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Youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl is alumnus of Catholic school

Under the bright lights and falling confetti, surrounded by his team, their families and thousands of fans in SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, Sean McVay raised high the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl championship trophy Feb. 13.

To win the game feels outstanding, said McVay, head coach of the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams were behind in the third quarter and most of the fourth quarter, before scoring the winning touchdown with 1:25 left in Super Bowl LVI against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Rams won 23-20.

McVay called it “poetic.”

“You talk about a resilient team, coaches, players; I’m so proud of this group,” said McVay in postgame comments. “We talk about competitive greatness all the time, being your best when your best is required.”

McVay, 36, the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl championship in NFL history, is a graduate of Marist School in Atlanta. He gives the Catholic school a lot of credit for instilling in him many “foundational principles” he said have been instrumental in his achievements.

Marist is an independent Catholic college preparatory school owned and operated by the Society of Mary. It is the oldest Catholic secondary school in the Atlanta area.

During his five seasons with the Rams, McVay has led the team to five consecutive winning seasons, two Super Bowl appearances and now a Super Bowl championship.

As his coaching career continues to soar, he continues to hold fond memories of his time at Marist School.

“Marist is a special place because of all the unique people,” McVay said to the 2021 Marist graduating class at their guest speaker. “I’ve been so fortunate and blessed because there’s so many of the foundational principles that were instilled in me from the time I got here, from seventh grade to 12th grade, that have been instrumental in a lot of the things that have been good in my life.”

The school honored McVay with the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2020.

McVay gravitated to football from soccer in eighth grade at Marist, following the footsteps of three McVay generations.

His father, Tim, played football at Indiana University in Bloomington. His grandfather, John, was vice president and director of football operations for the San Francisco 49ers from 1979 to 1995 and was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2013.

Alan Chadwick, head football coach at Marist for more than 40 years, described McVay as explosive, agile and competitive as a Marist player.

“He brought great intensity to his preparation, workouts and had tremendous understanding of the game,” said Chadwick.

McVay was a four-year starter and quarterback his junior and senior year while playing for the Marist War Eagles. In 2003, he led the football team to a state championship and was named the Georgia AAAA Offensive Player of the Year. McVay was the first player in the school’s history to rush and throw for 1,000 yards in consecutive seasons.

Atlanta Auxiliary Bishop Joel Konzen, who was principal of Marist School while McVay attended, remembers him as an easygoing and friendly student.

In 2003, when Marist won the state championship, Bishop Konzen recalls McVay’s leadership.

“The team acknowledged that he was their leader,” the bishop told The Georgia Bulletin, newspaper of the Atlanta Archdiocese. “Sean gave most of the credit to his teammates for a win, making light of his own contribution. That kind of modesty was how Sean demonstrated his commitment to the Marist Way.”

After graduating from Marist in 2004, McVay attended Miami University where he played wide receiver. In 2007, he received Miami’s Scholar Athlete Award and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in health and sports studies in 2008.

His NFL career began as assistant wide receivers coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After working for one year as the quality control and wide receivers coach for the Florida Tuskers of the United Football League, McVay returned to the NFL as assistant tight end coach for the Washington Redskins in 2010.

While coaching for Washington, it was apparent that McVay was going to be a good coach, said Chadwick.

McVay was promoted twice, eventually becoming Washington’s offensive coordinator. In 2016, he coached the offensive unit to record breaking statistics for the franchise.

McVay was named head coach for the Los Angeles Rams in 2017. At 30, he was the youngest NFL head coach in history. The Associated Press named McVay the Coach of the Year in 2018 — the youngest head coach to ever receive the award.

Three years ago, McVay made his first Super Bowl appearance as head coach for the Rams against the New England Patriots when the game was hosted in Atlanta.

Chadwick and McVay have kept in touch over the years. After the Rams won the NFC championship game against the 49ers Jan. 30, Chadwick reached out to his former player to wish him luck in the Super Bowl.

“He’s done extremely well for himself and should continue to do that for many years to come,” said Chadwick.

— Samantha Smith

Younger U.S. priests increasingly identify as theologically conservative, politically moderate

A closer look at the largest survey of U.S. Catholic priests in 50 years has revealed “a major shift in how priests view themselves and their priesthood,” said researchers.

