The Exodus of Young Catholics and the Dissolution of Catholic Identity
Saturday,
September 20, 2025
A recent article
by Michael Rota and Stephen Bullivant, “Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church’s Biggest
Problem,” published in Church Life Journal, has sparked
reactions in several quarters because of its main contention: that nine out of
ten people born Catholic leave the Church.
The exodus of adults, and especially of adolescents and
young people, is one of the most troubling symptoms of the deep crisis in
Christian life, not only within our Church but in our whole culture. (I believe
that the most terrible and widespread malady is the contraceptive mentality,
but also the abortion regime to which it leads. All other problems reflect this
slow suicide of communities in the Western world that have ceased to procreate.)
Regarding the exodus of young people in particular, an
in-depth examination and concrete suggestions are absolutely necessary. But
before that – just as in the case of patients with multiple severe symptoms –
it’s essential to establish an accurate diagnosis that will reveal the hidden
causes of the “illness.” My perspective on all this is somewhat unusual these
days: that of a convert from the “Orthodox” Church to the Roman Catholic
Church.
What I noticed after I asked (in 2000) to be received into
full communion with the Roman Church (thus returning to the Church of my Polish
ancestors) was a grave crisis of Catholic identity. Without exaggeration, I
dare to say that the Catholic identity of a frighteningly large number of
believers today is in dissolution. This crisis, obviously, can only lead to the
alienation and indifference that easily result in the exodus denounced by Rota,
Bullivant, and others.
To better understand the causes, it’s worth briefly defining
what we mean by “Catholic identity.” My starting point is the classic “Act of
Faith”:
O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three
divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I believe that Thy divine Son
became man and died for our sins, and that He shall come to judge the living
and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church
teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be
deceived. Amen.
Anyone who believes what is so succinctly stated here can be
considered a Christian (i.e., Catholic). To this, I would add the need for the
conviction that the Catholic Church is the one and the same Church founded by
our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Cult of Reason in Notre
Dame de Paris, 1793 [Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris]. Priestesses
of philosophy celebrate the goddess, Reason, and desecrate the cathedral.
No other community or “church” can be considered such.
Moreover, no other community or “church” can offer its believers salvation.
Heresies and the state of schism from the true Church are real dangers that
prevent full conversion and, ultimately, the salvation of souls.
Of course, this does not exclude the fact that God can save
souls even from those other communities. However, this necessarily implies that
they enter into communion with the Catholic Church at least via “baptism of
desire.”
Catholics today no longer believe – like Saint Cyprian –
that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation (Extra Ecclesiam
nulla salus). Inter-religious dialogue and ecumenism, the practical pluralism
of today’s world, and the lack of authentic Christian evangelization and
catechesis have generated indifference and even hostility toward any “firm”
value (sometimes even toward the very notion of “dogma”).
In fact, although some priests, bishops, and believers
showed me a certain sympathy at my conversion, many others expressed
puzzlement: What is the point of converting from the “Orthodox” to the Catholic
Church? Aren’t they the same thing? You cannot imagine how many times I have
been asked this question.
For me, here’s a significant detail: in “Orthodox” churches
and in Protestant and Neo-Protestant communities, Catholics are continually
presented as heretics, apostates, etc. For example, well-known monks in Romania
constantly claim that since the Great Schism (1054), there has been no Church
in the West. They also say that Catholicism is a mass of papist inventions and
heresies added to the traditional creed, and so on.
I could present impressive collections of such statements,
which, I must stress, are the rule, not the exception.
By contrast, Catholics are no longer convinced that their
Church is truly the one Church founded by Christ, and that without being a
member of it, salvation is not possible. Lost in endless discussions about
“anonymous Christians” and other such subtleties, post-conciliar theologians
like Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Jacques Dupuis, and others have fed and amplified
this identity crisis.
Likewise, the fading of the “afterlife” – Heaven and Hell –
as the horizon for constant reference and personal meditation has added to the
generalized indifferentism. If salvation can be found anywhere, why should
young people remain Catholic?
The most dramatic and immediate consequence of the crisis of
ecclesial identity is the disappearance of the missionary spirit. (I do not
know how clearly this is seen in a country with tens of millions of Catholic
believers, such as the United States of America, but in a country with a
Catholic minority of no more than a few tens or hundreds of thousands, this
consequence is glaring.)
In a context where the majority of the population is in
danger of losing salvation by belonging to heretical and schismatic churches
and communities, one would expect everyone – bishops, priests, ordinary lay
people – to work constantly to convert these lost souls. Or, at the very least,
to always be ready to help such people embrace the true Christian religion.
Unfortunately, this is far from being the case. Ecumenical
dialogue has long since replaced the proclamation of the Gospel and the
formation of a strong Catholic identity, and young people have learned this lesson.
Many of them are simply leaving the religion of parents who not only do not
know, but probably never knew, why they are Catholic.
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