Young Men Age 15 to 25
I am continuing to read the words of Osama bin Laden. The above quote comes from a long interview with Al-Jazeera in December of 1998. Here bin Laden reveals the psychological reality that if you can get a boy at the age of 15 or so, you can mold him into a terrorist who will wage jihad. By brainwashing a kid and turning him into a fanatical fighting instrument, a weapon, a human bomb; and by distributing such terrorist throughout the world, a very potent military force is deployed. Bin Laden doesn't even need to direct the operation; all he needs to do is turn them loose on the world.
The Catholic Church also knows, but perhaps has forgotten, that this demographic group, young men from age 15 to 25, are the primary candidates for the priesthood and for religious orders. They are not intellectually mature enough to understand what is really going on in their lives and what their options could be, and they are still immature enough to be molded by careful spiritual guides into keenly convinced young men who are willing to make any sacrifice for what they believe. If you compare the madrasas of Pakistan and Afghanistan with Catholic highschools, minor seminaries, and novitiates, you will find some of the same psychological dynamics going on. This has obviously been one of the strengths of the Catholic Church, but has also been one of its pitfalls.
There was a period of time when the Church turned out dedicated young priests and religious who were prepared to go anywhere and to suffer anything for the sake of the Gospel. Protestant churches too produced missionaries, and still do to a certain extent, but the churches that produce the most seem to be the ones that have the tightest hold on the 15 to 25 year-old population.
Vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life have dropped tremendously in the Catholic Church in recent years, and part of the reason may be due to a change in the target population from the 15-25 year-olds to more mature candidates. It has been strongly argued that a young man really does not have a full concept of what a religious vocation will be like, and many who made commitments at a tender age later have fallen away. As Catholic families became smaller due to shifting economic realities, education, and birth control, fewer young men have been encouraged by their parents to consider a religious calling. Instead they have been encouraged to get as much secular education as they can. The church too has seen a value in the "delayed vocation", where a man becomes a priest after some years in "the world." It is argued that such a person is more in touch with what is really happening with people in their lives today. The problem is that by the time this "delayed vocation" comes along, many of the best candidates have married, and those who are left are often those who for one reason or another did not persue that option in their lives. This should be seen as a very strong argument for a married priesthood in the Catholic Church, but that alone will not solve the problem
The Catholic Church has deprived itself of young men, and what remains is a rather tired old lot of clergy, most of whom should be retired by now. There is no plan in place to solve the vocation crisis, and so the forces of disintegration become a viscious cycle of decline, and the result is clearly seen in places like Boston where the Archdiocese is forced to close nearly a third of all its churches in a small space of time. The evangelical Protestant churches, by contrast, are growing.
The key to Osama bin Laden's success is education. The madrasas and training camps provide the formation of fanatical suicide terrorists filled with hatred toward an enemy whom they only understand by faith to be evil. I am not advocating that the Catholic Church take fifteen year-olds and turn them into fanatics, but I would like to raise the issue that we are not even making an adequate effort in the religious formation of young men in this age group. In public school, where I teach, it is taboo to even mention religion. I dare say that Catholic schools are not much better, with a few exceptions. Often they are staffed by under-paid laity, and frequently these people have no real connection with their students on the level of spirituality. Holiness begets holiness, and it remains a fact that the best priest is one who was inspired by a good and holy priest sometime when he was young. The fear of abuse is now making this almost impossible today.
Prayer is the key to any vocation. If a young man does not begin to pray seriously by age 15, there is very little likelihood that a vocation will develop. How does a young man learn to pray? simply by doing it with the older man. I guess this is the principle of the madrases in the Islamic world, and it is certainly the principle of the novitiate in most religious orders. If you train a dog to lie down on command, he will do it and will learn to like doing it because it pleases his master. In the same way, if you place a boy on his knees before the altar and support him in his spiritual struggles, he will develop an interior life and he will learn to like it because it pleases the Master. The alternative is to let the boy run off into the secular world without a thought for God. So I think we need a renewed effort to promote religious vocations in boys from age fifteen on.
Of course, it could be argued that God will provide himself with vocations to the priesthood no matter what we do about it. I don't buy this argument at all because it is what we used to call a "cop out". God can raise up children to Abraham from the stones if he needs to, but why make Him do that when we can do what is obviously needed. Isn't that what Jesus meant by that famous saying? Vocations to the priesthood is everybody's business, and an effective strategy to promote the priesthood in the Catholic Church is obviously not in place at the present time. I would say that the place to start is with the education of young men.
