In this article, “Life Teen” should be understood not only as the program known by this name, but also as representative of a certain mentality that can be found in many programs—some officially named, others nameless, local, and spontaneous.
A friend of mine wrote to me as follows.
Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,
What are your thoughts on the Life Teen phenomenon? Often priests will bring in this program because they say they’ve had success with this outreach to youth, who are “energized” through a youth Mass. They might even admit that the Catholicism preached in Life Teen and the youth Masses is dumbed down, but they say, if the young people are going more often to Confession and Adoration, it must be somewhat a good thing.
One wonders if what’s going on is that most young people have experienced very poor liturgy, so anything different seems like an improvement to them. Plus, if they are required to go to Mass for Confirmation prep (as is the case in many places), their attendance cannot be chalked up as a sign of approval.
Nevertheless, is there long-term fruit from Life Teen? Do these young people stay in the Church after high school? Life Teen has been around for a while, but the huge number of young people leaving the Church seems to keep climbing. If this program was so successful, shouldn’t that exodus at least be leveling off? So maybe young people are involved, but then fall away.
At a meeting with the parish team, we got into a conversation about “externals” that can be changed and adapted with the times, so I brought up the issue of communion in the hand vs. kneeling to receive on the tongue to make the case that form and content cannot be separated so easily—that, when certain forms or externals are removed, the truth of the faith can be obscured. The priest, however, insisted that it’s only a matter of the heart and said he couldn’t imagine anything more reverent than receiving Jesus in the hand (!). At this point, I realized that we see Catholicism in a fundamentally different way, though I was already sensing that.
The difficulty that I’m having is that he supports things like Adoration (he wants to try to establish perpetual Adoration), he talks about helping people know Jesus, and about teaching the lost. I certainly can’t be opposed to those things! It’d be one thing if he just didn’t care. But he’s passionate about restoring the faith in our area. Also, I can’t discount the success he’s had at other places.
However, traditional liturgy is not a priority for him. He speaks a lot about the liturgy, but he’s more focused on it being “meaningful and uplifting.” He prefers the contemporary church music. To my mind, this is fundamentally misguided, but in parishes he’s been at, numbers have improved. What do you make of all of this?
Sincerely,
A Youth Minister
Here was my reply.
All of what you describe is familiar to me, and not least because I went to many retreats in high school that anticipated the Life Teen phenomenon. It is the “new paradigm” of liturgy: somewhat informal, upbeat, very contemporary, like the evangelical Protestants, but with some Catholic flavoring added: devotion to the Virgin Mary, Adoration, Stations. Of course, such Catholic elements are good, but they have been ripped from their proper theological and liturgical context and are now free-floating constellations of devotion. We should not be quick to think that a priest has the right idea about what he’s doing just because he follows the Catechism and wants to encourage “good things.”
Let me begin with Adoration. I am passionately devoted to Adoration. But... it has a proper context and can in fact be abused. On this topic, the best thing to read is a pair of articles by Joseph Shaw (here and here).
As for Life Teen, where to begin? First, the history of its founder cannot inspire confidence. Beyond that, I think one needs to question the general assumption that “youth want contemporary things and it’s the Church’s job to give it to them.” An old article at NLM does a great job dismantling that, but it’s a theme many, many authors have returned to (see John Mac Ghlionn’s “Traditional Catholicism, the new ‘cool’ for young Americans”).
Fr Christopher Smith does a thorough job refuting the “praise & worship” musical genre typical of this movement (here and here; cf. this too). I have addressed this topic at some length in my book Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life.
Samuel Gregg offers keen insights in “A Church drowning in sentimentalism.” The assumption at work is that the reality of an encounter can be measured by its emotional impact. The stronger your emotions, the more real your experience was. There is some truth to this. A great musical or dramatic performance will produce strong emotions. Falling in love (eros) is the most perfect example.
But placing an equal sign between reality and feeling, experience and emotion, is part of the legacy of Romanticism, not a self-evident proposition or a truth that can be demonstrated. In fact, it flies in the face of most of humanity’s assumptions through the ages. The romantics were understandably reacting against rationalism, which had made the opposite error by equating reality with idea, or experience with rational consciousness. Rationalism’s account of the human person was too cerebral, too “thin”; it viewed man as if he were a disembodied mind gazing out indifferently on a world of truth. Romanticism’s reactionary account was too corporeal and sensual, too “thick”; it viewed man as if he were a bundle of emotions ready to catch fire. I wrote about this codependency between rationalism and romanticism here.
In spite of the external glitz, Life Teen and most of these rock-it-up adolescent movements, including the charismatics, have a fairly poor track record. Those who get involved mostly either mature into something else or wander away. I don’t have stats to back it up but I hear it so often from clergy and music ministers and people around the country that I consider it to have at least anecdotal value. Many of the criticisms made about charismatics apply exactly to Life Teen and similar programs: see “Confusion about Graces: A Catholic Critique of the Charismatic Movement” and “Why Charismatic Catholics Should Love the Traditional Latin Mass.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, there’s a lot of Life Teen-critical material out there by now, if you search the internet; and there is an equal amount bearing witness to the unexpected attraction of tradition for youths.
Lastly, you brought up communion in the hand. This is truly one of the most wicked abuses that has ever been introduced into the Church’s worship. The practice had gone away for 1,000 years due to an increased sense of reverence; suddenly bringing it back, and in a Calvinist form, sent the contrary message. The best short article on the topic would be this one: “Debunking the myth that today’s Communion in the hand revives an ancient custom.”
