - there is quite a variety there. Many of the members of Catholica are parents who now have adult children who have chosen not to continue the practices of their parents. We are interested in hearing from young people in an open way as in many respects we actually agree with our children in some matters and have our own disenchantments with institutionalised religion. What we are looking for above all then are "from the heart" and very honest reflections of what you feel and believe today. If you find it easier to express yourself more fully by writing under a pseudonym please feel free to do so.

Here are a brief list of questions that we'd be particularly interested in hearing your views about...

Can you provide a general overview of your religious outlook today: e.g. do you consider yourself a spiritual person, do you pray, what's you concept of God, what do you think of Jesus Christ, what's you general outlook to all religions?

If you have ceased practising the religion of your childhood could you perhaps explain what specifically led to this. If you are still practising perhaps you might comment on the general situation as to why so many young people have given up. Why do you think this is so?

Do you have any general thoughts about the level of both spirituality in the community today - i.e. do you think people generally care about spiritual matters in the community - and about morality and ethics? I think our audience would generally claim that there has been an increase in both spirituality and to some extent morality even though there has been a decline in religious observance.

Without some kind of institutional framework how do your believe a community's set of values can be transmitted down through the generations? For example, if and when you come to have children what sort of things would you do differently to what your parents' generation did in order to give your children some kind of framework of both behaviour (i.e. how do they work out right from wrong) and also some sort of context that explains Life, the Universe and Everything?

If you would like to take on this assignment I'm sure everyone in our community would greatly appreciate your views. Unfortunately we cannot offer any remuneration for this assignment. All of our writers at the moment support the work of Catholica by volunteering their input.

Could you please make contact with myself, Brian Coyne, via email or phone if you would like to take part.

If, for the reasons hinted at earlier, our series is incomplete this week, we will use the reflections we are able to publish as a catalyst for a more intensive series early next year. I know the value I have derived, despite many conversations with my own children over the years on these subjects, of actually reading their perspectives when they've put considerable time and energy into writing out their thoughts in a coherent and self-reflective way. I am sure other parents will appreciate reading their perspectives and those of other young people who might be inspired to write at length and in detail about what they believe today, and why.

My own children were brought up in what was then a quite conservative household both theologically and politically. While Ben and Phoebe (my eldest daughter whose contribution will be published later in the week) both have heightened spiritual sensibilities and continue to read very widely on spirituality, my experience is that their outlook is not unlike that of many educated young people whom I have met through the social circles my own children move in. Granted that neither of them are "petrol heads", or obsessively focused about careers, materialism, technology and economic security, their perspectives probably do reflect those of the educated elite who do tend to "set the agenda" in society through the arts, political activism and music. At some stage I would also like to obtain a perspective from my youngest son, Julian, who has a far more conservative and main-stream outlook. Unfortunately (at least in the context of this series) he is now running a very successful business in computer software development and distracting him away from that is not an easy task. As I wrote earlier, and it wasn't in jest, I have been seriously endeavouring to get my own children to write something like this for a number of years. I do think part of the reason why they have found it more comfortable to do it at this stage is partly reflective of a further stage of maturity, and the ability for self-reflection at this slightly later age than when I first asked them. From my conversations with him over the years though I know Julian has alternative perspectives that would also be valuable for this series and, more than probably, of value to the spiritual leadership of our Church if they could give a bugger about anyone attempting to publish anything like this.

If any of our readers know of young people who might be inspired to share their perspectives with us — unfortunately we cannot offer remuneration at this stage for their submissions but my own children indicate to me they have found the exercise of value to themselves in bringing to a focus much of the thinking they have done on these matters over the years — please do not hestitate to contact me, or get the young people concerned to contact me.

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher

[Index of Young People's Spiritual Perspectives]