Founder of LifeTeen Excommunicated

[LittleWaySoul]

I'm curious for the opposite reason, actually. My experience with it has been less than positive, but I've not heard anything bad about lifeteen in general and I'm curious if I'm not alone in feeling this way. Or I'm curious if it's not just an isolated problem in my parish. Either way, I'm interested to hear what Miles has to say.

[PhuturePriest]

I'm interested to hear what you know about lifeteen. Not to start a debate buy just legitimately curious.

 

EDIT: DANGIT this mobile site doesn't let me scroll over to edit that typo!  

​Their liturgies are less than stellar, for one, and given what we now know about the architect behind them, I don't see how that can be seen as debatable.

Edited June 14, 2015 by PhuturePriest

[LittleWaySoul]

​Their liturgies are less than stellar, for one, and given what we now know about the architect behind them, I don't see how that can be seen as debatable.

That's all you had? 

[PhuturePriest]

That's all you had? 

​I've admittedly had no first-hand experience of LifeTeen, because my diocese doesn't have it. However, given that my diocese is very orthodox and has programs galore for the youth, LifeTeen's complete absence certainly tells me what my bishop and previous bishops think of it. However, I have heard that their liturgies are focused on feel-goodism and "spiritual highs", with worship music and much hand-waving back and forth amongst its participants, which is wholly inappropriate given what the Liturgy is: the Sacrifice of the Lamb.

Edited June 14, 2015 by PhuturePriest

[PhuturePriest]

That's all you had? 

​I am very interested in what your experiences were, however. I am quite interested in what you have to say about it.

[Ash Wednesday]

When they first introduced LifeTeen there were a lot of problems with liturgical abuses. Even at my home parish where the priests were generally faithful priests, they would muddy the waters with some "feelgood" innovations like letting children surround the altar leading up to the consecration -- stuff like that. They cracked down and did away with that in my diocese, though, to the point where the only major difference between LifeTeen and the other masses was the "praise and worship" style of music. That, and the people clapping. It REALLY isn't my cup of tea at all, but that's a personal preference I'm not going to debate with someone.

I think, much like the way the mass is implemented and said today, the level of abuses will vary from parish to parish.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2015 by Ash Wednesday

[Nihil Obstat]

I knew many people my age through high school who went to Lifeteen Masses regularly. Not a single one of them is a practicing Catholic anymore. From what I can tell on Facebook every one of them has apostatized and most are openly anti-Catholic.

[LittleWaySoul]

Yeah, no liturgical abuses in my experience. I didn't prefer the mass style but again, that was a preference. There was never even clapping except for sometimes in the closing song.

The problem I had with lifeteen, as I said, may have been more of a problem with its implementation than a problem with the program itself. We never discussed anything of much substance, or at least it didn't seem that way to me. No controversial issues or anything, just fluffy stuff that, while good in itself, wasn't appropriate or appealing to high schoolers in today's secular culture. Often I knew more than the core members only through a few Google searches and common sense (I went to a public high school, so I had no formal theological training). They had us do silly games as ice breakers that had minimal relevance to what we were supposed to learn.

 

Overall I kind of just felt babied and treated like a child who couldn't really handle the depths of the faith. There would often be a presentation and then we would get into small groups to discuss. The core member for our group would nervously ask pre-made questions from a sheet of paper, and I would often be the only one willing to answer after awkward silence. And my answers seemed to be beyond what the core member expected of a high school kids, so they'd either say something like, "Wow I never thought of that " or use me to essentially teach the other teens in the group through my answers.

 

I felt alienated and set apart, and while the other teens often seemed to fit in better, their lack of participation in serious discussions and lack of interest in such conversations outside of this context lead me to believe that the reason they enjoyed it was the social aspect. I also saw a lot of hypocrisy in the teens because of how enthusiastic they'd supposedly be at lifeteen, but not during discussions of the faith or in secular or school contexts. It seemed like they used what superficial faith they had to get to go to lifeteen to hang out with their friends, but didn't own it in contexts outside of those. I don't believe this was actually the case for several, because they've continued to be active in lifeteen after high school as core members, but this is just what my observations were as a high school participant were. 

 

Having a younger brother still in high school, I see that the program hasn't changed much except that there's less kids going. My brother hated going as much as I did, when my parents still made him go.

 

Again, though, I have no real way of knowing whether that's all the fault of lifeteen, the implementation of it in my parish, or a little bit of both. But anyway, that's my experience.

