You're the Church. Young people are leaving in droves. What do you do?

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It’s nauseating when a priest tries to be “hip” and use pop culture references to reach young people. When I was a kid in catechism class we would all roll our eyes at each other when this happened. Warmth and an understanding, guiding approach goes much further than a fifty year old man trying to feign fluency in teen jargon.
 
Identify the required components of mass, maintain them, but remove the non-required components and replace them with alternatives that would appeal to younger people in an additional mass.

For example, incorporating audio/visual that supports rock-concert-style amazing fidelity, drums, live concert style uplifting worship music, whatever it takes so long as it is allowed with in the confines of today’s mass.

Have a well educated, funny sermon from a deacon that might be longer than today’s (say 20+ minutes) that really teaches people and leaves them excited to return to learn more.

Finally, maintain the current mass for others who prefer it.
 
MarysLurker said:
Nobody ever talks about the Baptist abuse scandal or the Episcopal abuse scandal or the Presbyterian one or… the truth is that every major youth facing organization has had an abuse scandal. But the media is so biased against the Catholic Church that we are the only ones targeted for it.
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All of that is true. I believe I that I have posted here before about a recently retired Methodist minister friend that I have discussed this very thing with.
The bias that the media treats the Catholic church with or the silence about other scandals is not right, but doesn’t change the reality of anything I posted.
Whataboutism is not going to bring anybody around to thinking about returning.
 
Perhaps I haven’t read every single post here so correct me if I’m wrong,
But does anyone actually care to ask what young people want and what they are unhappy with etc. All I’ve read so far here is what WE think we should do. And perhaps what one young person @catholic03 said. Can we be more scientific?

Perhaps the answer is simply “ask”.
(and I do mean doing this properly, not just making comments on anecdotal evidences, why don’t we systematically do proper surveys etc)
 
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Chuck65 said:
Whataboutism is not going to bring anybody around to thinking about returning.
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You’re right, it’s not, and that’s exactly the point because the scandal is an excuse. Those folks (historical European-ancestry Catholics) are by and large not coming back. Even the Francis Effect hasn’t brought most of them back. If the reforms I mentioned in the other post (married priests, women lay cardinals) are tried, some of them might reconsider but most of them won’t until they’re on their deathbeds.

Since they aren’t gonna carry the load, we need to find those who will. Migrants, Anglican-heritage converts who haven’t heard about the Ordinariate, Millennial seekers drawn to Our Lady. Let’s get on it.
 
To Catholic03 -
God gave you the gift of a sharp intellect, and you have used it well so far.
I’m almost 53, so my adolescence was spent rockin’ out to Marty Haugen pop tunes and making felt banners in religion class. It was the only option at the time…to attend the local Catholic school at our parish and then, the one Catholic high school in my city.

The Church was poisoned by its current evil in the years leading up to VII. I knew how banal some church liturgies had become. My bulls*** detector went off when hearing bad church teaching. There are countless things God blessed me with, but I’d like to share three:

My parents taught me the faith at home. My dad converted after WWII in '53, so he learned the faith as an adult. My mom grew up Catholic in LaSalle, Illinois, back when the Catholic culture in Europe and America was at its peak. Between them, I saw the authentic Catholic faith being lived.

We went to the local parish, and sometimes the Cathedral. Typical 1976-built modern parish. I liked the colors of the stained glass. The Cathedral, however, was beautiful. I could tell it was there for God, not man.

I was 10 years old the first time I felt the beauty of the MASS; while on a vacation stop in Northern Michigan. It was a traditional small church with a communion rail and Latin. I walked out of there beaming, and I was so happy that I got “switched on”.

So, to sum up:

What works (worked for me):
Beauty
Authenticity
Reverence for the Sacred
Taught by strong parents

What does not work (didn’t work for me):
Well intentioned hippie nonsense
Hippie nonsense with evil intentions
 
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ratio1 said:
why don’t we systematically do proper surveys etc)
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There have been scientific studies, of which this is the best:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/08/why-americas-nones-dont-identify-with-a-religion/

Basically, the top reasons were:

Question religious teachings
Disagree with social/ political issues
Dislike of religious organizations
Don’t believe in God
Find religion irrelevant
Dislike religious leaders

Other studies I have seen that ask different questions generally put conflict with religion with science, and social/political issues (especially anti-LGBT), financial and sex scandals, hypocrisy, lack of financial transparency, distrust of religious institutions and leaders, and hostile attitude to young people as major reasons.

The evangelical polling firm Barba found that the three words that non-Evangelicals associated with Evangelicalism were “anti-LGBT”, “Hypocritical” and “Judgemental”. These were also the top three words that younger Evangelicals associated with their own religion.

I would hardly be surprised if former Catholics and young practicing Catholics would use those same words to describe Catholicism.

