It's not the kind words, pastoral, and therefore the church at the feast, it's not much

that is said to
speak, so... I imagine that, I don't know, to the point where this time, these hours, that we will spend
together, take you away from your thoughts, even not. I say this to say that I would like, I find each
other, I would like the time we spend together to be a time that in the end could be fun. I know that
it will help me to come here, I had to think together, to synthesize some things, for example at the
end of my experience in CEI, to say let's go to those who are preparing to become priests and let's
spend time thinking about the mission, the educational task and how, in what way the educational
task responds to the Church's need for mission, it is strong, everyone understands it, to which the
Pope is referring in a very frank way. It helped me, because, of course, I had to ask myself how we
work, how I make them work, how I don't waste their time, how we try to get passionate about
something, and at the same time I wondered, oh well, to them, what will go through their minds. I
confess this to you, that after many these years, I, in my 30 years as a priest, have spent in it,
immersed in the theme of Leo's youth ministry, in the themes of Ternini. The workshop, the story of
the young women is from Piacenza, the story of the young women is fantastic. And so sometimes I
realize that maybe for those who are always in it, for those who are used to living this thing, a lot of
things can be taken for granted, but in the meantime the world changes and you are more in the way
of updating the world of water, because at 55 years old, at a long age, you tend to enter into a vision
of the world of things that tries to stabilize more and more. You who are young and who live the
condition of youth, the dreams that you have to plan, build and build, do, think, assemble, etc. You
are thus in a different perspective. So, it seems interesting to me, I would like us to work not so
much in the perspective of saying, look, I have a thousand things to say, I'm more experienced than
you, they are really listened to, books of notes, let's try to work by interacting a little together and
trying to raise the meaning, as if we were speaking from two different perspectives. Mine is
certainly the thing of an experience, of a journey, a path of life, yours that has its beginnings for the
other of a mystery, a committee that the Church is about to entrust to you and that here must meet
on the terrain of the life of the ricasso, in particular on the terrain of the life of younger people.
Because you see, here too I would like to ask you now to go for a moment to your history, to your
personal life. I don't know exactly what you think and I don't know exactly how the church of
Naples lives in its territories, let's face it, let's face it, no clue, I don't have any afterthought, I don't
have things that I'm going to say to you, so if I have something to tell you, I'll tell you directly, but
not because you're in Naples or because I have to say something, absolutely not, the things that are
in Naples tell them to Don Federico, We are also very good friends, but this is what I know from
the stories of someone you meet and tell them something. in the church today that unity returns and
therefore I think that We will have to try to be sincere jokes to confront each other a little And I
would start from this thing I would like to provoke On the question that I twist to ask you. But why
should a young person who is about to become a relative have to think, imagine turning off time for
young people? It is not an obvious question, on the contrary, it is all taken for granted if we refer
this question to your young people. As much as that's the case, it's a bit difficult. But if we make it a
question of age, it means considering me as empty statures and improvements of things. Be careful,
I want to, because it is a great grace to meet the seminary for what it has given me, but it is
inevitable that such a path leads at a certain point to give you the feeling, the impression of being
containers that someone, the educators, the professors, the ritual values and so on and so forth, the
domicile on duty that passes at this moment, it must be returned. Those who have to undergo, or at
this moment, we have done so, to undergo, if you know what I mean, such a formation, will almost
spontaneously come out of reproducing the material. What is the risk? The risk is to say, "Oh, I've
endured for a lot of years hours and hours of lectures, hours of meditation, hours of prayer, spiritual
exercises, monthly retreats, and then the seminary said to Don De Luca, and a little bit backwards,
that is, you've just heard it expelled from high school as a reader because you're not studying it
enough, Because you keep your hands in your pockets, you walk out into the hallway and the
reader tells you that you don't put them back in the lake. You walk down the hallway and there's the
spiritual father telling you that you don't pray enough. You walk up a flight of stairs in the morning
in front of the professor and then you tell him that you decide to study and you tell him that here in
this place there is always someone who asks me something, here in this place I am always
inadequate and instead a beautiful person, Don Giuseppe De Muca, who writes and who writes to
seminars in this world. By dint of living like this, at a certain point I made some days, and now I
take you from here and here, and I have stored and stored and now I have thought of things to say.
So, starting, let's take a look at these four and a half by Gregorio Amato. I know that many things in
Sacred Scripture that I have not been able to understand on my own, I have understood by placing
myself in front of my brothers and sisters.

