The Synod On Youth

There was an interesting intervention at the Synod of Bishops on Youth by Father Hilaire K. Kouaho, the rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Madagascar.  He took part as an auditor representing the Neocatechumenal Way.  Below is a translation from the Spanish edition of Zenit:

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Synod: “Young people discover how God is present in their concrete history”

Intervention of the Auditor from the Neocatechumenal Way

(ZENIT - Oct. 19, 2018)

At the Synod of Bishops celebrated in Rome on the theme of Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment, Fr Hilaire K Kouaho, Rector of the Redemptoris Mater Diocesan International Seminary of Madagascar, participated as an Auditor from part of the Neocatechumenal Way.

The priest read a speech before the synodal assembly on October 16, 2018, in which he noted that the theme of listening is “crucial to understanding our young people” and added that it is also “necessary” to educate them to “listen to the voice” who truly loves them as they are: Christ”.

Here we publish the intervention that the priest read before Pope Francis and the rest of the synodal assembly on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 16:

Speech by Hilaire K. Kouaho

1. Most Holy Father, Reverend Synodal Fathers, dear young friends. My name is Hilaire. I'm from the Ivory Coast.

2. I thank His Holiness, who is also my bishop, that I am able to participate in this great ecclesial moment as a representative of all the communities of the Neocatechumenal Way.

3. When I was 18 years old, the Lord made me begin an experience of the Neocatechumenal Way. I come from a family far from the Church and with them I have come to know the faith and the Church through a small community. Today my whole family is living this experience of faith in the Ivory Coast. In 1992 I entered the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Rome, and after a period of formation I was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Rome. For 12 years I have been the rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Madagascar.

4. The theme of listening is crucial to understand our young people. In every situation throughout its growth, especially in times of crisis, we must listen to them. It is also necessary to educate them to listen to the voice of who truly loves them such as they are: Christ. At the centre of the Revelation is God himself who calls his people to listen.

5. The experience that young people make in the Neocatechumenal communities is that of the weekly celebration of the Word of God and of the possibility, in each celebration, of being heard giving their experience. Every Christian is called to put his life under the light of the Word of God. This education to listen and be heard takes place in the first place in the family through a “domestic liturgy” on Sunday, where the parents transmit the faith to their children, according to the custom of the Neocatechumenal Way.

6. The community to which the young people belong helps them to feel taken seriously. Growing up in a community made up of people of all ages, sex and social status helps to destroy generational barriers and to grow together in the faith.

7. Through listening to the Word, young people discover how God is present in their concrete history, also in its most problematic and painful implications. They discover a God who is close and seals their wounds, they discover the mystery of the glorious cross which alone gives a meaning to the existence of man.

8. Within the communities, young people and adults live a gradual education to the faith through a Christian initiation that does not presuppose faith, but over several stages helps them to rediscover all the wealth contained in baptism.

9. This process takes place under the guidance of a team of catechists, composed of lay people (men and women) and priests, who accompany the young people along their catechumenal path. In this phase of the passage from family to community, the Way has discovered the beauty of a post-confirmation pastoral which helps young people to remain in the bosom of the Church and to experience its riches at the critical age of puberty and adolescence.

10. In the small community, they can experience the fraternal warmth that youngsters so desire. The World Youth Days are occasions of great respite for young people enabling them to live moments of evangelization and fraternity with peers from other parts of the world.

11. St. Paul VI, through the Humanae Vitae, has helped many families in the Church to be open to life. This opening to life in the Way has produced as fruits vocations to the consecrated life, to the presbyterate and to marriage. Many young families, after a time of gestation of faith within their community, called by the bishops and sent by the Holy Father, go on mission to the most secularized areas of the world.

12. The Holy Spirit is calling many young people from the communities to the priestly life. 122 international missionary diocesan seminaries have been erected by diocesan bishops. This internationality, which I experienced first during my formation, I am living now again with seminarians and priests trained in our seminary who come from 15 nations of Europe, Africa and America.

13. A young person seeks only one thing in the background: to feel loved and welcomed. The Church, which is a teacher in humanity and possesses the richness of the Gospel, is the only one able to offer this beauty of love.

14. Wherever a young person is on earth, Jesus Christ has also given his life and has shed his blood, for him even if he does not know it. All young people have the right to hear the Good News that it is possible to be happy, not living selfishly for oneself but for others. Young people expect us, as a Church, to go out and find them in the depths of their souls, where their deepest questions reside and where the mark of God has its nest.

Thank you, Holy Father, for the good you want for the young people.

Translated from Zenit.