Young adults defying secularism trend in Canadian Church

Vancouver, Canada, Jul 22, 2024 / 08:00 am

A recent Cardus study says young Catholics are twice as likely as their senior counterparts to attend religious services at least once a month.

Reports of dwindling religious practice among Catholics in Canada may be more prevalent each year, but a different trend showing increased interest from young adults is giving hope for a possible resurgence of the Church in the near future.

A 2022 research report from Cardus titled “The Shifting Landscape of Faith in Canada,” revealed religious indicators among those who identify as Roman Catholic have overall declined since 2017. Those indicators included believing in God, reading Scripture regularly, having an experience of God in one’s life, praying regularly, and attending religious services (apart from weddings and funerals) regularly.

However, the report found an exception in younger Canadian Catholics.

“We are seeing what seems to be a bit of a revival within the Church and that goes against the old secularism thesis that as a society becomes more secularized, it becomes less religious,” said Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, director of the Faith Communities Program at Cardus.

“We live in probably one of the most secularist countries in the world and we see that a lot of young men and women are far from leaving the Church; they are actually entering into it instead.”

Bennett is adamant that the more Canada swells its secular society, the more Catholicism becomes an attractive option for young adults (roughly aged 18–34) as a form of rejection rather than an escape.

“Increasingly we have seen a number of young people, whether it is in high schools, universities, or workplaces, not buying into society’s highly subjective idea of truth. They are seeking integrity, authenticity, and something with real staying power,” he continued.

“This sees them come to or return back to the Church they were raised in where they see that the Catholic faith holds an objective and universal truth, one that is not a philosophy that changes with the wind but rather the person of Jesus Christ.”

The Cardus report shows Canadians identifying as Roman Catholic under 40 years of age were nearly twice as likely as older Roman Catholics to attend religious services at least once a month. Additionally, 81% of young Roman Catholics showed a belief in life after death, with 91% of females under 35 having this belief, compared with 60% of their senior counterparts.

While analyzing specific demographics can be tricky (and in Archdiocese of Vancouver these records are the responsibility of individual parishes), the report highlights that certain belief indicators can give realistic insight into who identifies as Catholic.

Cardus conducted another survey in 2024 called “Still Christian(?)” to look at the relationship between the personal beliefs of Canadian Christians and the teachings of various church denominations.

“In the ‘Still Christian’ survey that we just did recently, the questions were essentially ‘mere Christianity,’ meaning that either you agree with these or you do not, and if you do not agree with them, you become incoherent in terms of the Christian faith if you yourself profess to be Christian or Catholic,” Bennett said.

The 2024 report also stated that “younger Christians appear to be more intentional or committed to the teachings and practices of the faith than Christians of their parents’ or grandparents’ generations.”

The younger generation “is beginning to desire a more traditionally Catholic life,” Bennett said. “If you look at any church where the Traditional Latin Mass is being offered, they are not only growing, they are bursting at the seams.”

One parish that is no stranger to young adults is Holy Family Parish in Vancouver, whose Latin Mass has become the source and summit for its growing community.

Father Kent Grealy, parochial vicar at Holy Family Parish, notes the increase of young people and families has amassed to roughly a new parishioner every Sunday for close to the past six months. These new members also comment on the number of other young people and families in attendance.

A multitude of reasons has been discussed, but Grealy surmises that apart from an escape from modern culture’s ideals, there is something intrinsic to discovering a higher purpose that leads people in that age range directly to the Gospel.

“Young adults are at that point of their lives where they possibly look towards marriage or to more substantial relationships. Through that they often discover the romance of faith which begins to take shape around that age,” he said.

“That draws them into discovering the Gospel, which is this story that is a great epic, and it shows them that the nihilistic and materialistic bent of modernity makes life not worth living.”

(Story continues below)

It is a theory that has also been observed by Eric Chow, associate director for ministries and outreach for the Archdiocese of Vancouver. For him, a significant cause of the increase comes down to young adults’ hunger to find their role within the Church and a place in their everyday lives.

“The word that comes to mind for me is identity,” he said. “The young adult stage is really about seeking identity and moving into adulthood in such a way that is true to who they are and who God has made them to be.”

For the last five years, Chow has overseen a lay formation team that supports the archdiocese’s Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, various young adult ministries, and catechetical formation of lay leaders. Even before his tenure, he had noticed a change in the demographics.

“Prior to working for the archdiocese, I worked for an evangelization movement called Catholic Christian Outreach, which is a university student movement dedicated to evangelization and works on campuses all across Canada. There, we had seen an increase in the number of young adults that have not only engaged within the life of the Church but also engaged within the life of their local parish communities.”

He also cited a thirst for leadership formation as one of the reasons younger audiences are seeking Catholicism.

“They are hungry for more than even just a young adult community, something that is not limited to a prayer group once a week. There has been a shift in the way in which Catholicism is being expressed within communities, and part of what I am seeing with young adults is a desire to want to have real, authentic, and relevant expressions of Catholicism that help animate their everyday lives in things like decision making.”

The real-world effects that an influx of young adult attention has on the Church reflect the beneficial synergy between young adults and religion.

“I think [increased young adult involvement] invites every parish to consider how they might provide support beyond just giving them a room and a couple of bucks to buy some pizza. It is thinking about how can [parishes] form these young adults in such a way that they can have their questions answered around their identity, vocations, their relationship with God and at the same time, offer them tangible on-the-ground leadership opportunities to serve the Church in a greater way,” Chow said.

“These people can still dream a lot about what tomorrow might bring but at the same time be old enough to do something about it and that is a really neat dynamic of being engaged at that age.”

This article was originally published by The B.C. Catholic on July 12, 2024, and has been reprinted here with permission.