Compared to their older peers, younger priests are far more likely to describe themselves as theologically orthodox or conservative, politically conservative or moderate, and prepared to be “first responders” to the abuse victims they encounter in their ministry. Furthermore, researchers noted “a significant proportion of American priests say that they had ‘personally experienced sexual harassment or abuse or suffered sexual misconduct’ during their formation or time in seminary.”

The findings were detailed in “Polarization, Generational Dynamics, and the Ongoing Impact of the Abuse Crisis: Further Insights from the National Study of Catholic Priests,” a November 2023 report released by The Catholic Project, an initiative from The Catholic University of America designed to foster effective collaboration between the church’s clergy and laity in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis.

The report drew on data collected for The Catholic Project’s landmark “National Study of Catholic Priests,” the results of which were issued in October 2022 and featured responses from 3,516 priests (out of 10,000) across 191 dioceses and eparchies. The national study also included in-depth interviews with more than 100 priests selected from those respondents and a census survey of U.S. bishops that drew 131 responses.

Three themes were the focus of the November 2023 report on that data: polarization, generational dynamics and the ongoing impact of the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

Stephen White, executive director of The Catholic Project, told OSV News the research represents an effort “to really understand how our priests are doing … so that we can provide the data that can help bishops and priests.”

He said, “This is really a tool for the edification and help of the church.”

With respect to theology and doctrine, younger priests are far more likely to describe themselves as “conservative/orthodox” or “very conservative/orthodox,” as opposed to “very progressive,” “somewhat progressive” or “middle of the road,” according to the report.

“More than half of the priests who were ordained since 2010 see themselves on the conservative side of the scale,” said the report. “No surveyed priests who were ordained after 2020 described themselves as ‘very progressive.'”

That shift became particularly apparent among the cohort of respondents ordained between 1985-1989, and has continued to the present, according to the report.

One survey respondent quoted anonymously in the report said “priests in their 70s and 60s now would be one cohort,” with a Pope John Paul II generation that “would be very orthodox” with some “freeflowing” liturgical approaches. The respondent broadly characterized priests ordained during Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy as “the hard-on-everything kind of guys,” while “the young guys now … have a lot in common with those last few cohorts.”

The report noted that while theologically “progressive” and “very progressive” priests once made up 68% of new ordinands — the 1965-1969 cohort — it added that number today “has dwindled almost to zero.”

White also told OSV News that as “the priesthood has become more unified over time theologically, it’s become more moderate politically, and it’s become more racially diverse, racially and ethnically diverse over time.”

In fact, the report noted that in contrast to the theological trend among priests, the trend in their political views “seems to have stabilized to include a large proportion of ‘moderates.'”

“While roughly half (52%) of the recently-ordained cohort described themselves as ‘conservative’ or ‘very conservative,’ a full 44% (the highest percentage of any cohort) self-described as ‘moderate,'” said the report.

Yet “it’s important to qualify” such descriptors, said White.

“These are ways that priests themselves chose to describe themselves. And across generations, that changes,” he said, stressing that “context matters.”

“At the Second Vatican Council, Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) would have fairly been described as sort of a reformer or more progressive relative to his surroundings,” White said. “And without having changed too much 30 years later, he would have been described very differently.”

Additionally, “despite younger age and ordination cohorts trending more conservative/orthodox both politically and theologically, the overwhelming majority of these youngest priests do value accountability to Pope Francis,” who is often regarded as being more liberal than his predecessors, said the report.

The researchers found as well that priests tended to trust bishops whom they perceived to share their theological and political views. Overall, levels of trust expressed by priests in their bishop varied widely among dioceses, from 100% to as low as 9%.

Noting that “the causes and consequences of these shifts” are “no doubt complex,” the report said qualitative interviews with respondents pointed to “two watershed moments” that shape priests’ perception of themselves: the Second Vatican Council and the clergy sexual abuse crisis of 2002.

Regarding the abuse crisis, the report anonymously quoted several respondents ordained after 2002 who indicated they accepted that healing the wounds is essential to their pastoral ministry.

“The Lord intends to use me and my priesthood to help restore this and restore the trust and credibility of the priesthood for people,” said one respondent, while another quoted his seminary rector as saying, “You guys will spend your entire priesthood restoring trust.”

The data showed that “71% of priests report knowing at least one victim-survivor of clergy sexual abuse, with 11% knowing five or more.”