Keep on learning. Your instincts and intuitions are right on.
Dr. Kwasniewski
A friend of mine wrote to me as follows.
Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,
What are your thoughts on the Life Teen phenomenon? Often priests will bring in this program because they say they’ve had success with this outreach to youth, who are “energized” through a youth Mass. They might even admit that the Catholicism preached in Life Teen and the youth Masses is dumbed down, but they say, if the young people are going more often to Confession and Adoration, it must be somewhat a good thing.
One wonders if what’s going on is that most young people have experienced very poor liturgy, so anything different seems like an improvement to them. Plus, if they are required to go to Mass for Confirmation prep (as is the case in many places), their attendance cannot be chalked up as a sign of approval.
Nevertheless, is there long-term fruit from Life Teen? Do these young people stay in the Church after high school? Life Teen has been around for a while, but the huge number of young people leaving the Church seems to keep climbing. If this program was so successful, shouldn’t that exodus at least be leveling off? So maybe young people are involved, but then fall away.
At a meeting with the parish team, we got into a conversation about “externals” that can be changed and adapted with the times, so I brought up the issue of communion in the hand vs. kneeling to receive on the tongue to make the case that form and content cannot be separated so easily—that, when certain forms or externals are removed, the truth of the faith can be obscured. The priest, however, insisted that it’s only a matter of the heart and said he couldn’t imagine anything more reverent than receiving Jesus in the hand (!). At this point, I realized that we see Catholicism in a fundamentally different way, though I was already sensing that.
The difficulty that I’m having is that he supports things like Adoration (he wants to try to establish perpetual Adoration), he talks about helping people know Jesus, and about teaching the lost. I certainly can’t be opposed to those things! It’d be one thing if he just didn’t care. But he’s passionate about restoring the faith in our area. Also, I can’t discount the success he’s had at other places.
However, traditional liturgy is not a priority for him. He speaks a lot about the liturgy, but he’s more focused on it being “meaningful and uplifting.” He prefers the contemporary church music. To my mind, this is fundamentally misguided, but in parishes he’s been at, numbers have improved. What do you make of all of this?
Sincerely,
A Youth Minister
All of what you describe is familiar to me, and not least because I went to many retreats in high school that anticipated the Life Teen phenomenon. It is the “new paradigm” of liturgy: somewhat informal, upbeat, very contemporary, like the evangelical Protestants, but with some Catholic flavoring added: devotion to the Virgin Mary, Adoration, Stations. Of course, such Catholic elements are good, but they have been ripped from their proper theological and liturgical context and are now free-floating constellations of devotion. We should not be quick to think that a priest has the right idea about what he’s doing just because he follows the Catechism and wants to encourage “good things.”
Let me begin with Adoration. I am passionately devoted to Adoration. But... it has a proper context and can in fact be abused. On this topic, the best thing to read is a pair of articles by Joseph Shaw (here and here).
As for Life Teen, where to begin? First, the history of its founder cannot inspire confidence. Beyond that, I think one needs to question the general assumption that “youth want contemporary things and it’s the Church’s job to give it to them.” An old article at NLM does a great job dismantling that, but it’s a theme many, many authors have returned to (see John Mac Ghlionn’s “Traditional Catholicism, the new ‘cool’ for young Americans”).
Fr Christopher Smith does a thorough job refuting the “praise & worship” musical genre typical of this movement (here and here; cf. this too). I have addressed this topic at some length in my book Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life.
Samuel Gregg offers keen insights in “A Church drowning in sentimentalism.” The assumption at work is that the reality of an encounter can be measured by its emotional impact. The stronger your emotions, the more real your experience was. There is some truth to this. A great musical or dramatic performance will produce strong emotions. Falling in love (eros) is the most perfect example.
But placing an equal sign between reality and feeling, experience and emotion, is part of the legacy of Romanticism, not a self-evident proposition or a truth that can be demonstrated. In fact, it flies in the face of most of humanity’s assumptions through the ages. The romantics were understandably reacting against rationalism, which had made the opposite error by equating reality with idea, or experience with rational consciousness. Rationalism’s account of the human person was too cerebral, too “thin”; it viewed man as if he were a disembodied mind gazing out indifferently on a world of truth. Romanticism’s reactionary account was too corporeal and sensual, too “thick”; it viewed man as if he were a bundle of emotions ready to catch fire. I wrote about this codependency between rationalism and romanticism here.
In spite of the external glitz, Life Teen and most of these rock-it-up adolescent movements, including the charismatics, have a fairly poor track record. Those who get involved mostly either mature into something else or wander away. I don’t have stats to back it up but I hear it so often from clergy and music ministers and people around the country that I consider it to have at least anecdotal value. Many of the criticisms made about charismatics apply exactly to Life Teen and similar programs: see “Confusion about Graces: A Catholic Critique of the Charismatic Movement” and “Why Charismatic Catholics Should Love the Traditional Latin Mass.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, there’s a lot of Life Teen-critical material out there by now, if you search the internet; and there is an equal amount bearing witness to the unexpected attraction of tradition for youths.
Lastly, you brought up communion in the hand. This is truly one of the most wicked abuses that has ever been introduced into the Church’s worship. The practice had gone away for 1,000 years due to an increased sense of reverence; suddenly bringing it back, and in a Calvinist form, sent the contrary message. The best short article on the topic would be this one: “Debunking the myth that today’s Communion in the hand revives an ancient custom.”
Keep on learning. Your instincts and intuitions are right on.
Dr. Kwasniewski
Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.
