The Face of Unity: How Young Life and the Catholic Church Are Coming Together

“Catholics and Protestants are learning to interact with one another in gracious ways,” notes Evangelical theologian John Armstrong. “They are forming friendships not possible before. They are actually learning how to love one another.” All across the country Young Life staff and Catholics are discovering that what unites them is far greater than what divides them. In a groundswell movement of the Holy Spirit, we are beginning to experience the reality of ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all' (Eph 4:5-6).

Here’s just a snapshot look at what God is doing.

Alaina Smith – Traverse Bay, Michigan

At winter weekend, we took our Catholic kids to Mass. After camp, our relationship with their parents was so much stronger. Now they see us as being “on the same team” in helping their kids grow in their faith. We take our Catholic kids to the Adoration Chapel for 10 minutes and then go out for coffee together. Their parents, teachers and our priest are so appreciative that we are encouraging them to spend time in Jesus' presence. We invited the priests to club and then met with them afterwards to talk about the relationships we’re building with kids.

Aaron “Hop” Hopkins - Eagle River, Alaska

Last year I met a Catholic woman whose son is autistic. I went to talk to her about Capernaum only to find out she runs a similar program in the parish for kids with special needs. So we decided to work together. Now she’s connecting me with the local bishop!

Pete Johnson – Regional Director, Lone Star Region (TX)

I made a major paradigm shift to see my Catholic friends as brothers and sisters in Christ, not the other side of the fence. We are followers of Christ together. I’ve paid attention to my language. I’ve become more comfortable in relationships with Catholics and have been so surprised how many donors, committee members and volunteers were active in their Catholic parish. The impact of our desire to build bridges with Catholics has CHANGED EVERYTHING!

Matthew Seifarth – Hagerstown, Maryland

After meeting Michael at AD school, I went back to my area and set up a meeting with the local Catholic priest. And it was great! A real relationship formed. I met monthly with Fr. Marty to catch up, talk about life, ministry, pray with one another. I was invited to his birthday party, a celebration of his 10 years in the priesthood, and to a diocesan discussion on The Joy of the Gospel. Through my relationship with Fr. Marty I was able to meet with the director of student ministry's in their church and start talking about ministering to lost kids together.

They gave me a key to the local prayer chapel a mile down the street from me. I go in there all the time now. The gift of being able to go to a place of the Lord 24/7 and I’m not even Catholic! That’s amazing. All because I engaged them, became friends with them, and kept showing up.

Andy Chittick – Edinburgh, UK

We have kids from Catholic schools coming to club, camp, and leader training. We are praying about starting contact work in Catholic schools here in Scotland. God open the doors!

Patrick Mollison – Grosse Pointe, Michigan

Our vision is that YL could be a venue where Catholic kids can encounter Jesus and live out their faith in the Catholic Church. I ask my Catholic students what their favorite part of Mass is. I encourage them to attend Catechism even if it is at the same time as WyldLife. During interviews with potential leaders I explain our desire to focus on Jesus and not the small differences between denominations. I specifically bring up our Catholic friends and how we want to encourage them in their Catholic faith. If leaders aren’t able to commit to that, I have stated that I don’t think it's a good fit for them to lead with us.

Coleman McIntyre – Indianapolis, Indiana

I do Young Life in a Catholic school. One of the big things I have been doing is consistent, clear conversation with school administration about what Young Life is and how it is working alongside the Catholic Church. I am proactive about reaching out to administration, making sure YL is represented by a person and not by a message online. I do contact work with them - grabbing coffee, catching up, building relationships. We respect their boundaries and honor their requests. This principal is now helping us start YL at another Catholic school. 

Rick Beckwith – Regional Director, Metro DC

I built trust by showing up at their events. When they feel like I’m not competing for their kids but trying to help them reach kids better, the door is open for mutual sharing. More Catholic parishes are calling on me to consult and help them.

