Given the context of Britain’s increasing secularization and the decline of the Church of England over the past years, it is no wonder how young people (particularly those Gen Zers)’s increasing interest in the Catholic Faith has been regarded as newsworthy.
Citing a study by the Bible Society (a British charity that translates and disseminates the Bible all over the world),The Times of London recently reported that “Anglicans have been overtaken and are now outnumbered by Catholics by more than two to one among Generation Z and younger millennial churchgoers in Britain”.
“The results of this thorough and robust study demonstrate that over the space of only six years, there has been a significant growth in the numbers of people going to church; Christians are practicing their religion more intentionally; more young people are finding faith; more people are reading the Bible,” the Bible Society report’s introduction reads.
Moreover, the same Times report pointed out that Catholics are speedily catching up with Anglican numbers across all age segments.
“Catholicism could soon overtake Anglicanism to become the country’s largest denomination of worshippers for the first time since the Reformation five centuries ago. Anglicans look set to slip into third place behind Pentecostals among churchgoers aged under 35,” the Times stated.
“In 2018 Anglicans made up 30 percent of regular churchgoers aged between 18 and 34 — including all adult members of Generation Z and the youngest third of millennials — while Catholics made up 22 per cent and Pentecostals 10 per cent. By 2024 Anglicans made up just 20 percent of this group while Catholics made up 41 per cent. Pentecostals are now not far behind Anglicans at 18 per cent,” the Times added.
The rise in Mass attendance levels does provide a silver lining to the dark clouds currently enveloping Britain with its Marxist-atheist cabal of elites.
(You bet Elizabeth I, the murderous anti-Catholic queen responsible for the cruel persecution of Catholics in England, would be rolling in her grave at this piece of news.)
Notably, the aforesaid Bible Society’s study was released following prior reports that Mass attendance levels in Britain, though not yet near pre-COVID-19 levels, are increasing.
Having said that, the rise in Mass attendance levels does provide a silver lining to the dark clouds currently enveloping Britain with its Marxist-atheist cabal of elites.
(For the uninitiated, rather than do anything substantial to fix the country’s worsening migration crisis, faltering economy, and low birth rates, Britain’s current governing class is adding fuel to the fire with a series of “woke” policies, draconian censorship dictates, and anti-life agendas. Besides, the sexual abuse crisis has impacted the decision of many British Catholics not to attend Holy Mass due to their disgust over cases of child sexual abuse (not that absence from Mass is justifiable by the scandalous actions of certain human elements in the Catholic Church, though!)
In a 2024 piece for The Tablet, Stephen Bullivant, director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, London, stated that bleak projections that Catholicism in Britain would be almost extinct eventually seem unlikely. In the article for The Tablet, Bullivant wrote:
“More people were received into the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Southwark this Easter than for over a decade. There are signs of recovery and new growth across parishes in Britain.”
Additionally, Bullivant highlighted the presence of flourishing university chaplaincies as well as immigrant communities (e.g. Polish Catholics attending Masses in various parishes in England and Wales), indicating that while “woke” ideologies and secularization have affected Catholicism in Britain, Catholicism would most likely not fade entirely into oblivion.
“To put it frankly, rumors of the Church’s death — albeit four decades hence — have been very greatly exaggerated,” Bullivant declared, in remarks cited by Catholic News Agency (CNA).
The steady demise of the Church of England in the West has been largely attributable to its attempts to kowtow to secularization and “woke” ideologues in order “to remain culturally relevant”
On its end, the steady demise of the Church of England in the West has been largely attributable to its attempts to kowtow to secularization and “woke” ideologues in order “to remain culturally relevant” as per conservative Anglicans and former Anglicans who spoke to Fox News Digital in 2022. The same Fox News article quoted Gavin Ashenden, a former Church of England priest who served as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II from 2008 until he resigned in 2017, as saying that “the Church of England and much of Christianity have been infiltrated by cultural Marxism”, causing many Anglicans and Protestants to have “a crisis in confidence” due to the “political correctness” of their church leaders.
Nonetheless, for “”confused” young adults disillusioned with secular British society and seeking to find “answers” to the numerous problems beleaguering modern-day British society, Roman Catholicism still stands as a beacon of moral clarity – especially in life-and-death issues like abortion and euthanasia.
Despite its flaws, the Catholic Church in England has largely tried to be a clear voice of morality in various issues plaguing contemporary British society.
Take for instance, in the controversial case of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who is the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, called on congregations to urge their local MP to oppose Leadbeater’s anti-life death service.
In contrast, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, in line with the anti-life cult in Britain, even tried to string a religious argument promoting “assisted dying”.
Having been immersed in various Catholic circles in Britain myself, I can also testify that the theological and aesthetic appeal of the pre-Vatican II Traditional Latin Mass is a key factor in attracting many young and practising Catholics (millennials and Gen Zers) to church. Moreover, many young adults participate in annual Latin Mass pilgrimages within England, such as the Latin Mass Society (LMS) walking pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham’s shrine, and the SSPX’s summer walking pilgrimage from Rochester to Canterbury .
The Latin Mass is the antithesis to a culture which gives you what you think you like, rather than what you may grow to love. How long will it take the Church authorities in the Vatican to realize and appreciate this fact, not just for the good of Britain, but for the spiritual benefit of the rest of the world.
Thanks be to God; one can attend the Traditional Latin Mass (in the pre-1955 or 1962 versions) in many places on Sundays in London alone. I have been to some of these Masses at the various locations (read below) myself and can testify that young adults form a considerable portion of these congregations.
One can simply head to the Brompton Oratory in London on a Sunday morning at 9 a.m., and find many young adults – and families with young children – dressed in their Sunday best, attending the 1962 Traditional Latin Mass. The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) offers two Sunday morning Masses at the Sts. Joseph & Padarn Roman Catholic Church, near the Arsenal football stadium. In the Wandsworth district of London, one can also visit the Oratory of St. Mary Magdalene for the Sung Traditional Latin Mass at 11 a.m. Alternatively, St. Bede’s at Clapham Park offers Low and Sung Sunday Masses to many young churchgoers and their families. Evening Mass-goers can look forward to Sunday Mass in the Dominican Rite at London’s spectacular Rosary Shrine at 5pm, with a beautiful polyphony Mass once a month (followed by socials after).
Indeed, the presence of young Catholics at Latin Mass parishes around England (especially in the London area), has not gone unnoticed by the media.
An article from the Evening Standard reported how “it seems that Gen Z is suddenly all about Catholicism”, admitting the role of the Latin Mass as “central to luring Gen Z to the pews”.
Likewise, writer Thomas Edwards stated in an article for the Catholic Herald that “there is clearly a desire amongst young people for more reverent and orthodox expressions of the Catholic Faith.”
Edwards elaborated:
“(The Latin Mass) is not something constructed especially for getting people back into the Church. When Shia LaBeouf was asked in a recent interview why he was so devoted to this form of the Mass he said: ‘Because it feels like they’re not selling me a car.’ The Latin Mass is the antithesis to a culture which gives you what you think you like, rather than what you may grow to love.”
I wonder how long Church authorities in the Vatican will take to realize and appreciate this fact, not just for the good of Britain, but for the spiritual benefit of the rest of the world.
