Catholic
Education The invent Vatican new
By ARTHUR JONES
Forty percent of todays 62 million American Catholics are
under 38, and more than half of those are teens or younger. How different, as
Catholics and believers, those teens are from adults is captured in a
comparison Mike Carotta, author of Sometimes We Dance, Sometimes We Wrestle:
Embracing the Spirituality of Adolescents (Harcourt Religion), gave at one
of his workshops at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim,
Calif.
The we refers to adults; they to
teens:
We emphasize community; they value individual faith.
We teach with words and books; they learn with slogans and
visuals.
We emphasize the knowing; they are interested in doing.
We offer a moral map; they want a moral compass.
We tell a story from start to finish; they see multiple plots
with no resolution.
We stress our uniqueness; they value diversity and
commonality.
We treasure our religion; they seek spirituality.
We value counseling; they seek confession.
We speak in theological language; they understand plain
English.
We observe feasts and holy days; they interact, participate,
create.
We value training and caution; they use delete.
We refer to Vatican II; they invent Vatican
new.
National Catholic Reporter, March 30,
2001
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