Over the past year, Salford Diocese has been running the “Hope In The Future” initiative, which is designed to help grow the Church for future generations; and answer the call of Pope Francis for us all to be Missionary Disciples.
As the Diocese has so kindly hosted our HQ since 2015, we wanted to help support these efforts and work in partnership to share some of our experiences with younger people in particular, but also how we have engaged our adult companions too.
The first stage of Hope in the Future focused on celebrating all that already exists in the life of parishes - with several YCW groups being highlighted as important parts of the community there. Stage Two builds upon this and aims to “Harvest Our Talents” and put them to use in local parishes.
There are lots of opportunities as part of this phase to truly engage our young people and inspire them to be the leaders that Cardijn spoke so often about. We have already attended smaller working groups to discuss how we can facilitate this, using our own leadership programme to harvest the talents of young parishioners across the Diocese.
To celebrate a successful first year, as well as look in hope towards the second, the YCW also attended a service at the Cathedral. It was a wonderful opportunity to speak to people from across the Diocese and catch up with many of the parishes that we are already working with.
Marc Besford, National Training and Development Worker, said: “We see the mission of the YCW and the aspirations of Hope In The Future as very much part of the same journey. Our young leaders make a incredible contribution to the life of the Church in parishes across England and Wales, and even the world, so to be able to celebrate this was very much welcome. Now we are looking to keep up the growth of our movement and support local parishes at the same time.”
