BILL McGARVEY Young Catholics in the United States
ters in New York City’s history, an enormous search party gathered in late January, just north of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neigh- bourhood, to discuss the whereabouts of twentysomethings in the Catholic Church in the United States.
Lost generation W
ho are they? What do they care about? Where did they go? And are they ever coming back? Despite one of the worst win-
Approximately 600 people braved moun- tains of snow piled up on Gotham’s streets and sidewalks to attend “Lost? Twenty- Somethings and the Church”, a conference at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus sponsored by the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies and the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture. Over the course of the two-day conference, academics, writers, pastors, lay ministers, church leaders, and students participated in panels that discussed topics ranging from data-driven analysis about the reality of twen- tysomethings’ declining interest and involvement with the Church, to practical, pastoral discussions about sexuality, spiritu- ality and popular culture. The operating principle behind the week-
end’s conversation was the roundly accepted notion in the US that “twentysomethings
raised as Catholics are swelling the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. Even those who continue to identify as Catholic are regularly absent from the pews and are likely to judge faith as less important in their lives than did their parents and grandparents.” Several studies over the past few years have
confirmed this suspicion, most notably the Pew Research study that found that a quarter of American adults under 30 are unaffiliated, describing their religion as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. By comparison, only
Last weekend, sociologists, church officials and a few twentysomethings gathered at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York to focus on why young adult Americans, most of whom consider themselves religious, are staying away from the Church
about half as many young adults were unaf- filiated in the 1970s and 1980s. Given that backdrop, the opening panel
revealed some disagreement over the extent of the crisis. James Davidson, an emeritus professor of sociology at Purdue University who specialises in the sociology of religion, and in particular the study of American Catholicism, praised the recent research but noted his discomfort with some of the inter- pretations drawn from the data. Davidson believes it is overstating the case to label as “former Catholics” those who were born Catholic but now describe themselves as atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular. “Viewing them as ‘former Catholics’ suggests that they have made a clean break with the Church,” Davidson said. “It is true, they don’t belong to local parishes or support the Church in any other way. They are ‘lost’ insofar as they are not benefiting from the Church, and the Church is not benefiting from their talents. But, by canon law, they are still Catholic, and – when you get to know them a little better than you do in a telephone interview – you learn that many of them are still very Catholic and think of themselves that way.” But Harvard professor Robert Putnam strongly disagreed with Davidson’s assessment. Putnam, best known for his bestselling
10 | THE TABLET | 5 February 2011
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