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TEEN-AGERS AND



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1351
5

TEEN-AGERS AND

THE CATHOLIC

CHURCH

Ernest F. Miller, C.SS.R.

LIGUORIAN PAMPHLETS
REDEMPTORIST FATHERS

LIGUORI, MISSOURI



The Catholic Church has the an-

swer to all the problems of life—in-
cluding the problems that bother

young people.

Imprimi Potest:

John N. McCormick, C.SS.R.

Provincial, St. Louis Province,

Redemptorist Fathers

Feb. 17, 1958

Imprimatur:

St. Louis, Feb. 19, 1958

f1 Joseph E. Ritter

Archbishop of St. Louis



TEEN-AGERS AND THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH

By ERNEST F. MILLER, C.SS.R.

The Catholic teen-ager is pretty

lucky. Why? He is in possession of

the Catholic religion. That may

sound exceedingly arrogant. It is

not meant to be so. What then does

it mean? What does a teen-ager’s

being or not being a Catholic have

to do with his being or not being

lucky? The answer is in the follow-

ing lines. May they be blessed by

the touch of God.

When a man is playing poker with

a crowd of card sharks who have

been trimming him badly right from

the start of the game, and all of a

sudden, when the biggest pot of the

whole evening is on the table, comes

— 3



up with a full house— three aces
and two kings— he’s in luck. If he
plays his cards right, his losses will

be recouped. His enemies will go

home confounded.

So it is with teen-agers and the

Catholic religion. Teen-agers also

have sharks and sharpies of every

description against them. They are

pursued and hypnotized by singers

who can hardly hold a note and yet

who can lead them into a jungle of

frenzied gyrations that go for danc-

ing, almost as though they were ab-

origines or even animals. They are

pulled this way and that by eccentric

fellow teen-agers who wear odd and

ugly clothes, talk an almost unintel-

ligible language and give off the im-

pression that they are so hard that

an iron rail is putty in comparison,

and who sometimes are definitely as

hard as they make themselves to be.

— 4—



They have parents to be obeyed,

teachers to be listened to, policemen

to be avoided, priests to be honored,

brothers and sisters to be placated.

Above all, they have themselves to

contend with, with the uncounted lit-

tle devils who have suddenly taken

up residence in their bodies and their

minds, tempting and tormenting them

with thoughts and feelings of inde-

pendence and sensuality and superior-

ity and disgust, until they do not

know what way to turn.

It looks as though the cards are

stacked against them in the game of

life that they must play between the

ages of twelve and twenty. It is pos-

sible for them to lose more than one

hand against such formidable opposi-

tion. Unfortunately some teen-agers

lose all their hands. A full house
never comes their way to recoup their

losses.

— 5—



But to Catholic boys and girls

there is dealt a hand by God that is

superior to all other hands, a hand

that is unbeatable, a hand that is

easily the equivalent not only of a

full house but even of a royal flush.

This hand is the Catholic Church.

No teen-ager who is true to his Cath-

olic religion need fear that he will

end up broke when the game of life

is over.

Specifically, how does the Catholic

Church help teen-agers?

There are areas of fun and recrea-

tion that boys and girls like to fre-

quent — movies, dances, parties,
books, companions of the same and

of the opposite sex. Some of these

areas are healthy; others are filled

with danger and spiritual contamina-

tion.

— 6—



Movies that are immoral in part

are like food that is partially spoiled.

One dose of the poison that is dis-

tilled by the partially bad movie may

not destroy the faith of the teen-ager

who partakes of it. Repeated doses

may. Constant dripping wears away

the stone. A sufficient number of

tainted motion pictures can destroy

the life of the soul. So it is with

books.

At this point the Church, following

the divine guidance promised her and

relying on the two thousand years of

experience that she has in dealing

with problems of conscience, points

out to young people the kind of books

and movies that are harmful. She

lays down principles as to what is

right and wrong, what is good and

bad. Not only that. She passes

moral judgments on particular books

and movies as to whether they come

— 7—



under the general principle deter-

mining what is good and what is bad.

She puts no physical pressure on

teen-agers to follow her judgments.

She'has no military divisions or regi-

ments. Her work is a service of char-

ity, not a force like the police depart-

ment or the army. It is a service

only in the moral order. It has noth-

ing to do with censorship or book-

burning or boycotting. It is merely

a label that is put on a bottle, like

the POISON label that is put on the

bottle of rat-killer. If anybody wants

to drink rat-killer in spite of the

label on the bottle, that is his busi-

ness. If a teen-ager wants to go to

movies and to read books that are

adjudged immoral in whole or in part

by sensible and intelligent people, act-

ing on the advice and with the help

of the Church, that also is his own

business. But he will have only him-

— 8—



self to blame if he falls into serious

sin and finally loses his soul.

Many teen-agers do not have this

service, this help. Or rather, they

have it, but they have not been edu-

cated to its usefulness and its neces-

sity. They have been told that any-

thing, no matter what it is, that cur-

tails their freedom is bad. The word

POISON should not be put on the

rat-killer bottle. Such signs curtail

freedom, The letters “B” and “C”

should not be put on movies. They

curtail freedom. Teen-agers are to

find out what books and movies are

good and bad by the method of trial

and error.

