¹ A shorter version of this article was published as Cameron, Cynthia L., “Francis’ Theological Anthropology of Young Adults: Christus Vivit as Resource for Undergraduate Theological Educators,” in The Human in a Dehumanizing World (College Theology Society, vol. 7), ed. Coblentz, Jessica and Horan, Daniel P. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2022)Google Scholar. I thank Orbis Books for permission to reprint and expand that material.

² Adolescence is commonly divided into several stages: early adolescence (from the onset of puberty until approximately age fourteen), mid-adolescence (approximately fourteen to seventeen), late adolescence (approximately eighteen to twenty-one), and early adulthood (approximately twenty-two to thirty). However, the dividing lines among these life stages are fuzzy and can be influenced by a variety of developmental and cultural factors; for a useful summary of this issue, see Curtis, Alexa C., “Defining Adolescence,” Journal of Adolescent and Family Health, 7, no. 2 (October 2015), https://scholar.utc.edu/jafh/vol7/iss2/2Google Scholar.

³ Kim, Grace Ji-Sun and Shaw, Susan M., Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2018), 13–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Smith, Christian with Denton, Melinda Lundquist, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Christian with Snell, Patricia, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Christian with Christoffersen, Kari, Davidson, Hilary, and Herzog, Patricia Snell, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dean, Kenda Creasy, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

⁵ Baker, Dori Grinenko, Doing Girlfriend Theology: God-Talk with Young Women (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Mercer, Joyce Ann, Girl Talk, God Talk: Why Faith Matters to Teenage Girls—and Their Parents (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008)Google Scholar; Phillips, Anne, The Faith of Girls: Children's Spirituality and Transition to Adulthood (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2011)Google Scholar; Reyes, Patrick B., Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2016)Google Scholar; Wright, Almeda M., The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parker, Evelyn L., ed., The Sacred Selves of Adolescent Girls: Hard Stories of Race, Class, and Gender (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006)Google Scholar.

⁶ O'Keefe, Theresa A., Navigating Toward Adulthood: A Theology of Ministry with Adolescents (New York: Paulist Press, 2018)Google Scholar. See also, Dean, Kenda Creasy, Clark, Chap, and Rahn, David, eds., Starting Right: Thinking Theologically about Youth Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 2001)Google Scholar.

⁷ Turpin, Katherine, Branded: Adolescents Converting from Consumer Faith (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2006)Google Scholar; King, Jason E., Faith with Benefits: Hookup Culture on Catholic Campuses (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kieser, Doris M., Catholic Sexual Theology and Adolescent Girls: Embodied Flourishing (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

⁸ For a helpful summary of how children have been taken up by a variety of theologians from the Christian tradition, see Berryman, Jerome W., Children and the Theologians: Clearing the Way for Grace (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2009)Google Scholar.

⁹ Jensen, David H., Graced Vulnerability: A Theology of Childhood (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Herzog, Kristin, Children and Our Global Future: Theological and Social Challenges (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Miller-McLemore, Bonnie J., Let the Children Come: Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2003)Google Scholar; Mercer, Joyce Ann, Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Also worth noting is David Csinos's book, which describes the theologizing of children—how they understand who God is: Csinos, David M., Little Theologians: Children, Culture, and the Making of Theological Meaning (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2020)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Rahner, Karl, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 8 (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1971), 40Google Scholar.

¹¹ Todd David Whitmore (with Tobias Winright), “Children: An Undeveloped Theme in Catholic Teaching,” in The Challenge of Global Stewardship: Roman Catholic Responses, ed. Maura A. Ryan and Todd David Whitmore (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997); Mary Ann Hinsdale, “‘Infinite Openness to the Infinite:’ Karl Rahner's Contributions to Modern Catholic Thought on the Child,” in The Child in Christian Thought, ed. Marcia J. Bunge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2001).

¹² Cristina L. H. Traina, “Children and Moral Agency,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 29, no. 2 (2009): 19–37; Cristina L. H. Traina, “Children's Situated Right to Work,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31, no. 2 (2011): 151–67; Julie Hanlon Rubio, “Family Ethics: Beyond Sex and Controversy,” Theological Studies, 74 (2013): 138–61; Julie Hanlon Rubio, A Christian Theology of Marriage and Family (New York: Paulist Press, 2003); Jennifer Beste, “The Status of Children within the Roman Catholic Church,” in Children and Childhood in American Religions ed. Don S. Browning and Bonnie Miller-McLemore (Ithaca, NY: Rutgers University Press, 2019); Ethna Regan, “Barely Visible: The Child in Catholic Social Teaching,” Heythrop Journal 55, no. 6 (2014): 1021–32. See also Mary M. Doyle Roche, Schools of Solidarity: Families and Catholic Social Teaching (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015).

¹³ Rahner, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” 36.

¹⁴ Rahner, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” 36–37.

¹⁵ Jensen, Graced Vulnerability, 44.

