Catholic Youth Preparing Correction of Controversial Pre-Synodal Document

LifeSite News ^ | 5/15/18 | Claire Chretien

[marshmallow]

May 15, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – On Pentecost – this coming Sunday – a group of Catholic youth expect to publish a summary of what was left out of the “pre-synod” document presented to Pope Francis in March.

They hope to distribute it to bishops going to the synod on youth in October to give them a clear picture of what Catholic youth actually want.

The official “pre-synod” document was supposedly written taking into account what young Catholics around the world expressed via official Facebook groups set up by the Vatican. Many Catholic adolescents and young adults in these groups – particularly the English-speaking one – called for more access to the Tridentine Mass, more reverent liturgies in general, and a greater defense of Church teaching on sexual morality, abortion, and marriage. They were therefore disappointed at the document’s weak treatment or disregard for those issues.

Twenty-year-old Connor McLaughlin is spearheading the effort to correct the pre-synodal document. He told LifeSiteNews that authentic friendship, mental health, and femininity and masculinity were “really, really left off the document.”

The document McLaughlin and others are working on will likely address “reverence in the liturgy,” he told LifeSiteNews, and “we’re talking about adding in some of the writings of Cardinal Ratzinger, specifically (from) his book The Spirit of the Liturgy.”

He said the purpose of the document is not to claim that either the Old Mass or the New Mass is better than the other but to address “What does it mean to have reverence?”

“What is the core thing that is preventing teens and young adults from having and seeing reverence in the liturgy?” he asked.

[Wilhelm Tell]

That is remarkable. I guess a lot of young people are tired of how the previous generation made everything bleak and simplistic and watered-down, so they are rediscovering what was substantial.