They are bound to be hurt by such

a system.

As long as one is in one’s teens,

one is hardly equipped to know and

to pass judgment on the finer points

— 9—



of morality. Help must be had from

older and wiser heads, but older and

wiser heads that are sufficiently in

touch with God to be able to speak

with some assurance and certainty on

the morality of a particular situation.

Only the Catholic Church has been

given the direct commission by al-

mighty God to stand guard over the

deposit of morality He gave the

world when He made it. Our Lord

said to the Church: “Go forth and

teach all nations whatsoever I have

commanded you.” “He who hears

you hears Me; he who despises you

despises Me.” “Feed My lambs
;
feed

My sheep.” What our Lord meant

by these words was this : “Go out and

tell teen-agers about bad shows and

bad parties and bad books and bad

dances. Talk to them straight from

the shoulder. Tell them the truth

about what is good and what is bad

— 10—



in all these things. And I promise to

guide you in your guidance of them.”

As it is with books and movies, so

it is with parties and dancing and the

social games that are played and en-

joyed among teen-age boys and girls

when they are out for an evening of

fun. Only teen-agers know why they

prefer certain dances and games that

to their elders seem to make no sense.

But that is their privilege and their

business. They have a right to free

choice just as do those who are long

out of their teens. Nor can their

taste always be condemned. Their

preferences need not correspond to

the preferences of the middle-aged

and the old.

But some dances and games can

be expressions of that which is evil,

or they can cause evil in the minds

and the bodies of those who partici-

pate in them. They can arouse the

— 11 —



passions. They can stir up thoughts

and desires that are forbidden. In

short, they can take away rather

than increase the enjoyment of the

fuller and the richer life, which should

be one of the effects of decent and

healthy recreation. Such dances are

the sensual, the almost ritualistic

dances that have come directly out

of the forests and the jungle hinter-

lands of the world, and are the prod-

uct of people who are still primitives

and have not as yet been civilized or

Christianized.

Teen-agers may be led into this

sort of recreation by their youthful

exuberance, by the force of their

budding powers and passions and by

the evil example of immoral older

people who are willing to promote

anything that will turn over a quick

“buck,” even though it destroys all

that is good and fresh in the process.

— 12—



They can also be led astray by some

of their own contemporaries who

have no religion or standards of right

and wrong and who live by their

senses and their instincts just as do

the natives from whom the tribal

dances come. There is a sufficiently

large numbers of teen-agers of this

stamp in America. May God have

mercy upon their parents!

But here again the Catholic Church

is the strong defense for the Catholic

teen-ager. Once more she runs up

the flag of warning. She tells her

young folks to guard against that

form of recreation that is primarily

sensual in nature and ih purpose. She

tells them that anything, whether a

game or a dance or a party, that stirs

up passion unnecessarily outside of

marriage can be a mortal sin. She

insists that anything that is a source

of temptation to another, whether

— 13—



that other be an onlooker or an actual

participant, can be a serious sin. She

draws clear lines between the right

and the wrong so that there will be

no doubt in the mind of any young

person as to what is allowed and

what is forbidden. In so doing, she

is offering invaluable aid to all teen-

agers who listen to her voice.

These are but a few samples of

the help that the Church gives her

children in the many problems that

face them in the moral order. There

are innumerable more. But the

greatest gift of all that she offers

them is the gift of heaven. She has

it in her power to lift them over the

top of a torn and troubled world into

the very arms of God. It is her pri-

mary mission upon this earth— to
save souls, to bring people to the

happiness of heaven.

— 14—



Some teen-agers think that the

winning of heaven is a passive busi-

ness rather than an active one. It is

their contention (their actions would

suggest as much) that all one has to

do in order to go to heaven is to be-

have like a stick on the current of

a stream. They need but float

through life, concerning themselves

only with worldly things, and they

will someday see the face of God.

This is not true. Things have to be

done. One doesn’t back into heaven.

One enters the front door by the ac-

complishment of good works out of

love for God, or one doesn’t enter at

all.

The Catholic Church tells teen-

agers (as well as others) what these

good works are, how they can be

practiced, what abuses must be

avoided. Without the Church it

would be very difficult to know what

— 15—



to do and how to do it in order to

go to heaven. Without the Church

one cannot be certain even when one

should go to church, and what should

be done there when one Anally ar-

rives. It takes the Church to give

life and meaning to a church. That

is exactly what the Catholic Church

does. It makes a church a road that

leads to heaven.

A few examples show the mean-
ing of this statement.

The Catholic Church has the Mass,

which is the mysterious and unbloody

sacriAce of our Lord’s holy body

blood for the sins of the world. That

the Mass is the unbloody continua-

tion of Mt. Calvary has been the

teaching of the Catholic Church from

the days of the apostles. The Cath-

olic Church has confession which

is the infallible means of having all

— 16



sins taken away through the medium

of the sorrow and purpose of amend-

ment on the part of the penitent, and

the absolution of the priest. That

confession can take away sin is clear-

ly proved from the Bible and has

been held by the Catholic Church

from the days even before the Bible

was completly finished. The Catho-

olic Church has Holy Communion

which is our Lord hiding under the

appearance of bread and wine so

that He can enter the bodies of men

and be a part of their very person.

