Duszpasterstwo wobec młodzieży niedostosowanej społecznie

Abstract

The increasing heterogoneity of modern industrial society makes it necessary for pastoral work to specialize and diversify. One group of people to be ministered to are socially maladjusted young people. They are a product of industrial society, in which it is more and more difficult for young people to establish a social bond with their family, school or peer group. The Polish state legalisation of the early 1980s guarantees the Church freedom to conduct catechesis for children and young people in the parishes and to reach the young people staying in correctional in stitutions. Yet the latter possibility has not been taken full advantage of so far. Only a few parishes and monasteries have opened their premises to socially maladjusted youth. Nor does the Church make sufficient efforts to ensure pastoral presence in correctional in stitutions. There is a commonly held opinion that work with socially malad justed youth is extremely difficult because of their antisocial attitudes, distorted hierarchy of values, bad habits, etc. Still, the Church has the means to undertake pastoral work with these young people: (1) it stresses the value of the human person ‒ and personal relations are what the socially disorientated young people are particularly in need of; (2) it now regards dialogue as th e principal pastoral method ‒ and dialogue is also considered to be the basic instrument of resocialization; (3) it appreciates the value of community ‒ and the essence of community is socialization. Like correctional institutions, the parish maybe an education and resocialization environment. What is important in the parish is the systematic social prevention effected through pastoral ministry to children and youth, family ministry and sobriety ministry.