The diocese of Vannes, in the department of Morbihan, in Brittany, published its report after the closure of the diocesan phase of the Synod of Bishops. He points out that there is a generational gap: young people want a better liturgy and more doctrinal clarity; as well as a lost generation: people aged 40 to 60, who did not participate in the process.
The report thus notes “the strong existence of a generational gap in our diocese. We have identified a stumbling block in the responses to the preparatory summaries: the expectations of the different generations are not the same.”
“Older generations tend to criticize the Church, her rites, her sanctity, her priesthood or clerical dress, while the younger generations demand more transcendence, doctrinal clarity, and visibility from the clergy.”
“Among other examples, we have the liturgy, where retirees think they can attract young people by excluding the sacred or the Latin language, while young high school students have told us of their desire to be able to choose between the Mass in Latin and the Mass in French.”
If we base ourselves on this report, people born between 1962 and 1982 represent a lost generation: in other words, the generation of the Council, the one who received the brunt of the crisis generated by this “third world war” as described by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
People born before 1962, who participated in the Council, who lived through it, are the most critical of the Church, and are ready to get rid of the sacred and the doctrine without any qualms. No offense to the rapporteurs, it is no longer a lost generation, but a sacrificed generation.
The youngest, those who suffer from this situation, and who have aspirations for a more authentic Christian life, represent, it is to be hoped, the beginnings of a return to the true faith and to the sacred, the one that can fill the human thirst.
Another finding is also encouraging according to the text of the report: “The use of the clerical habit or the place of women seem to be important questions for our elders, but the answer of the young participants – children, students, workers – is that they don’t care.”
“Women are very present in the Church: sacristans, activity leaders, catechists, choristers, organists, housekeepers, florists. “In the Church, we are suffering from being crushed by all these women,” wrote one participant. The elders, many of whom participated in the synod, think of the Church of tomorrow for young people without fully understanding their needs and expectations.
“This anachronistic situation is worrying. Unfortunately, in our assemblies, the young and the old mix with difficulty and therefore do not exchange their points of view, probably because the absence of the generation between them is perceptible (the 40-60 year olds are rarely or not at all present).”
Which shows that this lost generation is so imbued with the influence of the world that it can only consider the Church under a distorted prism. It is somewhat encouraging to see young people being less sensitive to it and instinctively understanding certain deformations.
Finally, the report recognizes that the Church, in the diocese, “has become the property of the elderly” who are “afraid of being ousted by new arrivals,” in particular by young families: the revolutionary generation jealously wants to guard the power to perpetuate an upheaval contested by the rising generation.
The good news on the world synod in preparation in the dioceses, the synod on synodality, is not legion. It is therefore not uninteresting to note that this result was reported in the diocese of Vannes by the site Riposte Catholique.