If, like me, you spend a lot of your time monitoring Catholic news feeds (okay, unlikely) the chances are that you're at least aware of the 'March for Life' that's been happening in the US these past few days.

I think I'm right in saying that the event is timed to coincide with the 1973 'Roe vs. Wade' Supreme Court decision which legalised abortion in the US. Although, I gather, it's not entirely about the abortion issue, that is certainly the main part of the whole thing.

I was also interested to read that young people seem to be a huge part of the March for Life. You can read here about how many of them were there, and you can also read another piece, also from CNA, about the words of Card. DiNardo to young people gathered for a vigil a few days back.

I often get suspicious when people try to push their cause by telling the world that it's popular with young people. Sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's a carefully worked out ploy based on a few well chosen camera angles and a belief that young people won't be organised enough to dispute the claim. You see, youthfulness sells.

Where the March for Life is concerned though, it seems that the claims are more credible. The youth ministry community are backing up the reports, which suggests to us that this event isn't just something young people are interested in stateside, but also a major event in the youth events calendar over there.

In the UK we often shy away form making life issues a big part of our ministry. We touch on it in catechesis, and I'm sure that youth ministers are uniformly pro-life in their own beliefs, but we are slow to make it a key theme in our work. This isn't necessarily a terribly bad thing, but I think it bares a little more scrutiny.

My model of youth ministry has always been that you don't lead off with issues. You lead off with Christ. Our first aim - indeed one of our only fixed aims - is to bring young people into a loving relationship with Christ. That personal justification and sanctification, must come first. After that, comes an exploration of ways to express faith.

At this point, things can diverge. Young people might get interested in different ways to pray and worship from one another. They might also feel called to get involved in different issues. Some will become charismatics; some will like nice, quiet Masses. Some will feel called to save the planet; others to save the unborn, or to help those marginalised by trade injustice. In issues, as in spirituality, it takes all sorts. No issue is wrong, but yet no issue is a must have. At least, that's how it should be. Sadly, the Catholic world these days is split up into camps. Along with those camps, come a set of issues. If you're on 'the right' you are interested in life issues. If you're on 'the left' your thing is trade justice and the environment. No swapsies!

As we've touched on a few times of late, the barriers are starting to break down. We are starting to see a new Church emerging which doesn't much care for the ridiculously divisive left-right divide. It is challenging the worst excesses of both 'sides' and emerging strongly: Charitable, yet not to the point of being weak. Orthodox, yet not to the point of being intolerant or nasty.

I rather hope that, if there is such a thing as what I'm describing starting to emerge, it will include a reassessment of how we tackle pro-life issues.

Part of our reticence as youth ministers is that other issues are just easier. It's hard to disagree that trade justice or saving the planet are important, and even if there is disagreement it's normally not that vehement. With abortion on the other hand, there are just so many potential landmines to tread on, even perhaps among our own young people. That can, and does, put us off.

I think we're also put off by the fact that the Pro-life movement in the UK isn't exactly great. The nicest thing you can say about it is that it is fractured and can't even coherently work with itself. But whatever you think about it, the fact remains that for most youth ministers it's a massive turn off.

Related to that is the fact that the Pro-life movement in the UK is often seen as militant. And I don't mean in a saintly, noble 'Church militant' sort of way. I mean nasty. Rightly or wrongly, the Pro-life movement is seen as one for whom getting into a fight and winding people up isn't so much an occupational hazard as an added bonus.

We need to remember that this is a positive message which can be put charitably. I have been involved with at least one school in which a speaker from Life came in to school and was a regular part of the RE programme. Her message was charitable, clear and strong, and it won over a huge amount of students. Even those without much of a faith. For a long time afterwards you could see students proudly displaying those lovely badges with the two little feet on their blazers.

Perhaps the key to getting young people and youth ministers interested in Life issues is to help everybody to see it as a positive campaign rather than a negative one. At the minute it's seen as being primarily against something. Worse still, it's seen as being against people - ad hominem at times. We are, of course, against abortion, but we are Pro-life first and foremost. We believe that abortion is wrong because we believe that even the tiniest spark of life is endowed with the breath of God, and that it has the capacity to bring a great amount of joy, hope and love.

I'm not sure how a March for Life would work here in the UK. It would be interesting to find out. One thing I am sure of though, is that we can make more of the Pro-life campaign in youth ministry, and that we can do so in a positive, life-affirming, charitable way.

[image hotlinked from CNA]