When John Paul II scheduled the 8th Annual World Youth Day in Denver in 1993, some predicted that the draw would be minuscule.
Raised Without Trust, Living Without Hope
The mainstream American media merely assumed (hoped?) that the youth of America was too wrapped up into cultural fads and Hollywood trends to pay attention to a short man from Poland who happened to hold the world’s oldest institutional office.
The drama that unfolded is a two-part story: what happened at the 8th Annual World Youth Day, and what has happened since. The first can be illustrated by a few examples, but better re-lived by those who attended — more than 200,000 youth. They chanted repeatedly, “JPII, we love you!” He replied, “JPII, he loves you, too!” The Holy Father’s message to the youth that day spoke directly to the heart:
People thirst for genuine inner freedom. They yearn for the life which Christ came to give in abundance. The world at the approach of a new millennium, for which the whole Church is preparing, is like a field ready for the harvest. Christ needs laborers ready to work in his vineyard. May you, the Catholic young people of the world, not fail Him. In your hands, carry the Cross of Christ. On your lips, the words of life. In your hearts, the saving grace of the Lord.
This was not the first time that the Holy Father addressed the world’s youth. But Denver was significant because of what it said — what the Holy Father and his children said — to American culture, about American values, of what to live for and what to uphold.
The “JPII Generation” is sometimes used to describe those who grew up during John Paul II’s pontificate. For most, it was a time of systematic liturgical and educational experimentation and, according to many, a period characterized by a well-organized and ideologically-driven grasp at authority by certain lay and clerical elements within the Church, one that sprang from a highly-selective and self-serving interpretation of the Second Vatican Council.
As children, of course, the JPII Generation did not know much about Vatican II, let alone anything that occurred before it. Like all children, as we were raised we merely assumed the world around us; that world included the Mass and what we were taught was representative of our Faith.
The generation that, in its prime, preached the importance of questioning authority taught us to do likewise. The baby boomers, better educated than their parents and grandparents (generations who had grown up in so-called inner-city “Catholic ghettos”) taught us that authority mattered little, for authority could not be trusted. And, as a consequence, if authority could not be trusted, then the truth preached by that authority simply could not be. No judgments could therefore be made. We were raised under a banner of “diversity” that simply masked an ideology of relativism.
Speaking before a group of students at the Pontifical Council for the Laity’s 8th International Youth Forum, Mary Ann Glendon noted some unique features of the JPII Generation (what she called “Generation Y”): The social revolution of the 1960s not only posed philosophical and theological challenges to the Church, but uprooted Catholicism’s social and cultural basis, as witnessed in the sharp fall of birth rates, and increases in divorce rates, birth rates outside of marriage, and non-marital cohabitation. Thus, in a short time span the critical social institution by which Catholicism had long been manifested and by which it bore witness to the world — the family — had, like so much else, lost its true, classical essence.
In her speech, Glendon referenced the work of Fr. Tony Anatrella, a psychoanalyst who has studied the effect of these profound structural changes on children. Fr. Anatrella believes that this “changing experience of childhood has had an adverse effect on the ability of many young people to have trust in others, and even on their ability to have hope for the future.”
In a World Where People Are Thrown Away
Trust and hope. If there is no trust, one cannot believe in anything greater than himself. Life extends no further than the boundaries of the ego. The hope that follows is shallow and unfulfilled; it is best described as a cautious, reactionary hope precisely because it is content with itself, and dares not risk seeking anything greater.
As John Paul II has so beautifully exemplified in both his writings and his life, the human heart will always yearn for that inner freedom. However, lacking trust, and proceeding with such a shallow hope, that which the heart does seek becomes selfish and short-sighted. The heart loses its ability to discern and discover genuine freedom.
It is no wonder, then, that American culture is plagued by such a rampant materialism. Freedom itself has come to be defined as one’s “right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” That is according to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing in a case that upheld the fundamental holding of Roe v. Wade.
But freedom so defined is far from genuine. If the heart will seek out and attach to anything, then hope can only endure so far as what the heart will grasp. In the case of materialism, with its direct economic component, that hope and the heart’s loyalty is ever-shifting and volatile, ready to seek out a new love once the candy-coating on the old love has worn off. This attitude towards consumer products developed far before the 1960s, but what the social revolution of the 1960s did was further and more profoundly objectify human life (and love). Life itself — other human beings — became a consumer product. Tragically, like most products life also became disposable.
We Sought and Found the Face of Authentic Catholicism
This is the social context in which the JPII Generation was raised. As we grew up, the platitude “always question authority” began to have its effect. Only it was exercised with a certain irony: The authority questioned became the very authority that presented a Catholicism at odds with the Church’s Magisterium. When measured against the leader of this Church — the man who reached out to us out of sheer love and selflessness — the dissimilarity could not be ignored. John Paul II put a kind, loving face on Catholicism, and thereby provided it authenticity in a world where nothing seemed authentic. He re-connected us with our true religious and cultural heritage. In so doing, John Paul II became someone we could trust.
His Polish people certainly trusted him. In a homily during his first return trip to communist Poland, he said to them, “Do not be afraid!” The solidarity movement was born. This message of trust and hope remained central throughout his pontificate.
Not surprisingly, the JPII Generation reaches for a more orthodox, traditional Catholicism. We have sought and found a more genuine and enriching faith, one that sharply contrasts the Catholicism represented by the various liturgical and theological fads with which we grew up. Critics and skeptics alike still have not adequately described the driving force behind the resurgence of the indult Tridentine Mass. One look around the pews at such a Mass and the faces are not merely old and nostalgic, but young and searching. The sacrament of confession, too, has found a renewed place in Catholic life. John Paul II re-introduced us to the joy of confession and its special relationship with the Eucharistic sacrifice.
He gave all of this to us, but he also taught us not to be content with self-betterment; as important as that is, he also taught us that we must push further and go out into the world and better it, too. Thus, a profound respect and love for different cultures pervades our generation. Most of us did not attend Eucharistic Adoration for the first time until we were older, but our Holy Father showed us how the Eucharist is the fundamental source of our unity. In Ecclesia de Eucharistia, he stated:
Our longing for the goal of unity prompts us to turn to the Eucharist, which is the supreme sacrament of the unity of the People of God, in as much as it is the apt expression and the unsurpassable source of that unity. In the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice the Church prays that God, the Father of mercies, will grant His children the fullness of the Holy Spirit so that they may become one body and one spirit in Christ.
Going forward, the JPII Generation bears an immense but beautiful burden, one encouraged by the man who implored all to take up and live the Cross in daily life. This burden urges us to continuously seek out a more genuine Catholicism, one that is not rooted in shifting cultural or social fads. Moreover, it urges us to develop the ability to articulate this Catholicism in a world that is continuously hostile toward it. Our Church has faced this challenge throughout time; all that has changed is the way in which this challenge has been mounted. For us, the challenge is to show the world that genuine freedom is based upon a trust in God, the Church, our new Pope Benedict XVI, and a hope for the future of humanity. In so doing, we must manifest our love for our Church and strongly support vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
Most of all, we are encouraged to let love and self-giving be the source of everything and be true to our Catholic identity. In the words of John Paul II, “If you are what you should be you will set the world on fire!”
After all, JPII loved us too. Among other things, his death taught the rest of the world what his children already knew: that the loving bond forged between us is indissoluble, a telling sign of things to come.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Scott Noto received his B.A. in history from the University of Chicago and J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is a practicing lawyer who also writes on Catholicism and related issues. Mr. Noto resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo courtesy www.PapalImages.com. All rights reserved.
