In 1985, Pope St. John Paul II initiated World Youth Day, an every-couple-of-years event meant to draw young Catholics together to celebrate, learn, and deepen their faith. Over the succeeding years, various World Youth Day events have sparked discussion over whether Catholic leaders — from Vatican officials down to parish pastors — are really providing Catholic youth what they need spiritually or simply trying desperately (and misguidedly) to stay relevant.
The most recent World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, wrapped up a week ago. Although Pope Francis has touted the event as the best-organized World Youth Day to date, it was not without controversy. Most notably, a photo went viral on social media depicting several young Catholics kneeling before stacks of plastic storage bins in a small World Youth Day tent. Inside those bins was the Holy Eucharist. That which Catholics know to be the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ Himself was being displayed in plastic storage boxes, the sort in which one might keep off-season sweaters or an old Lego collection.
View this post on Instagram
One of those young kneeling Catholics was pro-life speaker and podcaster Savannah Dudzik. The American Spectator had the opportunity to speak with Ms. Dudzik and discuss the controversial housing of the Blessed Sacrament, what Catholic youth really want, and whether Catholic leaders deliver.
*****
The American Spectator: Savannah, thanks for making the time to talk. First of all, can you maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself: Who you are, what you do, and what your faith means to you?
Savannah Dudzik: Yes, so my name is Savannah; I live in Tampa, Florida, in the Tampa Bay area, and I work full time in the pro-life movement. I went to World Youth Day with — there were six of us total, so five of my friends from across America — and we went a few days early. We went about a week early to explore different sites like Fatima, Avila, different places where the saints walked. And then the last part of our trip was World Youth Day. I’ve been Catholic my whole life. When I was in high school, my parents started taking us to the Traditional Latin Mass. And I didn’t like it at first, you know, as is a lot of people’s experience. But the older I get, the more I realize that 1) young people are drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass when there’s a good community created in the parish. And when it’s explained to them, you know, when you know what’s going on, it’s the most appealing. 2) I think that it’s very important for us to continue to have this tradition in the Catholic Church that’s been around for thousands of years. I go to both English [Novus Ordo] and [Traditional] Latin Mass, so I’m not — you know, there’s a lot of people who’ve been saying that I was a plant from the traditional movement that they put there, which doesn’t really make any sense. I went to the whole World Youth Day. I loved World Youth Day. And yeah, I think World Youth Day as a whole was a wonderful experience because I was able to meet people of different cultures who were Catholic. It shows the universality of the Catholic Church. But I think that this event in particular, it wasn’t just a small thing. It’s an enormous disgrace. It’s disrespect for our Lord and God Jesus, and we need to be treating it as such.
TAS: That brings me to my second question. There’s a photo that’s gone viral on social media showing you and your friends kneeling in front of what seems to be stacks of plastic storage containers in a tent at World Youth Day, which, as you just explained, you attended with some friends. Can you tell us the story behind this photo?
Dudzik: Yes. This was Saturday night. We were at Campo de Greco and it was the vigil night. So there was worship and praise music, everybody was dancing, praying, singing. And we were headed back to our campsite. And on the way back to our campsite, we saw people kneeling next to — it looked like people were kneeling and praying to these plastic boxes. At first I thought people were praying to this plant because there was this plant on top of the plastic boxes. And obviously it’s not like this. That doesn’t make any sense. You know, Catholics don’t pray to plastic boxes or plants or Mary, unlike what some people might think. But when I went past that, I asked one of the people praying what they were doing and they said, “Jesus is in there.” And I realized at that point — and we got it confirmed later — that, um, that it was Adoration. That was how they were displaying, that was how they were displaying Jesus for Adoration. I was very upset, but we decided to go back and instead of, as some people might decide to do, instead of protest or cause a big fit, we decided to just pray. Because it is Jesus, even though He’s displayed in this terrible way. Anyway, that was the end of that. And we kind of thought that was the end of that. We went back to what we were doing afterwards. Obviously, I was disturbed and I actually took one picture, but I wasn’t going to, I didn’t want to post it anywhere. I didn’t want to, because I was sad that this was how they were displaying Adoration at World Youth Day. Well, apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought that way, because that picture started going viral. And I realized that this is an opportunity, you know, this is an opportunity for us to talk about a few things, to talk about the fact that young people do have their Christian Catholic faith; it’s still alive. Young people do still want to be praying. We do still want to have a relationship with God. But also the fact that in the Catholic Church, there’s a need for a return to tradition. There’s a lot of liturgical abuses going on. This is not the only one, but this is an example of a liturgical abuse that, when shown to the whole world, people are like, “What the heck was going on?” So many. I’ve gotten messages from dozens of priests saying: “Thank you, thank you for praying. This is a disgrace. I can’t believe they did that at World Youth Day.” So I think that this is a message, and I did email the bishops and the organizers of World Youth Day and even the Vatican, and I have gotten zero response about this. So I hope that they reach out and make some sort of a statement apologizing. But until then, I’m going to continue to talk about it and talk about how wrong it was.