Oh, See the Lord. Scriptures, and the Bible, and the Bible itself, and the Bible itself, and the Bible
itself, the world. We have done it for a short time, so we would have noticed that there would be
many questions to deepen, to study. I think we have managed to put the key points of reference.
Now, this morning I would ask you to work thinking of going to see the Ages of Life. The
discussion about the age of life is a very important one, because we always tend to talk about young
people in terms that are too old. It's a defect that often hits the society. To tell you how far this thing
can go in time, in the year 1997, there was the famous Turkish law, the first law that brought about
the first big reform of the prostitution made in 2004 when the title V was established, the title 328,
which passed before 328 and then the reform of the Italian youth and political world. Until then, as
Luca says, the theme of children, teenagers and teenagers was linked to a great reference, that is,
minors and elders. And the question was simply a question of mind. Minors have the mediator; the
elders have the mediator. and everything was focused on health issues. From that moment on, it was
clear that the issue was not only physical health, it was clearly the development of the person
through the ages. It's interesting, however, that until those years, I know that for you archaeology is
a prehistory, but for someone of a higher age, like me, this is a fairly ethical change, because it says
that this was actually over, that situation, that society for which the passage of life didn't need
anything, because it was the whole society that was standing up for it. And the religious issues and
the social issues, in a certain sense, they coincided. They coincided because there was a
convergence, there was a social fact that brought together the points of reference. It's not that these
points of convergence have been skipped in the 90s. It was a very long process, but it underwent
great accelerations, especially after the war. So, from the following years, to the reconstruction and
economic boom, with the conquest of 1968, everything is increasingly fragmented. And so, we
realize that if before there was a society that, together with the Church, kept the passages together,
helped people to grow, contained them, helped to have reference points, and intermediate things to
reach, at a certain point, the reference points have jumped, the growth, the formation of the person
has encountered new difficulties. And when the difficulties are new, they are not necessarily bigger,
more difficult but they are more difficult because you don't know what to do with them. Anyway,
this content came less, this society that, together with the Church, accompanies the growth of
people, we found ourselves in a situation where the ages of life presented proof, in some way or
another, of the superiority. The mentality, however, was that of the old. I was in the parish in those
years. The Turkish law, I tell you why, to say how the pastoral styles were then, were very different.
I live in a context of parish and oratory. I say this only about the oratory. The oratory does not
coincide with the parish, that is, the oratory is not a reality in itself, but it is the expression of the
parish, of the care that the parish wants to have a meeting with the bishop. The oratory is not a way
to do it, but it is the parish that takes care of the children. The first request of the Turkish law, as
always, to make things work, is to put money in. When there is money, then the people who study
well, and it flows. The Turkish law said, make projects and we finance them. But these projects
must have a characteristic. They must understand different realities. That's where the theme of the
Educational Alliance was born. because it was said that if a project is presented by associations,
institutions, schools, parishes, municipalities, etc. plus associations in the territory, if a project is
done together, then we support it. I don't know why, but I remember that the government was going
to pay a young priest I felt the need to leave my little world and try to connect with others. Not
because I wanted to go and get the money. Paradoxically, at that moment, the opposite happened.
They came to take me to support their projects. It was at that time that something was born that in
the pastoral world has never happened. That is, projects were born, so-called young, they asked you,
I was in a country, in a province, actually a small country, yes, 10,000 inhabitants, and the
administrations felt the need to show everyone that they were dealing with the poorest. The first
social cooperatives that were born, they were born because those who wanted to spend their lives
doing the work of an educator, needed support. And they were born in such a way, they wrote
projects, no one was able to write projects. Two things happened in the first meeting. In one of these
first meetings, I still remember, a few sheets were shared and it was written the in 1995, in 1993,
there was the youth capitalism and the age group was 14, 18, teenagers, 18, 25, young people. In the
following years, in the years 2000, 2010, 2020, to the GMG up to 35. A huge, immense fortune.
When it was discussed for the synod, it was possible to do 14-30, more or less, repetitively, because
an international thing must take into account that in Africa, for example, at 15 years old, you are
practically almost an adult. So, let's go back to Italy, even for us, pushing from childhood to 35
years old meant giving air to the credit in some way with the idea that you never leave home, that
life is clearly a test, that you never become an adult. Anyway, this thing, already in the 90s, was the
sign of a certain lack of capacity to recognize a whole series of needs. Let's go back to those 11-25
years, it was a scissor that had to put everyone the I prepared my speech thinking of the young
people over 18 as a minimum.

