On August 29, Commonweal executive director Ellen B. Koneck delivered at the invitation of the Aquinas Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The Aquinas Center’s goal is “to foster faith and dialogue in an ecumenical setting at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, throughout the Archdiocese of Atlanta and beyond.”
Koneck spoke on young people, disaffiliation, and changes in the contemporary religious landscape. The presentation, entitled “Cause for Hope or Hand-wringing? Perspectives on Young People Leaving the Church,” drew on Koneck’s wealth of experience, both at Commonweal and as a writer with Springtide Research Institute, to break down sensational media headlines about disaffiliation. “If anyone’s going to tune out now,” Koneck joked at the beginning of her presentation, “the answer to the rhetorical question is hope—I’m going with hope.”
Koneck explained that “At Commonweal, I like to think our work is ultimately rooted in attention—attention to the Zeitgeist, or in Catholic parlance, ‘the signs of the times.’” At the same time, Koneck emphasized that the media landscape around religious disaffiliation “seems not just noisy, but downright deafening.” At Commonweal and beyond, Koneck hopes to break through this noise: “data-driven narratives about [disaffiliation] are often presented as bleak stories of waning trust, declining belief, and a lack of community,” she acknowledged, but these trends often obscure reality on the ground.
As Koneck reminded her listeners, though young people—often with good reason—distrust religious institutions, almost three-quarters of young people identify as religious, and even more consider themselves at least spiritual. Patterns of identification can also often look surprising: for instance, 38% of “unaffiliated” young people identify as religious, and some unaffiliated young people even attend religious services more frequently than self-described Catholics. The landscape of young people’s spiritual lives, Koneck argued, is diversifying, not disappearing.
Before turning to the audience for small-group discussion and reflection, Koneck explained that this should give Catholics reason to hope. “We can admit that we have a Church capacious enough for variety, and important enough to dig our heels in and debate sometimes,” Koneck said. “Not only do we have a capacious Church and an important Church, but we also have a Church guided by the Holy Spirit, which is why no matter how paralyzing the headline, I cannot bring myself to fret.”
The full presentation, delivered at Christ the King Cathedral in Atlanta, can be found here.
