A few months ago, Fordham University, where I teach, hosted a well-attended conference titled “Lost?”, on the relationship of young Catholics to the larger Catholic Church. That conference led to a fair amount of discussion in print and on the web. (The whole conference can be viewed here.)

Here at Rock and Theology, we often deal with matters at the intersection of the lives of young generations, religious institutions, and theological traditions. So it has been a special pleasure, in the months since the conference, to think about and learn from the many discussions it spawned.

All conference speakers were asked to write up responses to some questions posed to them by the audience that were not able to be addressed on-site. What follows are the questions addressed to me, and my replies, only slightly edited. This was posted a while back on the “Lost?” website but I wanted to share it here at R&T as well.

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There are so many good and important questions raised for our panel on Catholicism and popular culture that I cannot possibly begin to respond to them all with anything like web-appropriate brevity. It seems to me that they circulate around three concerns:

[1] How ought the Catholic Church relate to twentysomethings/young adults in light of popular culture?
[2] Who are the privileged voices in guiding these conversations?
[3] How can the faith be taught today in relation to popular culture?

All very good questions! I would like to try one brief reflection that ties these three together.

I think the basic interrelated issues are:

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Is this the new face of rock?