Lori Kornack – Quad Cities (IA, IL)

We have Catholic kids in EVERY school we’re a part of. I’ve been learning about the culture of the Catholic Church – going to Masses, a prayer group, a women’s event. I’m trying to earn the right to be heard and spend time on their turf before I invite them into ours. It’s given me a new language to talk about YL and the Catholic Church that isn’t ostracizing but fosters connection and understanding. Then I spent a week at Catholic Adult Guest Camp with a group that changed everything. Now the priest wants WyldLife in his parish school.

Chris Theule-VanDam – Regional Director, Western Great Lakes

I’ve started intentionally hiring Catholic staff. Our staff and volunteers should reflect our communities. I always think about Catholics in everything we do and work to become more inclusive. We’re welcoming more Catholic committee members, recruiting more Catholic leaders, and reaching out to partner with Catholic parishes.

Nathan Gunn – Syracuse, New York

We’ve seen HUGE fruit partnering with the Catholic Church. Enormous WyldLife and Young Life clubs. Big increases in camping. Huge winter trip to El Salvador with tons of Catholics. We take priests to summer camp and have Mass for our Catholic kids. We’ve experienced growth in leadership and local committee. We enjoy the spiritual support of our priests. We’re taking kids and leaders to World Youth Day this summer. It’s huge.

Corey Harouff – Rapid City, South Dakota

I pray at the local Catholic retreat center all the time. It’s my favorite place to get away and connect with the Lord. It was there that I met Fr. Mark. We quickly became friends and recently he connected me with the local bishop and all the major priests of the diocese. It was incredible. We’ve created a committee and the bishop is discerning the possibility of formal collaboration to reach kids!

Joe Wilson – Harlingen, Texas

I questioned Young Life’s “expertise” when they decided to hire a chubby white Baptist kid from the prairie and send him to the Rio Grande Valley where 90% of kids are Hispanic Catholics. But when I got to know Catholics - their heart, their urgency, and their passion to reach kids - I realized that we were after the same thing.

Young Life has been plowing new ground for 75 years now. But when you stop and think about it, the Catholic Church has been doing the same thing for centuries. They have been a safe-haven for millions in overwhelming places like the mission territories of S. Texas. They are like our tour guides and we have the privilege of coming alongside them to help reanimate the faith of Catholic kids. I’m so humbled.

Bishop Daniel Flores – Diocese of Brownsville, Texas

A great number of young people today are unconnected to anything. They are lost. They need to hear that there’s somebody to help them get connected to the Lord and to the Church. That’s why this relationship with Young Life is so important. Young Life is an organization that has a long history in the United States announcing the kerygma and, through a process of friendship and accompaniment, getting teens connected back to their faith tradition.

Jesus prayed that we may be one so that the world would know the love of God. We’re working on it Jesus! One heart and one relationship at a time.

Mending in Marysville

Jeff met Tyler at a lunchroom table at the local high school just north of Seattle. Jeff was simply doing what every Young Life leader does – meeting kids where they’re at, loving them unconditionally, and earning the right to be heard. He would have no idea how significant that encounter, and that lunchroom table, would be.

Twelve years later, a young and desperate teenager would walk into that cafeteria and shoot five of his classmates before turning the gun on himself. The shooting occurred last Friday at Marysville-Pilchuck High, one of Washington's largest schools, a place where Young Life has served kids since 2002. The shooting occurred in the very same cafeteria where Jeff met Tyler twelve years earlier. At the same table.

Jeff is now the area director for West Snohomish County Young Life, a neighboring area to Marysville. Tyler is the volunteer team leader of the Young Life ministry in Marysville, reeling in the tragic events of last week. And now they’re there together, at ground zero, in the midst of all the pain and confusion, offering prayer, presence, and compassion.

Dr. Elizabeth Marshall is a local physician, practicing Catholic, and Young Life leader. She attends the same Catholic parish as Gia Soriano, one of the victims in Friday's shooting. Last night, she and her husband Tim, a local psychologist, gathered a group of youth leaders to walk through the grief, the suffering, and the needs of kids who are grasping to deal with the unthinkable. “Walking alongside these kids is the most important thing we can do,” she said. “We have no solutions. We cannot fix the suffering. Suffering must be accompanied.”