TAS: So help me understand what this was. The Eucharist hosts were placed inside the plastic box.
Dudzik: They were inside. They were inside a ciborium. So they were in the big plastic boxes, but they were in their containers to be distributed at Communion time. Some people have said, you know, this was just the means to transport the Eucharist, which honestly, I mean, I’m not a priest, I’m not sure, but probably [it] would have been fine if it was just the means to transport it. The fact is this was this was not just where I was. There were multiple tents like this. This was Adoration. And some people might say, “Well, there’s no better way they could have displayed it.” But I’ve actually been sent multiple pictures from different places around the world of when they have outdoor tents with adoration, what it looks like it. It’s beautiful. You have three years to plan this.
TAS: And millions of dollars.
Dudzik: Exactly. You can plan to bring a gold box. There’s so much funding put into this event that we can do better for the One [who] this is all about than to put Him in plastic boxes.
TAS: It’s, I think, as apparently a number of other people do, disgraceful to have our Blessed Lord housed in this way. I mean, I’m glad to a certain extent that this has gone viral inasmuch as it’s sort of calling to account those who’ve done this. But on the other hand, St. Maximilian Kolbe very famously said: “When you genuflect, when you kneel before the tabernacle, kneel in such a manner that everybody knows Who you are kneeling before.” What is this telling the rest of the world about how our leaders see the Blessed Sacrament? This leads me to my next question. You are a young Catholic who clearly cares about her faith. You clearly know and you understand your faith. You attend the Tridentine Mass, as you noted, which is considered a little more complicated than the typical Novus Ordo Mass, but it’s something that you’ve taken the time to understand. You work in the pro-life movement. You obviously care about advancing the principles of the Catholic faith. How do you think your generation, young Catholics, how do you think young Catholics connect to or respond to, broadly speaking, Catholic leadership today? Do you think that there’s a strong connection?
Dudzik: That’s an interesting question. One thing that I’ve said before and I think is very true is that we inherit Scripture, Tradition, and [the] Magisterium. The three pillars of the Catholic Church. Catholic young people want to trust the Magisterium. That’s what we’re told to do. It’s a foundation of our faith. We’re supposed to be able to trust those in leadership. However, I think that there’s a mistrust of leadership right now. I know that there’s mistrust of leadership from young people. That’s not going to be solved by them trying to “stoop down” to our level, which is kind of what I was seeing at World Youth Day. You know, they were kind of trying to be “cool,” trying to make this a sort of rave festival. That’s not what we want. If we want that, if young people want this rave concert atmosphere, we’re going to go to a rave or a concert. When we go to church, when we when we hear from the Magisterium, we want to hear something of substance. I talked to a ton of people who went to World Youth Day looking for guidance, looking for a path forward in this crazy world we live in right now. I talked to one person who was very upset and they were talking to me about how upset they were that they went here. They spent six days and they didn’t have any sort of guidance afterwards, they didn’t know any point forward. They were like, “Do you even know what the message of World Youth Day is?” And I think that that’s heartbreaking to hear because, even before this whole Eucharist thing, I was talking to my friend when we were listening to the concerts and watching the liturgical dancing, and I was saying: “There’s 1.5 million people here right now. The Pope is on this stage. What is he going to tell us?” It’s rare to have an opportunity to talk to 1 million, more than 1 million people in person, young Catholics who you’re supposed to be leading. What is the message to us? What is our path forward? So I think that young people, we want guidance. We want guidance from our leaders, and we’re not getting that guidance. And I think that if we were even just given a few sentences of encouragement, a few points of what to do in Catholic culture today, that would have been enough. But instead, there was just a lot of talk of issues that I personally don’t think are relevant to the Catholic faith. There were countless talks, and there were countless emphases. The [United States Conference of Catholic Bishops] said to Catholic young people of America that the most important issue of our day is climate change. I think that’s detrimental to the American people; it’s detrimental at a time when there are 2,000 lives being ended every day in America. To say that the biggest issue is climate change, something that young people really don’t have much control of, that makes us feel powerless. So I would just say to the magisterium, to the USCCB, to the Vatican: we want guidance. We do want guidance, and we will listen to guidance. But you have to guide us.
