Yes, Rio 2013 is going to be unpopular in the West, but...

Rio de Janeiro

A few months ago, Fr Christopher Jamison (Director of the National Office for Vocation) wrote an article for the Catholic Herald urging young British Catholics not to be afraid of going to Rio. It was a persuasive and well-written piece (alas, not available online) and I really hope that it hits home. World Youth Day, after all, is an incredibly powerful event, and given its clear impact on vocations to the priesthood and religious life, I can well see why Fr Jamison is so keen to see a strong uptake.

Sadly though, I think that the uptake from the UK is going to be incredibly low. We should do what we can to support those groups and those individual young people who have a realistic hope of getting there, but in reality I think that we may also (note: also, not instead) need to focus past Rio and think about how we can turn this disappointment into an opportunity.

There are several reasons for the low uptake. The main one is that Rio is a long way from the UK (read: expensive) which means that it's going to be hard for young people to raise the money. Add to that the fact that the usual three year prep time has been shortened to two years (thanks to the World Cup having called shotgun on Rio 2014), and then factor in that we are in a time of global recession, and you start to see the problem.


To read more of Jack Regan's article on Catholic Youth Work.Com see: www.catholicyouthwork.com/index.php?page=920