Opinion Articles

SOUL MATTERS: 400,000 good reasons to welcome tomorrow
By Matthew McLean

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law...Their morals are decaying..."

That’s probably an odd quote to preface an acclamation of World Youth Day (WYD), but I’ll get to that a bit later.

As most know, Australia hosted something incredible just over a week ago; the largest international gathering of young people. WYD08 saw more visitors than any other time in our nation’s history. This is a credit to our beautiful locale and to all those who played a part in the promotion and organisation. The controversy surrounding the event and its impact on Sydney faded as Australians opened up their arms, their hearts and their homes. It was an extraordinary event: a pilgrimage of prayer, a celebration of inspiration.

I took two things away from the experience and they pertain both to international youth and to Australia’s own young people, including me.

Firstly, the pilgrims were simply outstanding; I’m still in awe as I think back to the early hours of WYD morning dancing a Spanish salsa, a Tongan tango and even a ‘hokie-pokie’; friends, clergy and globetrotters en masse. The purpose of WYD was to bring people together. And it did exactly that, 400, 000 people of different races, ages, social classes, gender, wealth and even sexual orientation gathered. Many claim that religion is to blame for all that is wrong and awry, but in this case, it was the cause of all harmony and celebration.

Now I’m brought to lesson #2: Many have doubts about my generation. I trust that for others, as for me, WYD has restored some of the hope eroded by certain isolated incidents. The overwhelming fact is that stereotypes plague youth. This brings me to my earlier quotation. I’d presume many agree with it; ‘disrespect, disobey’- choice words for many to describe today’s young people. But those words weren’t written recently, or about my generation. The text was from 400 BCE, Plato describing the youth of his time. Now that’s food for thought.

So, as much as things change, they seem to stay the same. Just like those young people, we too have problems. Some people seem to blame empty pews on a Sunday morning for these. I disagree. I think the presence and nature of religion are as they have been: profound and fundamental. What is very much different though is the method of worship. An absence from church doesn’t mean an absence of belief; quite the contrary.

Faith, love and hope are still very much present. And with that, how far wrong can we go? After WYD, I can assure you that the future is in safe hands. And to anyone who disagrees, I can offer about 400,000 reasons in support of my argument.

Matthew McLean
Matthew McLean is a Year 11 student at St Francis Xavier’s College Hamilton, a member of the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle’s Youth Advisory Council and attended World Youth Day 2008.