Last August, I joined over a million young people at World Youth Day in Portugal with Pope Francis. Think about that number for a moment. Let it sink in. Ask yourself, “What organization on the planet can attract that many young people to gather in one place for anything?” The answer is the Catholic Church can. Pope Francis can. Jesus can!
How much news coverage did World Youth Day get? The answer is not a lot. The reason for this, in my mind, is because there are some people who want us to believe that the Church is dying or otherwise becoming increasingly irrelevant. This is why the good news going on in our Church today gets underreported — good news like over a million young people praying, singing and worshipping God together.
On Wednesday evening of that week in Portugal, we had a United States rally at a park in Lisbon. Our permit was for 10,000 participants. The police closed the gates when we reached that number; however, they had to eventually reopen them when thousands more showed up. Bishop Robert Barron gave a moving reflection, as he always does, encouraging young people to proclaim the “real” Christ in our culture.
At the end of the evening, Bishop Edward Burns from Dallas shared with the crowd that a recent study asked new priests and sisters in our country if they had ever attended a World Youth Day. The answer was 38%. He opined that this meant that 38% of the future priests and sisters of the United States could very well be with us that evening and asked for those who think that number referred to them to raise their hands. Hundreds of young people in the crowd enthusiastically raised their hands with the rest of us cheering them on. That wasn’t reported in many newspapers either.
I, therefore, have a different kind of news story for you to consider. News flash: The Church is alive, the Church is faithful, the Church is young, and the Church is beautiful. Yes, we have our problems that we cannot make light of, and the negative press we get is often deserved. I know at a very deep level that we still have work to do. I am committed to that, and every Catholic should be as well.
One of the graces of the Easter season is that, even with everything we may be struggling with personally right now, we know the end of the story. What is the end of the story? Come what may, Jesus is victorious!
We may not always know every step along the path to get there. However, we know where we are being led if we keep our eyes focused on Jesus and not lose sight of the good news in our world rather than focusing on the bad.
Northwest Catholic magazine — April/May 2024.