Exploring The Decline in Church Attendance Among Millennials

The Catholic Church has been a large part of our lives for thousands of years, bringing masses of people together through faith in God. Although there has been a decrease in church attendance of all ages in the last century, one group, in particular, has shown a more substantial decline. This group is a generation of people named millennials who were born between the years of 1984 and 1996. Statistics have shown clear evidence that there is a trend regarding millennials and a decline in their church attendance. In this paper, I will focus on millennials, in particular, to further understand the causes of the significant decline in church attendance.

In an article titled, “Catholic millennials don't go to Mass much, but they still give up meat during Lent” written by Michael J. O’Loughlin, he investigates the causes for this decline, with a central focus on millennials. He states, “Catholic millennials mirror their non-Catholic peers, showing a downward slide when it comes to attending religious services, prayer and belief in God. Two-thirds of Catholic millennials attend Mass “a few times a year or less often,” compared to a majority (55 percent) of pre-Vatican II Catholics, who go at least once per week” (O’Loughlin, 2016). The older generations that precede millennials have seen less of a decline because they have evidently, been more rooted in their faith than this select generation. Interestingly, there has not been a notable change in attendance of generations younger than millennials due to their lack of independence from their parents, who maintain faith in the Catholic Church.

When examining statistics on different generations before, during, and post-Vatican II, there are standout results which highlight millennials as outliers in comparison to other generations. It is important to point out that for millennials, there is both, a decline in the frequency of attending mass as well as their belief in God. In an article titled 'The Center Doesn't Hold: Church Attendance in the United States', Dr. Michael Haut, and Dr. Andrew Greeley, examine statics on the rate of participation of several religions between 1940 and 1984. The decision to research several religions allows us to highlight any religious differences in participation rates unique to a certain religion as well as the dates that the deviation occurred. When analyzing the results of this cohort study, the researchers were presented with clear evidence that showed that the only religion to show a serious decline was among Catholics. The weekly attendance percentage of Catholics was the highest during 1959 at 72 percent and plummeted to 47 percent in 1980 (Greeley and Haut, 1987).

The researchers believe that the cause for this decline was in response to Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter, “Humanae Vitae' written on July 25, 1968. The letter placed an emphasis on the Church's viewpoint regarding the rejection of contraceptive use. This was a shock to the majority of Catholics because the use of contraceptives was on the rise in the early 1960s. In addition, following the Second Vatican Council, people began to believe that “the church’s position on contraception might be relaxed. In fact, Pope John was putting together a committee to consider the matter shortly before he died. It then fell to Pope Paul VI to resolve the issue” (Elaine T. May, 2012). Once the backlash from Humanae Vitae had dissipated, the decline plateaued at an all-time low for the years following.

In order to understand the decline in millennials specifically, we must investigate potential causes, unique to this generation, which influence their disconnect. One of the biggest factors that play a difference between millennials and older generations are their political views. Millennials are shifting towards a more liberal view which is in conflict with the Catholic Church's views as well as the views of older churchgoers. In an article titled 'Why Millennials are Really Leaving Religion“ written by Jana Riess discusses the topic of ‘Evangelical Christianity’s Big Turn-Off’. This distaste from millennials, she states, “was its relentless pursuit of a conservative political agenda. Let’s call this the “political alienation” theory, which says that churches that have waged war against LGBT rights or supported Donald Trump are reaping the fallout: Millennials want nothing to do with them” (Riess, 2018). Millennials who identify as Democrats are the biggest group of the generation who shows a decrease in church attendance. It is evident that there is a correlation with the new beliefs of millennials being in contradiction with the older church views.

Riess poses a statistic which is extremely eye-opening regarding millennials step decline in religious affiliation as a whole. She states that 'no one can deny that religion has fallen on hard times. Four in 10 younger millennials (18-29) are nones, which is four times what it was in the 1980s. In fact, the fastest-growing religion in America is … no religion at all”(Riess, 2018). In her concluding paragraph, she lists three main factors that she believes play the biggest part on millennials leaving the Church. The first reason she claims is that millennials are getting married much later than the previous generations, or not getting married at all. She states that there is a clear correlation between marital status and religious affiliation. To back up this claim, she cites data from the Pew Religious Center’s poll regarding the different demographics of those who are ‘unaffiliated’ with the Church. Under the section of marriage, it states, “about four-in-ten of the religiously unaffiliated are married (39%), compared with about half of the general public (51%). Even among those ages 18 to 29, there are fewer married people among the religiously unaffiliated (12%) than among those with an affiliation (23%)” (Funk and Smith, 2012).