There have been a lot of studies on the generation gap in various religions, with the main findings being that younger members are far more likely to trust science, and far more likely to support liberal social values, especially LGBT-rights. The generation gap is smaller with regard to abortion.

Unfortunately, these are not the reasons that many leaders of religious groups want to hear.
 
MarysLurker said:
You’re right, it’s not, and that’s exactly the point because the scandal is an excuse .
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Not necessarily. The whataboutism comes across as whitewashing and evidence that the abuse isn’t being addressed.

We need to stop whitewashing things.
 
Perhaps after performing these quantitative studies are their more qualitative studies that delve a bit deeper? Eg why do they think it is judgmental, hypocritical etc.
 
ratio1 said:
their more qualitative studies that delve a bit deeper?
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Plenty. Google brings up lots of them.

As for judgemental and hypocritical, they are based on strident teachings on sexuality on the one hand, and sexual scandals on the other. Also, on demanding generous financial support on the one hand, and financial profligacy, lavish lifestyles of religious leaders, and lack of concern for the poor on the other.

Hostility to members of other religious groups is also often mentioned, especially Muslims.
 
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Thanks! I’ll do some research myself then. Thanks for your answer.
 
Elf01 said:
Not necessarily. The whataboutism comes across as whitewashing and evidence that the abuse isn’t being addressed.

We need to stop whitewashing things.
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But, as Socrates says, if someone truly holds a position X (“piety is whatever pleases the gods” or “that organization needs to do more about abuse before I’ll consider it”), they will apply X across the board in all situations. If X is actually code for another position such as “piety is whatever pleases Mars == I like war” or “Catholics should ordain women,” then you’ll see the speaker applying X only to peaceniks/Catholics. If it really was perceived as whitewashing the same standard would be applied by the “leavers” across the board; “the Catholics are whitewashing their abuse scandal and so are the Baptists/Presbyterians/Penn State/USA Gymnastics.” I don’t see any of the leavers calling for, say, the abolition of X Protestant denomination that also had an abuse scandal, or the United Nations, or the public schools. But the Catholic Church? A bunch of chanting medieval monks who they say should be ignored or abolished.

There’s a double standard; “abuse scandal” is often code for “I won’t be Catholic because I want gender ideology/women’s ordination/etc.” For that matter, “they aren’t doing enough about the abuse scandal” can also be code for “I don’t like Pope Francis or X liberal bishop.” If you do elenchus on the leavers, you’ll see that (apart from a fraction who are ignorant and reachable) they generally hold to some ideology incompatible with Catholicism and that the abuse scandal is just their excuse for not questioning their ideology. Yesterday, that ideology was nativism; today, it’s usually gender theory or another sexual ideology. Such ideologies are usually held very tightly and are reinforced by the decadent culture. As Archbishop Chaput has said, we have reached a critical mass of broken families.

That’s why I think there ultimately has to be a generational change; the descendeants of the leavers are going to look at their broken families, see the intact Catholic families, and question everything they know.
 
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GordonP said:
Other studies I have seen that ask different questions generally put conflict with religion with science, and social/political issues (especially anti-LGBT)
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So then the top two are directly addressable with better catechetical education, apologetics and formation of young people.
 
I have watched teens at Mass look at each other and smirk as the 70 year olds in the choir sang stupid OCP songs badly, and thought “what are the chances they’ll still be here in ten years?”
 
MarysLurker said:
So then the top two are directly addressable with better catechetical education, apologetics and formation of young people.
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You’re assuming that if young people had better knowledge of what the teachings of the Church actually are, they would be more likely to agree with them.

I highly doubt that would be the case with social/political issues, especially with regard to LGBT and women’s issues.

However, I do find the belief that the Church is opposed to science confusing. I can understand as far as Evangelical groups are concerned, but I have also seen this listed in studies specifically on Catholicism, as well. It might be possible that better information on the stance of Catholicism towards science might help some.
 
snarflemike said:
I have watched teens at Mass look at each other and smirk as the 70 year olds in the choir sang stupid OCP songs badly, and thought “what are the chances they’ll still be here in ten years?”
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If someone is going to leave the Church over OCP music, they’re probably going to leave anyway.
 
otjm said:
Oh, please get over the bit that the songs are the reason those 18 and older are leaving the Church. They are leaving because of poor catechesis; because their parents often have not been much more than cultural Catholics, because no solid foundation was built in those leaving; because they “shack up”; because they go to college and are immersed in secularism, hedonism and relativism in one fell swoop by their peers - who at that point make up the vast majority of their world.
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Considering that attending weekly Mass is probably the main “Catholic” think that many young Catholics do, you absolutely cannot dismiss the negative effect of inane, sappy, embarrassing liturgies, and the positive effect of beautiful, solemn, transcendent liturgies.
 
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