Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Does the Christian faith offer an adequate theology of the child? In Roman Catholicism, children have long been celebrated as unique gifts from God and as a sign of the divine’s continuing presence in the world. No differently than adults, children are believed to possess dignity owing to their creation in the image and likeness of God. Furthermore, at the very heart of the Catholic tradition lies the belief that God offers God’s self to every person and invites all to a life of eternal communion. With the aid of God’s grace, persons have the freedom to actualize a “yes” to God’s self-offer throughout their lives by loving God and neighbor. The Catholic tradition affirms that, by the age of 7 years old, children have sufficient reason to distinguish between right and wrong, and to act as religious and moral agents capable of realizing this fundamental option for God. 

Vatican II documents affirm that children, like their parents, are called to witness to God, reach out to the most marginalized, contribute to the common good, and strive for justice and peace. Children also deserve basic human rights. Canon law recognizes these include the right to bodily integrity and protection from abuse, exploitation, and neglect. Children have the right to be nurtured, educated, and provided with goods necessary for healthy development so they realize their full potential and discern their calling from God. In certain cases involving spiritual matters, canon law stipulates that children at least 7 years old have rights they can exercise apart from their parents. By that age, children have a right to receive baptism, join the Church without the consent of their parents, and a right to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist, Confirmation, and Anointing of the Sick. 

The Catholic tradition also affirms that adults have a particular obligation to care for vulnerable children on the margins. Particularly over the past two centuries, the Catholic Church developed a global network of welfare, health, and educational services for children to prevent abuse and neglect and foster their well-being and development. To date, it is the world’s largest non-governmental provider of educational and welfare services to children. Such care of children has had a mixed history. While many children have greatly benefited from the Catholic Church’s care for children, some Catholic clergy and lay adults have exploited their power to abuse children sexually, physically, and emotionally. The degree of moral evil present in systemic global clergy sexual abuse and cover-up is unspeakable. The institutional abuse and neglect of Indigenous, Hispanic, and poor children in boarding schools and orphanages globally is just the latest harrowing problem of abuse to receive headlines. 

Drawing on natural law, Scripture, and Catholic social teaching, popes and bishops have regularly emphasized states’ obligation to protect children from abuse, neglect, and poverty and to defend their rights. In 1990, the Vatican signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which affirms that state parties use all available measures to protect children from violence and act in the best interests of children. In their 1991 letter Putting Children and Families First, U.S. bishops called on Americans to make the best interests of children and families first priority. Drawing particularly on Catholic social teaching that emphasizes how we all develop our God-given potential through supportive relationships, bishops have been fierce advocates of keeping migrant families intact or reuniting them with their families as quickly as possible when they have been separated. Globally, Catholic organizations have been at the forefront in helping meet the needs of migrants and advocating for their rights. 

Such teachings and actions on behalf of children may support a position that Catholicism indeed offers a “theology of the child.” Adding to this evidence, over the past thirty years both Catholic and Protestant theologians have increasingly recognized the child as legitimate subject of theological inquiry. They have prioritized children in their scholarship, emphasizing Jesus’ care for children and the way he subverts the status quo and hierarchical power dynamics by elevating children as role models for the kingdom of God. Key themes in recent theological reflection on children highlight both children’s vulnerabilities and adults’ obligations to protect and nurture them. We also see greater explicit attention on topics like children’s strengths, creativity, and agency to mediate divine presence and the Holy Spirit to enrich and transform Christian communities.

Is there evidence to the contrary that would cause us to pause our assessment about the maturity, fullness, and accuracy of our theology of the child? From my perspective, at least one major hurdle remains. Consider the good reasons we are hesitant to allow those in academia to speak for a marginalized social group to which they do not belong. A white male theologian could never credibly claim to develop an African-American, Latinx, Indigenous, or feminist theology.  Theologians acknowledge that such theologies must be rooted in the diverse perspectives and experiences of these marginalized social groups. Presuming competence as a white male to develop a theology of African Americans or a theology of women would render African Americans or women passive objects—not subjects—of study. 

Precisely here is my hesitancy to render any judgment on contemporary theological reflection of children to suggest we have arrived. The assumption that a child theology informed solely by adults is fully adequate subtly renders children as objects and silences their voices and perspectives. Adults may have memories of their particular childhoods, but these memories have been filtered and altered through their maturation to adulthood and their experiences and interpretive lenses as adults. Theologians also do not experience the current and diverse socialization processes and realities of children today. Those of us who engage in theological reflection about them need to acknowledge our limitations in accurately affirming children’s concrete realities and name our work accurately as “adult theological perspectives on children.” 

Is this just semantics? In my view, focusing on the need to collaborate with children as co-researchers and listen to them communicate their own realities offers not only a fresh perspective, but one that is crucial to develop the most robust and authentic theology of children possible. To do otherwise is to unwittingly perpetuate a silencing of children’s voices and experiences as a source of revelatory theological knowledge. In my child-centered ethnographic study of observing and interacting with Catholic adults and second graders in religion classes and interviewing children about their experiences of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I learned how easy it was for me and the most well-intentioned, caring priests, teachers, and parents to underestimate children’s cognitive, moral, and spiritual capacities. If theology is a process of “faith seeking understanding,” children—not adult theologians—are the ones to interpret meaning and articulate their insights about God, Christ, humanity, sin, and grace in response to their realities.

Is it possible for theologians to collaborate with children as co-researchers to develop a child-informed theology of children that reflects children’s actual perspectives rather than the projection and biases of adults? I believe this path forward is promising if theologians retool and gain competencies in child-centered research methodologies honed and developed by sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. As more theologians move into this new frontier, they will need to be keenly aware of the challenges of learning from children and accessing their honest perspectives due to enormous power differentials.

The impressive scholarship of childhood studies and theological reflection about children over the past 30 years have enabled us to get to this point of recognizing the present lacunae and need to develop child-informed theologies. The work of Catholic theologians like Cristina Traina, Mary Doyle Roche, and James McAvoy and Protestant theologians like Marcia Bunge, Joyce Ann Mercer, and Bonnie McLemore have emphasized the ways children as moral agents use their influence and skills to contribute to or undermine the common good within families, communities, and society.  In my own work, I have done this as well by interviewing children to access their insights and demonstrate how their voices can contribute to Catholic understandings of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is now time for theologians globally to undertake the next frontier of utilizing child-centered research methodologies and learn from children about their theological and spiritual insights. Such insights have the potential to enhance our understanding not only of theological doctrines but of how to more authentically mediate Christ’s salvific presence in the world.

Jennifer Beste is the College of Saint Benedict Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture and professor of theology at the College of Saint Benedict and St. John’s University. She is author of College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics and God and the Victim: Traumatic Intrusions on Grace and Freedom (2017).