British Columban priest, Fr Ed O’Connell has credited the YCW method with helping him discover his vocation to become a missionary priest.
“I was talking recently on Zoom, with young adults from the parish where I worked in Peru,” he wrote in the Australian Columban magazine.” I asked them about the political situation and what could be done to improve the life of the ordinary folk.”
“Their reply was stark,” he noted.
“They were and are disenchanted with politicians who are caught up with their own interests of the interests of those who put up the money for them to be politicians,” Fr O’Connell explained.
“These young people are not interested in getting involved, other than individually showing solidarity to those in need or maybe signing petitions in defence of those suffering human rights abuses,” he lamented.
Fr O’Connell recalled that he had had an interest in politics since the 1960s in his days as a member of the YCW in the London suburb of Brixton.
“Many YCW members in the fifties and sixties formed in a ‘see, judge and act”’ methodology and went on to be local councillors and active trade unionists and for me, I discovered my vocation to be a missionary priest,” he continued.
“They, like me, got their strength and direction from their faith. The use of Gospel reflection and a study of the Social Teaching of the Church gave us our lead,” he observed.
“May the Spirit of Jesus Christ be with each of us, as we discern how to play an active part in society, as the responsibility for politics is not just with the politicians,” he wrote, recalling his experience working in Peru to help parents to get involved in advocacy work for children.
Warmi Huasi, a small NGO he and other established in Lima to accompany families living in poverty, “accompanies and enables children and young people to have a voice at local council level, so that the local mayor and councillors hear the needs of the young and their proposed plans to help improve their lives and that of their communities.”
‘It is slowly working, local councils are beginning to see the value of young people’s involvement,” he noted.
“And maybe it is also the first step to breaking apathy and getting a new generation involved in politics, which in the end is about achieving for all the basics of life.”
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The common good (Columbans Australia)
PHOTO
Children from Warmi Huasi in Peru by Fr Ed O’Connell SSC