c. 2006 Religion News Service
WICKLIFFE, Ohio _ Play that funky music, church boys.
Play it with Christian artists like the rockers Sanctus Real and five-time Grammy winner Steven Curtis Chapman. Play it and Catholic youth _ not always accustomed to hearing their generation’s music in parishes _ will come by the multitudes.
An estimated 20,000 people _ many of them, in the words of the Wild Cherry song, “dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin”’ _ lifted their hands and feet over the grounds of St. Mary Seminary on a recent Sunday for a daylong youth festival sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.
“This is incredible,” Chapman said as he looked out over a sea of humanity in sunglasses, T-shirts and jeans shorts, with braces and nose rings and baseball caps set backward and forward. “As far as the eye can see, there are people.”
As masses of young people huddled near the stage, there was even some moshing and crowd surfing on the warm, sunny day.
“I love the bands,” said Linzie Holowenko, 16, of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Amherst. “It gets God’s word out, and it’s still just really fun to listen to.”
Unlike some nondenominational groups, the Catholic Church and other mainstream religious groups have been slower to integrate contemporary Christian music into parish life.
“It shows the hunger that people have to be inspired, to stand among their peers, to have a sense of community, and to find support in living the Gospel,” said the Rev. Robert Stec, who started the annual event six years ago, when about 3,000 people showed up.
Chapman, an evangelical Protestant musician, said in an interview before his performance that it seems like in the last five years the Catholic Church has shown a greater openness to contemporary Christian music. And that’s a good thing, he said.
Preach to some young people, and they may tune you out, he said.
“If you’re going to sing to me, then I’ll listen,” he said of the reaction of many youth. “That seems to get the message into the heart a little more” easily.
The Fest provided opportunities for young people and their families to play games, attend biking and basketball exhibitions, learn about seminary life, even go to Confession. But the centerpiece was the contemporary Christian bands.
Aaron Flick, 17, from the youth group at St. John Neumann parish in Strongsville, said “it would help a tremendous amount” in reaching young people if parishes were more receptive to Christian rock. The music, he said, “reconnects our faith to everyday life.”
Some church leaders are sympathetic. The Catholic message has stayed the same even as the songs have changed in every generation of the church, Stec said.
“The ongoing challenge is to allow each generation to sing the song in new ways with different instruments,” Stec said. “For some reason, we get reluctant to allow each generation to bring the song to life in their time.”
(David Briggs writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)
KRE/PH END BRIGGS
Editors: To obtain photos from The Fest, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.
See mainbar, RNS-FRIDAY-MOURNING, also transmitted Aug. 14.