C. David Burt
As is known, from birth to fifteen years of age people do not look after themselves, nor are they really aware of great events, and from the age of 25 and above people enter into family commitments, they go out and have working commitments. A man will have a wife and children, so his mind becomes more mature, but the ability to give becomes weaker. He tells you: 'Who can I leave the children to? If I leave, who will look after them?' and so on. And if wer're really honest we find that this section between the ages of 15 and 25, is when people are able to wage jihad. (Osama bin Laden: Messages to the World, p.93, ed. Bruce Lawrence, London 2005, Verso, ISBN 1-84467-045-7
I am continuing to read the words of Osama bin Laden. The above quote comes from a long interview with Al-Jazeera in December of 1998. Here bin Laden reveals the psychological reality that if you can get a boy at the age of 15 or so, you can mold him into a terrorist who will wage jihad. By brainwashing a kid and turning him into a fanatical fighting instrument, a weapon, a human bomb; and by distributing such terrorist throughout the world, a very potent military force is deployed. Bin Laden doesn't even need to direct the operation; all he needs to do is turn them loose on the world.
The Catholic Church also knows, but perhaps has forgotten, that this demographic group, young men from age 15 to 25, are the primary candidates for the priesthood and for religious orders. They are not intellectually mature enough to understand what is really going on in their lives and what their options could be, and they are still immature enough to be molded by careful spiritual guides into keenly convinced young men who are willing to make any sacrifice for what they believe. If you compare the madrasas of Pakistan and Afghanistan with Catholic highschools, minor seminaries, and novitiates, you will find some of the same psychological dynamics going on. This has obviously been one of the strengths of the Catholic Church, but has also been one of its pitfalls.
There was a period of time when the Church turned out dedicated young priests and religious who were prepared to go anywhere and to suffer anything for the sake of the Gospel. Protestant churches too produced missionaries, and still do to a certain extent, but the churches that produce the most seem to be the ones that have the tightest hold on the 15 to 25 year-old population.
Vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life have dropped tremendously in the Catholic Church in recent years, and part of the reason may be due to a change in the target population from the 15-25 year-olds to more mature candidates. It has been strongly argued that a young man really does not have a full concept of what a religious vocation will be like, and many who made commitments at a tender age later have fallen away. As Catholic families became smaller due to shifting economic realities, education, and birth control, fewer young men have been encouraged by their parents to consider a religious calling. Instead they have been encouraged to get as much secular education as they can. The church too has seen a value in the "delayed vocation", where a man becomes a priest after some years in "the world." It is argued that such a person is more in touch with what is really happening with people in their lives today. The problem is that by the time this "delayed vocation" comes along, many of the best candidates have married, and those who are left are often those who for one reason or another did not persue that option in their lives. This should be seen as a very strong argument for a married priesthood in the Catholic Church, but that alone will not solve the problem
The Catholic Church has deprived itself of young men, and what remains is a rather tired old lot of clergy, most of whom should be retired by now. There is no plan in place to solve the vocation crisis, and so the forces of disintegration become a viscious cycle of decline, and the result is clearly seen in places like Boston where the Archdiocese is forced to close nearly a third of all its churches in a small space of time. The evangelical Protestant churches, by contrast, are growing.
The key to Osama bin Laden's success is education. The madrasas and training camps provide the formation of fanatical suicide terrorists filled with hatred toward an enemy whom they only understand by faith to be evil. I am not advocating that the Catholic Church take fifteen year-olds and turn them into fanatics, but I would like to raise the issue that we are not even making an adequate effort in the religious formation of young men in this age group. In public school, where I teach, it is taboo to even mention religion. I dare say that Catholic schools are not much better, with a few exceptions. Often they are staffed by under-paid laity, and frequently these people have no real connection with their students on the level of spirituality. Holiness begets holiness, and it remains a fact that the best priest is one who was inspired by a good and holy priest sometime when he was young. The fear of abuse is now making this almost impossible today.
Prayer is the key to any vocation. If a young man does not begin to pray seriously by age 15, there is very little likelihood that a vocation will develop. How does a young man learn to pray? simply by doing it with the older man. I guess this is the principle of the madrases in the Islamic world, and it is certainly the principle of the novitiate in most religious orders. If you train a dog to lie down on command, he will do it and will learn to like doing it because it pleases his master. In the same way, if you place a boy on his knees before the altar and support him in his spiritual struggles, he will develop an interior life and he will learn to like it because it pleases the Master. The alternative is to let the boy run off into the secular world without a thought for God. So I think we need a renewed effort to promote religious vocations in boys from age fifteen on.
Of course, it could be argued that God will provide himself with vocations to the priesthood no matter what we do about it. I don't buy this argument at all because it is what we used to call a "cop out". God can raise up children to Abraham from the stones if he needs to, but why make Him do that when we can do what is obviously needed. Isn't that what Jesus meant by that famous saying? Vocations to the priesthood is everybody's business, and an effective strategy to promote the priesthood in the Catholic Church is obviously not in place at the present time. I would say that the place to start is with the education of young men.
C. David Burt
posted by C. David Burt | 8:05 AM
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