Taking a Stand to Understand, by David G Bonagura, Jr.

By David G Bonagura, Jr., The Catholic Thing, May 9, 2024

David G. Bonagura Jr. an adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary and is the 2023-2024 Cardinal Newman Society Fellow for Eucharistic Education. He is the author of Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism and Staying with the Catholic Church, and the translator of Jerome’s Tears: Letters to Friends in Mourning.

Much has been said about the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts, roughly today’s 20 to 42 crowd, especially their hesitancy towards commitment. They marry later than previous generations – if they marry at all; have driven the U.S. birthrate to dangerously low levels; are more likely to change jobs; and less likely to own a home than their older counterparts.

And if we turn from sociology to faith, we find that this same hesitancy towards commitment is driving younger Americans away from religion. The most cited reasons for rejecting “organized” religion are doubts about religious teachings and about God, dislike of religious organizations, and poor experiences with religious people – all of which are often symptoms of a more basic unwillingness to give oneself to other persons or causes. We can trace this back further to a general lack of trust that fears uncertainty and brokenness. Younger Americans turn the old adage on its head: It is worse to love and lose, so let’s not love at all. …

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