| dc.description.abstract | Francis in his Christus vivit, nn.1-2 asserts that “Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive. He is in you, he is with you and he never abandons you. However far you may wander, he is always there, the Risen One. He calls you, and he waits for you to return to him and start over again.” This demands imitation of Jesus Christ in the various aspects he reveals Himself to us. On the contrary, this disposition lacks in many of the youth due to their negative attitude to Christ leading to the prevalence of immorality. Various forms of immorality such as sexual immorality, drug abuse and alcoholism, crimes and religious syncretism/idolatry, contraception and abortion are vividly observed among the youth in Kinanira Parish. These arise from the seven deadly sins implied in the causes of moral degeneration and unfortunately forming the structures of sin in today’s society. Deadly sins such as pride, gluttony, avarice, anger, envy, sloth and lust constitute the causes of moral degeneration among the youth. These causes are atheism, materialism, ideological colonization, complacency and peer pressure, contempt of the cross, erroneous concept of love and freedom, abuse of mass media, idleness/unemployment, pastoral and cultural crises and irresponsible parenthood. Moral rehabilitation necessitates the use of family, school and parish as the suitable environment in which suitable pastoral techniques for youth ministry can be applied. These techniques are empowerment, outreach and follow-up evangelization, flexible journeying together, love and sexuality language, tolerant and non-legalistic formation, ecumenical apostolate, pastoral listening and accompaniment, discernment, media space evangelization and, self-pastoring and youth-to-youth apostolate. These techniques become fruitful in moral rehabilitation when areas of great concern in the youth ministry such as prayer, sports, nature, music and service are adequately put in consideration. During the investigation, quantitative and qualitative approaches of data collection were used, for instance the semi-structured questionnaire and the interview guide were used to collect data. The study ascertained that the respondents were knowledgeable about the topic of study, an implication that moral degeneration is an undoubtable fact in Kinanira Parish and hence imitation of Jesus Christ is inevitable. The people understood that being lovers of the world which is enmity with God (Jas. 4:4) is the mother of all immorality and they are struggling to set aside the logic of the world (Jas. 4:1). Thus, the Christus vivit document and the researcher’s recommendations and conclusions sound a universal human duty to make moral rehabilitation of youth as the daily motto so that youth will be alive in action. | en_US |
