Polling and surveys have for years documented a decline in the number of Americans who attend church. But Catholic parishes across the country say they are seeing a dramatic uptick in the number of young men attending their services, raising the question of whether a revival is at hand.
“Standing-room only” Easter Sunday services appeared to signal a “turnaround from years of decline,” said CBS News. The Archdiocese of Boston says it has seen 700 new converts in recent years, with young adults “driving the surge.” Young people seem “open to the call of the Lord,” said Boston Archbishop Richard Henning to the outlet. Much coverage suggests the wave is “driven primarily by young men,” said Religion News Service: One California parish, for example, reported 38 men among 56 recent converts. Other data indicates the “pattern varies substantially by region and parish.”
Catholicism is “drawing in Gen Z men” seeking “truth, beauty and, yes, girlfriends,” said The Washington Post. Young men are “turning back to God,” said influencer Anthony Gross. This is “absolutely” a “phenomenon,” said David Gibson, the director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, to the outlet. One study, however, reported that 12 young people have left the church for every new convert coming in. The influx of “theobros” amid such an exodus “changes the nature” of the church experience.
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Talk of a revival “seems unfounded,” Luis Parrales said at The Atlantic. Young Americans are the “least religious age group by many metrics,” more likely to express doubts about the existence of God and less likely to attend religious services or to have been raised in a faith tradition. The surge in young converts may be real and might spur a renewed “interest in contemplation and conversation” within a parish, but doubling their numbers will not “stave off broader generational trends.” If current trends persist, “American society will only secularize further.”
It is “entirely possible for a faith to experience revival and decline simultaneously,” Ross Douthat said at The New York Times. A “convert mentality” matters less to the growth or decline of a “big religion” than whether adherents have kids and transmit faith to them. “True enthusiasm” is probably better for the church than “dull religious habit.” There are indications, though, that religious renewal is taking place mostly in elite and upper-middle-class circles. A flowering of faith that leaves behind the poor and disaffected “would be a revival unworthy of the name.”
What next?
Despite “near-record” numbers of converts, there is no “conclusive statistical answer” to the question of a U.S. Catholic revival, said the National Catholic Register. While the “vibes have shifted a little bit” in recent years, there are few indications Americans “moved toward a ‘Yay Jesus’ stage,” said religion researcher Ryan Burge to the outlet. Others say the revival shows up outside the official reports. “I go to Mass every day, and I see there are more people in the pews,” said the the University of Chicago’s Rubén Rodríguez Barron to the National Catholic Register.
