The answer to this problem is Christ, whom the Church must present more strongly and confidently to young people, he noted in his second intervention to the assembly Oct. 4.
He spoke during the fifteenth ordinary general session of the Synod of Bishops, which is treating of young people, the faith, and vocational discernment.
At the beginning of his intervention, Chaput recalled the words of Pope Francis’ homily at Mass that day, in which the Pope referred to Christ as “eternally young.”
“When I heard this, it reminded me of a song by the artist, Jay-Z, that was popular a few years ago,” Chaput said. “The song was entitled ‘Forever Young,’ and it was a remake of a popular tune by the German group, Alphaville, from the 1980s. Jay-Z sang for the young - and for all of us - ‘I want to live forever and be forever young.’”
The image of Christ as “eternally young” is “not only beautiful but powerful”, Chaput said, because he is “alive and vigorous, and constantly offering his disciples an abundant new life.”
But Christ did not remain a youth, but rather matured into a man “of courage, self-mastery, and mercy guided by justice and truth. He was a teacher both tender and forceful; understanding and patient – but also very clear about the kind of human choices and actions that would lead to God, and the kind that would not,” Chaput said.
Unfortunately, Chaput noted, many “developed” countries today are actually “underdeveloped in their humanity. They’re frozen in a kind of moral adolescence; an adolescence which they’ve chosen for themselves and now seek to impose upon others.”
“The instrumentum (working document) does a good job of exploring the roots of that underdevelopment and the challenges to young people that flow from it,” Chaput said.
“But it needs to be much stronger and more confident in presenting God’s Word and the person of Jesus Christ as the only path to a full and joyful humanity. And it needs to do this much earlier in the text.”
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