The gathering was attended by youth leaders across the board - Protestants and Catholics, Young Life leaders and pastors. A beautiful ecumenical spirit filled the room, uniting these Christian disciples in solidarity and in a commitment to serve the lost and hurting. Dr. Marshall reflected,

God was there. God was in the cafeteria, weeping. Jesus wept. Jesus knows every suffering. Not only does Jesus know, he suffers with us. With each kid, with each leader, with each doctor, with each nurse, with each and every person saddened by this event. Jesus didn’t come to take away our suffering, he came to fill it with His presence.

Marysville-Pilchuck Young Life will launch club on Monday, proclaiming the nearness of Christ to every kid, claiming the ultimate victory of God for every soul left hurt and confused by this calamity. Pray for kids. Pray for leaders. Pray for Catholics. Pray for Protestants. Pray for every kid.

And if you want to support Tyler and the effort to reach every kid, a fund has been created through the local Young Life area. All proceeds will support a special camp to serve all those affected by the Marysville shooting. Checks can be made out to Young Life with #PrayforMarysville in the memo. Please send contributions to:

#PrayforMarysville

Young Life North Snohomish County

PO Box 3487

Everett, WA 98213

*or give online to WA401 at: http://www.younglife.org/Giving/Pages/default.aspx

I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~ Romans 8:38-39

Latino Catholicism: Something About Mary

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Latino Catholicism is a growing phenomenon that both Young Life and the Catholic Church cannot ignore.  But what are the unique features of Latino Catholicism that are critical for us to know if we are to reach this burgeoning demographic with the gospel? Moreover, how do we navigate these cultural and religious waters with sensitivity while keeping the focus on Christ?

Professor Hosffman Ospino of Boston College, a nationally recognized expert in Latino Catholicism, asserts that nothing impacts the daily lives of Hispanic Catholics more than what is called “popular Catholicism” – those diverse cultural expressions of faith, born of specific regions and communities that uniquely inform what it means for these people to be human in relationship to God.[1] These expressions of faith come alive in family gatherings, public processions, personal devotions, Marian celebrations and the veneration of particular saints.[2]

Now wait a minute.

Haven’t I just pinpointed the very problem that most non-Catholics have with Latino Catholicism? Don’t all these things – Mary, the saints, processions, rituals – divert our attention away from Jesus, away from the very centerpiece of our shared faith, away from the only One who can save us all – Protestants, Catholics and the like?

In my research of Latino Catholicism, there arose a number of distinctive features that are likely to trigger my Protestant brothers and sisters who are concerned that they take something away from the unmitigated sovereignty and unique centrality of Jesus Christ in the economy of salvation. Understandable. Evangelical Christianity has often undersold the sacramental, devotional, popular and Marian dimensions of the faith. Yet these features don’t have to take anything away from God. Matter of fact, they are ways to magnify the Lord even more and we all need to restrain our quick judgment.[3] Though excesses and deviations exists, we must not automatically conclude that Latino Catholics are somehow lacking in authentic Christian faith, a faith which is predicated on God’s saving work in Christ alone.

Nothing brings this unease to the surface more than the subject of Mary. What if, in our ministry to Latino Catholics, we do sense an overemphasis of Mary to the neglect of Jesus? What are we to do when Mary and Jesus are unnaturally placed in competition with one another? It’s important for us to remember several things:

1)     In the Catholic hierarchy of truths, official Catholic teaching has never placed Marian doctrine on par with the doctrine of God. Mary is not God, nor “goddess,” and no specific belief in Mary is essential for salvation.[4]

2)    In an ancillary way, the basic gospel can be proclaimed without focusing on Mary. The fundamental axis of Christian faith is the Paschal Mystery celebrated at every Mass – the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the kerygma, the essential message of the gospel.

