Over 16,500 young Catholics have responded to an online survey asking for their views on the Church ahead of next year’s world meeting of bishops on young people, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, writes Carina Murphy.
The responses to the “Mega Youth Poll”, by people aged 13-29 will be sent to the Vatican, according to the bishops. The survey was launched in March and extended to the end of June to allow students sitting exams a chance to fill it in afterwards.
The 2018 Synod of Bishops, over which Pope Francis will preside, has the theme “Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment”. The survey was designed to be as user-friendly as possible in terms of style and tone, with the aim of showing that the Vatican is listening to young people and trying to understand the changes in their lives in the digital age.
It asked people to name the best and most difficult aspects of their life and to rank, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much they believe in God, how close they feel to Jesus and how often they experience God’s presence in their lives. The Church is hoping that the survey will prove more successful than the one sent out ahead of the 2014 synod on the family, which was criticised for being too complex and difficult to understand.
Local churches should now “find meaningful and creative ways of listening to young people so that they are ready to engage with the next stage of preparation for the Synod,” according to Teresa Carvalho, the home mission officer at the Bishops’ Conference.
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