The Generational Divide

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I have noticed a common difference usually between Millennial Catholics and Baby Boomer Catholics. I can’t speak first hand on the Baby Boomer side since I’m a Millennial, but many times, I have found that while many Baby Boomer Catholics express great enthusiasm for the Novis Ordo Mass and contemporary liturgy, many Millennials express a great desire for more orthodox liturgy and Tridentine Mass.

Many Baby Boomers have resonated more with certain social teachings being more modern while many Millennials have desired more of a return to traditionalism.

While the differences aren’t with everyone and not everyone in this age group applies to these things (I’m speaking generally), this is something I’ve noticed and has apparently been more vocal within more diocese.

In my young adult group, there is an ongoing joke when modernism somehow is positioned, someone will in a silly way roll his eyes and say “Baby boomers” or “Peak Boomerism.” (sort of as a jab back at the “Darn Millennials” jokes).

I spoke with my priest about this asking if he noticed it and he said he has. His theory is that when contemporary approaches became more of the norm in the 60’s and 70’s, this was the Baby Boomer’s generation and their contribution to the Church of which they’re proud.

When I’ve spoken to many fellow Knights (I’m a 2nd degree – one of the youngest in my council) many of them and their wives (50-70 year olds) have said how thankful they are that the Latin Mass is mostly gone.

I’d love to hear your opinions, if you found this observation, if you think the Millennials yearning for traditionalism is misguided or a good sign, and if the Baby Boomers grievances with it are valid.
 
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Well, I’m a late gen Xer, but yes I’ve observed the same things you have. I think us gen x people fall in between the extremes. I’m definitely more traditional in my preference of liturgies though.
 
gcshapero said:
many Millennials express a great desire for more orthodox liturgy and Tridentine Mass.
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I haven’t noticed anything of the sort, and when I read about it, it sounds like wishful thinking on the part of frustrated traditionalists. The giveaway is that when they quote millennials, they language they use is nothing at all like what a millennial would use, but appears to be purely projection who have little idea how millennials think.

Sorry, but I’m not buying it.
 
It’s OK if you haven’t observed it, but are you now suggesting I’m not a millennial? I don’t think I even quoted any millennials other than the “Peak Boomerism” line.

Either way, you can believe that I’m 100 years old. This is more in regards to what you’ve seen and your thoughts on the subject.

For the record, I know some Millennials who are also siding more with the contemporary liturgy. This is more so based on patterns.
 
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My mistake, I misread what you wrote. But you bring up a good question; how would you imagine Millennials speaking when it comes to these things?
 
I don’t have to imagine it. I have two millennial sons myself and interact a lot with their friends. Few are even aware that anything like the EF exists, and I can’t imagine any of them caring if they did find out.

Sorry, but this “millennials are flocking to the TLM” story has been making the rounds for a long time now. Never with any credible evidence, and reeking of wishful thinking.
 
OK, well I’ve certainly experienced the opposite being surrounded by them, though it could also be the age group of the millennial. I usually interact with people in their 20’s and 30’s. I probably don’t see it as much from people in their teens.

Being on the older side, what has your observation been of the Baby Boomers?
 
I actually think it’s often the young teenagers who are looking for something edgy and Lifeteen won’t do who like TLM. Right now, that’s Gen Z.

Millennial and Gen X are generally the PJPII generation who tend towards less charismatic, but more spirited worship and care about the rules.

Millenials generally have time, flexibility and money so they seem to be the more likely ones to show up.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
I actually think it’s often the young teenagers who are looking for something edgy and Lifeteen won’t do who like TLM. Right now, that’s Gen Z.
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That’s really interesting – I don’t know if I’ve noticed that, though I don’t interact with teens that often. How do you define edgy? (I definitely don’t doubt that though. I think some of the younger crowd have found more conservative approaches to be edgy because it’s a break from the norm. Perhaps that’s how you meant it).
 
My personal theory is the millenials you speak of (which i dont think are the majority) prefer the EF because they view it as retro-chic.

