“Many Catholic young people in Tanzania have come to know
Jesus more deeply and have grown in their faith because of their involvement
with Young Life,” penned Archbishop Josaphat Louis Lebulu in an historic
endorsement of Young Life. The letter, signed in May, documented the East
African archbishop’s “endorsement and sincere appreciation” for the ministry of
Young Life as he has come to know it over the last eight years.
“They live up to their mission to reach every young person
with the love of Jesus,” Lebulu attested. “And they achieve this with integrity
and humility.” This glowing endorsement serves as a timely overture to other
Catholic leaders who may have previously questioned Young Life’s sensitivity to
the Church. “We wholeheartedly assure other Christian leaders that Young Life
is a ministry that honors the Lord and the Church, and is highly effective at
impacting young people with the Gospel.”
We have come to a new chapter in the relationship between
Young Life and the Catholic Church. As Cardinal Walter Kasper (President
Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity) has
suggested, this kind of collaboration represents “not only an exchange of ideas
but an exchange of gifts.”[1]
In this gift exchange, each part of the body of Christ has important
contributions to bring. As the Second Vatican Council proclaimed, “Each part
contributes its own gifts to other parts and to the whole Church.”[2]
The Catholic Church has embarked on “a new chapter of
evangelization,” and it can receive the gifts that Young Life offers – dynamic
expressions and methods that are reaching disinterested kids around the world
with vitality and effectiveness.[3]
Likewise, Young Life is entering a new era of openness to the gifts of the
Church – its longstanding history and theological depth, its liturgy and
sacramentality, and its commitment to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples.
This unity in mission, this endeavor of Christian fellowship
and ministry, is kingdom-building work. It is healing balm for the wounds of
division and fresh fire for a new Pentecost of evangelization. Thankful for his
ecumenical vision and evangelical drive, may our hearts join with the Most
Reverend Josaphat Louis Lebulu as he beckons this new era of partnership in
prayer:
We pray that the work of Young Life may
be extended to every area of Tanzania and beyond its boundaries for the good of
the Kingdom of God and for the benefit of humankind.[4]
[1]
Walter Cardinal Kasper speaks in the Forward of Paul D. Murray’s Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic
Learning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xiii.
[2] Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on
the Church), 13.
[3] Pope
Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy
of the Gospel), 1.
[4] Most
Rev. Josaphat Louis Lebulu, Archbishop of Arusha, Tanzania in his May 9, 2014
endorsement of Young Life.
