It was Christmas time when Joe came out to me as an atheist.
His text was unprompted and depressing: “My grandmother told me I was possessed by the devil when I told her I don’t believe in God anymore,” he wrote.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t feel anything anymore.”
Ultimately, this collision of his grandmother’s reference to the transcendent – albeit demonic – with his cynical millennial materialism was the final straw, and he embraced the creed of Dawkins and Hitchens shortly after.
His explanation was time spent on Reddit atheist forums and books about evolution; but I don’t think any of that is true. The real reason was right there in his message: “I just don’t feel…”
Around that same time, another Catholic school friend, again unprompted, confided in me that when we were kids he had wanted to be a priest. It clearly haunted him, but he managed to shrug it off.
“That was just brainwashing,” he said.
In spite of a gnawing sense of loss, he chose the same path most of us had at the time. Waiting at home was all the alcohol, video games, and porn anyone could ever hope would fill the void.
Somewhere in between the old-world faith of Joe’s grandmother and the early 2000s-era Catholicism that raised us, something went wrong for Joe and the rest of my cohort.
The faith had been offered, but for whatever reason, be it self-obsession or the influence of secular culture, he had found it wanting. Most, if not all, of my Catholic school friends – some far more sobre and faithful than Joe – took that same path towards the spiritual periphery that he did, and they wandered off into the spiritual wasteland.
A lot has been said about this phenomenon, about the rise of the so-called “nones,” those unchurched and unaffiliated wanderers. Various answers have been proposed, but one of the most interesting and explanatory has probably come from Bishop Robert Barron, who decries the impact of what he terms “beige Catholicism,” the bland cultural whitewash of the post-Vatican II era that eroded our sense of religious mystery and majesty, replacing them with kumbaya niceties and liberal affectations.
No redemptive suffering. No challenge. No adventure. Just comfort. The violence of the Crucifixion and the regal visage of Christ have no place in “beige Catholicism.” Only a bland and colourless gospel, bereft of all challenge and weight, can remain.
Perhaps this is a tad overwrought. After all, we all know good and faithful Catholics who made it through the beige haze - there would be no young people in the Church at all if they hadn’t - and Vatican II is hardly the sole cause of many of the most pressing crisis of the twentieth century Church. After all, did Vatican-II cause the sex abuse crisis? I very much doubt it. Even Bishop Barron has said he only disagrees with interpretations of the council that see it as fundamentally progressive force, rather than the contents of the council itself.
And it’s certainly unfair to see the issue of low religiosity among young people as a primarily Catholic problem. Whatever its detractors or supporters say, Vatican II was a response to a culture-wide problem that, much like the angel of death, was indiscriminate in its impact. In the age of disenchantment, there was seemingly no lamb’s blood for the doorway – hippy, Christian, Protestant, or Jew; the reaper’s scythe of 20th-century materialism eventually came for all spiritual beliefs in equal measure. Religiosity fell. No one was safe.
And so, with the stage set, and many young people missing, the Church enters the second phase of the Synod in Rome.
Progressive and controversial social issues are off the table for discussion at this year’s Synod. There will be no discussion of gay blessings or female deacons. Instead, emphasis on motivating the laity, and encouraging and nurturing their gifts, will be at the centre of discussions and sharing.
This is a hopeful sign. Mostly because no amount of posturing or pandering toward various alleged outgroups will change the culture’s attitude toward the Church in a post-Christian world – only a Church genuinely alive in Christ can do that. But also because it is unlikely to impress my unchurched friends. Whatever they said at the time, it is doubtful that the Church’s opposition to gay marriage, women priests, or their reading of The God Delusion were the real reasons they left. Maybe it was true for a small minority, but ultimately, most of them felt a simple and profound lack of purpose and belonging within the Church.
They had the same feeling, one should add, that has now permeated most of our culture. It started with millennials, but in the final count, everyone is now disconnected and affected.
For his part, Joe was both the author of his own spiritual crisis and the victim of the original sin festering at the heart of the world. I know enough about his life to feel some pity, but I don’t know what would make him come back to church. I do, however, suspect the current topics of discussion in Rome, about building up and cultivating the laity, might inspire the necessary action to stop others like Joe from leaving in the first place. After all, you need to patch the hole in the hull before you can sail the ship.
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