By-the-by, there is only the EF and OF…novus ordo and TLM are slang terms that are far feom accurate.
 
gcshapero said:
I probably don’t see it as much from people in their teens.
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My boys and their friends are all in their twenties.

Don’t see much interest in the TLM among my generation, either. Even among conservatives. In fact, the ones in each generation that are most critical of the Trads are the more conservative ones. Progressive Catholics don’t take it seriously enough to even comment on.
 
When I say more traditional, I don’t necessarily mean the SSPX crowd. Just more so ones who have expressed favor in women veiling themselves, more somber music, subjects in homilies that have taken a back seat, etc. Just making sure I’m distinguishing those two.
 
Hereiam said:
prefer the EF because they view it as retro-chic.
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Actually, now that you mention it, there is one of my sons’ friends that did go through a TLM phase, for the precise reason that it was retro-chic. He thought the incense and such was cool, but ended up being turned off by the religious stuff. He was also into Shamanism and other ancient religions at the time, so his interest in the TLM has to be viewed in that light.
 
True, most young people baptized Catholics are leaving the Church in droves. This is more among the groups who do practice.

Retro-chic – expand on that.
 
gcshapero said:
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Xanthippe_Voorhees:
I actually think it’s often the young teenagers who are looking for something edgy and Lifeteen won’t do who like TLM. Right now, that’s Gen Z.
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That’s really interesting – I don’t know if I’ve noticed that, though I don’t interact with teens that often. How do you define edgy? (I definitely don’t doubt that though. I think some of the younger crowd have found more conservative approaches to be edgy because it’s a break from the norm. Perhaps that’s how you meant it).
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That’s exactly how I mean it.

When I was young we had Lifeteen and it was “edgy” because we were Catholics who knew more than our parents and we went to church and gasp liked it.

As a young adult volunteering in Lifeteen when many of the teens had young aunts and uncles that had grown and graduated from Lifeteen things like DTS (Dead Theologians Society) became all the rage. Teens who saw Lifeteen as normative–and perhaps because they had been better educated by that point than their predecessors–craved something not just deeper but more exclusive.

Today you now have former LifeTeen kids who’ve grown and have kids of their own. You have priests who went through LifeTeen…who are in their 40’s. The material is fresh and relevant to unchurched kids and they attend in droves but to those who are relatively churched and know whats going on, they need to take it a step further.

Such is the modus oprendi of teens.
 
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With all due respect, do you have a chip on your shoulder with all of this? I’m being entirely sincere. Not all young women I know, but many of them are pretty sincere about it. For them, it’s not so much cosplay.

Consider that they didn’t get that same upbringing in the Church as their parents did in their young lives but found an appreciation and love for these older traditions.

Speaking for myself, I can resonate with that as a convert. When I became a Catholic from Protestantism, I fell in love with traditional liturgy because it seemed so uniquely Catholic – it was something I had never experienced before and it recognized why sacramentals of the Church are gifts.
 
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gcshapero said:
Retro-chic – expand on that.
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Retro-chic are young people who do old-fashioned things out of a sense of style more than substance, like smoking a pipe or wearing a bowtie. The have no interest in learning about the context in which these things were used, just in doing something do be different. They quickly lose interest in whatever they pick up.
 
In my opinion, any divide at all is a sign that we’ve not done our work/our apostolate/our parenting/our formation as well as God would want.

First, we should reject secular categories such as gen x, y, me, millenials. That’s how the secular world wants us to think. We should flatly reject it, and challenge our intellect to see things as God sees them. This “divide” idea serves the secular world’s purpose of selling the “gen book” books and hawking superficial ideas upon the easily led crowd. And it serves the devil’s purpose of infinitely dividing us, and distancing the children of God from Our Lord and each other. That’s the purpose of abortion, contraception, divorce, self-esteem traininng, government social services, you name it.

Then, we should focus on ever closer unity centered around the unchanging vocations that God has designed into our humanity: Married life, single life, priesthood, religious.

And then even across these types of vocations - and vocations were given to us by God to simplify and order our life around particular objectives of His - we should understand how these vocations share so much in common…“total gift of self in service of God, but in slightly different ways”.
 
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