“We appeal, therefore, to all people of goodwill, to respect the spiritual needs of children and adolescents, particularly as these relate to family life and religious practice on Sundays, and to refrain from organising events that clash with Sunday morning religious services.”So spoke the Irish Conference of Bishops, addressing GAA trainers and mentors (Sunday morning soccer is virtually unheard of) after emerging from a Maynooth conclave.
The Bishops may think that they have placed their finger on the pulse of the nation by identifying Sunday morning sport as a major factor behind the falling numbers of young people attending Mass, but in fact they are only holding themselves up as out of touch and out of time.
There is a long list of things that are keeping young people away from Mass on Sunday mornings, and on that list children training and playing out in God’s fresh air under the stewardship of volunteer mentors is very, very far down, if not right at the bottom.
At the top of that list is the Catholic Church itself and its inability to make the Mass important in the lives of young people.
The Mass has always been a turn-off for young people. There are not many Catholic adults reading this who can put their hands on their hearts and say they ran to Mass with a spring in their step on Sunday mornings.
Rather, they went and stood and sat in sullen silence beside their parents, or else they loitered at the exit counting the seemingly endless minutes until they were excused by the priest.
The Mass is a beautiful and precious thing, loved and appreciated by Catholic adults who have developed the spiritual and mental maturity to understand that life is about more than fun and sport; but for young people today the prospect of 40 minutes in Church is as much a dread prospect as it was for young people 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago.
The Bishops would have been much better employed addressing the utter failure of the Catholic Church to engage or empathise with young people and make the Mass enjoyable and relevant at a time when children are at an ever-younger age faced with crushing peer pressures such as alcohol and drug abuse, anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancy and suicide.
If young people wanted to go to Mass they would, regardless of whether they’re training or playing sport, and that is why the Bishops’ statement is more than just a red herring, it’s a travesty of the truth.
There’s absolutely no reason why children can’t run and jump and laugh and play on a green field on a spring Sunday morning and go to Mass before or after their sport.
Masses are held at different times for that very reason, not, as was happily the case in the past, because one Mass couldn’t cope with the numbers.
Will the Bishops soon ask people not to walk on the Black Mountain after breakfast?
Not to take a toddler to the park?
The very idea is preposterous – as preposterous as suggesting that hurling and football are keeping children away from Mass. They are not.
We go further. We say that in the world we live in today, God is not displeased by young people enjoying fitness, health and life on a Sunday morning – if He is a God worth worshipping He is mightily pleased.
It is an undeniable fact that in today’s society there are many people, young and old, who are lying abed on Sunday mornings nursing hangovers, or who are watching the clock, waiting for the pubs or off-licences to open.
Faced with that grim truth, we are at a loss to understand why the Bishops choose to focus instead on young people and their volunteer mentors who have chosen to engage in life-enhancing, community-building activities.
In a much-loved sporting film, Field of Dreams, the famous catchline is “If you build it they will come.”
Rather than issuing unfair criticism of GAA clubs, which have done more to keep young West Belfast people on the straight and narrow than the Church ever did, the Bishops should be trying to build a Church that means as much to young people as it does to adults.
And if they build it, they will come.
In the meantime, children must be allowed to go on worshipping in the most magnificent cathedral of all – the outdoors – on Sunday mornings, celebrating their God-given youth and strength.
Because we think that’s praying too, even if the Bishops don’t.
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Sotto Voce