One of the most pressing challenges facing the Catholic Church in the United States today is the steady rise in young Catholics who abandon the faith before they reach adulthood.
A new approach — one that places the family at the center of faith formation — is beginning to gain momentum as a possible solution to this crisis.
By recatechizing parents and fostering connections between families committed to living their faith more deeply, parishes are witnessing dramatic results.
St. Mark Church in Fallston, Md., has experienced just such a transformation, according to Barbara Austin, director of evangelization at the parish.
Five years ago, parishioners were informed that no longer would they be dropping their kids off for religious education on Mondays after school. Under the new “family faith formation” program, parents would be required to sign up for parent catechesis on Sundays, at the same time their children were receiving grade-level instruction in the faith.
At first, Austin told the Register, they lost a few parents, some of whom protested that they had been to Catholic school and didn’t need any more religious education.
“But the people who said ‘Yes’ have been with us this whole time, and they are completely different parents now,” she said.
She said she tells her parents that simply by walking through the door of the church to attend adult formation, they’re sending the message to their children that it is a “normal” thing to do.
“And the parents get it, and they actually like it, and it’s moved them to a new place in their hearts and in their relationship with Christ,” Austin said.
Whether their children will remain in the church through adulthood remains to be seen, but with their family being all-in for their faith, few would argue that their odds of being lifelong Catholics haven’t improved.
The crisis of youth disaffiliation with the church was addressed by Michael Rota and Stephen Bullivant in an article published this summer in Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal.
Drawing on data from the “General Social Survey,” the authors found that the percentage of “cradle Catholics” — those raised in the faith — who still identified as Catholic as adults decreased from 84% in 1973 to just 62% in 2022.
But even more troubling is what happens when those surveyed are asked about their religious practice. In 1973, 34% of adults who were raised Catholic reported attending Mass at least once a week. By 2022, that number had decreased to 11%.
But how bad could things be? After all, there are 15,000 teenagers preparing to gather in Indianapolis for the three-day National Catholic Youth Conference, Nov. 20-22 — including a livestreamed encounter with Pope Leo to be broadcast on EWTN.
It’s clearly a positive development that so many young people would travel from all over the country to attend the NCYC. But those young Catholics may have an advantage over their peers who are staying at home: Their parents are more likely than not to be actively living their faith in a way that shows they really believe.
That kind of demonstration of faith from parents is one of the key indicators, identified by Rota and Bullivant, that could determine whether a teenager will carry on in his faith through adulthood.
What can a diocese or a parish do to help foster that kind of active faith among parents?
According to the authors, there’s an antidote to what ails the church: “family-focused and community-focused, parish-based discipleship formation.” That is to say, what they are doing at St. Mark’s in Fallston with family faith formation.
According to Rota, professor of philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and director of the “Psychology of Faith” project, getting the families involved yields results.
“If you’re getting together in community and doing religious formation together and living a Christian life together, that’s going to automatically mean that your kids are doing a lot of the things which we know will make it more likely that they’ll really, strongly identify as Catholic,” Rota said.
Increasingly, church leaders, such as Baltimore’s Archbishop William E. Lori, are urging parishes to direct their formation programs to the entire family. Father Michael Foppiano, the pastor at St. Mark’s, instituted a family-focused program five years ago, after Archbishop Lori sent out a pastoral letter calling on parishes to engage in family faith formation.
The Archdiocese of Atlanta was another early adopter of a family-focused approach. During the COVID pandemic, Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer initiated an online, five-year catechetical program for families called “Families Forming Disciples.” Today, half of all parishes in the archdiocese are offering some sort of family formation.
“Family faith formation in general is truly a movement of the Holy Spirit that is spreading through the U.S. and beyond,” said Patrice Spirou, associate director of the archdiocese’s family catechesis and curriculum office.
Spirou said that the feedback they have received from parents and parish leaders has been “overwhelmingly positive.”
“Families report that they are praying together, and many parents say that they have found a comfortable and natural way to talk about their faith. Pastors and parish leaders are excited about the fruits they are seeing as parents rediscover their faith and live as a domestic church within their homes,” she said.
The Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., too, is seeking to invite young families to engage more deeply in their faith with an initiative in which couples or individuals serve as mentors to families from the moment of their first child’s baptism. The “First Witnesses” program has been adopted by several parishes and is seen as a way to stop the sacraments from being a “revolving door” in which parents come into the church to baptize their child but then drift out, according to Todd Kellogg, coordinator.
Across the country, more individual parishes are putting their evangelization efforts into families and couples. In the Arlington diocese, several parishes now require parents to take part in adult formation.
Father Don Planty, pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Church, said that the parish just instituted the policy in which children will not be able to receive the sacraments if their parents are not also enrolled in religious education at the church. He sees it as equipping the parent to raise their children in the faith.
