Take a leaf out of the US Catholic playbook: Campus ministry at our universities can help save the Church

Catholics under 24 years old are precipitating the decline of the Church, according to highly-quoted research carried out by the Pew Research Center from 2009. It confirms that almost 80 per cent of Catholics who leave the Faith do so before this tender age.

These findings make one thing clear: we need to focus on our youth. Yes, every age is important; yes, every soul has eternal worth. But if we are to be in any way strategic, young people need to be our priority.

So, where do we start? Universities make sense. They’re a large collection of young adults – usually the ones who are most intellectually engaged and likely to lead society in the future.

But they come in many shapes, sizes and hair colours. Do we cast the net wide, trying to convince our blue-haired friends to cancel the pro-choice march this weekend and come to church instead? Strategy (and personal safety) beg a different approach.

We start with those who are, at least to some degree, already Catholic or interested in Catholicism. We build them up, for two reasons. First, for themselves, so that they can know their faith better, be more rooted in it and draw closer to the God who loves and sustains them.

Secondly, so that they can go into the world and be both confident in and effective at sharing their faith with others. So, we start with our own. We strengthen them. And, when they’re ready, we send them out.

That’s the overall strategy, but the first actual step is building community. I remember when I was at university, not that long ago. I felt desperately isolated as a Catholic on campus. At lunch I’d leave a table of laughter with my “normal” friends to go to Mass – only to be among four other students whose very names I did not know. Connection with the divine, absolutely; connection with fellow students, not at all.

Catholic students need to meet each other, for support and encouragement. Usually this is organised by the Catholic chaplaincy or society on campus, but structures vary. Whoever it is – they offer food and fun. Step one.

As the community grows, the offering deepens. More faith-related content, inviting in speakers, adoration nights, pilgrimages, you name it. Eventually, the group becomes evangelised, catechised and in turn they’re ready to evangelise and catechise others. Catholic community is a major stepping stone to better-formed, better-rooted and better-equipped Catholics.

This essentially follows the highly successful model of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) that is based on a motto of “win, build, send”, which in turn is based on Christ’s own approach.

FOCUS is easily the largest and most successful Catholic young-adult ministry on university campuses across the world. It has almost 1,000 missionaries on over 200 sites and its members have deeply impacted tens of thousands of lives, including my own.

Though largely based in the US, they have branched into Europe – Ireland and Germany for now, but that is set to grow. Their mission is one of my greatest hopes for the future of the Church. They’re a professional, Christ-centred mission machine. They know what they’re doing – and it shows.

In England and Wales, there’s a relatively new but excitingly effective charity called Catholic Student Network (CSN). It exists to support any university student who wants to tap into or build Catholic community on their campus – often in the form of a Catholic society.

CSN has helped hundreds of students to feel more supported and less alone in their faith during those challenging university years. The team is small for now, but I can see it growing and doing even greater things in the years to come.

Another shoot of hope is the new Living Faith series, created specifically for groups of university-age Catholics. It’s a free five-week video and discussion series – fresh and funny, deep yet digestible – but it’s also much more.

I should say that I founded Called to More, the Irish Catholic media company that produced Living Faith. We’ve been creating free content online for a number of years, and have become the most watched Catholic YouTube channel in the British Isles. Our target audience is 18-24 year-olds, for the reasons above.

Now, with Living Faith – presented by Fr Columba Jordan CFR – we have a visual resource offering young people a 5-step journey to go “from the crowds to truly being a disciple of Christ”. It was released at the end of January, and already it has been run by a number of university chaplaincies across Ireland and the UK.

At a time when most online Catholic content comes from the US, the Living Faith series is a ground-breaking high-quality Catholic resource produced in Europe.

Initiatives like this are helping our young people to keep the Faith alive, and we need to get behind them. If we don’t, then the future looks bleak: according to Pew, the pews will be empty. 

RELATED: Washington DC is leading the US Catholic revival

Photo: Healy Hall at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA, 22 September 2019. Established in 1789, Georgetown is the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university. (Photo credit should read DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images.)

This article appears in the July/August 2024 Summer special edition of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent and high-calibre counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click HERE.

The post Take a leaf out of the US Catholic playbook: Campus ministry at our universities can help save the Church appeared first on Catholic Herald.