[Maggyie]

Well my parish growing up used Life Teen exclusively (I did not participate because I wasnt a practicing Catholic until college). They have had 5 priests ordained from the parish in the last 10 years and send young men to the seminary almost every year. A whole bunch of my classmates are newbie priests now. We all went to the public high school by the way. Not a homeschooler in the bunch.

So the main factor is the quality of the people running the program and also whether the parish makes it a priority to support the whole concept of youth ministry. 

[truthfinder]

I knew many people my age through high school who went to Lifeteen Masses regularly. Not a single one of them is a practicing Catholic anymore. From what I can tell on Facebook every one of them has apostatized and most are openly anti-Catholic.

​From what I remember of my parish at the time, it turned out to be half and half.  Some people have definitely matured in their faith, others have most certainly turned away.  The people running it at the time were solid, particularly the priests.  I never stuck around for the meetings themselves (mostly because they were rather late for my family), and we rarely went to the Lifeteen Masses (I hated some of the liturgical changes they made for the altar servers - it might have been localized to that parish, but this altar girl wasn't impressed).  Most people who went to Lifeteen were also enrolled in the Catholic schools (which imo are much better than in your diocese).  But in the end I think it really boiled down to home spiritual life and sometimes individual devotion/interest. If parents were just dropping their kids off to entertain them, or hope the church would do all the catechising, it didn't work out too well.  

[dominicansoul]

I was introduced to LifeTeen at the time of it's founding.  My reaction to it was "20 years after Vatican II and we are still trying to re-invent the Mass."  At the time of it's implementation in my parish (I'm speaking the mid 80's here folks, I'm old,) it's main objective was to make Mass more entertaining for the youth.  That really insulted me at the time.  I kept thinking, instead of turning the Mass into the "late show with Johnny Carson," why not offer proper catechesis and reverent Masses? 

 

I don't know how it is today, I have not had any experience with it since that time...

[veritasluxmea]

Ew, liturgical abuse. Thankfully I haven't experienced that in connection with LifeTeen, that parish I know that uses LifeTeen doesn't have masses specifically for it. 

LWS's perspective was most interesting to me; I've had that issue in non-LT groups growing up. It's a serious problem.

[PhuturePriest]

Yeah, no liturgical abuses in my experience. I didn't prefer the mass style but again, that was a preference. There was never even clapping except for sometimes in the closing song.

The problem I had with lifeteen, as I said, may have been more of a problem with its implementation than a problem with the program itself. We never discussed anything of much substance, or at least it didn't seem that way to me. No controversial issues or anything, just fluffy stuff that, while good in itself, wasn't appropriate or appealing to high schoolers in today's secular culture. Often I knew more than the core members only through a few Google searches and common sense (I went to a public high school, so I had no formal theological training). They had us do silly games as ice breakers that had minimal relevance to what we were supposed to learn.

 

Overall I kind of just felt babied and treated like a child who couldn't really handle the depths of the faith. There would often be a presentation and then we would get into small groups to discuss. The core member for our group would nervously ask pre-made questions from a sheet of paper, and I would often be the only one willing to answer after awkward silence. And my answers seemed to be beyond what the core member expected of a high school kids, so they'd either say something like, "Wow I never thought of that " or use me to essentially teach the other teens in the group through my answers.

 

I felt alienated and set apart, and while the other teens often seemed to fit in better, their lack of participation in serious discussions and lack of interest in such conversations outside of this context lead me to believe that the reason they enjoyed it was the social aspect. I also saw a lot of hypocrisy in the teens because of how enthusiastic they'd supposedly be at lifeteen, but not during discussions of the faith or in secular or school contexts. It seemed like they used what superficial faith they had to get to go to lifeteen to hang out with their friends, but didn't own it in contexts outside of those. I don't believe this was actually the case for several, because they've continued to be active in lifeteen after high school as core members, but this is just what my observations were as a high school participant were. 

 

Having a younger brother still in high school, I see that the program hasn't changed much except that there's less kids going. My brother hated going as much as I did, when my parents still made him go.

 

Again, though, I have no real way of knowing whether that's all the fault of lifeteen, the implementation of it in my parish, or a little bit of both. But anyway, that's my experience.

​My main critique of most youth programs is that they are incredibly condescending. They give the air of "You're not smart enough/not mature enough to handle the depth of the faith, so we'll do lots of games and introduce the faith in small and isolated bites". You can tell by the way a program teaches the faith if the organizers think kids are simply not capable of hearing and understanding the fullness of the faith, and the reason why I brought up LifeTeen's liturgy is not merely because it contains liturgical abuses, but because when it has praise and worship music and encourages clapping your hands and swaying to the beat, that shows a very condescending attitude towards teenagers. It says that they're not mature enough or serious enough to handle a serious liturgy devoid of petty entertainment included solely to keep teens focused, which in turn actually turns the kids away. I've never met a teen, either devout or lax, who has ever expressed enjoyment out of rock music at Mass and swaying to the beat. In fact, every one I've spoken to adamantly hates it.

