Trip to Toronto Filled Young Hearts with joy
Published in The Universe
(August 11, 2002)
The happy young Catholics stood in the airport lobby held hands in a circle. Fervently prayed for peace and justice across the entire world. Then they clapped hands, broke into song and danced. Check-in crowds hurrying around thempaused for a brief while and smiled at the joyful scene.
The happy
groups were homebound after attending Tornoto'sWorld Youth Day with Pope
John Paul. Like millions around the world, they had been inspired by
the resilience of the ailing Holy Father as he galvanized his audience into
standing up for their faith to build a new world of harmony. One really felt
that the masses of Catholic youths present couls encourage the rest of us
who haver so often worried over half-empty churches devoid of young people.
The Toronto
experience so many thousands held vigil despite the drenching downpours and
gave a powerful witness to their faith sends a message to all of us that
faith is deep within our spirits and it does not hang on to the skirts of
clerical garb. Despite church scandals of clerical child sexual abuse and
the cover-up by some members of the hierarchy young Catholics
are ready to declare their commitment to something greater than the human
aspect of the church as an institution.
That witness
I have seen when I was traveling in Western Canada with a
catholic group of young actors from the PREDA foundation in the Philippines
during the Pops visit. Their contribution to International Youth Day was to
tour Canadian towns and cities for 6 weeks raising awareness about
the causes of world poverty and to challenge Christians to take a stand for
the victims of all kinds of exploitation and abuse.
They brought tears to the
eyes of Canadians of all religious denominations with a musical play that
told the fictional story of three young people who were offered overseas
employment when a Canadian Mining company abandoned it’s responsibilities to
clean up the environmental damage following the bursting of a dam that held
millions of tons of silt and mining tailing. Villages, rice fields, rivers
and a bay were seriously damaged by the 1996 disaster on the Island
of Marinduque, Central Philippines.
Their first performance was in
Calgary before an audience of international delegates to the People’s Summit
held during the meeting of the heads of state of the world’s
eight wealthiest nations. The received round after round of standing
ovations. The story tells how the impoverished family, in debt to the
local landlord, lost everything when the dam burst and the young women were
offered overseas employment that turned out to be a trip to forced
prostitution in brothels and clubs. Their suffering and hardship and
eventual rescue by their Filipino friends and Canadians battling
the evil trade is a story of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity
and redemption brought about by those committed to risking their lives for
those exploited and abused.
These young Catholics whose
acting talents and skills received wide media coverage, including television
and radio interviews enlightened thousands of viewers and hopefully will
spur them to write to their members of parliament urging action to curb the
trafficking of young people and to work to end the enslavement and unjust
imprisonment of millions of children. We cannot remain silent in
the face of terrible abuse of young people.
We have a profound
responsibility before God and the world to protect and save them. I never
tire of telling parents that most young people in conflict with the law are
driven to acts of desperation by neglect and abuse by adults. They never
asked to be born and were born innocent. Anything they learned in this world
came to them from the example of adults and the influence of the society and
environment that we have allowed to develop and influence them.
Recently I reported on how children as young as ten and twelve are jailed without trial in the Philippines and elsewhere and others are targeted and shot by roaming death squads. They are considered pests to be eliminated. Last week I heard the good news that three, a ten and twelve year old had been released after our urgent intervention and were safely back with their parents. Amnesty international has taken up the cause of those victims of extra-judicial killings and has protested the death squads and vigilantism that the Philippine President endorsed when she appointed the Mayor of Davao City to head a law and order committee.
Silence in the face of crime and abuse especially against children and youth is a form of approval. That we can never do and still claim to be true Christians and followers of Christ. We have to stand up and be counted and speak out for justice and compassion.