The purpose of the work was to try to be aware that differences exist. I know you know that. But
just the fact that, even just starting to talk, you realize that you would not finish anymore. Open
your abdomen. Try to look in the dimensions of life for the differences between one age group and
the other and you will not finish anymore. I think that it can help us to give this feeling that too
many times a plaster and a rare, indefinite, too superficial, that tries to keep everyone in, making the
same proposal for everyone, and it can't get anywhere. Having said that, I don't ask you to tell me
the differences you have pointed out. It could be an interesting work, but a specific work, and today
we don't have the time to do it. I would like to ask you, if you can do a first round, so fast, if
someone can hear you, to say what you have felt when you started to enter this observation. What
are the feelings you have experienced also in relation to your pastoral experience that you have been
doing in the parish or in relation to what you have experienced in your parish, what you have
experienced or what you see in the life of the diocese. Because I think there are some particular
declinations that only you can say. So, the question is, what did you feel doing this work? And what
are the other thoughts that came to you? So, there is no need to say too intelligent things. I mean,
tell me what are the feelings that came to you. I think that's the way it is. The first one is a bit out of
the blue, but it's based on my experience. I thought that when it's difficult to do this kind of passage,
it's too indefinite. It's really this difficulty of who is going to do this kind of work. Excuse me, I
have a question. Do you mean to say that you have difficulties to talk in front of these people, put
together, or even to communicate with the guys? No, no, I mean, put together, indefinitely. I just
had a feeling, when I first came here, when I read the two age groups, it seemed like two completely
different pastoral groups. and young adults, it's a step almost to the peak. So, this was really the first
impression. Then, of course, the work started, but as an impact, personally, I had this. and the
impact that this had on me. It's so true what Francesco said, that for a certain time, for many years,
there were two huge things to support the past. One was the examinist, which still has the same
weight. To be a mature person 30 years ago, today they call it a state exam, back then they called it
maturity. So, it was not a passage, but it was a starting point. The second thing is military service.
The service of the lever, when you came back, around the age of 20, there was a story, work and
family, it was over, the playground was over. Think about you, a 20-year-old boy today, in terms of
construction, beyond the law. While he is asking me another question. But then it is possible. I
mean, it is not that one who goes to the parish and has to think of two different past oralities can't do
it, because it is too much. For me, perhaps, the feeling at the beginning was a bit of a
disappointment in front of these two categories that are so generic. In fact, in the group, a first
discussion was about what age to place in these two categories. We thought of placing 13-17 among
teenagers and 18-30, or even 32, among young people. And perhaps another difficulty I encountered
was to find, how to say, common declinations for this age. Because what I noticed is that, especially
for young people, it depends a lot on the experience you have had, on the context in which you
grew up, on the possibilities you had. So not only are pastoral different, but they are pastoral that
must be personalized, I think. That is, to match the point, where the person is, where the boy is. So,
it becomes perhaps even more difficult to go into detail what, perhaps, is what must be done. Yes,
but I'm telling myself on the one hand that it is necessary, it must be done, I tell you guys, to say
different things is easier than it seems. That is, there is only one thing, to want well. When you want
well, you do it well. the Paris has watched this period. These things can be supported by a myriad of
very refined paths that explain to me what adolescence, adolescence, sociological studies,
investigations are like. I've been working for 10 years in the Togliolo Institute, which publishes
research every year on young people, the relationship between young people, etc. It's visible on the
internet. You'll never stop reading these things. There are myriad of things. But if I may, there's only
one thing that will save you. To run well and be curious about the other. But if you are curious about
the other, you love him. Curious, clearly, not in terms of... in terms of despising him, but precisely
because you love him, you learn to be careful, you remain in a situation of hiding. It is the reality
that tells you what's going on. So, we collect all the contribution of human sciences, but we never
explore... or spirituality, we never explore these things in the study of ideas. Always the attitude of
the two age groups. And then, even if you don't have the talent, you can't go out, right? The first
thing is that many times young people are still teenagers and that therefore, yes, you go down a