“If the parents are Catholic, the kids will be Catholic,” Father Planty said.
Elizabeth Schill and her husband Brian have been members of St. Charles Church for almost 20 years. This year, while their children, ages 9 and 6, take religious education classes, they are taking part in formation classes for parents.
Even though they are longtime parishioners, Schill said they’re grateful for the chance to meet other parents.
“In our area, it’s very transient, with people only staying for a few years and then moving on. So having that community of people in a similar phase of life is good. And then you see them in church on Sunday, and it’s slowly building that community, which is nice,” she said.
The adult formation classes, Schill said, have made it easier to talk with their children about what they are learning. It’s also helped breathe new life into their own religious practice.
“It’s always good to revisit and remember things or ways of praying that over the years we’ve been — I wouldn’t say forgotten — but it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, we should try that again,’ ” she said.
For the last five years, Nativity of Our Lord Parish in the Denver area, has invited parishioners to take part in a formation program called “Families of St. John Paul II.” Couples receive catechesis, meet in small groups with other couples, and get together with all the families several times a year.
“It’s very appealing for young families who want to find a right path and some instructions to build their own family rule,” said Father Matteo Invernizzi, associate pastor. He said that the program or “rule” is easy to export: Two parishes in Ohio and one in Wichita, Kan., have implemented it, and another in Denver has expressed interest.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has pivoted to emphasize the importance of involving parents as well. The bishops’ Institute on the Catechism recently urged the publishers of catechetical materials to include a curriculum that is specifically designed to involve and support families.
But catechesis is just one part of the equation. Advocates of family faith formation emphasize that children and teens are more likely to remain Catholic as adults if they grow up in a community of families that prioritize the practice of their faith.
New nonprofit ministries have popped up to help parishes facilitate this kind of community. Trinity House Community is one such group that offers a “plug and play” model called “Heaven in Your Home” that parishes can use to gather families socially while supporting them in their faith.
Soren Johnson, who co-founded the ministry with his wife, Ever, says parishes that have signed up are seeing 75 to 150 people attend bimonthly dinners. The evenings involve the whole family but have a “date-night feel.”
While their children take part in an activity, parents watch a video and discuss it with other couples. Besides learning more about how to live out their faith, they are forming friendships with other families who want to make their Catholic faith more central to their lives.
The effect on children and teens can’t be underestimated, Soren said.
“They’re really soaking up community and fellowship. They’re seeing their parents make an intentional step, and then, Lord willing, they’re seeing it lived out more in the home with couples and families that are really excited to deepen the communion that God has given in practical ways in their home life,” he said.
Justin Woodward, a parishioner of St. John the Apostle in Leesburg who has been taking part in the “Heaven in Your Home” gatherings for four years, said he most appreciates the chance to connect with other families in a way that’s not possible at Mass.
“I’m actually sitting with these 20 people or whatever, and we’re all relating about the same problems together, as opposed to just going to Mass together. It’s just a deeper level of getting to know the other families and other parents and to share the same struggles, whether that be children or our relationships with our spouses or other people, just in general,” Woodward said.
His 11-year-old daughter Elizabeth also enjoys spending time with kids her age. “While the parents are away learning stuff, we get to stay in the auditorium and play or watch shows,” she said.
What About Youth Groups?
Maria Parker, assistant director for the laity in the USCCB Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, said she is hearing from a number of dioceses that family catechesis is a top priority. She noted that the bishops’ new framework for evangelization, “Listen, Teach, Send,” emphasizes the responsibility of parents in the formation of youths.
The U.S. church’s new focus on family involvement in faith formation, however, doesn’t discount the value of organizations like Life Teen, Parker said.
The youth ministry has for decades offered parishes weekly “Life Nights” where teens come together for Mass, prayer, group discussion and games as well as retreats and summer camps. Engaged in more than 1,600 parishes around the world, Life Teen has been the source of many vocations to the priesthood. According to a recent survey, 35% of seminarians come from parishes with a Life Teen ministry.
Parker said that while youth ministries bear “great, great fruit” in the life of the church, it’s a “both-and” situation.
“Continue doing the good, beautiful ministry that’s already happening, and then add to it and find where the areas are that we’re missing,” she said.
What’s missing, according to Austin, the director of evangelization in Fallston, is a nationwide embrace of this family-focused approach.
“I pray that every parish in every state moves to family faith formation, because, for me, I really believe that the Holy Spirit is asking us to accompany our parents so that they can become the laity that goes out into the world to share the Gospel,” she said.
She added, “We can help them to understand the power they’ve received in their baptism. Then watch out, because the church is really going to explode.”
Reprinted with permission of the National Catholic Register.
