The Basilica Recreation Centre — Before and After

CHAPTER 10 - FAITH IN OUR YOUNG PEOPLE

The one thing that stood out while researching and writing this short history was the tremendous good that parishes, church and community centres do in our communities and the countless hours many volunteers give to help our young people.

Our young people of today are tomorrow’s leaders. I can recall when l was in high school, one of our teachers, who must have been having a bad day, looked down at the class and said, “God help us. To think that some day you idiots

are going to be our future leaders.” Well | wish he were living today because

I don’t think we turned out all that bad. In fact we did quite well. That class produced good business, professional and community leaders that could match up with any generation.

We, too, often think that our present generation of young people are not as good as previous generation. I think the majority of today’s teens are intelligent, motivated to succeed and concerned about their future.

Anyone who is tempted to denigrate them as a group should read the following quote, attributed to Socrates, from the 5th century BC. It shows that complaining about the younger generation is nothing new:

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders, and love chatter in place of exercise. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

It proves the truth of another saying: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” I am not trying to minimize the fact that in today’s complex society we do have some serious problems with some of our youth.

In 1975 l was chairperson of the Addiction Foundation of PEI and it broke my heart to see 13 and 14-year-old teenagers addicted to alcohol and drugs. It was terrible to see these teenagers lose their beautiful adolescent years. Unfortunately, this situation still exists, and is even more prevalent in our

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