“The youth are the Church of today”

What are the main struggles young people face today? Did it change over the last years?
Fr. Dave Pivonka: Young people today have different struggles and issues, but human nature is what it is, and I don't think the challenges are substantially different. Young people want to be seen, they want to be loved, they want to be known. They want to know that they matter. They want to know that God is present to them. While they’ve got issues with social media, which helps complicate some of those desires, their desires and hearts are not different.
 
Does the Church accompany them in those struggles?
Fr. Pivonka: Certainly, the church needs to embrace young people better and make space for them. I hear often, “The youth are the Church in the future.” I reject that – the youth are the Church of today. Young people have something to offer to the Church precisely because they are young. We need their zeal and their passion. Sometimes, they don’t think things through totally, but that's what it is to be young and grow. And I don't want young people to be all grown up. I want them to be young, vibrant, and alive. The Church needs to make a place for them. There is freshness because they don’t know what God did yesterday. We need to ask their opinion and give them strength that allows them to continue moving forward.
 
What is different for today’s young people?
Pivonka: Their world is different. They're being raised in a world that's changed a lot. There’s a greater sense of fear among young people—they fear relationships, they fear the unknown, they fear the known, they fear being seen, they fear not being seen, and the Church needs to recognize that. However, there is a mental health crisis among young people. Why? That is quite complicated and depends on different factors. However, the Church needs to reach out and minister to them differently than in the past.
 
What are good ways to reach them?
Pivonka: To work with young people, a relationship is necessary. That is hard for some people because working with young people is messy and frustrating. We need to be able to walk with them. Young people have so much to offer, but we can’t just do the same things we have always done. We need to be able to meet them where they are.
 
So, it needs to go beyond prayer and worship…
Pivonka: Prayer is essential, but we need to focus on relationships. Most young people’s lives are impacted because somebody older than them cares and is concerned about them, and that is the key. At Franciscans, we have three main characteristics: encounter, conversion, and community. We want to create an environment where young people encounter Jesus: in the chapel, in the classroom, or on the athletic fields.

Second, enable them to have an authentic conversion where their life changes! Pope Francis talks about an encounter that causes them to be different; it causes them to change. Ultimately, the third characteristic is that faith happens in community. We don't do that by ourselves. We walk with one another; we encourage one another, support one another, and challenge one another. That's really what we're trying to do at Franciscan University. And in many ways, that's what the Church wants to do.
 
The Church often focuses on those who adhere to more conservative traditions because they seem more fervent…
Pivonka: My concern is that the Church will lose a significant part of the young population unless we learn to embrace diversity. If you see women with veils, there is a sense of devotion, and those who kneel for communion are recognizable. Still, another part of the population may express it differently, or they're just struggling with doubts, and that person is just as important as anybody else. Unfortunately, we might say they're different, and we don't engage them and eventually lose them. What is needed is accepting them, inviting them, building a relationship and leading them to Jesus.
 
Many young people leave the Church after Confirmation. Is the Church doing enough to reach out to them?
Pivonka: One of the scariest statistics is that 75% of young people who attend Church when they are 18 years old will not attend Church anymore within five years. That's just such a tragic statistic, but it’s proving to be true across the board. What you do for those five years after high school has a huge impact. That's why I love what we're doing at Franciscan University, creating an environment of faithfulness. The other important factor is how the family lives their faith. If their parents have a personal relationship with Christ, it significantly impacts young people. So that’s what I would say, moms and dads: Don’t just go to church out of obligation!
 
What are the reasons that families don’t live out their faith?
Pivonka: One reason Father Mike Schmitz mentioned it at the National Eucharist Congress is indifference. It's not that people don't necessarily know or believe; they don't care. They're indifferent. They don't have any passion or any firm foundation.

What can we do? Giving witness. This is an invitation for people that are out in the world: St Francis believed that people in the world can change the world. We need nurses, doctors, lawyers, engineers, and business professionals to be faithful to the Gospel. So much of the faith life is lived in private. But when you have a casual conversation around the water fountain, when you're having lunch, you can talk about your faith and share what's important to you, and that’s how you can impact other people.