By ARTHUR HIPPLER
(Editor’s Note: Dr. Hippler is chairman of the religion department and teaches religion in the Upper School at Providence Academy, Plymouth, Minn.)
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Many forms of outreach to Catholic young people want to get them fired up about the faith. They give an example of enthusiasm by which they hope to inspire others. But I will often hear young people say after such an experience, “I keep hearing that ‘Jesus loves me’. What do I do now?”
Youth ministers are not of course alone in this — many pastors (who really should know better) use the same approach. Students do not just need affirmation. They need specific forms of direction in their moral life and their prayer life.
Our juniors spend a month reading St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life, and it is a book that more in youth ministry need to study and apply. De Sales does not presume an audience of devout people. Indeed, he starts at rock bottom — someone in the habits of moral sin. The devout life begins with “purification,” not affirmation. When John the Baptist begins his preaching, he does not proclaim “God loves you!” but “Repent!” This is not “negativity” but simple honesty.
From the popular culture, many in youth ministry have absorbed the error that bad behavior comes from low self-esteem. By this principle, we sin because we have not yet discovered that God loves us and therefore how special we are. This is both empirically and theologically false.
For the empirical research, I would direct the reader to the work of psychologist Roy Baumeister, especially his book Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence. One of Baumeister’s better-known examples on this point is bullying. Several studies have shown that bullying does not come from children with low self-esteem, but high self-esteem, albeit a certain form of high self-esteem. The typical bully thinks well of himself, but feels that others do not adequately respect him. While people with low self-esteem can feel unappreciated, people with high self-esteem who feel unappreciated do something about it.
From the theological perspective, one should recall that pride, the excessive love of self and of one’s own good, is the root of all sin. Sin flows from disordered self-love, not from a deficiency of it. (Think of the spoiled children in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Does Veruca Salt have low “self-esteem”?) Whether one is greedy or gluttonous or envious or vain, one seeks the good to the harm of oneself and others. Having feelings of “low self-worth” or “lack of affirmation” is not an adequate explanation. Plenty of young people with these feelings are not cruel or deceptive or self-centered.
Sinful habits presuppose a choice against what one knows to be right. That choice may involve a background that we find sympathetic or repulsive. Either way, repentance requires the conviction that one is a sinner, even if that is a temporary blow to one’s self-esteem.
St. Francis de Sales offer specifics on how one may turn from a life of sin: examining one’s conscience, making a general Confession, and finding a spiritual director. He addresses the problem of “occasions of sin,” which is the common reason why people have problems breaking from habits of sin.
It is not that they “don’t know how much God loves them.” It is that they do not know practically how to live in that love through their choices. They do not know how to review their music, their movies, their friends, their activities, and ask the basic question — are these bringing me closer to God, or drawing me away? They do not understand the damage that venial sin brings to their prayer life. They do not understand the high price of what we used to call “trifling with one’s conscience.
If I were to put the problem in a sentence, I would say this: Youth ministers need to stop being amateur psychologists running encounter groups, and start evangelizing by using the moral and spiritual content of the Gospel. An encounter group allows for a therapeutic discussion of the emotions, and an affirmation of its participants. But that does not lend itself well to instruction on the catechetical truths that ground genuine conversion, and allow the young person to take the further steps required by that conversion. If it is true that moral and spiritual duties without love are burdensome, it is also true that “love” without a clear moral and spiritual path is empty.
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