Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals at 1645 Brook Lynn Dr., Ste 2, Dayton, OH 45432-1933 US - Author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy

Author of The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola Press, 2002) 

Delivered in St. Louis, Missouri, to Catholic Academy of Communication Arts Professionals 

October 17, 2003 

Thank you.  It’s good to be here with you today.  And I’m glad to be talking to an audience of Catholic communicators today about my book, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy.  It’s good timing, since this is the same weekend that Pope John Paul the Second – a great communicator, and a great hero to the New Faithful – is celebrating his 25^th anniversary as Pope. 

The Pope’s popularity with young people has always been something extraordinary, ever since his days as a young parish priest in Poland.  Back then, he led groups of young people on camping trips, saying Mass and teaching the faith in the beauty of Poland’s mountains.  Those trips were strictly forbidden by the Communist regime that feared the influence of faith among the young.  But Father Karol Wojtyla was not easily intimidated – then or now.  He would not keep quiet about his Catholic faith.  He would teach those young people to “be not afraid.”  And they would listen. 

Decades later, as Pope, he did something remarkable: He declared the first World Youth Day in Rome, and invited young people from around the world to travel to the Eternal City and celebrate their faith.  It was a fearless move, and the beginning of a phenomenon that has delighted young people – and puzzled their elders – for nearly two decades. 

Three years ago, in a newsroom just a few blocks from this hotel, I sat down to write an editorial for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about this phenomenon.  My secular Baby Boomer colleagues had asked me to write it, because I was young – just 25 at the time – and they knew I was a committed Catholic.  They thought perhaps I could shed some light on those World Youth Day gatherings.  As it happened, I was preparing to take a leave of absence from the Post-Dispatch to begin my work on my book, The New Faithful.  I had been given a generous Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellowship to study the attraction of young adults to traditional Christianity and moral absolutes.  So I was eager to tackle this task. 

My Baby Boomer colleagues wanted to know what, exactly, was going on there in Rome during World Youth Day 2000.  Why would two million young adults converge on the Eternal City at the invitation of a frail, palsied 80-year-old man?  Why would they endure Rome’s notoriously brutal August heat, nine-mile hikes and portable bathrooms for six days to listen to sermons about sexual purity and to confess their sins to strangers?  Sure, Rome is a beautiful city for what journalists dubbed a “Catholic Woodstock.”  But most of these young adults could attend dozens of rock concerts and love-ins for the same amount of time and money it took to get to Rome.  Why make such extreme sacrifices to attend an event where poverty and purity are extolled over partying and pleasure?  What’s going on with today’s kids, anyway? 

As I talked with colleagues and read other media reports of what had happened in Rome, I found myself amused – and inspired.  These were the very young adults I planned to research and write about over the next year.  And the audience I was addressing in my editorial – of perplexed parents, pundits, professors and pastors – was the very group I hoped would read my book.  The disconnect between the two groups amazed me. 

From the point of view of my colleagues – and many of the middle-aged adults I have talked with since then – these young adults are a bit of an aberration.  In a generation of certified slackers saturated with sex and secularism, it seemed odd that these young adults would be so attracted to messages of sacrifice and sanctity.  Perhaps they simply wanted to see Rome; they like congregating en masse; maybe they think the Pope is “cute.”  They probably don’t buy the message he’s selling – about strict sexual morality, love for the institutional Church, respect for authority and tradition.  How could they, after all? They’re young. 

But the young adults I interviewed – both before I wrote my World Youth Day editorial and as I was writing my book – had a different story to tell.  Whether veterans of a World Youth Day celebration or admirers of the Pope from afar, they see much more than a respectable leader in him, much more than a comfortable habit in Catholicism. 

They are on fire for Jesus Christ and unashamed to admit it.  They want to change the world.  Yet unlike many of their Baby Boomer parents, they see Christian orthodoxy – not progressive politics – as the vehicle for that change.  Awash in the enthusiasm of “born-again Catholic” experiences, these new faithful are not content to trudge to Mass on Sunday and slip back into secularism on Monday.  They insist on infusing their faith into everything they do – from work to play to dating to choosing a vocation.  And the Pope’s exhortation – that the greatest thing they can do is spend their lives winning the world for Christ and his Church – does not strike them as empty posturing or oppressive proselytizing.  It strikes them as the truth, as something worthy of their best years, their greatest gifts, their very lives. 