However, priests are also among the victims of sexual abuse with 9% reporting they personally experienced sexual harassment or abuse or suffered sexual misconduct during priestly formation or seminary; another 6% said they were unsure or preferred not to answer.

The majority of priests surveyed (69%) “say that they feel well-prepared to minister to a victim of abuse, and 54% report that they are already doing so,” the report said.

“There’s a sense in which the church in the United States is about two decades ahead of much of the rest of the church in responding to the abuse crisis,” White said.

He and his team found in their report that “against the backdrop of all these challenges, priests remain largely satisfied in their ministry and few (4%) are considering leaving.

“Many of these trends have been decades in the making and show little sign of reversal any time soon. Building trust and restoring confidence begins with mutual understanding,” the report stated. “It is our hope that the data presented here can strengthen that understanding among all Catholics, but particularly for our bishops and priests upon whom so much depends.”

— Gina Christian, OSV News

Young pilgrims welcome World Youth Day Cross, Marian icon to U.S. cities

Despite the nearly 100-degree temperatures, Jaime Reyna found purpose in his four-hour drive from Corpus Christi to Houston.

With five teens from the Diocese of Corpus Christi, where Reyna serves as diocesan youth ministry director, he made a pilgrimage to the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, which hosted the World Youth Day Cross and Marian icon Aug. 23.

The two symbols of World Youth Day, the massive international celebration of the Catholic faith with young adults to be held in Panama in January, visited the archdiocese nearly one year to the day since Hurricane Harvey came ashore in 2017. The storm devastated several dioceses along the Texas Gulf Coast, including Reyna’s Corpus Christi, Victoria, Galveston-Houston and Beaumont.

More than 1,000 people joined Reyna for the three-and-a-half-hour celebration, which included veneration and procession of the cross and icon, as well as a Liturgy of the Word at which Auxiliary Bishop George A. Sheltz of Galveston-Houston presided.

The Corpus Christi teens helped carry the cross, which Reyna called a blessing.

“The fact that … they were going to be able to touch and carry the cross just like they do at World Youth Days, that some of them will never experience for different reasons, the fact that they were able to carry it here, they’ll have a story to share with not only their friends, but maybe their future children. It meant a lot for them, and they shared it with me and I think they’re looking forward to share it with everybody else at home,” he said.

After the procession, English, Spanish, Vietnamese, African descent, Filipino and Chinese community choirs from across the archdiocese joined to lead worship during continued veneration.

In his homily, Bishop Sheltz confronted the clergy sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent weeks.

“I was very upset, how things were covered up by the (church) authorities and the bishops,” Bishop Sheltz said. “It made me mad, but I can’t just sit here and be mad. As a bishop, it’s part of my responsibility that we don’t let these things happen again. As a church, we must stand up and pray for those who have been hurt, whose lives have been damaged. I ask you to do the same thing.”

He encouraged the young people to look to the cross and focus their prayers to lift up the survivors of clergy abuse.

To those going to Panama, he said “be great witnesses of God’s love. Be good examples of what it is to be a Houstonian and a Texan. Say ‘howdy’ to everyone. Be proud to be a Catholic Christian, and be willing to serve God in everything that you do every day of your life.”

The cross and the icon were on a nine-day tour across the U.S. Aug. 19-27. On the Palm Sunday immediately following each World Youth Day, the cross is transferred from the youth of that year’s host country to the youth of the country hosting the next celebration. Because Panama is such a small country, the current tour was expanded to include Central America, the Caribbean, and five U.S. cities: Chicago, Miami, Houston, Washington and Los Angeles.

In Washington, Aug. 25, a procession with the cross began at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where Panama Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa Mendieta welcomed pilgrims to the country for January’s celebration.

Neida Morales, a 19-year-old who traveled to Washington from North Carolina, is planning to go to Panama. She said she is looking forward to “getting closer to God, trying to figure out what’s my purpose in life” while there.

Similarly, Helen Trimble, a member of St. Mary of the Mills Parish in Laurel, Maryland, said she is “hoping to have a better idea of what I want to do with my life and what my calling is.”

As the throng prepared to process to several monuments along the National Mall, Archbishop Ulloa noted how the people remembered in the memorials helped build the United States.