path, a formation, you try to convince the eyes, right? A little bit the eyes of this board, but many
times they do a lot to adolescence. and even more, the second point is that I see that there are
already two different ways. For example, the teenager who is 14 years old already experiences a
loss in terms of the new school, and stability. A 17-year-old, a 17-year-old teenager, not a target,
let's say, already experiences a disillusionment, but it works in the future, right? What do I have to
do? Do I have to leave the work environment? Do I have to go to university? So, probably, there is a
subgroup in the subgroup, right? And many times, a pastoral thought for teenagers, people who are
divided by the age of teens, is not, at least, what I do, suitable for all teenagers. Because there are
many Ss among them. So, while I was compiling these two columns, what I was trying to do, also
referring to the fact that we are at the Tiki, was to say, how much do I take for granted that there are
both teenagers and young people. Because sometimes we give them already non-confectionated
writings, already confectionated things. and I think that, finding a little bit of synthesis between
what we said yesterday and what we did this morning, maybe the big fear is to get into the
discussion, we put into the discussion what are our modalities, and listen to others. This, perhaps,
sometimes puts in quotes those that are my mental structures, my modalities. So, I think that
perhaps a fear that must then, above all, embody a community or a territory is born precisely from
the fact that perhaps there is the fear of entering into discussion, of putting into discussion my
systems. So, I think, perhaps, from here everything comes out, the I had a bit of a problem in
dividing the two sides, the adolescents and the young people. I thought that adolescents tend to
become young immediately, or the opposite, that adolescents tend to grow old and never become
young. So, I had this doubt. And then, to the question, is it possible to do two different pastoral
services? I don't know, I thought maybe yes. foreign I'm Luigi. When I completed the schedule, I
stopped, I'm talking about the Adolescents' Column, because they are the ones, I follow the most
closely, I stopped at the group I follow this year, and the group I followed last year, in another
parish, and I made the difference, because the parishes are in two completely different parts of the
city. The current Baroque is a more bourgeois point, while the previous one is a more popular point,
very popular. And I realized the difficulty I have in relating with the boys who are of a more
bourgeois mentality, who have always grown up in this mentality, let's say. And I also thought about
the difficulty of having a guy from my current group talk to a guy from the previous group. The
difficulty is in the fact that, I say this as a very banal thing, but it's also a habit. There's an abysmal
difference, precisely in the context of growth. precisely in the context of growth. from the context
of fish.
The poor thing. Nothing happened. Okay? We get to pre-teenage years. And here we have the whole
discussion about teenage years. The so-called middle-aged boys, who should be the age of the
crisis, which should be more or less that age in which it is true, they are out of their heads, they
have the hormones, the body is starting to change, etc., etc. Then now they enter the whole world of
social media, and so on, and among these they would have, they would begin to have the capacity to
exercise their freedom. So, what the Kresima could tell them, that is, take your life, be responsible,
start choosing, you are the one who can fight it, so as not to lose the great images that the soldier of
Christ can fight evil with his brutality. They disappear because we surrender. There are some
speeches. I remember that the last time I was there, I was impressed by this thing. I'm not going to
say anything about the celebrations, which I will not be able to explain, without the need to make a
long announcement. So, obviously, you say, 20 years have passed since you left the laboratory. And
obviously I stand in front of the guys and say, who knows if I would still be able, I said, I'm not
crazy with these guys. Who knows how they are. No, they are changed, they are too different. They
told me, I read in these years of everything. My guys were something else. What will they be? You
have to preach; you have to play for 10 minutes. On a holiday, I will be able to communicate
something, tell them something. And then comes the moment when some banks come out and they
come to you. And you have to say, I'm not crazy with these guys. Who knows how they are. And
then comes the moment when the banks come out and I see in front of me the entire championship
of my boys. So, I see the shy one who looks down at the camera, I see the perfect one who has the
helmet, he also has the jeans and the sneakers, he has the helmet and the shoes. He's wearing a tie
and he's a bit shy. I see that ugly one who's a bit shy. I see that pretty one who's... I see that...
already naked one who's looking at you, how can I say... See you tonight. You understand that
someone is already in a different world. Do you see that? It's kneading like this. Do you see that?