That's actually why I really love and appreciate John Paul II: In a time where this sort of thing was rampant and encouraged, throughout his clerical life he got close to kids and made it a point to teach them the whole faith in all its hardship and truth, because he firmly believed that kids are both smart enough and mature enough to learn it and be challenged by it. To be fair to LifeTeen, it is by far not the only program that teaches in a very condescending way. There are very few youth programs I've personally experienced that unapologetically taught the kids the fullness of the faith. In the ones I did have that experience, the kids were very on fire and serious about their faith. For me, the proof is in the putting, really. Programs that teach in a condescending way and have Mass in a condescending way raise future non-Catholics. They treat Catholicism like a joke, because Catholicism treated them like a joke.

[truthfinder]

​ They treat Catholicism like a joke, because Catholicism treated them like a joke.

​Bravo! This really sums up a lot of treatment of Catholicism in the last many years (and not just because Vat II) and not only to Lifeteen.  

[PhuturePriest]

​Bravo! This really sums up a lot of treatment of Catholicism in the last many years (and not just because Vat II) and not only to Lifeteen.  

​Honestly, I really don't think this sort of thing can be connected with Vatican II. This sort of nonsense would have occurred with or without Vatican II.

[Nihil Obstat]

​Honestly, I really don't think this sort of thing can be connected with Vatican II. This sort of nonsense would have occurred with or without Vatican II.

In a sense the Consilium lent those experimenters a sort of legitimacy. If the Consilium members could tweak and fiddle with the Mass, then why not them? If a totally new Mass can be invented with the stroke of a pen, then why could their abuses and experiments not likewise become a legitimate option?

[PhuturePriest]

In a sense the Consilium lent those experimenters a sort of legitimacy. If the Consilium members could tweak and fiddle with the Mass, then why not them? If a totally new Mass can be invented with the stroke of a pen, then why could their abuses and experiments not likewise become a legitimate option?

It did not in any way give experimenters legitimacy, ​because Sacrosanctum Concilium explicitly states that no priest under any circumstances has the power to tamper with the words or the form of the Mass. The Council held that you need an extraordinary authority such as the Bishops or the Pope in order to do something as serious as changing the Mass, not some renegade priest or program organizer who wants to spice the music up to keep kids interested.

Besides, with that point I implicitly was speaking about treating kids like a joke, not the liturgy itself.

[PhuturePriest]

In a sense the Consilium lent those experimenters a sort of legitimacy. If the Consilium members could tweak and fiddle with the Mass, then why not them? If a totally new Mass can be invented with the stroke of a pen, then why could their abuses and experiments not likewise become a legitimate option?

​Not to mention that tampering with the Liturgy didn't appear as a result of Vatican II anyway. In the years prior to Vatican II, liturgical abuses and changes in the Liturgy were happening all over the place from priests and bishops, and in fact that sort of thing has pretty much always occurred. I read that Saint Robert Bellarmine would often attend Masses posing as a layperson and then afterwards would walk into the sacristy and count off all the liturgical abuses he witnessed and told off the priests for committing them.

[truthfinder]

​Honestly, I really don't think this sort of thing can be connected with Vatican II. This sort of nonsense would have occurred with or without Vatican II.

​I wanted to clarify my comment: treating Catholicism as a joke was happening in some quarters well before Vat II (things being treated with a wink and a nod) although it got more wide spread afterwards.  That being said, there were definitely some things justified in Lifeteen Masses in some parishes because they 'in the Spirit of Vatican II'  - and it's one thing to say 'well that's not what the council really said', it's quite another trying convince the parish priest as a young teenager in the sacristy. 

[veritasluxmea]

Sometimes I wonder if things would be worse if we didn't have Vat II- or without it, if the Church would be able to rise from the horrors of the present age at all. I think sometimes people think "Evils X, Y, and Z happened BECAUSE OF Vat II", but really they happened due to sin in the hearts of laity and Bishops, (especially where they failed in in their responsibilities). They used Vat II as an excuse in a lot of cases and misused it for their own means, but in the end I find Vat II to be a great source of grace and help for the Church in these times, and I think it will continue to be so even if "things get worse". At least in my personal life. I suspect holding Vat II, even with the consequences of people misusing it, will be worth it in the end.