Giving young people a voice part
of Pre-Synod experience
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| Young Pre-Synod. |
As the Church gears up for the Synod of Bishops, Youth
Ministry worker, Megan Cox who participated at the Pre-Synod meeting in March
says “young people were at the forefront of that conversation.”
By Lydia O’Kane
The countdown maybe on to the Synod of Bishops on
Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernmentwhich begins on
Wednesday, but it was in March that the youth of the world came together in
Rome to have their say. Youth Ministry Development Worker, Megan Cox
represented the Archdiocese of Birmingham in England at the Pre-Synodal
meeting.
Speaking about her experience to Vatican News, she says, “automatically
the attention was turned straight to young people, with the idea of, if we
are going to talk about young people, we probably need to ask them.”
“That really impressed me to start with, that the point of the Synod wasn’t
lost from the get go and actually young people were at the forefront of that
conversation.”
Megan herself works in Youth Ministry and
points out that although youth ministry in her own diocese is very active, that
can’t be said for other parts of the UK. She adds, that it is in a “revolution
period” and is gaining speed but, it hasn’t yet reached its full potential.
Global Youth Issues
The Pre-Synod, Megan notes, saw participation from all over
the world and she describes this as very important. “If we’re talking in
terms of a universal Church, it needs to be universal; we need to have the
opinions of young people from across the globe. She goes on to say, that it is
clear from the document that came out from the Pre-Synod meeting,
that there are “issues shared by young people across the world, things that we
all have in common.”
Social Justice and Social Media
Megan recalls that during the meeting, what came out
strongly was the theme of Social Justice and what it meant to young people,
depending on where they were from. Another key theme, she says, was the
issue of social media in the lives of young people. Megan comments “it is
such a great tool but can also be so damaging, so where is the balance?...”
What came out of discussions was that, “if you’ve got a generation
looking down at their phones all the time rather than looking up at what is going
on around them, what can you do about that?" She says, if that is the
case, let’s harness that and let’s use it as a resource for the Church.
Asked what she would like to see coming out of the upcoming
Synod of Bishops, Megan expresses the hope that, they will “remain faithful to
what they’ve heard young people say, the documents that have been given to
them from the Pre- Synod meeting, the conversations that have been held
around the world, that when they eventually produce their document that it is
just true to what they’ve been told…”
Megan says, the Catholic Church has had its trials and
tribulations, but despite that it is an amazing community to be a part of with
enthusiastic young people who want it to thrive.
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