Pope Francis opened Rome’s annual diocesan meeting with a reflection on how to accompany parents in educating their adolescent children.
The Pope said the adolescent experience is one of tension and transition between childhood and adulthood.
He called this a precious and difficult time in which the whole family is called to grow. And he invited the Roman pastors not to treat adolescence as a “pathology to be medicated”; rather, he called it “a normal part of growth,” since “where there is life there is movement and change”.
The Holy Father said this offered parents a unique opportunity to stimulate young people by involving them in projects that challenge them to reach their full potential.
And in his concluding remarks, Pope Francis offered the following very insightful observation, noting that one of the greatest threats to the education of teenagers is the idea of “eternal youth”.
He said when adults want to stay young and young people want to be adults there is a hidden risk of leaving teenagers out of their own growth processes, because parents have taken their place.
This, the Pope said, deprives teenagers of an experience of confrontation necessary for growth into adulthood.
How often has this been affirmed as society sees children often neglected in their formative years by parents so caught up in the gratification of their own pursuits that their children are left without guidance or attention.
There is a moral imperative which holds that children are not to be held responsible for the sins of their fathers (mothers). But there is nothing to suggest that children are not affected by those sins.
Pity our children will bear the burden of contemporary society’s lack of personal, political and moral responsibility. Our generation and that which immediately succeeds us is passing on to our children a crippling debt, a divided and dangerous world, and a moral wasteland of self-indulgence.
How will our children judge us? If they do so fairly, we have much for which to answer!
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