I "hope" it's true.

I read the article found below and thought "wow." I hear frequent reference to the "JPII Generation." I know that every generation carries it's own baggage. Being in my forties, is my baggage the trials and tremors caused by VCII? Is it possible that a younger generation, having no experience of the "before" has a remarkably different view of the "after?"

You decide.

COLLEGE-FAITH May-21-2007 (820 words) With photo. xxxn

Many young people find their college years strengthen their faith

By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When college students graduate, it doesn't necessarily mean they leave with a spiritual void, despite the widespread notion that young people take a hiatus from their religious upbringing during their college years.

Some students find their faith unscathed by the college experience and others even find it significantly strengthened. Ryan Hehman, a 2006 graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, falls into the second category.

Hehman, who grew up Catholic, said that when he started college he saw people living out their faith more than he had ever experienced. He got involved in campus ministry and participated in a mission trip to Guatemala after his freshman year that turned his "world upside down," influencing the rest of his college years and even his current work.

"I got so wrapped up in church and faith, that I couldn't settle for a regular job," he told Catholic News Service May 17 from A Simple House of Sts. Francis and Alphonsus, a lay missionary apostolate serving the poorest neighborhoods in Washington.

Hehman does not think he is the exception either. "I think the tide is turning," he said, noting that students on college campuses are living out their faith more fully and are not ashamed to do so. He attributes this shift to the influence of Pope John Paul II and a general trend of young Catholics "looking for something more."

Abbie Smith, author of "Can You Keep Your Faith in College? Students from 50 Campuses Tell You How -- and Why," published in 2006, said it is possible for students to remain spiritual while they are in college, but it isn't necessarily easy.

A key way for students to tap into their faith is through campus ministry programs, according to Smith, who graduated four years ago. But the existence of these programs alone won't make the difference, she said. She stressed that students have to actually meet the campus ministers or "go to the barbeque" sponsored by ministry groups.

Smith, who said she became a Christian during her freshman year at Emory University in Atlanta, told CNS May 11 in a telephone interview from Los Angeles that students don't have to participate in all campus ministry events to maintain their spiritual foothold. More importantly, she said they should at least link up with someone in the group with whom they can talk about faith issues periodically.

Theresa Sander, a graduating senior at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, agreed that the events themselves aren't as important as the opportunity to talk about beliefs.

"We help each other on our journey of faith," she said, particularly of the campus ministry's discussions on what the church has to say about modern issues.

Father John Sims Baker, chaplain for Catholic students at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said the point of campus ministry is "not to stir up more busyness in students' lives, but to give them the gifts the church has to offer -- spiritual direction, the sacraments."

By offering everything from "prayer and poker" nights, service projects and weekly adoration, he hopes to reach students in all phases of their personal spiritual development, and he is not disappointed when the numbers are down.

As he sees it, the small but committed core group of Catholic student leaders "are the ones who will make a difference to their peers."

At some schools, these core groups are often the students who end up doing service work after graduating. The University of Notre Dame and Catholic University both held special services during commencement activities to send off students planning to do a year or more of service or entering the seminary or religious life.

But the college faith experience does not seem reserved just for these small groups of students either. Instead, religion seems to be more widespread on campuses.

A Harvard University professor recently told The New York Times that religion is more present now on the university's campus than it has been in the past 100 years. Across the country, students are taking religious studies classes, majoring in religion and living in dormitories with others who share their faith.

Studies, like those conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, show that more than two-thirds of surveyed freshmen pray and nearly 80 percent believe in God.

College students also have the luxury of something that many working adults do not have to devote to spirituality -- time.

"You have a lot more time in college for the 2 o'clock in the morning conversations," said Smith. "People are more available. You get into debates and discussions on deeper issues of spirituality. There is a lot of freedom in that season of life."

- - -

Contributing to this story was Theresa Laurence in Nashville.

END
_________________________

PS - My use of the word "hope" is intentional. It should not be confused with "wish." Regrettably in our society the two are interchanged. As a quite devout priest (Fr. Thomas Nelson of the Norbertines) once told me "hope is one of the theological virtues and should be predicated on far more than a wish."

Comments

[carlos]

I agree that there are pockets of Christianity where you would least expect them to be. Interestingly, it is the laity who often are behind such movements (under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, they'd be Associations of Christ's Faithful) that espouse orthodoxy.