Do you see it? Do you see the catalogue of your children? And you understand that humanity is
always that. And then you ask yourself, why did we get involved with these guys? Why do we now
realize that we can't be together anymore, we can't be with them anymore? We can't live the
religious experience by putting it together with their lives. This is the question that comes to me in
the following questions. I ask myself this question, and I say, is it true that it is like that? I don't
think so. But it is true that we are resistant. But it is not a judgment, I don't mean that we are wrong,
that we are not capable. I don't know what happens. It happens, however, that, I'm talking about
Italy, Napoli, no. Napoli was fine. But it happens that in Italy, in the face of these things, you
continuously hear the lamentations, the prophecies of misfortune. And once it's like this, and you
can't do it anymore, and these kids, and the family doesn't care, the parents... But who told you that
parents don't matter? If you were able to find a moment with them... You see, in our languages we
always end up with the usual things, the meeting. What does it mean, meeting? Try it. Sure. One-
on-one is hard. Two-on-two is not easy. I can't go around all the families. The issue is to start
finding an alliance, a connection. We're not going crazy. We're going crazy writing great documents
on synodality and we don't understand what you've already understood and said ten minutes ago. I
have to get help. It's a good start. It's not exactly the right thing. We have to consider the community
as something that is intact. So, it's not just about getting help. We have to help each other. It is clear
that those who accept or want to share an educational task within the community must also have the
means to appreciate the work. Because we must agree, we must all play the same game and we must
learn to find a way to have your own goal. I believe that these things are not impossible. I would
like to add one more thing, guys. We, as good priests who have been seminarians, we always have
in mind the model of the seminar that we are given, that is, if at 7.30, I say a normal day, not a
Saturday, which is a different day, but if at 7.30, a normal day, there is the Mass, everyone gets up
and goes to Mass. If there is meditation, everyone does meditation. We are in this formative
perspective, so everyone does everything, and everyone does the same thing. In a community, and
for the moment I define community as a community, which means a neighbourhood, a territory, we
have learned, we know it now, and not all of them are Christians, let's say, practitioners, not all of
them enter this... So, let's leave aside for a moment those who are atheists for heaven, let's leave
aside those who belong to other religious denominations for a moment, not because we're not
interested in them, but I want to go to the community of the baptized who feel that they have a
minimum, a thin thread, even a thin thread of connection with the parish. We, with all that people
there, we will never be able to reason as we reason. We should never think as if we were thinking.
On Sunday at 10.30, at 11, there is the Mass, everyone will come to Mass. But not because we don't
want to, but because even our own Church will not be able to contain them. We know that not
everyone does everything. But we will need to do things, But the things we do in terms of liturgies,
in terms of spiritual, in terms of catechesis, of preaching the word, in terms of formation, but also in
terms of play, of relationship, of community life, of laboratory, of theatrical experience, rather than
musical, and so on, where they are open experiences, where I know from the beginning that not
everyone will come, but everyone must know that they are possible, accessible. And while I do
them, I know that they will be done in a few, in the hope that these few will be a bit of a light, a bit
of salt, also for all others. So, if we really manage to free ourselves from the idea that we should not
make big achievements and we are not interested in the full numbers, always open parenthesis, this
does not mean that I do not care who is not there, who does not tell me, indeed, so to speak, the
most distant ones still worry me, I'm still worried. I said that I don't have to do the procession, and I
won't do it, no one will ever do it, I've never done it in my life, you'll never do it, but I have to be
there with that unity of those who say, I light a light inside this territory. It's the light of faith, it's the
light of the Gospel, it's the light of a Christian Bible that tries to confront itself. If I say it well, if
this light does not claim to be the light of everyone, but is a Christian proposal made with serenity
and with the heart, then the light will shine in the hearts of many, even those who do not believe. I
believe that if we enter into a vision of this kind, the strategies to build a Christian initiative with
children and young people, we find them and we can make them live an experience of peace and
love. Knowing that the good must still remain. and that is adolescence. You all know what
adolescence is, because it is closer to you than to me in terms of time. Meanwhile, adolescence is a
condition of life linked to some biological changes. But adolescence is still a strange thing, very
strange. Where does adolescence go? We know that sometimes we need a little bit of convention
and we say, ok, 17, 18 years old, but we find the traces of adolescence in the 50s. What are the 50,
55, 60s on Facebook? It's the teenagers, the idiots. Idiots because being teenagers at that age means
being an adult. There is no history. I can forgive everything a 15-year-old who is a teenager. I can't
forgive you. I don't grant you; you are stupid. That's how our society is. So, traces of adolescence
come and never end. But it's true that that age starts from that characteristic where everything
changes. And we should remember two or three things that I would like to list now, quickly. The
first is that the change, these guys, I think that children are in a state of suffering, they don't ask for
it. In the end, childhood is a very serious condition. I don't have to think about anything, all the
others think the same. I cry a little, I sit there and ask for a game, a destiny, a place to stay. I ask for
something; I ask to go to a party. But I don't have to worry about anything. Why leave the
childhood? A paradise where everyone runs to meet me. Then I start to feel like it. The first
experiences of friendship that school and parish make you do make you feel like it, you start to say
to your mother, I'm fed up, I prefer to spend time with my friends and live outside. and live outside.
I mean, you understand that the outside is a calamity that attracts you.