Youth Ministry

The current challenge in youth ministry is not religious but anthropological: it is about who they are becoming. This question of identity requires a prior critique of the manipulative images in the dominant culture. (Riccardo Tonelli, unpublished paper on youth ministry, European Symposium, Rome, May 1994;  quoted in Michael Paul Gallagher, Clashing Symbols: An Introduction to Faith and Culture, new and revised edition [London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003] 145.)