So I wrote an editorial that gave a small snapshot of what I would study for the next year: the reasons why the Pope’s message, and the message of Christian orthodoxy in general, appeal so much to the generation born amid Watergate, weaned on MTV, and raised in the age of the sexual revolution and the no-fault divorce. 

Here’s a snippet of what I wrote: 

“For young adults reared in a culture that tells them to chase every impulse they conceive and win wealth at any cost, the Pope’s message is radical.  He challenges them to accept that which their culture rejects – the poor, the powerless, even their own weakness.  He creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of hope that flouts the pop culture prophecy of doom delivered by so many movies, music lyrics and stump speeches.  And he exudes authenticity, something sorely lacking among so many public figures of our time .  .  .   

“The Pope challenges a notoriously cynical generation and they accept.  He speaks of unconditional love and they answer.  He gives them a vision of themselves and they conform.  Suddenly, self-sacrifice makes sense.  Work for peace and the poor matters again.  The transcendent is tangible and the future is promising, because someone, finally, saw them for who they always knew they could be.” 

In the year that followed my writing of this editorial, I traveled across America and talked with more than 500 young adults about their attraction to moral absolutes and traditional Christianity. 

To give you a sense of my research, let me offer a few key facts and definitions.  The young adults I profiled in my book were born between the years of 1965 and 1983, with a few exceptions on either end of the age spectrum.  Most belong to the cohort known as Generation X, though the younger ones fall into Generation Y.  Their religious affiliations span the Christian spectrum but my focus – on young orthodox Christians in positions of cultural influence and on churches where this trend is most vibrant – tended to lead me to Roman Catholics and evangelicals, as well as some mainline Protestants and Orthodox Christians. 

The young adults who are part of this grassroots movement form a small but committed and growing core of believers.  They are not the majority in their generation, but they are often in positions of leadership and influence – the sort of young adults who have the potential to shape culture.  And statistics suggest that their ranks may be growing. 

I included a slew of statistics in my 320-page book, including Gallup polls of teen-agers throughout the 1990s – when many in Generation X were in their teens – which found that 70 percent rejected the notion that religion is “not an important part of the modern world.”  These teen-agers identified as “religious” by an almost identical margin.  More recent studies, like the federally financed National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, have found that two-thirds of today’s teenagers describe themselves as “religious” or “very religious.”  Conversions are tough to quantify, but recent polls – like the one that found a majority of today’s teen-agers identifying themselves as “religious,” rather than “spiritual but not religious” – suggest that something is afoot among the young. 

As for the definition of orthodoxy itself, the dictionary often equates orthodoxy with conventionality or traditional values.  I like G.  K.  Chesterton’s definition, which he included in his 1908 religious autobiography, Orthodoxy.  He wrote: “When the word ‘orthodoxy’ is used here it means the Apostles’ Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself Christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who heed such a creed.”  

Or, as a thirty-something evangelical told me when I was interviewing him for this book, “orthodoxy means you can say the Apostles’ Creed without crossing your fingers behind your back.” 

The young adults I interviewed for this book embrace traditional morality, which they define as adherence to the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Beatitudes, avoidance of pre-marital, extra-marital or homosexual sex, and commitment not only to Jesus but also to regular church attendance.  The Catholics in this group strive to follow Church teachings in their entirety, rather than just “picking and choosing” from among them.  And the morality of the New Faithful – which presupposes the objective truth of their religion and faith-based values – flies in the face of the moral relativism that so many of them were weaned on as children. 

And that’s precisely the point. 

Most of these young adults see the embrace of Christian orthodoxy as a counter-cultural choice, a rebellious turn away from the cultural decadence and moral confusion that has surrounded many of them since birth.  Many also see themselves as recovering what was lost when their parents’ generation rejected traditional religion and morality. 