“These people invite us to be different,” he said. “Christ, always young, is inviting us to leave our mark that makes history in the life of others. Let us be the protagonists of this history.”

As the young people processed down the National Mall, the pain of the sexual abuse crisis in the church was felt heavily. Members of the World Youth Day Cross Leadership Team said they planned to offer the procession “in prayer for the wounded state of Christ’s church, our city, and our world.”

In remarks to the young people, Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell Jr. of Washington said, “the cross that each of us bear has been made heavier by the recent terrible revelation of decades of sexual abuse of the people of God.”

He added that survivors of abuse “should not have to suffer by carrying the cross of suffering, humiliation or shame.” He encouraged participants to pray for those victims and to act as “instruments of God’s peace” to prevent future abuse.

Young adults from St. Dominic Parish in Washington were among those who carried the cross during the procession. The prayer intentions for that part of the journey were for those with disabilities and for those affected by the abuse scandal.

Christiana Gellert, a young adult from the parish, said she was “grateful for the opportunity to do a tiny bit of reparation” for all of the sins committed in the church.

Once the group had processed to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, reflected on the civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he was “speaking of a dream for racial harmony … a focus on the dignity of human persons and how that dignity should be reflected in all we say and all we do.”

The route also took participants to the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian Castle, where Auxiliary Bishop Mario Dorsonville of Washington reflected on the cross that immigrants have to bear.

“We can say, ‘I will help you,'” Bishop Dorsonville told the young people, encouraging them to listen to Pope Francis’ call to move from a culture of indifference to a culture of solidarity.

 

Young people’s activism is sign of hope for Earth, says Cardinal Turkson

Young people’s intensified demand for climate action is a sign of hope during the planet’s ecological crisis, said Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

“There are so many signs of hope. God is raising up people around the world to come together to care for our common home. I am happy to note the role of young people in this journey,” the Ghanaian cardinal said July 15 in a speech delivered by Father Bruno Duffe, secretary of the dicastery, at a conference marking the fifth anniversary of the Catholic Youth Network on Environment and Sustainability in Africa and the fourth anniversary of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si’.”

Cardinal Turkson noted that youth mobilization against climate challenges had gained strength since August 2018, when Greta Thunberg, the 15-year-old Swedish student-activist, ignited climate strikes. The protests have attracted millions of student worldwide.

The cardinal described climate challenges as complex and multifaceted but said the pressure exerted by the students was being noticed by politicians, whom he said needed to show courage and make the decisions needed to fully implement the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit the global temperature increase.

Cardinal Turkson said young people were the generation most threatened by the climate crisis. Also, they are part of the future generations that stand to inherit a severe damaged planet, if no clear action is taken, he said.

“Our children and grandchildren should not have to pay the cost of our generation’s irresponsibility. Your frustration and anger toward our generation is clear and understandable,” said the cardinal, urging the young people to raise their voices louder in the coming months, as heads of states gather in the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York in September.

Nearly 350 young leaders from more than 50 countries attended the July 15-16 conference at the U.N. grounds in Nairobi. The meeting centered on “Laudato Si’,” which stressed the need to focus on the fragility of nature and the billions of impoverished people suffering due to human-induced environmental degradation. In the encyclical, Pope Francis said people must consider making personal choices that could contribute to the greater good, rather than the gratification of short-term desires.

Joyce Msuya, deputy executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, underlined the urgency needed to tackle climate change while stressing — among other challenges — scientists warning that 1 million species are at risk of extinction. The Tanzanian microbiologist said 2019 was just over six months old, but it was already had the highest temperatures ever recorded. She also cited floods, prolonged droughts and rapid melting in the Arctic as some of the critical warning signs of changing climate.

“Our planet is sick. You might be surprised, then, to hear that the feeling I have as I stand here before you is this one: hope,” said Msuya.

“I find hope in the young women and men around the world who are drawing both faith and science to campaign for change and to raise awareness about how to live sustainably.”

At the meeting, Jassica Gimo, 25, of Beira, Mozambique, tearfully recalled the struggles and devastation of Cyclone Idai, which caused catastrophic damage in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in March. Gimo stressed that it is possible to mitigate risks and avert climate catastrophes with adequate information.

“The lack of information made the (cyclone) damage worse. If we had the information on time, we would have moved to safer cities. I believe that the situation would be different and maybe the damage would be less,” she said.

