The People Speak Out

Local voices connecting globally

This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.  (Pope Francis)

Canon Law 212 calls upon the laity to speak up:

2 - The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.

§3. - According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.

March 28, 2018

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, U.S.A. have begun a global revolution.

Pictured is just the gathering in Washington D.C. alone. There were "March for our Lives" rallies in 800 cities around the world from London to Berlin to Sydney. Young people are behaving like adults and too many adults are behaving like children. Martin Luther King's nine-year-old granddaughter led the crowd in cheering : "I have a dream: enough is enough!"

In the wake of this global movement, and coming on the heels of a meeting of 300 young people from various religions and cultural backgrounds who met with the pope, in his Palm Sunday message in St. Peter's Square, Francis urged young people to keep shouting and not allow the older generations to silence their voices or anesthetize their idealism.

This summary of the pre-synod meeting with young people was written by a team based on the input of all the participants from 20 different language groups and 6 from social media. They told the Vatican that they want a more transparent and authentic church. Their message will be delivered to the Bishops who gather for the Synod on Youth scheduled to be held in October later this year.

Future of the Church Depends on All of Us

So much of our Christian social justice values overlap with our political values today. Young people are standing up and speaking out. All of us need to listen to these vibrant and deeply committed voices and give them a platform to join all people of goodwill towards building a more just and caring society. The future of our families, our communities, our nations, and our world depends on all of us. Together we must change the way we govern ourselves. Together we can bring peace to our war-torn world. Together we can create a Church that is truly open, inclusive, and welcoming to all. We join with Pope Francis in asking you, young people, to inspire us saying: ""It is up to you not to keep quiet. Even if others keep quiet, if we older people and leaders, some corrupt, keep quiet, if the whole world keeps quiet and loses its joy, I ask you: Will you cry out?"

We invite you to "cry out" and make your voices heard on our Facebook page . Go there now and let tell us what is on your mind.

We acknowledge that our organization is mostly comprised of older members of the Catholic community. But we assure you, our younger sisters and brothers, that we want to hear your voices. Please share with us your thoughts, your perspectives, your ideas and your aspirations for our Church and our world.

Gratefully,
Rene Reid
CCRI director

REPORT ON INTERVIEW WITH YOUTH IN KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

In this interview with the youth in the university it came out clear that the youth are not grounded well with matters pertaining their catholic faith. Some of the reasons which they gave were ignorance, relying on the instructions given during their baptism classes when they were young and the instructor mostly the catechist could not go deeper in his or her teaching about different catholic doctrines. Also they raised a concern in that most priests are not concerned with the welfare and needs of the youth because they view the young people as people who have nothing important to offer to the church and due to this they don’t involve them in making major decisions in the church.

   They also raised a concern of lack of youth small Christian communities at their rural areas where they come from. That the sccs at their homes only accommodate well there parents and not the young people. Once they break for short and long vacation they find hard time joining elderly people in their sccs the simple reason being the difference in ideologies. For example the youth want different issues affecting them for example sex, relationship and career being handled in the sccs and get answers to this issues. This issues are not addressed as the youth may shy sharing really life situation because of age difference and the African tradition does not allow for discussion of some topics openly in fact it’s a taboo hence they will still remain with the same problem of many unanswered questions.

Also the young university catholic students raised another concern on lack of proper mentorship program and spiritual guidance in our catholic church. They suggested that our catholic church should introduce a system of mentorship where the youth are given specific people to nurture and mentor them as they grow.

Another issue which was raised with a lot of concern is that there is almost nobody listening to their challenges. They want a listening church which will always give them a chance to speak out, allow them make some noise and take care of their complains. The youth face quite a number of problems in life but there is no one to unburden them. They need a friendly church which will listen and empathize with them.

   The economy and lifestyle has gone very high and due to this factor most of the youth are not committed in their relationships with people of the opposite sex. They are concerned with satisfying there sexual demands of the body and after getting sex they break up and move on to other relationships. At the end it becomes hard for them to have staple marriage partners. The church should address this issue and try to guide the youth since majority have made a choice to lead a single life as they family responsibilities.

   Soon I will be sending more reports on behalf of small Christian communities.