Explore some of our favourite sections of Pope Francis’ letter on young people - Christus Vivit (Christ is Alive!):

A “popular” youth ministry 
In addition to the ordinary, well-planned pastoral ministry… it is also important to allow room for a “popular” youth ministry, with a different style, schedule, pace and method. Broader and more flexible, it goes out to those places where real young people are active, and fosters the natural leadership qualities and the charisms sown by the Holy Spirit. It tries to avoid imposing obstacles, rules, controls and obligatory structures... We need only to accompany and encourage them, trusting a little more in the genius of the Holy Spirit, who acts as he wills. 

 We are speaking of truly “popular” leaders, not elitists or those closed off in small groups of select individuals. “[Those who] learn to listen to the sense of the people, to become their spokespersons and to work for their promotion”. When we speak of “the people”, we are not speaking about the structures of society or the Church, but about all those persons who journey, not as individuals, but as a closely-bound community of all and for all, one that refuses to leave the poor and the vulnerable behind. “Popular” leaders, then, are those able to make everyone, including the poor, the vulnerable, the frail and the wounded, part of the forward march of youth. They do not shun or fear those young people who have experienced hurt or borne the weight of the cross. 

 Similarly, especially in the case of young people who do not come from Christian families or institutions, we have to encourage all the good that we can… At times, in the attempt to develop a pure and perfect youth ministry, marked by abstract ideas, protected from the world and free of every flaw, we can turn the Gospel into a dull, meaningless and unattractive proposition. Such a youth ministry ends up completely removed from the world of young people and suited only to an elite Christian youth that sees itself as different, while living in an empty and unproductive isolation… Instead of “overwhelming young people with a body of rules that make Christianity seem reductive and moralistic, we are called to invest in their fearlessness and to train them to take up their responsibilities, in the sure knowledge that error, failure and crisis are experiences that can strengthen their humanity”. 

 …We need a “popular” youth ministry that can open doors and make room for everyone, with their doubts and frustrations, their problems and their efforts to find themselves, their past errors, their experiences of sin and all their difficulties. 

Room should also be made for “all those who have other visions of life… All the young, without exception, are in God’s heart and thus in the Church’s heart... The Gospel also asks us to be daring, and we want to be so, without presumption and without proselytising, testifying to the love of the Lord and stretching out our hands to all the young people in the world”. 

 Youth ministry, when it ceases to be elitist and is willing to be “popular”, is a process that is gradual, respectful, patient, hopeful, tireless and compassionate. The Synod proposed the example of the disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35) as a model of what happens in youth ministry. 

  “Jesus walks with two disciples who did not grasp the meaning of all that happened to him, and are leaving Jerusalem and the community behind. Wanting to accompany them, he joins them on the way. He asks them questions and listens patiently to their version of events, and in this way he helps them recognise what they were experiencing. Then, with affection and power, he proclaims the word to them, leading them to interpret the events they had experienced in the light of the Scriptures. He accepts their invitation to stay with them as evening falls; he enters into their night. As they listen to him speak, their hearts burn within them and their minds are opened; they then recognise him in the breaking of the bread. They themselves choose to resume their journey at once in the opposite direction, to return to the community and to share the experience of their encounter with the risen Lord”.