Transforming Hard-To-Reach Young People

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - February 1, 2008

Today is the end of Catholic Schools Week and our thoughts are naturally still with our young people, not just those who attend our parochial or diocesan schools, but the vastly greater numbers who are in CCD and the multitudes who are not receiving any religious instruction at all.

The future of humanity, to some degree, rests with the choices young people make now, for these choices mold their character and prepare them either well or poorly for the challenges, responsibilities and opportunities ahead.

Many young people are great signs of hope, because they are choosing well, encouraged and supported by good families, teachers, coaches and churches. Others are causes of parental and pastoral heartbreak, as they rebel or cut themselves off altogether from these healthy sources of assistance, and opt instead for dangerous friendships, for false and fallen idols, or — in the age of x-boxes, mp3 players, and cyberspace — for a sort of digital isolation.

Parents, teachers and youth ministers have enough of a challenge patiently forming kids in the first category; those in the second can leave them enervated and exasperated. Many end up with heads scratched or bowed, asking, "Will I ever be able to get through to them, and, if so, how?"

To anyone who has ever asked that question, the saint we celebrated yesterday is a great help and inspiration. Perhaps better than any other figure in the history of the Church, St. John Bosco (1815-1888) ministered to kids whom most others had written off. And while every generation of young people is different — because they face different challenges — Don Bosco shows us a method of how to treat them that will work in every age.

When he was a young nine-year-old shepherd boy in the city of Castelnuovo, Italy, John had a dream that changed his life. In it, he was surrounded by a group of children who were fighting, swearing and blaspheming. He tried to calm them down, first by reasoning, then with force, but to no avail. Finally a lady appeared to him — whom he later concluded was the Blessed Mother — and said, "Softly, softly, if you wish to win them! Take your shepherd's staff and lead them to pasture." As he gently invited and encouraged them to follow him, he saw them transformed from wild beasts into lambs. When he awoke, he knew that his duty was to help poor boys, beginning with those in his own village, to undergo such a transformation.

He first sought the kids who were hanging out and causing trouble in the city squares. He did his best to teach them the catechism and invite them to Church, but there were initially few takers. He noticed, how much they were fascinated, however, by the various jugglers, magicians and gymnasts who would come through town seeking their adulation and money. So he began to learn those arts — and master them. Soon he was challenging the other jugglers, conjurers and acrobats to competition and beating them. His prize was the attention of the young ruffians, whom he promised to teach them his newfound skills after they had a catechism lesson or came to Church.

But he readily saw that there were limits to what he could give them as a poor and poorly-educated shepherd boy. He desired to become a priest. With God's help, and the help of those in his community, he received handouts for what was needed to enter the seminary and labored heroically in his studies. After his ordination, he headed to the streets of Turin to transform delinquents into lambs.

Using the same techniques and spirit as before, the young priest befriended and won over scores of young people. He persuaded a rich woman to allow him to use her vast property and organized what he called a "festive oratory" on Sundays, where there was catechism in the morning and games in the afternoon. He soon saw that if the young people were ever to have a chance of becoming good and responsible adults they would need to acquire either an education or a trade, so he started night schools to impart both. Eventually he acquired a house for 30-40 homeless children and asked his mother to come to cook and care for them.

Throughout it all, he suffered due to the envy of others, who were scandalized that he was able to rule vast multitudes of kids without punishment and with apparent indulgence. He needed to move locations several times on account of persecution, but he cheerfully plodded on, convinced that to win them, he needed, as our Lady had told him in the dream, to do so "softly."

As the number of kids receiving his help grew, he knew he would need the help of other priests with the same spirit to minister to them. He formed a new religious order and named it after St. Francis de Sales, who taught that we catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with barrels of vinegar. The first Salesians were all graduates of his programs. Their numbers grew and soon they were spreading the same missionary approach to at-risk young people throughout the world.

In a letter to them, Don Bosco wrote, "My sons, in my long experience, very often I had to be convinced of this great truth: It is easier to become angry than to restrain oneself, and to threaten a boy than to persuade him. But it is more fitting to be persistent in punishing our own impatience and pride than to correct the boys."

He then made explicit his methodology: "This was the method Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalized, and still others to hope for God's mercy. And so he bade us to be gentle and humble of heart."

This was the method, he said, St. Paul also used with his converts.

It's a method with no expiration date.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.