Archive, Conversation with
Search for Meaning
The French journalist Pierre Jova came to Norway before Christmas to prepare a series of articles on the Catholic Church in Norway for La Vie. You can find the articles here.
We’ve seen in Norway that many young men are interested in Catholicism…
As well as a number of young women! At the moment, here in the West, we live through a time of great anxiety. It has become difficult to envisage the common good. We withdraw into little enclosures where we speak only with likeminded people.
That ends up being boring!
We are anxious about the climate, about our economy; we face the reality of a major war in Europe, not to mention the changing relationships between our continent and the United States; then there are all the perplexities concerning human nature. It is remarkable that a period marked by technological and scientific hyper-sophistication should have such a hard time spelling out what a man or a woman is.
This loss of parameters leads almost by necessity to a new quest for sense. We begin to ask whether there is such a thing as truth and falsehood in this world.
In such a context, institutions that have stood the test of time, that have shown durability not just for a few decades, but for centuries, even millennia, exercise fascination. The young wonder what this is all about. We must accompany them patiently, listening to their questions, their hopes, while presenting them with the fullness of faith. We must open for them the marvellous world of the Bible. And permit them to have a real experience of community, of communion.
Pilgrims on their way to Selja.