Church in the 21st Century Center report shows “hope and opportunity”
A new report, the product of a multi-year project undertaken by the Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College, summarizes what more than 4,000 young people in U.S. Catholic high schools and colleges think about their faith and the Catholic Church. According to the co-directors of C21’s Student Voices Project, the findings, in some cases, are contrary to the popular narratives about this younger generation of Catholics.
Launched in 2019 as a way to “take the pulse” of young people’s faith, the Student Voices Project reveals that there is hope and opportunity to be found in Catholic high schools and colleges, said C21 Director Karen Kiefer, who led the project along with Dennis Wieboldt III ’22, M.A. ’23, a member of the C21 advisory committee.
Before the SVP data came in, Kiefer said she was expecting students to say, “I'm a good person. I volunteer at a homeless shelter or am part of a social justice organization. I don't need to go to Mass. I don't need the sacraments.”
However, according to Kiefer and Wieboldt, the findings point to a more nuanced understanding of young people’s openness to the Catholic faith and curiosity about God working in their lives.
Kiefer added: “These students are saying, ‘I want to be part of something bigger than me. But I need help to figure out how to do that, and I want to do that with friends and other like-minded people. I want the Church to welcome me, see me, and hear me.’”
Among the key findings of the Student Voices Project:
In terms of faith formation, Catholic high schools and colleges are the new parish for young Catholics.
“Catholic schools present important opportunities for students to have conversations about faith that they are not having elsewhere,” said Wieboldt. “Catholic schools uniquely equip students to understand how God is working in their lives and bring conversations about faith to a wider audience.”
Another interesting point centers on Mass attendance. “In general, young people aren't going with their families to Mass on Sunday,” said Wieboldt. “Rather, they're sustaining their faith by going to Mass with their classmates during the week.”
Kiefer indicated that this finding presents an important takeaway for the Catholic Church in the U.S. “There’s a lot of talk about the revitalization of parish life. The SVP showed us that there are ways for Catholic high schools and universities to partner with parishes and share resources and programs. This can help bring young people into the life of the parish and in that way revitalize local faith communities.”
Church in the 21st Century Center Director Karen Kiefer (Gary Wayne Gilbert)
Students are curious about seeing their faith come alive in the classroom through the Catholic intellectual tradition.
“Intellectual engagement with faith, both at the college and high school levels, helps students develop a deeper understanding of their faith,” said Wieboldt. According to the data, high school students wanted their religion classes to engage with topics typically considered contradictory to religious beliefs, such as science, suggesting that dialogue between seemingly opposed disciplines can help students grow in faith.
“This finding offers an exciting invitation for Catholic schools,” said Wieboldt, who added that BC’s "Complex Problems and Enduring Questions" core courses “model how to facilitate interdisciplinary engagement with faith in the classroom, so there is a real opportunity for high schools and universities to partner and continue to build out their programming.”
At the college level, according to the SVP, engagement with theology in the first year, especially through BC’s Perspectives and PULSE programs, changes the way that students think about the rest of their college years. “Something touches students in a way that opens them up to wanting more and digging deeper,” said Kiefer, adding that these positive experiences can lead students to become theology or philosophy majors or minors.
Dennis Wieboldt III (Christopher Soldt)
Relationships with mentors at Catholic schools are extremely influential in young people’s lives.
“When we asked, ‘Where do you see God in your life?’ A significant majority of students said ‘in other people.’ It was friends, classmates, teachers, vowed religious—especially at the high school level,” said Wieboldt. “We saw that one conversation with a high school mentor can really make a difference in a young person's life.”
“Our findings show that teachers, coaches, and other high school staff have a priceless vocation,” said Kiefer. “They are true disciples who are making a difference.”
Sacraments matter to young people, especially confession.
“If I could shout it from the rooftops, I would tell every Catholic high school to have confession available every week,” said Kiefer, after looking at the feedback from the SVP.
“The weight of students’ worlds are so heavy. They carry around shame, regret, and unworthiness. The sacrament of Reconciliation is a chance to talk that out and then feel a sacramental grace of forgiveness,” said Kiefer, a longtime religious education instructor and author of the children’s book Drawing God.
Wieboldt added that sacramentality—whether connected to Confirmation, first Communion, or otherwise—was often cited by students’ as their best experiences with the Church. “Something about the mystery of the sacraments attracted young people’s attention.”
“We are a sacramental Church,” added Kiefer. “These students are finding God in the importance of faith in the sacraments.”
Although young people care about social issues, they are not the first thing that comes to mind when young people are asked about their faith.
“When we began the SVP, we anticipated young people’s concern about social issue to be the project’s primary finding,” said Wieboldt, who will attend the University of Notre Dame in the fall to pursue a J.D./Ph.D. “But when we began to analyze the data, we noticed that students spoke about social issues much less frequently than we expected based on the outsized attention that these issues receive in the media and culture more broadly.”
Additional findings of the SVP are:
Young people are open to faith and discerning God’s will for their lives.
Students want community around their faith and want the Church to invite them into greater participation.
Young people want to participate in the liturgy, understand it, and be engaged with a community during Mass.
Students are open to learning more about prayer and traditional devotional practices, including the rosary.
Most high school- and college-aged students do not have memories of the sexual abuse crisis and largely do not identify it as a reason to leave the Church.
The SVP was initially intended as a survey of BC students to help inform C21 Center programming. When Pope Francis announced the Synod on Synodality, Kiefer realized that the SVP would be an excellent means for young people—who were not participating in the synod via parish listening sessions—to have their voices heard. So the SVP engaged young people at Catholic colleges and high schools in conversations about their faith and their hopes for the Church. In the summer of 2022, the C21 Center compiled a report that represented the voices of 550 college students and 1500 high school students across the country who participated in the first phase of the SVP. The report was sent to Pope Francis, Boston’s archbishop Cardinal Sean O’Malley, and other Church leaders.
In the fall of 2022, the SVP pivoted to focus on serving as a diagnostic tool for individual Catholic schools and school networks. The SVP survey enables schools to learn what they are doing well, what their students wanted them to do better, and what their students need to grow in faith. Since the fall, an additional 2,000 young people have participated in the SVP. The C21 Center hopes future partnerships with Catholic high school and colleges will help this number to grow.
The survey data is analyzed by C21 Center staff and each partner school is issued a report on their student body with recommendations for new programming.
“I believe the Student Voices Project is one of the greatest gifts that the C21 Center can give to Church because it shows, in a beautiful way, the hope and opportunity that exists to engage young people for the future of our Church,” said Kiefer.