Catholic youth work

Nearly all dioceses and a great deal of parishes have some form of youth provision running, although a great deal of areas particularly in the developed world are finding youth work both more difficult and rare as the numbers of young people regularly practicing the Catholic faith continue to decline.

In contrast, though, the new and exciting developments of recent decades and particularly the influence of the new movements within the Church are ensuring that youth work continues to be an active and fruitful field.

The advantages to employing priests in these roles include the reduced salary costs, their ability to minister the sacraments and their guaranteed theological knowledge.

Catholic residential youth work is particularly popular in the UK, where an established network of thirteen centers exists, including places like Castlerigg Manor, SPEC Centre, Briars, Soli House, St Vincents Centre and Walsingham House.

Another movement is ECYD which focuses on youth service projects and personal prayer through a network of gender-specific clubs.

Some Catholic movements maintain a more secular appearance to advocate for Christian values like human dignity at the UN and other multilateral settings, as is the case of World Youth Alliance.

The transient nature of these programs makes this field somewhat similar to residential work, however the increased costs of maintaining mission teams combined with the difficulties in recruitment mean that they are normally not as widespread.

Whether or not all groups for, or including, young people in parishes can be considered among the realm of youth work is debatable as many will be catechetical or organised around particular duties rather than holding to the established methodology of informal education.

[4] The last event was in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil in 2013; Kraków, Poland in 2016 was visited by Pope John Paul II.

E.g. the International Federation of Catholic Parochial Youth Movements (Fimcap) has got a partnership with the European Fellowship.

[6] In many countries, some of the doctrines of the Catholic church are perceived by public opinion as outdated or out of touch with reality.