Rome (Italy). More than 300 young people from the whole world are gathered in the Vatican at Mary, Mother of the Church School, from 19-24 March 2018 for the ‘pre-synod gathering’ taking place in preparation for the General Assembly of the Bishops’ Synod in October on “The Young, Faith, and Vocational Discernment”. Among the 300 participants, there are the young delegates from all the episcopal conferences of the world, seminarians, sisters, and novices; representatives of associations and movements, Catholic School and University students, of the world of culture, of volunteer service, of politics, and of sports. There are young people of other Christian confessions and religions, those differently abled or who have lived the drama of incarceration, of trafficking, and of various dependencies, an Italian boy and girl who are guests at the Italian Center for Solidarity (Ceis), desired by Pope Francis.
Representing the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA) are some young people of the Salesian Youth Movement and FMA.
“This is not only a Synod ‘on’ the young and ‘for’ the young, but also a Synod ‘of’ the young and ‘with’ the young. This is the ‘novelty’ compared to the past and an ‘experiment’ that could be adopted in the future as well. It is not a formal event or a conference, but an occasion to ‘listen’ effectively to the young, thanks also to the involvement of all through the web site www.synod2018.va, on the page of facebook.com/synod2018, the profile on Twitter @synod2018 and one on Instagram (link www.instagram.com/p/Bge03tPD8MZ/), in the most widespread languages.
The Synod page on the internet has already had 500,000 contacts. There were 221,000 who participated on the online questionnaire. Of these, 100,500 responded to all the questions: 58,000 girls and 42,500 boys. Almost 51,000 participants that correspond to 50.6% of the completed questionnaires are young people between the ages of 16-19, which shows that it is the younger ones who were more attuned to the initiative. Europe was the continent with the most representation with 56.4%, followed by Central and South America with 19.8%, and Africa with 18.1%. Among the participants who completed the questionnaire, 73.9% stated they were Catholics who considered religion important, while the rest were Catholics who did not consider religion important (8.8%); non-Catholics who consider religion important (6.1%) and non-Catholics who do not consider religion important (11.1%).
The event began on Monday, March 19, 2018 with the discourse of the Pope who responded to the questions of the young people gathered there.
“What are you looking for in life? Tell us. It is good for us to listen to you”. Pope Francis explained, “Youth does not exist. Young people exist with their stories, which the Church wants to listen to. Too often we speak of the young without asking them. Even the best analysis on the youth world, although useful, cannot substitute the need of a face to face encounter. Some think that it is better to keep you at a ‘safe distance’, so they will not be provoked by you. But the young people of today ask for closeness. It is not enough to exchange some little message or share nice photos. Young people must be taken seriously! It seems to me that we are surrounded by a culture which on one hand it idolizes youthfulness and tries to hold on to it forever, on the other had it excludes many young people from being protagonists. You are often marginalized from public life and you find you have to beg for occupations that do not guarantee you a tomorrow. You are left alone too much”.
In the afternoon, the young people divided into language groups dealt with the work outline, to elaborate summaries for the final project that will be presented in the plenary assembly on Thursday, 22 March in the morning. This first project will then be studied both in the assembly and in the groups. The proposals and suggestions that come out will be collected in a definitive text, whose presentation and approval are scheduled for Saturday, March 24th. The document will be delivered to Bergoglio on Sunday, 25 March and will be merged into the Instrumentum laboris, the Working Document of the Synod Fathers, together with two questionnaires elaborated in the past few months, one for the World Episcopal Conferences and the other for the young, directly on the website of the Synod, and the results of a symposium held at the General Curia of the Jesuits last September.
The final appeal of Pope Francis: “We need you young people; you provoke us to get out of the logic of “but it has always been done this way”. That logic, really, is a poison. It is a sweet poison, because it calms your soul and leaves you anesthetized and does not let you walk. Get out of the logic of “it has always been done this way” and remain in a creative way in the steps of authentic Christian tradition, but creatively”.
