What the media misses with its cynical take on ‘Gen Z’ embracing traditional Catholicism

Since the coining of the term “Gen Z”, older generations have maintained a steady interest in their habits. Observed with fascination, like a Neanderthal cousin who is curiously similar but evolutionarily very different, Gen Z’s likes and dislikes are continually analysed and then commented on. And now, apparently, people are getting excited because ‘Gen Z’ has found religion.

A recent article from the Evening Standard declares how “it seems that Gen Z is suddenly all about Catholicism” – and not just any old Catholicism. It is the Latin Mass that is “central to luring Gen Z to the pews”.

Taking the examples of the success of St Bede’s in Clapham, which offers daily Latin Mass and reportedly has a congregation with a median age of 22, and the conversion story of Shia LaBeouf – who incidentally is not actually part of Gen Z – the conclusion is that young people are finding meaning in the traditional wing of the Catholic Faith.

In a more brazen and poorly researched article, the Daily Mail declares: “The Lord is with Gen Z! Catholic core sweeps TikTok.” The article explores various Catholic trends on the TikTok social media platform and, somewhat bizarrely, ends with the anecdotal stories of how two Church of England ministers managed to grow their flocks during lockdown – leaving aside how neither of these two men are Catholic.

Leaving aside how clearly this is just the mainstream media remaining true to form with its ham-fisted portrayals of religion and desperately clawing at making a story from anything that might trend well, what is interesting about these articles is the very fact that the topic is deemed newsworthy. Catholics currently make up 17.7 per cent of the world’s population and by most projections will maintain that percentage for decades to come. Therefore, you may expect there to be a significant amount of Catholic content on TikTok, amongst any generation. 

Meanwhile, the shock that young people take an interest in the Church is part of a West-centric worldview which assumes that because there are churches that have closed in Europe, Christians are on their way out. The data suggests otherwise. During the 20th century, the Catholic population of sub-Saharan Africa went from 1.9 million to more than 130 million – a staggering growth rate of 6,708 per cent – and in 2021 alone the number of Catholics in Asia grew by 1.49 million.

What these articles do display accurately is that there is clearly a desire amongst young people for more reverent and orthodox expressions of the Catholic Faith. In the West, children are now often raised in the absence of Christian culture – and therefore feel no need to reject it.

At the same time, many younger cohorts, it would appear, are sensing an absence of what should have been their birth right. 

The Welsh word “hiraeth” denotes a sense of longing for culture and identity of the past. It seems that many Catholics today feel a sense of “hiraeth” (a more charitable term than “indietrismo”, an Italian word meaning “backwardness” that has been used by the Pope); for a time when their religion was taken seriously and expressed beautifully. 

The young’s taste for the traditional is evident in today’s Church. The seven Oratorian houses in England and Wales, a community known for its beautiful liturgies and orthodox teaching, have more brothers in formation for the priesthood than any diocese in the United Kingdom. The Oxford Oratory recently celebrated an uptick in adult baptisms.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a report last year published by The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., found that priests in the United States who described themselves as “progressive” have “all but vanished” amongst the recently ordained, who increasingly display a significant conservative shift. 

The young who attend Latin Mass take their faith seriously. Pew Research data shows that only around a quarter of Catholics in then US between the ages of 18 and 29 attend church once a week or more, compared to 98 per cent of Latin Mass attendees in the same demographic, according to research published by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.

Unfortauntely, the tone-deaf response of the Catholic hierarchy to these trends, highlighted by Traditionis Custodes and its restrictions on celebrating the Tridentine Mass of the Roman Rite, colloquially known as the “Latin Mass”, is out of sync with a Church which wants to and needs to listen to young people.

But perhaps that is part of the appeal of the Latin Mass: it is not something constructed especially for getting people back into the Church. When Shia LaBeouf was asked in a recent interview why he was so devoted to this form of the Mass he said: “Because it feels like they’re not selling me a car.”

The Latin Mass is the antithesis to a culture which gives you what you think you like, rather than what you may grow to love. 

The media’s apparent interest in young and traditional Catholics will likely disappear, and Gen Z will apparently be obsessed with something else. However, the Church must start to take their own seriously.

If young people are, as they are so often reminded, the present and future of the Church, then their fondness for tradition should be fostered and not alienated. Reverent liturgy should not be seen as what keeps people out, but rather as a way to draw people in. 

Photo: Attendees at the Youth Vigil for World Youth Day 2023 and its related week-long scheduled events at Parque Tejo, Lisbon, Portugal, 5 August 2023. An annual event that takes place over the first week of August, WYD is an international Catholic rally inaugurated by St. John Paul II to invigorate young people in their faith.(Photo by Carlos M. Almeida – Pool/Getty Images.)

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