¹⁶ Jensen, Graced Vulnerability, 42–43.

¹⁷ Developmental psychologist Robert Kegan describes this as cross-categorical meaning making—the ability to see objects, people, and ideas as distinct from myself and, even more crucially, to see the connections among those objects, people, and ideas. This is an ability that typically develops later in adolescence or young adulthood. See Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).

¹⁸ Religious educators and pastoral ministers who work with children and adolescents also make the point that, while young people might not yet be able to contribute to the formal theological conversation in the ways that are expected by academic theologians, this formal theological discourse is not the only way of doing theology. As David Csinos reminds us, “Children are not simply passive consumers of theology; they actively generate theological meaning for themselves”; Csinos, Little Theologians, 3.

¹⁹ Jensen, Graced Vulnerability, xiv.

²⁰ For a review of the history and purpose of the Synod of Bishops, see Thomas J. Reese, Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 34–40.

²¹ Pope Francis, “Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis to Young People On the Occasion of the Presentation of the Preparatory Document of the 15^th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops,” January 13. 2017, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20170113_lettera-giovani-doc-sinodo.html.

²² Synod of Bishops, “Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment: Preparatory Document,” January 13. 2017, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2017/documents/papa-francesco_20170113_lettera-giovani-doc-sinodo.html.

²³ Synod of Bishops, “Presentation of the Pre-Synodal Meeting,” http://secretariat.synod.va/content/synod2018/en/pre-synodal-meeting.html. For good resources about the preparation for this Synod of Bishops, see “What You Need to Know About the 2018 Synod on Young People,” America Magazine, October 3, 2018, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/10/04/what-you-need-know-about-2018-synod-young-people.

²⁴ Reese, Inside the Vatican, 58–60.

²⁵ For documents pertaining to Catholic schools, see, for example, Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis (Declaration on Christian Education), 1965; Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School, 1977; The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, 1997; Lay Catholics in Schools: Witness to Faith, 1982; Educating Together in Catholic Schools: A Shared Mission Between Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful, 2007; The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, 2022. On youth ministry, see USCCB, Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry (Washington, DC: USCCB, 1997). On families, see Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), 1981; Francis, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), 2016; USCCB, Follow the Way of Love (Washington, DC: USCCB, 1994).

²⁶ Pope Francis, Christus Vivit: To Young People and to the Entire People of God (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2019), 3. Hereafter, references to this document will be cited in text and abbreviated CV; citations will refer to paragraph number.

²⁷ As Mary Roche notes: Christus Vivit “is a celebration of young people and a call for them to embrace their faith, restlessness, and roles in the church and world … Francis exclaims, ‘Make a ruckus!’” Mary M. Doyle Roche, “Cultivating Resistance: Youth Protest and the Common Good,” in Sex, Love, and Families: Catholic Perspectives, ed. Jason King and Julie Hanlon Rubio (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021), 260.

²⁸ Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2020), 198–199.

²⁹ Pope Francis is quoting his “Prayer Vigil with Young Italians at the Circus Maximus in Rome (August 11, 2018),” L'Osservatore Romano (August 13–14, 2018): 6.

³⁰ See, for example, Rosemary P. Carbine, “The Relational Turn in Theological Anthropology,” in T&T Clark Handbook of Theological Anthropology, ed. Mary Ann Hinsdale and Stephen Okey (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020); Marc Cortez, “The Madness in Our Method: Christology as the Necessary Starting Point for Theological Anthropology,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology, ed. Joshua R. Farris and Charles Taliaferro (New York: Routledge, 2016); M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010).

³¹ It is beyond the scope of this article to put Christus Vivit and Fratelli Tutti into conversation with each other around this question of the role of fraternal friendship in Francis's theological reflections on young people, but these two documents clearly demonstrate the pope's orientation toward relationality in his operative theological anthropology, Christology, and ecclesiology.

³² For an excellent introduction to the imago Dei doctrine and the way it has been taken up by theologians, see Michelle A. Gonzalez, Created in God's Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007).

³³ The church's tradition has also used the imago Dei doctrine to describe the unity of body and soul in the human person. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1994), 364.

³⁴ Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, trans. John Hammond Taylor, SJ (New York: Paulist, 1982), book 3, ch. 19, and book 12, ch. 7: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (2017), question 92, articles 1 and 4, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2092.htm, and question 93, article 4, https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2093.htm. See Gonzalez, Created in God's Image, 36–47.

³⁵ Gonzalez, Created in God's Image, 85–86.

³⁶ Jensen, Graced Vulnerability, 31–33.

³⁷ Mary Catherine Hilkert, “Imago Dei: Does the Symbol Have a Future,” Santa Clara Lecture 8, no. 3 (April 14, 2002): 9. “The religious symbol of the human person as ‘created in the image of God’ has traditionally functioned as a root metaphor for the Christian understanding of the human person, the religious way of grounding the inviolability of human dignity, and the basis for defining the human rights of all persons.”