Among other issues related to climate change, the participants discussed the scientific aspects, the role of faiths, indigenous people and forests in environmental protection.

Allen Ottaro, executive director of Catholic Youth Network on Environment and Sustainability in Africa, said as part of the “Laudato Si'” generation, the young people were taking the leading in caring for the planet.

“They are doing little things that count,” said Ottaro, while reminding people that Africa was at the forefront of crisis. “We have the opportunity to save the planet.”

—Fredrick Nzwili

Young people join religious sisters in global fight against trafficking

The world’s religious sisters have paved the way in their pioneering fight against human trafficking, said a survivor and activist.

Now today’s young people “are walking the way,” following in the sisters’ footsteps to raise awareness, assist victims and promote solutions, Daniela Alba, a staff member of Jesuit Refugee Service, told Catholic News Service Feb. 6.

Other volunteers took advantage of the small crowds to distribute bookmarks illustrating International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, held every Feb. 8, the feast of St. Josephine Bakhita, a Sudanese religious sister who was enslaved as a child.

The young students, volunteers, researchers, communicators and activists working against trafficking also represented organizations that partner with Talitha Kum, a global network begun by women religious in the 1990s to assist victims and fight trafficking.

“The nuns laid the bricks down, paved the way, and now we are walking this way,” said Alba, who is a survivor of gender-based violence, fleeing at a young age from Bogota, Colombia, with her mother to the United States. Alba lived in more than 10 different U.S. cities, graduated from college and worked with undocumented people in New York City.

“People think these things happen in silos, but forced migration drives human trafficking,” she said.

Trafficking is also driven by greed, she said, referring to the fact that traffickers, who take advantage of people’s vulnerabilities to force or trick them into slave-like working conditions, are answering a demand for cheap labor. “The fear of survival” is a natural instinct, yet greed perverts that into thinking, “I need more and nothing is ever enough.”

Mary Mugo, from Nairobi, is a “youth ambassador” in Kenya through her training with Talitha Kum.

She told CNS she felt the need to do more as a young person to fight trafficking because young people are affected by this crime and need to be made aware.

“Social media has lots of potential to be used in raising awareness,” she said. For example, in Kenya they might use a popular dance on TikTok to share a message about trafficking.

Many people don’t understand how widespread and insidious trafficking is, she said.

“People should listen and observe more” to see trafficking at work in their communities, she said.

One warning sign is if a person seems too isolated or quiet since traffickers often threaten their victims not to talk to anyone, she said. For example, “if at a restaurant, there is a man or a woman ordering for another person who doesn’t say anything.”

If people suspect an individual may be a victim of trafficking, they should call law enforcement or an organization part of the Talitha Kum network that can help identify cases of trafficking, she said.

Maryknoll Sister Abby Avelino, international coordinator of Talitha Kum, told CNS it was “very exciting” to have the young people from so many different countries take part in listening to other people’s experiences and then share their knowledge with others.

The international day Feb. 8 is meant to increase awareness, reflect on the violence and injustice people suffer and come up with concrete solutions, she said.

“We invite everyone to listen and observe attentively, to dream together with the young people of a better world and to act for change, starting from personal, community and institutional commitment to effectively counter the causes of trafficking and exploitation,” Sister Avelino said in a press release for the day of prayer.

Talitha Kum coordinated the Feb. 2-8 initiative in Rome with young people for further training and building awareness. They attended Pope Francis’ weekly general audience Feb. 7 and his Angelus address Feb. 4, during which he greeted them and encouraged everyone to join together “to counter the dramatic global phenomenon of human trafficking.”

— Carol Glatz

Young Catholics need Church that listens

Young Catholics are looking for a church that listens to their concerns, accompanies them in discerning their vocations and helps them confront the challenges they face, said a working document for the upcoming Synod of Bishops on young people.

The synod’s “instrumentum laboris” (working document), published by the Vatican June 19, stated that young people “want to see a church that shares their situations of life in the light of Gospel rather than by preaching.”

Quoting a presynod gathering of young people who met at the Vatican March 19-25, the working document said young Catholics “want an authentic church. With this, we would like to express, particularly to the church hierarchy, our request for a transparent, welcoming, honest, attractive, communicative, accessible, joyful and interactive community.”

