Rationale
Footprints is born from a simple question: what traces does faith leave in the lives of today’s young people as they search for who they are and who they want to become? Far from confirming easy narratives of inevitable secularization, the project listens closely to their stories, doubts, and desires, and places them in dialogue with educators, pastors, and social actors. In this way, Footprints becomes a meeting point where rigorous research and lived experience illuminate how work, relationships, freedom, and openness to the transcendent intertwine in the construction of personal identity.
Rationale
Youth on the Threshold of Identity
Youth, as we know, is a fundamental stage of life. Perhaps the most notable characteristic of young people is the search for their own identity, which begins with the awakening of awareness of their personal autonomy in adolescence and initiates the process of personal maturation toward the adoption of their own value system. At this stage, young people choose to establish relationships with others, including with the transcendent, and seek their place in the world. Understanding this dynamic is important, as the beliefs, convictions, values, and behaviors of young people influence the world they live in and will shape the future of society.
Transparent Dialogue. Relational Identity
Transparent Dialogue. Relational Identity
Communicative action is always intentional (Anscombe, 2000; Archer, 2009; Donati, 2011) and therefore can never be axiologically neutral. If, in addition, it aims to be dialogical, as is the case here, as with any scientific communication, it must declare its assumptions with complete transparency, even more so when discussing faith and religion.
The Footprints project, promoted by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, is inspired by an anthropological vision that holds that the formation of personal identity is the primary objective of any educational project, including religious formation. Relationships are fundamental to this process of identity formation: we are born into a relational community, which is the family, and over time we establish other forms of belonging through our own decisions (friendship, romantic love, or work relationships). These connections shape our personality, since we are corporeal, temporal, and free beings; we are what we have inherited—biologically, historically, and culturally—what we make of ourselves through our decisions—or indecisions—and what others contribute to us when we interact with them. Work and civic engagement, which determine our position in the world, are equally substantial elements or pillars that shape our character.
Faith as Relationship. A Complex Youth Landscape
Faith as Relationship. A Complex Youth Landscape
Many sociological studies tend to define religion exclusively as a system of beliefs, rituals, and moral norms, but religion is fundamentally experienced and presented as a relationship, that is, as faith that is a response to a revelation from God to man, who wants to communicate with him and to whom man responds freely by participating in this dialogue. In general terms, it can be said that religion is a personal faith that builds community with other people in order to encounter the transcendent being, beyond mere cultural adherence to a system of values, rules, and rites.
We want to understand what it means for young people and their lives to respond positively or negatively to faith and relate this to other areas that constitute personal identity, such as work or fundamental relationships. Taking both the results of the first study conducted by the Footprints group and other recent studies, it can be seen that the idea of irreversible, progressive, and linear secularization is unfounded, and that the religious landscape of youth is highly complex. The results obtained invite us to continue to delve deeper into some of the indicators that have emerged. For example, the fact that a certain sense of spirituality and search for meaning persists among young people, even in contexts of less institutional religious affiliation. Or how the notion of “personal conscience” as the sole and ultimate determinant of morality is widespread, more so among Catholics than among non-believers, which raises the need to explore this concept and the meaning young people give to it. Likewise, civic realities that are important for the health of a democracy, such as conscientious objection and civil resistance to abuse of power and unjust laws, are at stake in the correct understanding of the relationship between power, law, justice, and conscience. Crucial challenges for communicating the faith in the case of Catholics are also evident: the disconnect between doctrinal belief and sacramental practice is manifest in several of the countries studied, which often clashes with Church doctrine and contradictory ethical positions. It is also noted that faith, although personal and heartfelt, lacks a deep and coherent understanding of its own foundations among young people.
Sharing Insights. Serving Formation
Sharing Insights. Serving Formation
In addition to listening to young people in order to understand them better, the Footprints project also wishes to listen to educators, social agents, and pastors and collaborate with them in their work of formation, offering them reflections and advice on their important task. Our work will contribute to this dialogue with the scientific rigor of academia, as we conduct our research in collaboration with our university partners and with any other centers that wish to collaborate in the future. An essential part of our work will consist precisely in the scientific publication of the results obtained and in participation in academic forums, adding our work to that carried out by other centers.