I was actually *at* JMJ Madrid. I *liked* our theme song. Yes–you are correct in saying that it is a little cheesy in English. But it was beautiful in Spanish. Consider the fact that it was written by a couple of teenagers with very little musical training. Yes–World Youth Day deserves better. But when you hear the song coming from a hundred thousand throats–youth gathered together for one purpose–then it is beautiful.

You want to hear the Te Deum, O Sacred Head Surrounded, Ave Maria. I do too. The majority of people our age? Their reaction is “Huh?” Yes–we need to teach them. Educate them in the sacred glory that is our beautiful faith. World Youth Day is not the time or place. The purpose of World Youth Day is to set our youth on FIRE! Expose them to the passion of Catholicism! Wake them UP from their tired little paradigms, sleeping in the pew on Sunday. World Youth Day is to remind the youth that WE ARE CATHOLIC. And to be proud in that. And when they go home, they take that pride, that fire with them, so that they will WANT to learn more about our faith, our music and liturgy.

Do not take me wrong, though. I am ashamed that my Pentecostal friend Paul has had more exposure to liturgical music than most Catholic teens I know. I am ashamed that he knows the Mass responses better than the kids at CCD. But when I was in Spain, and 1 million teenage voices screamed out “VIVA LE PAPA! VIVA MARIA!”, I was proud. I was so proud, I was bursting with it. When the kids I went with went to confession -BY CHOICE- for the first time in years, I was proud. When they came home and said, “I never knew our faith was so beautiful. I will never say Mass the same way again.”, I was so proud of them, I started crying.

The song is supposed to be simple, and catchy. In Spanish, it was. It’s purpose is to kindle a fire in modern youth, who don’t understand, and don’t want to understand, the simplistic beauty of the Latin Mass. But in Spain, when Pope Benedict sang the Latin Mass, I watched tears roll down the cheeks of a self-professed whore. I held her hand as she walked to the Confessional. If this “nerve-grating” music inspires such disgust in you, Ben, then shame on you. If you in your arrogance cannot see the good it did, then I wash my hands. You weren’t there. Yes, when I went, and my teens didn’t know what Adoration was, when they couldn’t recognize the Rosary in Latin, I hung my head in shame. But I held it high with the rest of them when they picked it up. I held my head high when a gangbanger friend of mine started weeping in Adoration when we started singing this song.

They haven’t had our education, Ben. And that is on their parents and teachers. But let them taste Catholicism. Let them be exposed. Let them see the unity. Then they will crave the knowledge, crave the taste of the Latin on their tongues.
The Pope hands us, the teachers, the reins when the kids get back on the plane. “I inspired them. You teach them.”
If however, instead of picking up those reins, you condemn and criticize the method by which these teens remembered their Catholicism, then all I can say is this. What kind of Catholic are you?

If you had gone to JMJ with us, you would have complained the entire way because we didn’t sing Latin. We didn’t go to Confession and Adoration 4 times a day. We went shopping. We went sightseeing. We played Ninja with 40 OTHER COUNTRYS instead of saying the Rosary with them. But you know what we did do? We sang. We went to Mass. We went to Confession. We knelt before the oldest recorded Eucharistic miracle. We said Mass with the Pope. We received his blessing in person. And the faith and fire that lay dormant in teens who didn’t understand their faith was rekindled. I think that *that* was a miracle all in its self.

You, kneeling in your pew, murmuring Latin, are far too conscious of your own holiness. Latin does not save souls. The very fact that these kids went to Mass–and LIKED IT, is a miracle worthy of my Mother. I cannot in good conscience allow you to complain about crappy music when souls are being saved by that same stuff.
I am a crappy Catholic. I often doubt the mercy of God, and I don’t go to Confession nearly enough. I don’t say my Rosary every day, because I don’t think anyone is listening. But you, holding yourself so very high because you say Mass in Latin, and know the difference between good and crappy music, that is just as bad as me.

You are my friend, Ben. I like you an awful lot, and you are incredibly smart. You are a good Catholic. But with knowledge comes responsibility, and you have been blessed with great knowledge. Instead of pride in that, take a friend to Mass. Show them the beauty of our faith, instead of railing against the injustice of the fact that the coordinators of World Youth Day had the audacity to pick something other than Latin for a theme song. There are worse horrors.