In recent months there have been many reports about what seems to be a growing interest in Catholicism among young people. Catholic campus ministries across the country received a record number of students into the Catholic Church this Easter. Several parishes in New York City have “standing room only” at Masses attended by young professionals searching for God (and perhaps a spouse). This is certainly a welcome development. But in a recent article featured in The National Catholic Register Luke Larson writes that the revival is taking place mostly among college-educated professionals and not among the working class. “Contrary to common assumptions, the general trend in America is that the less education a person has, the less likely they are to attend church weekly. As a whole, those in the working-class demographic are less engaged in faith and more susceptible to the trend of institutional religious disaffiliation.”
Larson notes that “social struggles correlated with lower socioeconomic status play a major role in the absence of a working-class revival.” For example, the higher instance of substance abuse among members of the working class can make the prospect of conversion seem overwhelmingly difficult, discouraging people from believing that a virtuous life is possible for them. The Catholic Church can also be viewed with suspicion by those with low institutional trust, which is more common among the working class than the professional class. Larson interviewed a priest, Fr. Sean O’Brien, who ministers in a rural region of Oklahoma and who says that the relatively high instance of cohabitation among those who live in his parish territory leads a large number of those who might have been interested in becoming Catholic to drop out of his OCIA program. Larson notes that “compared to middle and upper classes, the working class has lower rates of marriage and higher rates of cohabitation.” Moreover, while the catechetical and evangelical resources produced over the past 20 years have been relatively successful in promoting the faith among the college educated, they do not appeal as much to those without a college degree.
This is, of course, a big problem. Catholicism is not an elite project. It is for everyone. In fact, if anyone should find our faith compelling it is the one who makes his living working with his hands. After all, we worship a working man. Christ worked in the trades. He was a carpenter, who labored side-by-side with St. Joseph, his adoptive father, using His muscles as well as His imagination to build and fix things. One might imagine that, as He worked on pieces of wood using hammer and nails, He meditated daily on the sacrifice He would make to save us from death and eternal punishment for our sins. Thus, Jesus must have a special love for working people and appreciation for the work they do. His Church must show that she does too. For, as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observes, “Any revival that doesn’t give the drifting or disaffected a surer reason for belief, that doesn’t lift up the lowly or reach the poor in spirit, would be a revival unworthy of the name.”
posted 5/30/26
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 