Youth ministry or youth pastoral or youth apostolate?

This morning I had breakfast with Cryil de Souza and Francis Vincent Anthony. I have known both of these professors since my student days at the UPS in the early 1990s, at which time Cyril was new to the faculty and Francis, like myself, was completing his studies. Cryil is now the head of the Department of Youth Pastoral and Catechetics. Francis is Associate Professor of Foundational Theology.

Cyril told me that today the core team of the Youth Pastoral Department would begin to go over the minutes and notes of the Research Seminar held some days ago, and start to evaluate how to carry the reform of the department forward. In fact, there are two more weekends scheduled that will work as parts 2, 3 and 4 of the seminar. These take place in February, March and April. By that time I will have returned to California (or at least, this is the plan). However, as I told Cyril and Francis, I am very interested in how things develop. I also told them of the hopes of Michael Sweeney and Gael Sullivan to develop a youth ministry component both for the ISS and the DSPT.

Cyril stresses that studies in this area are constantly challenged by the every changing trends in culture and approach — and that these trends and shifts are most noticeable for those who are close to the young.

My own comments reflected conversations that we have been having in Berkeley over the last couple of years, particularly with Michael Sweeney. Michael stresses the need to recuperate the word Apostolate rather than speak only of Ministry. I said to Cyril and Francis that I have the feeling that the adoption of the word ministry in English to translate the Italian pastorale tends to create some difficulties. Ministry is very much an church word, and tends to keep us working within the confines of structure, Cyril agreed. Apostolate, instead, is all about being sent out into the wider world and is not tied down by structures, but is about being sent into the world, even the world of the unchurched.

Francis, who works a lot with language, observed that words can mean anything we define them to mean in a given context. While I agreed that this is true in the close confines of an academic environment, I also disagreed in terms of the application of this in a wider cultural context. The language we use, I feel from my own experience, has a way of shaping us, just as we stretch and shape language. What a word means in the wider experience of the folks determines how our words are received and our message interpreted and applied (or not). And this is where I see the wrestling with the theme of the renewal and reshaping of the Youth Pastoral Catechetics Department at the UPS. Pastoral means something much wider to the Rector Major Pascual Chávez than it does to the professors and many provincials.

Well… we had to leave it at that. Even after two cups of caffelatte and an extra roll, we had to get on to the work of the day. There are classes to be taught and students to see… this is a university after all.

Photos - Top: Cyril De Souza and Gianfranco Venturi at Seminario of 8 November (photo by Joe Boenzi); below: Michael Sweeney, OP, speaks at Salesian Province Feastday in Richmond, 2007 (photo by Duoc Le)