ALBERTO MARTIN/REUTERS BLESS YOU: The Pope reaches out to the young

Posted Sunday, June 8, 2003; 16.45BST
Each Alpha session begins with a casual dinner, followed by a talk, singing, prayers, then discussions in small groups of 10 to 12. Last Wednesday, hundreds of Londoners packed the HTB sanctuary, chatting over lasagna and lemonade, grappling with theological issues but also just catching up with friends. "Nothing in these groups is wrong," says Caroline Mirams, 33, a lapsed Catholic who works at a headhunting firm. "People can explore their thoughts and doubts." Sociologist Davie explains Alpha's popularity by listing its benefits: "direction, fellowship, firmness, community and belonging, in a world of flux." But part of the success of Alpha and the Thomas Mass is also down to packaging, in an age where marketing matters. "Our society has changed," says HTB pastor and Alpha founder Nicky Gumbel. "We don't need to change the message but we need to change the way we put it across."

GOD IS AMONG THE YOUTH
When Roger Schutz-Marsauche settled in the Burgundy village of Taizé in 1940, it was nearly deserted. Most farms had been abandoned years earlier, after a fungus killed the grapevines and working-age people left for the cities. "Stay here!" one old woman told him. "We are so alone."

If only she could see the place now. The monastic community that Brother Roger set up there has mushroomed into a place of ecumenical pilgrimage for an unlikely crowd: youth. Each year, more than 100,000 people — 90% under 30, and most of them European — pour into Taizé to spend a week meeting, talking and attending thrice-daily worship. In the summer, Taizé welcomes up to 6,000 visitors a week, three times as many as it did 15 years ago. Many who come praise the peace of the place, says Brother Emile, who first visited when he was 17 and later joined the community for life. "People find life very complicated. They want to meet other people who are searching. They want to share their hopes and doubts."

The special appeal to youth, says Brother Emile, "is the surprise," because Taizé never targeted them. It's part of the larger rejuvenation of Christianity among European youth. Conventional wisdom holds that people grow in faith as they age, and youth are traditionally seen as the least religious of all. "They are the ones most vulnerable today," says Ivan Dragicevic, a Medjugorje visionary — one of six in the Bosnian town who claim that the Virgin Mary began appearing to them in 1981. He says Mary has called him to pray for young people. "The outside world bedazzles youth, and it's much harder for them than it was before." As Europe has grown less religious, you'd expect that its youth would too, and in several countries — Britain, Spain and the Netherlands — they have. But overall, "an increase in religion among youth is very clear," says French sociologist Yves Lambert. Among Danes, the number of 18-to-29-year-olds who professed belief in God leapt from 30% of youth in 1981 to 49% in 1999. In Italy, the jump was from 75% to 87%. Even in France, which has Europe's highest proportion of atheists, the figure crept from 44% to 47%.

The rise seems remarkably public. "It's an openness we haven't had for years," says Bishop Martin Lind of Linköping, Sweden. Last month, he took a five-day pilgrimage in honor of the 700th anniversary of the birth of St. Birgitta and was shocked that "500 young people walked with me." One million Catholics descended on Paris for World Youth Day 1997 celebrations. In 2000, 2 million flocked to Rome for the event's Jubilee edition.

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