Young People’s Answers to the Questionnaire

The online portal with the questionnaire, the channels of the social networks, the Seminar on condition of youth last September but, above all, the first statistical data related to the online questionnaire, which will remain open until the end of this year.

At the Meeting of the XIV ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, presided by Pope Francis, stock was taken of what has already been done and of what is planned.

Among the scheduled activities, special attention was given to the pre-synodal meeting of young people, convened by Francis in Rome, from 19 to 24 March 2018. In addition to the young people who will be invited to the meeting, the proposal was approved to broaden their participation through social networks.

The local churches are very actively working on the topic. The Youth Ministry Office of the Italian Bishops’ Conference has gathered in a video some interviews with young people, and online answers to the questionnaire of the Instrumentum Laboris are available, for example from the Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto, while the archbishop of Trieste, Msgr. Giampaolo Crepaldi, has published a pastoral note on the Synod of Youth, with the aim, he writes, “to offer some inspiration and orientation for starting, in a serious and thoughtful manner, a reflection on the pastoral issues concerning the world of youth and, jointly, mature, necessary and farsighted pastoral choices.”

A document prepared in France sums up the replies to the questionnaire: 110 responses, reports the Sir News Agency, including responses from 69 dioceses, 18 communities, 6 movements, and 15 Catholic schools, for a total of 450 pages. While the percentages of membership and ecclesial participation vary according to the sources, the data reported indicates that “there is a certain spiritual and religious renewal among the young in France,” of whom 42% say that they are Catholics. The answers also show that “those who are far away do not expect anything,” but those who express themselves ask “in a strong and recurrent manner for an exemplary, true, credible, coherent, and irreproachable Church.”

Spain has also published the results, presented at a press conference a few days ago: the answers came from 47 dioceses (out of 70), 12 national movements, and 2 secular institutes involved in youth ministry. In all, 5,253 young people participated: 60% of these feel that the Church hears them and they “appreciate” this effort, “but the percentage falls—the document indicates—when it comes to being understood and when it comes to welcoming their contributions.” We need “time and people” to listen, even “outside ecclesial structures,” and “new spaces, with more openness and reception free from judgments” are proposed. The young Spaniards feel that the greatest challenge is “to reach out to young people who are far from the Church” and “to have guarantees for the future.”