The Question

 One of the reasons that young people are turned off by the church is that the church is answering questions that these people are not asking.  Clericalism has the downside of separating one from the people they are trying to reach.  Now you might say that these young people ought to be more concerned about what the church is teaching.  But they are not.  It is not about disagreeing with a teaching, but rather a disinterest in the subject relative to what they are interested in.  The Paulist Fathers are more about reaching out to people where they are rather than where someone might think they ought to be.  It is a bit of life on life’s terms.