3)    However, we should never consider that honor given to Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, as somehow inimical to faith. After all, the Council of Ephesus in 431 (one of the first seven councils which organizations like Young Life uses to broadly frame Christian orthodoxy) solemnly declared Mary as Theotokos, “Mother of God” or “God-bearer.” This doesn’t mean that Mary gave birth to God as in the beginning of time. It doesn’t mean that Mary is the source of Jesus’ divinity. It honors the true humanity of Jesus as he was born of a truly human mother.

4)    Finally, and most importantly, we need to agree to “major in the majors” without getting caught in the intractable debates about the minors. Nobody said it better than Fr. Francis Martin, “Anyone who confuses the roles of Mary and Jesus does not have a problem with their ‘Mariology’; their problem is that they have never really met Jesus Christ.”[5] Continue to preach Christ crucified, introducing kids to the Lord in personal and incarnational ways.

And that’s precisely what Marian feasts, devotions and celebrations are supposed to be about. Mary is not in competition with Jesus. Jesus is the “source of all truth,” the “fullness of revelation,” the “Savior of the world,” and the “one mediator between God and man.”[6] When Latinos honor Mary, they are expressing their appreciation for her example of simplicity, humility and receptivity that forms the basis of Hispanic culture. They are honoring her as an example of discipleship, how our “yes” to the Holy Spirit gives birth to Christ in the world, both then and now.[7]

As we minister to those with special love for Mary, let us all imagine ourselves at the foot of the Cross with the “beloved disciple” to whom Jesus said, “Behold your mother”(Jn 19:27). If Jesus thought that his disciples could find a special place in their hearts for a relationship with his mother, if Christ himself gave Mary to all of us as mother, perhaps we too could find room for her tender and maternal care?

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[1] See Hosffman Ospino (ed.), “Hispanic Ministry, Evangelization, and Faith Formation,” Hispanic Ministry in the 21^st Century: Present and Future (Miami, FL: Convivium Press, 2010), 74. Ospino serves as Assistant Professor of Hispanic Ministry and Religious Education and Director of Graduate Programs in Hispanic Ministry at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry in Boston, Massachusettes.

[2] Las Posadas are nine-day celebrations popular in Mexico and the Southwestern United States, that re-enact Joseph and Mary’s search for lodging in Bethlehem prior to Jesus’ birth. Quinceaneras are coming of age rituals for 15-year-old girls celebrated throughout Latin America. Altarcitos are small shrines that almost universally adorn the homes of Latino Catholics, used as designated areas for prayer.

[3] Ospino notes, “Excesses or deviations must not become an excuse to ignore the potential of these practices to mediate pedagogies of faith.” Hosffman Ospino (ed.), “Hispanic Ministry, Evangelization, and Faith Formation,” Hispanic Ministry in the 21^st Century: Present and Future (Miami, FL: Convivium Press, 2010), 74.

[4] See Lumen Gentium, 67: “This Synod earnestly exhorts theologians and preachers of the divine word that in treating the unique dignity of the Mother of God, they carefully and equally avoid the falsity of exaggeration on the one hand, and the excess of narrow-mindedness on the other. . . Pursuing the study of the sacred Scripture, the holy Fathers, the doctors and liturgies of the church, and under the guidance of the church’s teaching authority, let them rightly explain the offices and privileges of the Blessed Virgin which are always related to Christ, the source of all truth, sanctity, and piety.

[5] Alan Schreck, Catholic and Christian: An Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2004), 202.

[6] Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), 67; Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), 2;

[7] In the eighth and final section of the Credo developed in the Third Encuentro process, Latino Catholics profess, “We believe in Mary, our Mother, who has taken our Hispanic culture under her protection, and who has accompanied us and will accompany us always in our journey as she works to carry the message of Jesus to the whole world. See Prophetic Voices: Document on the Process of the III Encuentro Nacional Hispano de Pastoral, USCC, Washington, D.C., 1986.