[JMC]

This is the exact opposite of when I was in college. I grew up in what was essentially a Catholic "ghetto," never being exposed to any non-Catholic views until I went to college. Talk about culture shock! I was surrounded by people of all faiths who were actively trying to put their religious upbringing behind them and who went out of their way to drag everybody else onto the same bandwagon. I survived those years by consciously and deliberately shutting out what was going on around me, a strategy that worked only because I was a loner by nature. It also helped that I didn't live in a dorm; my home was within easy commuting distance. I seriously missed the kind of religious organizations that were so widespread in my childhood.(Anybody remember the Crusaders and the Children of Mary? I think I even still have my Crusaders pin kicking around somewhere, though the white beret has long since died.) Its good to hear that such organizations are springing up again. There certainly IS hope for the future.

[Paul K.]

Ah, yes - Hope. Perhaps the seemingly more militant secularism of our academic elitists is partly reactionary. That is, it is actually a good sign - that they perceive that the world as they want it to become (through their recruiting of marshmallowy young adult minds) wil not, in fact, become so. And this scares them.

And why should they care? Why should it matter to the academic elitists that some (I hope most) of their charges should find more comfort and meaning in the Lord than in intellectual and physical hedonism? After all, their world will not live on after they are gone, as far as most of them are concerned.

It matters to Satan. And our antireligious, academic elitists are little more than his tools.

But there is Hope (I am thinking of Pandora's box suddenly, for some reason).

Thank you for sharing this with us!

[KEVIN]

I graduated from college in 2003 and likewise experienced a strengthening of my faith but for different reasons. In fact, I completed the RCIA process and was baptized, confirmed and received the holy eucharist during my senior year at Cornell Univ. At the time, nothing turned me off more than a ministry group on my campus. I found a great abundance of faith fulfillment in attending the community parish rather than continuing to surround myself with people my same age. The last thing I wanted to do was talk with people within the University's sphere (college kids and "hip" priests).

Since graduating I have searched deeper into the Catholic faith and found it extremely hard going, but I have finally found the fulfillment I was looking for ina local Tridentine Mass. I never related to Pope John Paul II because it was more of the same that I get from almost any source of "feel good" religion rather than religious wisdom. There may be a surge in young faithful these days, but is it more charismatic or is it truly devout. I am afriad my fellow youth are being misled.

[Dan Hunter]

I went to Niagara University, a so called Catholic University run by the Vincentians.
I majored in philosophy with a minor in Catholic Literature.
All I learned was that Christ did not perform any of His Miracles, they were just stories to set an example.
Angels are only literary devices, not real created beings with a superior intellect.
I learned how to smoke dope, get drunk and hold hands during the Pater Noster
I learned that priests are just like everyone else,and they like getting drunk with guys and girls alike.
This is what happens in a "Catholic" school in the late 1980's that was founded in 1856 by the Order of the Missions.
If you want to challenge your faith, send your children to a public school. If you want to lose your faith send them to a Catholic one.
Viva Christo Rey!

[Anon like no other]

All the progressive laity say that VII made the laity more than "spectators".

But the proof that "progressing"and opening the windows only let in smoke, is that there is way less lay participation.

The numbers in Mass attendence say it all.

Now that is an objection to the idea of "lay protagonistism".

[David1]

It’s too easy to point to VII and blame everything on it. What would have happened if VII had not occurred? It would also be too easy to say that the Churches would be packed and all the faithful walking the straight and narrow. We must remember the times. The great councils usually are a reaction to something going on in the times. Trent, for example, was a reaction to the forces of the reformation. As to VII, I think over the long haul of history we’ll see that the late 19th century was a time of mass awakening of the peoples of the world, something akin to “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” All throughout the world the people stood up and threw off dictatorships of mind, body and soul. Now, in any revolution, there is the tendency to go too far and throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that people will return to faith and the Church over the next 50-100 years in strong numbers. We just happen to be living in a between time. However, this gives us a special responsibility to keep the faith alive.

If we look back in history, there have been times when the Church was barely hanging on . . .but with patience and fortitude, we came through. The Truth marches on.

[John]

David posted:

"It’s too easy to point to VII and blame everything on it. What would have happened if VII had not occurred"

Lets see, what would have happened if V2 had not occurred, we would have a clear concise code of Canon law that did not have loopholes that permit eucharistic hospitality and 60,000 annulments to the highest bidder (Teddy Kennedy anyone?), a real catechism that teaches piety, a mass the reveres God and not man, proper dress at mass, customs, kneeling to receive our Lord, possibly even the elimination of the homosexuals from the priesthood who flocked to her sanctuary and still do and for the first time ALLOWED in all in the desire for a more liberal open minded priesthood. I could go on but I am getting bored

Hmmm...what would have happened if there was not a Vatican II..sounds pretty good to me!!

[brian Thomas]

Great book. Highly recommended for college ministries or highschool students.