This pendulum swing toward tradition has taken hold in everything from courtship mores to worship styles, with many young adults embracing Eucharistic adoration, frequent confession, modesty-conscious fashion, and home-schooling.  But most of these young adults do not consider themselves “throwbacks” or “traditionalists” or even “conservatives.”  They consider themselves followers of Christ, full of flaws but striving for holiness. 

From the young woman who rediscovered her Catholic faith while nursing a leper in Calcutta to the young man who found God in the midst of a satanic rock concert in Indiana and wound up a beard-wearing, sandal-clad monk in the Bronx, I interviewed many young people who never expected to commit themselves to a faith that now drives every decision they make.  But through the personal witness of other young Christians, the authentic witness of leaders like Pope John Paul the Second, and the disciplines of Scripture reading, prayer and the sacraments, they have opened themselves to receive God’s grace, and they have taken the first steps toward conversion. 

Their conversions are often striking.  While researching The New Faithful, I listened to stories that read like Hollywood scripts: stories like that of the Yale Law graduate with Tom Cruise good looks and a girlfriend who traded his Justice Department attorney’s job for enrollment in a Dominican friary. 

I saw the packed auditoriums of students gathered for Jesus Week at Harvard.  The week-long event, organized and run by Harvard students in the midst of their staunchly secular school, had attracted overflow crowds, with young men furiously scrawling notes and young women nodding their heads in agreement as a Catholic philosopher tackled their toughest questions about God – questions their Ivy League education had failed to answer. 

I trailed a group of young Catholics who had traveled all night on a bus from Boston to join the March for Life in January.  As soon as the march was over, they piled back on that bus for another redeye ride – with no complaints, no questions that their trip was worthwhile.  The night before that March, I had listened to a group of young men from Providence strum their guitars into the wee hours in the basement of the National Basilica near Catholic University, where hundreds of teen-agers and young adults slept on the cold concrete floor.  There were no showers or beds for these pro-life pilgrims, but that did not stop them from making the trek to make their voices heard. 

I ate lunch with an evangelical screenwriter in California, who had decided with his wife that God was calling them to give up their day jobs in Boise and move to Hollywood.  They felt called to transform the entertainment industry from the inside.  With no other support than a solid community of Christians who had the same aspirations, he was struggling through his first year as a stagehand on the set of Touched by an Angel.  But he was witnessing to Christ on the job and making progress on his true passion – a screenplay that wove subtle threads of evangelization through a story drenched with secular appeal. 

Just a few miles away, in Beverly Hills, I met a Catholic woman in her late twenties who sifts through incoming movie scripts to weed out the morally offensive ones, and sends out e-mail messages asking her to crowd of Protestant and Catholic friends to pray for God’s intervention when her boss is considering producing a particularly offensive film. 

I toured East Palo Alto, Calif., with two women who moved into the house of a former drug lord so they could live closer to the neighborhood kids who had few other Christian role models. 

And I made it to World Youth Day 2002, where I saw young women raise their hands in praise, and young men, overcome by a power not of this world, simply weep. 

I interviewed Christian actors and producers in Hollywood; Christian politicians and staffers on Capitol Hill; Christian doctors in St. Louis; Christian lawyers in Boston; Christian scholars in Chicago.  All of these young adults – and many more who never made it into my book – had fascinating stories of spiritual awakenings and struggles.  They may have embraced the most stringent of faith-based practices – from fixed-hour prayer or daily Mass to monastic celibacy or natural family planning – but they were not dull or sheltered.  Most were highly educated, talented and articulate.  They tend to be leaders among their peers and in their professions – a common characteristic that led me to focus my research on culturally influential young believers, those who are already having a disproportionately powerful impact on American culture. 

The impact they are having is intentional.  The New Faithful view their conversions not only as powerful personal experiences, but as the seeds of cultural transformation.  These young believers are bringing their newfound faith commitments to bear on their social, political and cultural lives as well as their spiritual ones. 