The second factor that Riess states is with fertility. She discusses that the levels of fertility have been on a decline which goes hand in hand with the church attendance. This is because couples who do not have children are more likely to not be religious than those with children. The final aspect that she believes to have an influence on millennials decline in attending church is a ‘circular argument’ which is that there is a ‘growth in the nones because there is a growth in the nones’. This statement might be confusing at first, but taking a sociological approach, it can be understood. In closing, she states, 'Some non-believers might have stayed in organized religion in previous generations just because it was socially expected, and there were consequences for not joining the religious crowd. The numeric growth of the nones has removed some of those barriers, so that other closeted nones feel more comfortable leaving religion too” (Riess, 2018). This is a very interesting way of understanding this decline because it is relatable in all aspects of life. We are raised as followers of our parents and older beings, but we see differences in our views as we get older. When we see a rise in another belief or viewpoint through a movement, it is very easy for us to be influenced by this new idea. Millennials are not afraid of change like older generations are, which makes it easier to deviate from the norm.

Another interesting aspect that must be taken into account is the effect of technology on the Church, especially for millennials. Technology has been part of our lives for decades, and its expansion is never-ending. Millennials, along with other younger generations are fully immersed in all that technology offers. The older generations that did not grow up with advanced technology such as smartphones or high-speed computers, do not place their focus on social media platforms as millennials do. From this rise in technology, people have been questioning if it is causing distractions which subsequently lead to a decline in Church attendance. The first factor that this distraction leads to is a lack of face to face interactions with others around us. Personally, I see many instances of this distraction daily, as I walk to class. Countless times, I’ve seen people take their phone out during their walk, as a way of avoiding any potential chances of having a conversation with others. It is evident that because younger generations are so caught up in their lives on social media, it produces anxiety when people are forced to have face to face conversations. As we see a decline in of face to face conversations, we can understand its ramifications on the Catholic Church. For example, if we examine those attending mass, throughout the entire service, attendees are having face-to-face interactions with their peers. Here, we are gathered together in unity, whether that is through our exchanges during the rites of Peace or while holding hands during Our Father. The use of social media by the Catholic Church has both positive and negative effects on millennials. The church has begun to understand the importance of networking on social media, as it is imperative for them to add and retain people within the church. In an article published in the Christian Century titled, “Vatican says the church can’t ignore social media”, it discusses the Vatican’s chief media strategist view on this topic. He states, “the Catholic Church cannot ignore the opportunities for evangelization that the Internet offers. ‘In our church, we are always fishing inside the aquarium,' … ‘And we forget that most fish are outside the aquarium. Unless the church engages social media, he said, 'we will wind up talking to ourselves''(Gibson, 2014). With that said, it is a slippery slope for the Church because it allows people to freely say what they please on the church's social media sites. The article then continues to address the problems that the Church faced on social media regarding Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. The head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Celli states,

There was something of a 'crisis' when the Vatican launched a Twitter account for Benedict in 2012 because of concerns over online criticism. Celli said that in fact, the number of negative comments on Twitter did spike during the last year of Benedict’s reign as he faced a barrage of bad headlines about scandals in the Vatican. But Celli said there has been a notable shift in tone under Francis, which he attributes in part to the new pope’s own eagerness to communicate by any means possible. He said that openness to media is a direct reflection of Francis’s view of the church (Gibson, 2014).

Although many responses were negative, it is understandable that people are expressing their views on the Church, as they would for politicians, on their social media platforms. This is going to be a continuous battle that the Church will have to face because social media is here to say and will remain prevalent in all of our lives. The Church needs to capitalize on this pivotal opportunity to bring people back by utilizing the benefits in which social media offers. In addition, the Church needs to further focus and analyze what they decide to post to their audience, understanding that millennials and following generations make up the majority of their viewers.

