Among young adults (under 30s) in Europe, Mass attendance is plummeting, new survey shows

[BartholomewB]

We sometimes read that, in terms of declining church attendance, the Catholic Church is faring less badly than most others, both in the U.S. and around the world. However, a recent survey of young adults (the 16-29 age bracket) in twenty or more European countries shows that the outlook is grim for the Catholic Church as well, though how it compares with the Protestant churches I don’t know.

In Spain, for example, historically a strongly Catholic country, only 37 percent of people in that age bracket now describe themselves as “Catholics” and, among that minority, only 10 percent attend Mass at least once a week.

http://catholicherald.co.uk/issues/...y-truth-about-young-europeans-and-the-church/

 

[ATraveller]

I have reason to believe many Protestant denominations are faring worse.
For example (emphases mine):

Only 15 percent of members of the Church of Sweden say they believe in Jesus, and an equal number claim to be atheists according to the results of a recent survey.
[…]
Of the roughly 6.6 million members of the Church of Sweden, about 400,000 are active churchgoers, attending services at least once a month.

https://www.thelocal.se/20110615/34370
Even assuming all 400,000 monthly attenders are under 30, which isn’t the case, that’s a mere 6% that attend at least once a month.

 

[ATraveller]

Stephen Bullivant expands on this and mentions the state of Protestantism in Europe in an interview:

It’s certainly true that, at least judging by the sample of countries in the report, those with prostestant national Churches of one kind or another – the Lutheran ones of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway; Anglican in England; Presbyterian in Scotland, etc. – seem to have been hardest hit. Being an historically Catholic-majority country, while certainly no guarantee of ecclesial vitality (you mention France and Spain), at least seems to leave open the possibilty of (relative) vigour: Portugal, Poland, and Ireland are proof of that. And the Catholic minorities in some other countries, especially the Czech Republic, seem to be doing at least OK.
Why might that be? Two tentative possibilites come to mind.

[T]he Catholic Church has resisted at least some of the endless “updating” and “moving with the times” in search of an ever-elusive “relevancy” of the national Protestant churches. I don’t mean to say that there hasn’t been any of that in the Catholic Church, or that all of it is a bad idea. But as denominations in Europe go, the Catholic Church is certainly not at the very avant-garde of doctrinal and liturgical innovation. And the simple fact remains that those churches that have most closely mirrored the (very rapidly) changing social mores of their host cultures, and have indeed made a point of doing so, have very little to show for it in terms of actual disciples. There I a great deal more that could be said on this, but I’ll leave it there.
The second is simply the prosaic fact that the Catholic communities of many countries have often benefited enormously from Catholic immigrants from more religious countries coming to work and settle there. The UK is a case in point here: 20% of our Catholics were born outside the UK, compared to only 5% of the UK population in general. Waves of immigrants either from more Catholic places in Europe (Poland, Ireland), or other parts of the world (the Philippines, Keralan India) have continually topped up the Catholic numbers. The Anglican Churches don’t quite get the same boost (though they did in the past, thanks to the Commonwealth). And, of course, if you’re the Lutheran Church of Finland, then there aren’t really any Lutheran-majority countries who are sending young jobseekers abroad to fill your pews. The same thing is true in America, of course: Latino, Vietnamese, Polish, Filipino immigrants all have have a very tangible effect on Catholic numbers.

The Barely-Beating Heart Of Christendom - The American Conservative

I didn’t add late last night that though overall European Protestantism is in steep decline, there are particular parts of it that are stable or even growing slowly.
For the CofE in particular, there are a number of Reformed low-church Evangelical parishes that are full and somewhat expanding, though how much longer they’ll remain in the CofE is up for debate because that fissure is widening. Remarkably, one of those parishes that comes to mind is in central London and a good portion are under 35.

 

[Annie]

This has been an ongoing problem for almost 60 years: why is it still portrayed as news!!!? We have decades of “research” on proposed solutions, none of which has stemmed the tide. We need to look more closely at the problem and see what to do. I think maybe Pope Francis has a handle on this; we’ll see what happens.

 

[Bataar]

The answer I believe, is fairly simple, at least here in the U.S. (it could be the same in Europe, I’m not sure). When Catholics are raised to believe that no matter what they do they’re going to heaven anyway, why go to church or even practice the faith at all?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

When the kids get a little older and have to deal with all kinds of bad things like addiction, cancer and death, they’ll likely start rediscovering Jesus in a church somewhere.

 

[Clare]

Only if they knew Jesus in the first place, if you have families that have never known Jesus and are having more and more parents that don’t take their children to church or teach about Jesus at home then a lot won’t feel the need to discover Him.