Consider the sexual counter-revolution brewing among these young adults.  From St. Louis to San Francisco, I met young, orthodox Christians who were proudly touting the benefits of chastity and self-control.  I encountered many attractive, well-adjusted young adults who gushed about the joy they have experienced since they decided to forego pre-marital sex and treat their bodies with more reverence.  They frequently referred to the “retro-revolution” in sexual mores among their peers, who had grown tired of the “hook up” culture, of serial sexual relationships that did not last, and of the pain they experienced when they followed the world’s advice to “do what feels right.”  Many spoke of a childhood scarred by divorce and the price they paid for their parents’ sexual liberation.  Newsweek recently featured a cover story on this trend, called “Choosing Virginity.”  And statistics show that it may be on the rise.  The 1998 UCLA survey of college freshmen found approval of promiscuity at a twenty-five-year low.  In 1998, 40 percent of students said casual sex was acceptable, down from a record high of 52 percent in 1987.  The same survey showed student support for legal abortion dropping for the sixth straight year, from 65 percent in 1990 to 51 percent in 1998.  The recent success of books like “Born Again Virgins” and “Return to Modesty,” as well as retro-trends toward swing dancing, traditional courtship and covenant marriages suggest that many young Americans are rejecting the hedonism that so charmed their parents. 

Many young Christians are also making counter-cultural decisions about marriage and family.  These young adults tend to date with an eye toward marriage, and many marry at younger ages than do their peers.  They pray with spouses and make family worship a priority.  And many are opting to have larger families.  Nearly all of the young Catholics in this group and a growing number of the young Protestants are opting to eschew birth control and use Natural Family Planning to space their children.  And nearly all of the young adults in this group, and many young adults this generation, are intensely concerned about avoiding divorce.

The news is not all rosy, of course.  Statistics also show that teen-agers are engaging in sexual activity at ever-younger ages, and a cursory glance at the movies and music popular with young Americans testifies to the hedonistic impulses of the next generation.  Yet even among those who were not embracing traditional morality, I consistently found admiration for the Pope, for couples who kept their wedding vows, for people and programs that encouraged service, self-sacrifice and spirituality.  These are the spiritual-but-not-religious masses from which came the cohort I studied. 

It is worth noting that many of the New Faithful once flocked to the spring break orgies and chanted the raunchy song lyrics that they now reject.  While imbibing this fare, many of them were also experiencing an emptiness that ultimately led them to Christian orthodoxy.  If these young Christians, many of whom are leaders among their peers, found God in the midst of hedonism, there is reason to believe that many of their peers may follow suit. 

The fire for evangelization that has swept through this generation often puzzles, and even embarrasses, their parents.  While this new crop of believers is wearing t-shirts that say “100 percent Catholic” and taking public virginity pledges, their Baby Boomer elders are left wondering why, on earth, these young adults feel so compelled to evangelize so bluntly. 

The answer, for many of these young adults, connects back to their own experience of drowning in a postmodern sea of competing choices as children.  Many of them grew up in homes and churches where they learned that God is love – and that’s all they learned.  Many were never told much about who God is, how they can know, and love, and serve Him, and what it means to be a Catholic.  Many never heard the Gospel preached with clarity.  They were never urged to seek truth or avoid sin or carry the Cross.  They were simply told to be nice to each other, believe what suited them, and never, never commit the cardinal sin of intolerance. 

So now they are seeking truth – with intensity.  They are forming groups to read the Bible, learn the Catechism, and study the teachings of the Church and the Holy Father.  They are hungry for knowledge and hungry for God.  And they do not want a watered-down version of the Gospel.  The want the Gospel in its fullness, challenges and all. 

There are dangers in this sort of enterprise, of course.  The concerns that this generation of young Christian professionals shared with me were spiritual ones.  Will they yield to the temptation of ignoring their convictions in order to further their careers?  Will their attempts to act as “stealth bombers” in secular settings leave them too compromised to speak the truth?  Or will they grow too judgmental and self-righteousness to effectively engage the world, and risk rendering their orthodox revolution irrelevant?  

Most of the New Faithful are keenly aware of these dangers, and convinced of the need for balance and ecumenism in their culture-transforming initiatives.  Many are intent on working together across denominational divisions, and building interfaith alliances with Jews and Muslims who share their faith-based morality. 

