PHILIPPINES
Rappler
Aries Rufo
Published 4:00 PM, Jan 13, 2015
AT A GLANCE:
* Sex scandals in the Church have affected the youth’s desire to enter religious life
* 13% of youth respondents said they entertained thoughts of leaving the Church
* A Church protocol on erring priests allowed ‘one-child policy’
* In recent times, two high-ranking bishops resigned due to sexual misconduct
* More priests are seeking clerical dispensation than face dismissal
MANILA, Philippines – Will the rock star Pope be able to reignite the waning attraction of the Filipino youth to religious life? Is there hope in Pope Francis?
A national youth survey has confirmed what Church leaders have known all along: there’s a yawning gap between the youth and the Church, and it’s validated by how the young are shying away from entertaining thoughts of entering religious life.
In particular, financial and sex scandals in the Philippine Catholic Church have created a dent on the faith of young Filipino Catholics, a national survey on the youth showed.
While the gravity of the situation has not reached the scale of the West, Asia’s largest Catholic country has shown symptoms of crisis in faith, inflicted by the very people supposed to safeguard the faith.
The national youth survey commissioned by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on the Youth showed that young Catholics are not as attracted to joining a religious vocation as in the past, which is attributed to the scandals faced by the Church in recent years.
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