The working document is based mainly on comments solicited in a questionnaire last June from national bishops’ conferences around the world as well as the final document of the presynod gathering.

An estimated 305 young adults participated in the weeklong presynod meeting, which allowed practicing Catholics and others to provide input for Pope Francis and the world’s bishops, who will meet at the synod in October to discuss “young people, faith and vocational discernment.” Some 15,000 young people also participated in the presynod process through Facebook groups online.

The meeting, the working document said, “highlighted the potential that younger generations represent” as well as their “hopes and desires.”

“Young people are great seekers of meaning, and everything that is in harmony with their search to give value to their lives arouses their attention and motivates their commitment,” it said.

Presenting the “instrumentum laboris” to journalists at a press briefing June 19, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary-general of the synod, said the synod’s goal is that young Catholics may find “the beauty of life, beginning from the happy relationship with the God of the covenant and of love” in a world that often robs them of their “affections, bonds and prospective of life.”

“The synod dedicated to young people gives us the opportunity to rediscover the hope of a good life, the dream of a pastoral renewal, the desire for community and passion for education,” he said.

Divided into three parts, the working document outlines the church’s need to listen to young people, to help guide them in the faith and in discerning their vocational calling, and to identify pastoral and missionary paths to be able to accompany them.

The responses collected by bishops’ conferences around the world cited a need for ways to help young men and women confront the challenges of cultural changes that sometimes disregard traditions and spirituality.

The working document also states that while the church highlights the importance of the body, affection and sexuality, many young Catholic men and women “do not follow the directions of the sexual morality of the church.”

“Although no bishops’ conferences offer solutions or indications, many (conferences) believe the issue of sexuality should be discussed more openly and without judgment,” it said.

Young people attending the presynod meeting said issues such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality, cohabitation and marriage are often debated both by young Catholics and non-Catholics.

The working document also highlighted the need to reaffirm church teaching on the body and sexuality at a time when biomedical advancements have pushed a more “technocratic approach to the body,” citing examples such as egg donation and surrogacy.

“Moreover, precocious sexuality, sexual promiscuity, digital pornography, the exhibition of one’s own body online and sexual tourism risk disfiguring the beauty and depth of emotional and sexual life,” the “instrumentum laboris” said.

Church leaders, it said, must “speak in practical terms about controversial subjects such as homosexuality and gender issues, which young people are already freely discussing without taboo.”

Also, “LGBT youths, through various contributions received by the secretariat of the synod, want to benefit from a greater closeness and experience greater care from the church,” while some bishops’ conferences are asking what they can recommend to young people who enter into a homosexual relationship, but want to be closer to the church, the document said.

Regarding the use of the initials “LGBT” in a major church document, Cardinal Baldisseri told journalists that it was a term used in one of the documents given by the bishops’ conferences “and we quoted them.”

“We are open. We don’t want the synod to be closed in itself,” Cardinal Baldisseri said. “And in the church, there are many areas, there is freedom for people to express themselves — on the right, left, center, north and south — this is all possible. That is why we are willing to listen to people with different opinions.”

The working document also said young Catholics would like more initiatives that allow further dialogue with nonbelievers and the secular world to help them integrate their faith in their dealings with others.

Young men and women from primarily secularized areas “ask nothing from the church” and “expressly asked to be left in peace, because they feel its presence as annoying and even irritating.” These feelings, the document stated, do not come from contempt but rather due to “serious and respectable reasons.”

Among the reasons are the church’s sexual and economic scandals, priests who do not know how to engage with young people, and the way the church justifies its doctrinal and ethical positions to modern society.

Young men and women are also hoping the church can help them “find a simple and clear understanding of the meaning of vocation,” which is often misinterpreted as referring only to priesthood and consecrated life.

While the church has confirmed that marriage is also a vocation, the document confirms the need for “a youth vocational ministry capable of being meaningful for all young people.”

“Called to holiness and anointed by the spirit, the Christian learns to grasp all the choices in existence in a vocational perspective, especially the central one of the state of life as well as those of a professional nature,” it said.

“For this reason, some bishops’ conferences hope that the synod will find ways to help all Christians rediscover the link between profession and vocation in all its fruitfulness … and in view of the professional orientation of young people with a vocational perspective,” the document said.