Catholic websites are currently not up to date with other websites in many ways. In an article titled ‘How Well is the Church Reaching Out to People In the Digital Age, author James Martin begins his work by explaining two terms used for understanding the appeal of a website. The word ‘sticky' is used to explain an intriguing webpage and ‘bounce rate' is the number of people who leave the page and do not return. In order to have an appealing website, the Church needs to make changes to their websites. Martin states, “the bad news is that more than a few Catholic sites are unimaginative, difficult to navigate, full of dead links and look like they have not been redesigned since the Clinton administration” (Martin, 2011). Without this change, the youth will not be accessing these sites, and the Church will not be able to spread their teachings to them.

I chose my paper topic on this subject because of how my religious affiliation has changed throughout my life. When my sister and I were born, we were both baptized in an Episcopalian Church. My parents were born and raised Catholic and attended mass weekly. When I was younger, my family and I would only go to Church on Easter and Christmas and around ten years ago, we stopped going as a whole. Before coming to Providence College, I was never required to take classes in theology. As a result of my studies in college, I am interested in personally understanding my families reason for not going to Church anymore. I called my parents to ask them to explain their reasoning for this change, and it turns out, there was more to the situation than I expected.

They began the conversations by staying that “the Catholic Church does not stay up with the societal beliefs current to the time.” My parents also emphasized the idea that because they work in medicine, there were reasons that they disagreed with the Church as well. My mom told me a story where two of her friends “could not swallow their birth control pill because they were too nauseous and could not stomach the idea that what they were doing was so against their religious beliefs.” My dad also added that the use of birth control is not only for contraceptive purposes, but also to regulate menstruation.” As I asked my dad about his previous marriage, he explained to me that the marriage was never annulled. When I asked him why, he explained that there were many reasons. The main reason was that he did not believe that signing paperwork would mean that his previous relationship never existed. Although this means that it never existed in the church, for him personally, it was much different. He explained that because of how poorly his previous marriage turned out, he will never be able to forget that it existed. An additional reason for his decision is that he did not want to have to contact his ex-wife in regards to their annulment by any means.

This annulment predicament has led to many subsequent reasons as to my parents left the Catholic Church. Since my dad did not get an annulment, my parents were not allowed to get married in the church and my dad was not allowed to take communion and go to confession. My mom also never liked that confession was highly suggested by the church, and by not going, she was viewed as less faithful.

In my last question to my parents, I asked them to explain why we stopped going to church on Christmas and Easter. They said that they were very unsettled by the recent accusations of sexual assault by the priests on young children. It goes without saying that it is against everyone's beliefs, yet that was the final instance where my parents decided that we were not going to church anymore.

Works Cited

1. “Attendance at Religious Services - Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, 11 May 2015, www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/attendance-at-religious-services/.
2. Gibson, David. “Vatican Media Chief Says the Church Can't Ignore Social Media.” Religion News Service, 23 May 2014, religionnews.com/2014/05/23/vatican-media-chief-says-church-cant-ignore-social-media/.
3. Martin, James. “Status Update: How Well Is the Church Reaching out to People in the Digital Age?” America Magazine, 9 Dec. 2012, www.americamagazine.org/issue/781/article/status-update.
4. May, Elaine T. “How the Catholic Church Almost Came to Accept Birth Control - in the 1960s.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 24 Feb. 2012, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-catholic-church-almost-came-to-accept-birth-control/2012/02/21/gIQAdy1JYR_story.html?utm_term=.21378225d5a3.
5. O’Loughlin, Michael J. “Catholic Millennials Don't Go to Mass Much, but They Still Give up Meat during Lent.” America Magazine, 25 Aug. 2016, www.americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/drop-faith-participation-reported-younger-catholics. Accessed 7 May 2019.
6. Riess, Jana. “Why Millennials Are Really Leaving Religion (It's Not Just Politics, Folks).” Religion News Service, 26 June 2018, religionnews.com/2018/06/26/why-millennials-are-really-leaving-religion-its-not-just-politics-folks/.
7. “Sacraments Today Updated.” Blogspot.com, 16 Aug. 2016, nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2016/08/sacraments-today-updated.html.
8. Semmens, Jackie. “Yes, Millennials like Brunch. But That's Not Why They're Skipping Mass.” America Magazine, 26 Sept. 2017, www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/09/25/yes-millennials-brunch-thats-not-why-theyre-skipping-mass.
9. “‘Nones’ on the Rise.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, 5 Aug. 2013, www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/.