³⁸ John F. Kilner, Dignity and Destiny: Humanity in the Image of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2015), 95.

³⁹ Kilner, Dignity and Destiny, 85.

⁴⁰ Kilner, Dignity and Destiny, 87–88.

⁴¹ The fullness of what it means to be created in the image of God is also available to us in the person of Jesus Christ (Col. 1:15); a fuller exploration of the dynamic of the relationship between the imago Dei and the imago Christi is beyond the scope of this article. For a helpful interpretation of these, see Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, 10th anniversary edition (New York: Herder and Herder, 1992), 69–75.

⁴² Martha Ellen Stortz, “‘Where or When Was Your Servant Innocent?’ Augustine on Childhood,” in The Child in Christian Thought ed. Marcia J. Bunge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2001), 79. As Roger Haight reminds us, however, Augustine's theology of sin is dependent on his understanding of Christ's universal offer of salvation: “If all are not sinners, then Christ is not the Savior of all. But this conviction was indeed radical; it knew no exceptions; it applied even to infants”; Roger Haight, “Sin and Grace,” in Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, ed. Francis Schussler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2011), 390.

⁴³ Marcia J. Bunge, “A More Vibrant Theology of Children,” Christian Reflection: A Series of Faith and Ethics (Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2003), 14, https://www.baylor.edu/ifl/christianreflection/ChildrenarticleBunge.pdf. See John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1536 Edition, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1975), 97; Johann Arndt, True Christianity, trans. Peter Erb (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 34–35; Jonathan Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival (1742),” in The Great Awakening, ed. C. C. Goen (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972), 394.

⁴⁴ Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival (1742),” 15.

⁴⁵ Edwards, “Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival (1742),” 15–16. See also Beste, Jennifer, “Children Speak: Catholic Second Graders’ Agency and Experiences in the Sacrament of Reconciliation,” Sociology of Religion 72, no. 3 (2011): 346–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ See, for example, Murray Milner, Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids: Teenagers in an Era of Consumerism, Standardized Tests, and Social Media (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2015).

⁴⁷ See, for example, Putnam, Robert, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015)Google Scholar, and Clark, Chap, Hurt 2.0: Inside the World of Today's Teenagers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Lerner, Richard M., The Good Teen: Rescuing Adolescence from the Myths of the Storm and Stress Years (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007), 6Google Scholar. See also Lerner, Richard M., Liberty: Thriving and Civic Engagement Among America's Youth (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004), 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁹ It is important to note that, while developmental status may influence how we assign culpability, children do describe a sense of agency in their understandings of sin, forgiveness, and the sacrament of reconciliation. This perspective on the developing ability to act and to be held accountable for sins committed in childhood should be carried forward into our understandings of adolescence and young adulthood. See Beste, “Children Speak,” 337–40.

⁵⁰ There are many reasons why parish- and school-based faith formation programs end in adolescence, including an alignment between religious education and the typical school year and a tendency to focus less on catechesis in adolescence and young adulthood. For more on this, see Boys, Mary C., Educating in Faith: Maps and Visions (Lima, OH: Academic Renewal Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

⁵¹ O'Keefe, Navigating Toward Adulthood, 130–34.

⁵² Rahner, Karl, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans, Dych, William V. (New York: Crossroad Publishing 1994), 31–32Google Scholar.

⁵³ Rahner, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” 48.

⁵⁴ Haight, Roger, The Experience and Language of Grace (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 127–28Google Scholar. “Human spirit is transcendence; it is a capacity for an active openness to the infinite and absolute … Awareness of one's own transcendence appears in the ‘corner of the eye’ as a horizon or a field in which the spirit operates. One has an unthematic or preconceptual awareness that the orientation beyond oneself reaches even to infinity … Grace [therefore] is operative in the experience of infinite longings, of radical optimism, of unquenchable discontent, of the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, of the radical protest against death, the experience of being confronted with an absolute love precisely where it is lethally incomprehensible and seems to be silent and aloof, the experience of a radical guilt and of a still-abiding hope, and so on.”

⁵⁵ Kegan prefers not to use the term “stage” when talking about cognitive development because these processes are evolutionary (rather than a period of stasis followed by a significant shift) and because he prefers not to bind cognitive development with chronological age. He prefers the term “order” to describe the ways in which meaning-making is ordered and reordered in an individual's thinking. For Kegan, first-order thinking, which is characteristic of children, is capable of recognizing durable objects, that objects exist outside of themselves. Second-order thinking sees the connections among those durable objects, organizing them into durable categories; with the onset of third-order thinking, people recognize the relationships among categories. See Kegan, In Over Our Heads, 34.

⁵⁶ Kegan, In Over Our Heads, 21.

⁵⁷ Kegan, In Over Our Heads, 28–29.

⁵⁸ Rahner, “Ideas for a Theology of Childhood,” 37.