As for the young Catholics in this group, most are committed to speaking the truth in love, suffering for the faith when necessary, and finding common ground where possible.  They want to renew the Church and they believe the Pope when he tells them that they are the light of the world and the future of the Church. 

I’d like to conclude today by sharing the story of one young Catholic I interviewed for my book, David Legge.  He experienced a conversion back to the Catholic faith of his childhood while studying at Yale Law School.  Years later, while working as an attorney at the Justice Department, David began to feel a call to the priesthood.  Despite all of his possessions and prestige, David told me, the prospect of sacrificing everything for the kingdom of God captivated him.  Though his story is one of a decision to enter the priesthood, David’s description of the lure of committed Christian life for young adults in a secular society was strikingly similar to many of the stories I heard while researching this book. 

In the second chapter of my book, I quoted David’s description of how he came to that momentous decision.  It happened while he was on a weekend retreat, trying to discern what to do about some relationship troubles he was having with his girlfriend.  At the Benedictine monastery he visited, David was told to meditate on a passage from Luke 11, in which Jesus tells his disciples: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” 

Here’s what I wrote in that section: 

David meditated all day but found the passage irrelevant to his situation.  After all, he thought, he was here to sort out his relationship with his girlfriend, not seek God.  He had already found Jesus.  That night, David sat outside and watched the monks process toward a statue of the Virgin Mary while singing the Litany of Loretto and asking her to send young men to join their order.  Something about the procession struck David and moved him almost to the point of tears.  He could feel something welling up within him, and he felt compelled to be alone in the presence of the Eucharist.  So David ducked into the chapel, knelt before the tabernacle, and began to pray. 

“It was like God hit me over the head with a bottle,” he said. 

I realized that the Scripture passage I had meditated on did apply to me.  All this time I’d been thinking that it didn’t.  Then it hit me that I had never asked the Lord what he wanted me to do with my life.  I was asking him to make this relationship work; I was asking him for what I wanted.  But I wasn’t asking him what he wanted.  And I was just overwhelmed with fear because I thought, I cannot possibly ask that question, because he might say, “I want you to be a priest.” Or what if he says, “I want you to be a monk”? I don’t want to be a monk! I want to be married, to this woman.  I want to be a lawyer.  I’m very happy with my job.  How can I throw all those things away? 

In fear and distress, David lingered on his knees for almost an hour.  He wrestled with himself, trying to find the resolve to ask that question in the silence of his heart that would allow God to take complete control of his life. 

“I was in anguish because I didn’t know what to do,” he said. 

I just couldn’t bring myself to ask that question.  Finally I saw that if I didn’t ask, I would be saying, “I don’t want to do what you want me to do.  I’m going to do what I want.  And I’m going to hope that’s what you want.  But I’m not actually going to try to do what you want.” And I knew that I would be rejecting him if I said that.  So finally I said, “All right, Lord, you win.  I give up.  I can’t resist you anymore.  Lord, whatever you want, I’ll do.  You want me to be a priest, I’ll be priest.  You want me to be a monk, I’ll be a monk.  Tell me what you want me to do.” And that was the turning point for my life.  At that moment, I received one of the most dramatic consolations that I’ve ever received.  All of the fear that was weighing on me, it literally felt like something was lifted off of my shoulders.  It disappeared.  And I was just filled with joy and peace.  And it was an intensity that’s hard to describe.  I had the clear sense that it was not coming from inside me, that it was being poured into me, just added into me.  In that one instant, it just was apparent to me that all of the things that I thought were really important to me weren’t important to me. 

David realized that he could walk away from his career, his girlfriend, and any other part of his life that God might want to change. 

“I still didn’t know what he wanted me to do,” he said.  “But I wasn’t afraid.  I was actually kind of excited.  I was very excited.” 

I am excited, too, about the commitment and joy I glimpsed while researching and writing The New Faithful.  For a Church struggling with scandal and a nation searching its soul, the story of this new generation serves as a timely reminder that the future is indeed full of hope. 

Thank you.