Challenges facing young Catholics in the Philippines

(Vatican Radio) On Sunday, the final day of his pastoral visit to the Philippines, Pope Francis is due to meet with young people at the Catholic University of Santo Tomas in Manila. To find out more about the challenges facing young Catholics in the Asian nation today, our correspondent on this papal visit, Sean Patrick Lovett, spoke to Javier Erickson, vice-president for Christian Formation in the Philippines….

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Erickson says the Filipino population is around 100 million, of which 70% to 80% are young people aged from 13 to 39 years old.Filipino youth, he says are generally very religious and popular piety is still firmly rooted in the people. 

Among the main problems they face, he says, is unemployment, as so many graduates are unable to find work with the qualifications they obtain. Many of them travel abroad in search of better job opportunities leading to other problems of divided families and single parents trying to bring up the children back home. During the recent Synod on the Family, he notes, the challenge of mono-parent families was discussed, including the issue that so many Filipinos who go abroad to work, do not return home.