Young Believers Are Fueling a Renaissance of Catholic Culture

The Sisters of Charity of New York announced last year that it will not accept any new members. The announcement was more of a formality than anything else, as no one has joined the order in more than twenty years. Founded by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1817 and recognized as the Sisters of Charity of New York in 1846, the order had more than 1,300 sisters in the 1960s. Today, only 154 sisters remain, and their median age is eighty-five years old. 

The Sisters of Charity of New York isn’t the only Catholic religious order with an aging population and no new vocations. As of 2022, four out of five orders had no new vocations, according to a study conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). Amid this decline, it’s easy to spot the orders that continue to receive new vocations, in part because they’re still wearing habits. 

In an attempt to “modernize” Catholicism following Vatican II, many religious orders abandoned their traditional garb — the Sisters of Charity of New York among them. Nuns traded in their habits for modest blouses and skirts or slacks. But it appears that young people don’t want 1970s–style Catholicism. Ninety-three percent of women who entered religious life in 2022 chose an order that wears the habit, as did 65 percent of men. What’s more, eight in ten new entrants to religious life were “very much” influenced by their religious order’s practice of wearing a habit.

Desire for traditional habits isn’t the only signifier that today’s young Catholics are hungry for something different. Each generation of Catholics is smaller than the one preceding it, but those who remain faithful are noticeably drawn toward more traditional, orthodox expressions of Catholicism. 

Since 2000, more than half of newly ordained priests self-describe as theologically orthodox, and that number has grown with each year. A study by the Catholic Project found that more than 80 percent of priests ordained since 2020 are doctrinally orthodox, with less than 5 percent calling themselves “very progressive” in matters of Catholic theology. By comparison, at least 80 percent of priests ordained between 1960 and 1980 identified as theologically progressive or as “middle-of-the-road” on Catholic doctrine. 

And just as recently ordained priests are likely to be theologically orthodox, so too are recent entrants to religious life. Three in four entrants in 2022 said they were “very much attracted” by their order’s fidelity to the Church. 

Changes in broader American culture explain the somewhat recent swing toward traditionalism. Monsignor James Patrick Shea provides a paradigm for understanding the relationship between personal faith and culture in his book From Christendom to Apostolic Mission. In Christendom, Christianity is deeply entangled with broader culture; but in an apostolic age, the prevailing culture is either hostile to or unfamiliar with Christianity. 

In order to withstand the gravity of secular culture, Catholics must cling not only to the teachings of their faith, but also to their distinct culture. When surveying young adults who had been raised Catholic, sociologists Nicolette Manglos-Weber and Christian Smith found that the young adults who identified as Catholic and still practiced their faith were generally “more likely to have grown up with parents who were committed, vocal, and reasonably well educated about Catholicism.” That is, younger Catholics engaged with faith as an integrated way of life, not just as an intellectual assent or Sunday morning obligation. 

During the era of Vatican II, numerous American Catholics dispensed with the trappings of Catholic culture and instead sought conformity with modern Christianity. Nuns traded their habits for lay clothing, church architecture imitated Protestant styles, and guitars and tambourines replaced Gregorian chant and the organ. Suddenly, after thousands of years of continuity, Catholics walked away from their distinctive culture. Today, many Catholics are reclaiming it. 

A growing number of young people are gravitating toward more traditional expressions of their faith, whether through joining habited religious orders or simply seeking out a parish that incorporates traditional hymns into its Mass. For some, this choice is a deliberate rejection of modernity’s emptiness in favor of something passed down through the ages. Others are guided by an instinctive desire for tradition or an attraction to beauty.

This rekindled interest in the Church’s age-old treasures is not without its opposition. To some Catholics, chapel veils and altar rails are signs of regression, not endurance. Some people genuinely prefer their 1970–style Catholicism and do not understand the resurgence of traditionalism. But, as one priest told the Catholic Project, most young priests today are theologically conservative because “the super-progressive wing didn’t really replicate themselves.” In terms of theological Darwinism, traditional Catholicism seems best equipped to survive — not least because traditional Catholicism has already endured for thousands of years.

Much of the so-called “rise in orthodoxy” among young Catholics is more accurately understood as a recovery of the Catholic culture that was stripped away from the life of the Church during the era of Vatican II. In many instances, it is a return to the norms established by the Church during the actual council, which was often incorrectly interpreted as carte blanche for wide-ranging liturgical changes. Unbeknownst to most people, for example, Gregorian chant remains the Church’s preferred form of music within the Mass.

Today’s young Catholics recognize the task ahead of them. Living the faith amidst the onslaught of secular culture — and raising a new generation of Catholics in that hostile environment — has led many to reclaim the traditions passed down through the Church for generations. These young traditionalists recognize that the continued practice of Catholicism demands more than intellectual assent to doctrine; it also requires a commitment to a shared culture and way of life, both in the pews and in the fabric of their daily lives. Maybe this new orthodoxy isn’t the folly of youth but rather the wisdom to identify that which endures.

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