Holy Communion has been a part of

the heart of the Catholic religion for

nineteen hundred years.

The Catholic Church has five other

sacraments that enable people to go

to heaven besides confession and

Holy Communion. She has many

kinds of prayers. She promotes nu-

merous devotions. She furnishes ex-

— 17—



r
perts for the dispensing of advice in

matters of conscience. She is in close

contact with the angels and the

saints and enlists their help when

necessary.

Any teen-ager who uses these

means faithfully is bound to go to

heaven. The Catholic Church will see

to it that he goes to heaven. He can-

not miss. An he will have a peaceful

and happy life on earth besides. The

Catholic Church has the answer to

all the problems that can arise in the

course of life. This does not exclude

the problems that bother the young.

She can solve the problems both of

time and of eternity. Not a billion

dollars could buy what the Catholic

Church has to offer.

It is too bad that so many teen-

agers do not take their holy, religion

seriously. They take it for granted,

something that they were born with,

— 18—



something that they intend to die

with. Meanwhile they need not

worry too much about it except in

regard to the things that they have

to do— Mass on Sunday, no meat on
Friday, and so forth.

On occasion they are even ashamed

of their religion.

If they are in a group of people in

which some of the people are making

fun of the practices of the Church

and of the priests and the sisters,

they remain silent; or worse still,

they join in the criticism lest they be

laughed at. On Friday when they

are at the house of a non-Catholic

and meat is served, they eat the

meat, again because they are afraid

that if they proclaim their Catholicity

so openly by their refusal to eat the

meat, they will be made fun of. Peo-

ple will look at them as though they

were not quite normal. Some non-

— 19—



/

Catholics consider Catholics a bit ab-

normal. Some Catholic teen-agers

are afraid of this judgment. And so

they hide their faith. They are

ashamed of it.

This is a far cry from the teen-

agers of the early days of the Church

who gave up their lives rather than

deny their holy religion. It is certain-

ly different from the teen-agers who

are members of the Jehovah Wit-

nesses and of the Salvation Army.

The Jehovah Witness boys and-

girls stand on street corners and at-

tempt to interest passersby in their

literature even though they know

that most passersby look upon the

Jehovah Witness religion as a most

fantastic conglomeration of odd be-

liefs. Salvation Army girls will dress

up in a uniform and play a drum or

a trumpet on a street corner in order

“to save” the poor tramps and wan-

— 20—



derers who might be attracted by the

band to stay a moment afterward

and listen to a sermon. It must be

embarrassing to do things like this.

But the young folks swallow their

embarrassment and persevere in

their effort to convert the world to

their way of thinking.

Catholic teen-agers have so much

more to offer. They have the religion

that was founded by Jesus Christ,

that was followed by martyrs and

confessors, by princes and paupers,

by the unlearned and the learned

from the days of our Lord to the

present day. They have a religion

that is founded on tremendous mir-

acles, on great sanctity, on an ac-

ceptance by people of every country

of the world. They have a religion

that has not changed in its essential

doctrines from the day when these

— 21



doctrines were given to the world by

God Himself.

Why then should they be ashamed ?

On the contrary they should try

to the very best of their ability to

promote it amongst those who do not

have it. They can do this by actually

teaching it when the opportunity

arises. When a discussion comes up

on a doctrine or practice of the

Church and nobody seems to have

the right answer, the teen-ager should

step forward with the right answer.

He or she cannot do this unless the

Catholic religion is studied seriously.

And teen-agers can spread the

Catholic religion by good example.

There can be little doubt but that

non-Catholic people know the teen-

agers of a neighborhood who are

Catholic and those who are not, even

— 22



though they may not know the teen-

agers personally at all. And subcon-

sciously if not consciously they watch

the Catholic young people to see

whether or not they live up to the

high ideals that are preached by the

Catholic Church.

If Catholic teen-agers use profane

and foul language; if they are im-

moral in their actions; if they have

little regard for people’s property; if

they roam about in packs of hood-

lums and small-time toughs, they

prevent converts from coming into

the Church. The Church is judged

by their conduct, not by the doctrines

that are proclaimed by the Church.

Teen-agers are the representatives of

the Church. By their bad example

they can do great damage to the

Church’s cause. By their good exam-

ple they can bring many new mem-

bers into the Church without so much

— 23—



as preaching a single sermon or say-

ing a single word. The example of no

class of people is stronger in the ef-

fect it has on others than the exam-

ple, good or bad, of the boys and

the girls in their teens.

The years of the teens may in

many senses be hard. They can be

so easily misunderstood. They can

be filled with new temptations, with

strange feelings of rebellion. At the

same time the years of the teens can

be very happy and can effect great

good. They will be happy and they

will effect great good if they are

made to rest on the firm foundation

of the Catholic Church.

— 24—





Published by

LIGUORIAN PAMPHLETS
REDEMPTORIST FATHERS

LIGUORI, MISSOURI

Printed in U.S.A