TAS: You noted earlier that you attend the Tridentine Mass. I myself attend the Tridentine Mass. It is more formal. One of the criticisms that’s often levied against it by more progressive or modernist Catholics is that it is more formal. “Rigid” is one of the terms that’s been used pejoratively to describe it. And it is offering that structure, that guidance that you’re talking about. That’s why you have so many young people gravitate towards it and that’s why, statistically, you have such a high number of Catholics who attend the Tridentine form of the Mass who adhere to Catholic teaching, who adhere to and understand doctrine. I think that that’s telling. I think that it’s more than just the young generation that is seeking that guidance. I think every generation is seeking that guidance.
Dudzik: Yes.
TAS: You noted that you think that young Catholics don’t trust Catholic leadership. I just read a report that was published this week by Complicit Clergy actually ranking Catholic bishops by how much they’re trusted and by how orthodox they are. And it’s interesting: The amount that a bishop is trusted correlates to, according to this survey, his perceived orthodoxy, that is how closely he adheres to Catholic teaching. What do you think Church leadership, whether it’s the Pope or bishops or priests, pastors, what can they do to not “stoop” to or pretend — I think of that meme with Steve Buscemi, “Hello, fellow kids,” with a skateboard over his shoulder — what do you think bishops, priests and pastors can do to authentically connect to and earn the trust of young Catholics?
Dudzik: Wow, that’s an interesting study. There’s so much I could say here. I just want to say first and foremost — we love our leadership. The Catholic Church is based on leadership; we have leadership for a reason. Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock, I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail.” (Matthew 16:18) … I never want to speak out against the leadership of the Catholic Church. However, we are called to, when we see and when we hear something that’s wrong, to speak up against it. I think that just one issue that comes to mind is — the Catholic Church speaks out against LGBTQ issues. That being said, there are some bishops and priests who are completely fine with it, who will say Masses in honor of this. So I think that we need consistency. I think that, like you said, the study said that people trust bishops who are the most orthodox. Because we want to be Catholic, we want to be Catholic to the full extent. We don’t want all this random stuff coming into the Catholic faith. So if the bishops want young people to trust them, if they want us to trust them, then be consistent and be consistent with the teachings that we’ve held throughout thousands of years. It’s that simple. Be consistent with the Catholic teachings and we will trust you.
TAS: That reminds me of last year, when Ireland was going through its synodal listening process, there was a letter published by the Irish Catholic newspaper from some 500 young people, young Catholics, who wrote and signed this letter saying exactly what you just said: “We want consistency. We want the teachings of the Church. We want them handed down faithfully.” We don’t want this watered down, you know, “How do you do, fellow kids?” kind of mentality; we don’t want this rainbow preaching. No matter what the generation is, we’ve got generations that have been lost, that have lost their faith through watering down, through leadership handing them what they think they want. G.K. Chesterton famously said: “We don’t want a Church that moves with the world. We want a Church that moves the world.”
Dudzik: So simple.
TAS: Savannah, thank you very much for your time and your thoughts. I really appreciate it. God bless you.