VERITY-Jane Lebeter has a photo of the day her life changed. It was taken on February 21 this year inside the chapel of her former high school, Unity College in Caloundra West. Verity is wearing a white dress and standing in front a bishop wearing a purple stole.
Any Catholic can work out the scene, but Verity says the image of her First Holy Communion “doesn’t do it justice”.
“One word would just be ‘amazing’,” she said.
Verity was baptised in the Uniting Church as a baby but, up until last year, had nothing to do with religion apart from going to a Christian school.
“There’d been this talk around school in 2019 that there were these young people coming to our school,” she said. “I knew I wanted to get into my faith more, and it wasn’t really until they came that I did.”
Those young people were volunteer missionaries for the National Evangelisation Teams, a youth ministry initiative that works in schools, parishes and universities across Australia. Five young people were chosen to work in Caloundra as a bridge between Unity College and the local parish. Verity met the NET Team for the first time at her Year 12 retreat, which led to regular meetings at school.
Two weeks before the NET Team was scheduled to finish its mission in Caloundra, Verity asked a simple question of the team members: How can I become Catholic?
“I actually didn’t know it was even possible to become Catholic if I was baptised as Uniting,” she said. “They had mentioned that there would be classes, and I could learn about Catholicism in that, and that was the stepping stone to becoming Catholic.”
Now that she’s officially Catholic, Verity tries to attend daily Mass and visits her former school chapel every Sunday for the Unity Mass.
“For me it was so much more than what most young people believe it to be – I lived without religion for a solid 17-and-a-half years of my life, and this half a year of knowing what Jesus did, not just for me but for everyone, was life-changing,” she said.
“For young people there’s this stigma around religion and it not being cool, but when you just experience it, there’s nothing better.”
VERITY’S journey to the Catholic faith could be considered uncommon by Australian standards. In 2019, a national study funded by the Australian Research Council found that 52 per cent of Australian teenagers did not identify with a religion. The second-largest group in the study, making up 19 per cent, were Catholics. However, the study also found that just over a third of respondents believed in God.
The results are consistent with data from the 2016 Census, which showed that the proportion of Australians reporting to have no religious affiliation has been increasing in the past 50 years, with young adults more likely to report ‘No religion’.
Shania Allen is a 22-year-old Catholic woman from Tullamarine, Melbourne, who had the daunting task of sharing the faith to teenagers last year. She was a member of the Caloundra NET Team, working with students at Unity College and the Caloundra Catholic parish. By the end of the year, five teenagers who had met the NET Team at Unity College asked to become Catholic.
Just the thought of it makes Shania emotional.
“It would literally tear me up that this is what God has done, and this was their choice,” she said.
For Shania, there was no complicated method to opening young people to the faith.
“With Christ there’s a difference – you’re not just happy, you have a deep lasting joy, so allowing people to see that joy and allowing people to see the good that God has done in your life, and a lot of the times you don’t have to say anything, it’s just the way that you love and the way that you act and the way that you behave,” she said.
“I found that being a witness draws young people in, and then from there you just meet them where they’re at and just allow them to lead. I think allowing them to make the choice is one of the biggest things as well because we can’t force them to do anything, that won’t work.”
Shania was meant to return home to Melbourne at the end of her year in Caloundra, but she decided to stay put over the summer holidays.
“I didn’t know exactly why (but) I knew some kids were interested in becoming Catholic,” she said.
She met with one of the local Catholic priests, Fr Josh Whitehead, and they realised that a small but eager group of young people – about 12 – were interested in learning about Catholicism. Shania and Fr Josh suggested running classes during the school holidays, using resources based on the Rite of Catholic Initiation of Adults but modified for teenagers.
“It started out fortnightly, but then the kids actually wanted them weekly,” Shania said. “It was just so beautiful to see their fascination with the Catholic Church and to see that the Catholic Church is nowhere near dead.
“There are still people seeking that real truth and goodness and beauty of the Church.”
THERE are numerous ways to become fully initiated into the Church.
Most families will begin the process with infant baptism, and proceed to take their children through the other sacraments of initiation – Confirmation and Holy Communion.
Children who follow this process also prepare for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, one of the sacraments of healing, normally before they receive the Eucharist for the first time.
But for children, teenagers or adults who aren’t baptised or don’t receive the sacraments of initiation, the Church has developed a process that offers instruction and support to people who wish to become Catholic.
The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is a “journey of faith” offered over an extended period to people over the age of infant baptism.
It involves four stages of initiation which include various rites throughout the extended period.
A person who has already been baptised in another Christian denomination are known as candidates, while the unbaptised are known as catechumens.
The preparation process for both candidates and catechumens is the same, and usually leads to their full reception into the Catholic Church at Easter.
