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  • Writer's pictureProfiles in Catholicism
    • Oct 27, 2021
    • 27 min read

Youth Challenges and Leadership

Updated: Oct 28, 2021



A Message from the Editor


Barack Obama said "The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create". Based on the thousands of young readers of Profiles in Catholicism including several hundred from Loyola University in Chicago, my alma mater, the future is in great hands.


Sadly, we keep losing young people from all faiths. They leave the Catholic faith for a variety of reasons, but one of these reasons is the barrage of reports of pedophiliac priests. The recent report of 330,000 children victims of church sex abuse in France made headlines all over the world.


As Father Shay Cullen stated “These are days of darkness and light for many in the Catholic Church. The horrific exposes of clerical sexual abuse against children around the world- in the United States, Ireland, Australia, Poland, Germany, Austria and the latest in France- are stunning and shocking and there are more to come. It is just a matter of time.”


We feature a comprehensive database of pedophiliac religious leaders, their crimes, and the response to their crimes on Religious Sexual Abuse of Minors.


Adults are also leaving the church over these challenges. One who left the church because of death threats for her advocacy to address the challenges of pedophilia priests is Mrs. Paul Owczarek, for whom I am asking your prayers to protect her.


We have several staff who work hard to feature the interviews, book reviews, and articles in Profiles in Catholicism and rely on our readers’ donations to pay them. Here is how you can make a donation (tax-deductible in the United States).


A Quote to Remember


“Youth is for taking risks, good risks, risks full of hope. It is meant to be staked on great things. Youth is meant to be given away, to help others to know the Lord. Don’t keep your youth to yourselves: get out there!” by Pope Francis


Special Prayer



Prayer to live the Truth


Blessed are those that fight for truth and justice. They are shining examples to us of honesty and integrity, Lord, by having courage to always fight for the truth, exposing evil and suffering for it

You said “The Truth will set us free”, Help us see and know the truth and accept it and never to keep silent when we know of child abuse by friend ,relative,a stranger. Lord give us strength to help the child and tell the truth.

Your example of speaking out will inspire us, Help us learn your words and actions.

When we know the truth of corruption that always causes suffering give us the courage to expose it and to challenge the wrong doing, confront evil, reveal the truth.

Lord, with your friendship, we will never betray you with silence, apathy, and indifference but to do the good, share and live the truth with honesty and integrity. Amen


Prayer for the Nearly 2 million displaced in Shanxi province

Dearest Lord,

Please help the flood victims in China, save them from further harm, and give their children hope for a better life.

by Sarah Lyon Profiles in Catholicism


Prayer for God’s Presence


When the storm has passed and the light of day will come,

I see your presence in the good that I can do,

In the service I can give,

In the friendship I can share.

Lord show yourself in the smiles

of children helped.

In the hungry that are fed,


“Our Holed Humanity” [1]


… Out of the silence

… Out of the secrecy

… Out of the shame


Has come a voice, oh Lord, not one

but many, not many but too many …


… Out of the silence

In which words fought to form

Or were mangled in the speaking

Or were decried as fabricated


Came the tears through which hearts,

Un-Hid, torched with knowing,

Struggled and grappled with pain

And said what was done, oh Lord, in secret.


… Out of the secrecy

In which files were hidden and moved,

Or left, too difficult to attend to,

Or lost, in paper mazes and people moves


Came the tearing truth to be told,

Shattering, boldly, the practices of the

Past, dismantling pretences and

Witnessing, oh Lord, to what happened.


… Out of the shame,

In which lives were cruelly twisted,

Shocked, unstitched, on hold

Stole the faltering start to stop abuse


Came the call out of silence, oh Lord,

Came the call out of secrecy, oh Lord,

Came the call out of shame, oh Lord!


Passing through a clawed silence

Passing through a scrupulous secrecy

Passing through a cloying shame


From here, oh Lord, will strength begin?

To what, oh Lord, will life now bring?

To whom, oh Lord, will my heart sing?


Oh Mother of the living Son, let life thrive

Oh wife and mother let families survive

Oh wife and mother and daughter too,

Open anew the vocations trashed and reviled.


Oh Joseph, foster father of the Son, show forth

The work, done, undone and still to be done

Of the husband’s cherishing of wife and family,

Foster the dignity of man and woman and work.


Out of awareness, let us listen to others

Out of what we know, let us know the unknown

Out of healing, let us help to prevent the stripping

Of innocence, peace, childhood, and friendship.


So, all angels and saints, search all times and

Places, especially our holed humanity -


An opened wound, like the side of Christ,

Needs to be cleansed to prevent disease,

As it did not close, even after His resurrection,

By way of sharing every other unclosed wound –


Turning hiding places inside out and help us address

The causes of vulnerability; undo disguises,


Challenge us anew to change, going beyond change

To conversion, conversion taking us through to

Being different and discovering the graced blessings

That perfects our efforts and grants us gifts.


Oh Lord, renew the face of the earth and inspire

The passing permanent improvement which, enriching

Now will go with us into eternity, outliving corruption

And causing love to course again through this generation.


1. by Francis Etheredge, author of numerous books and the forthcoming, Within Reach of You: A Book of Prose and Prayers.


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