For children and teenagers aged between nine and 16, the process is slightly modified to be age-appropriate for young people.
The Brisbane archdiocese offers a resource for young people called CrossroadsRCIA, and it is available through Evangelisation Brisbane.
‘It gives you something to believe in’
HAYLEY Murphy had never been inside a church until she started Year 8 at Unity College two years ago.
Before that, her only experience of Christianity was during religion classes at her state primary school.
When she went to her first Catholic youth camp in September last year, she had a small but significant experience during Eucharistic Adoration.
“It was a really different feeling – this was not like anything I’d experienced,” she said.
“I really wanted to explore that more and see where that can go.”
Several weeks later, Hayley went to another youth event run by the NET Team and found herself before the Blessed Sacrament again.
This time, she felt a strong desire to become Catholic.
“I actually went to our priest Fr Josh and I asked him how I would be able to get baptised,” Hayley said.
“He told me you do these classes so that you really know what you’re getting into, and if I wanted to get baptised it started in the school holidays, and I could be baptised in February.
“He also told me that on the same night another young man he knew also asked to be baptised.”
Hayley was baptised on February 21 in the Unity Chapel at her school, surrounded by her family and new Church friends.
She is only 15.
“I feel like I’m more aware of everything around me, and aware of God in my life and aware of other people,” Hayley said.
“I suppose it also motivated me to spend more time practising being Catholic, like praying and going to Mass.”
Hayley is now the only Catholic in her family, but they are supportive of her choice, and help her get to Mass on Sundays.
She said she loved the Caloundra parish community.
“You get this real sense of belonging that you might not get anywhere else like at school and things like that,” Hayley said.
“It also gives you something to believe in and someone to confide in … and love, faith, worth, purpose – all these things that youth might miss out on otherwise.
“As a young person, we’re all trying to find our identity, so faith is a really big part of that.
“The more youth who can experience it the better because it really is amazing.”
‘I couldn’t stop smiling’
WHEN Latrisse Contessa learnt she would be on the Unity College student leadership team in 2021, she made a promise to get more in-tune with her faith.
She was baptised Catholic, and although she always went to a Catholic school, her family was “never heavily practising”.
After being announced as part of the Inspire Committee, which looks after social justice, spirituality and eco-sustainability initiatives, Latrisse decided to learn more about the Catholic Church.
“I felt like something was missing, something missing from my identity,” she said.
“I had always been attracted to the idea of practising (the Catholic faith) but I never had people around me who did.
“Now that I’ve grown up I just wanted to do it, just be my own person.”
Latrisse started taking the classes for the Rite of Catholic Initiation of Teens, prepared by Shania and Fr Josh.
“I thought it would be like religion in school which I find pretty boring and the same thing over and over again, but you’re just always learning, not just about doing First Holy Communion for the sake of it, but learning why we do it,” she said.
“I was baptised Catholic but the RCIT solidified my idea of becoming a practising Catholic, by taking Holy Communion.”
Latrisse said she was “filled with joy” the first time she received Jesus in the Eucharist.
“It’s pretty hard to describe but I felt like I couldn’t stop smiling,” she said.
“I was just filled with joy and happiness to be able to do that.”
As a young person, Latrisse said religion had helped her understand her identity.
“I just think it’s a really solid identifier, because some people don’t really know who they are when they’re growing up,” she said.
“It helps me know who I am and what my beliefs are, and where I’m going in my life.”
The Unity College chapel doesn’t have a baptismal font, but Fr Josh Whitehead found a suitable substitute underneath Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Caloundra.
It was half a drum, “bigger than 44 gallons”, that had been cut down to knee height and sealed on the inside.
The young catechumens being baptised on February 21 knelt inside the drum as holy water was being poured on them.
The entire experience of walking with five young people towards full initiation into the Catholic Church has opened Fr Josh’s eyes to the importance of discipleship.
“What I’m learning is the importance of a discipleship model of Church – who’s my Barnabas, who’s my Timothy, who am I walking with and who are we walking with?” he said.
“It’s really changing the culture, changing our existing ecclesial church culture.
“(The existing culture is) not bad, but the Gospel calls us to newness of life and openness to where the Holy Spirit’s calling next, and that’s to multiply our resources by, really, lay people being empowered to live out their baptismal identity.
“It’s a leadership challenge to us, it’s inviting young leaders into a life of service and discipleship where they’re walking with other young people.
“I think it’s really quite simple in that sense.”
After all, it was a discipleship model that helped the young candidates and catechumens experience “a radical encounter with the person of Jesus”.
“I think at the end of the day, and this is what these young people experienced, and the relationships that brought them to Jesus, is they had a radical encounter with the person of Jesus.”
