Successful faith formation of youth must begin with the example of parents at home.
- Over 70% of Catholic teenagers hold similar beliefs to their parents…regardless of whether those beliefs are in line with official Catholic teaching
- Of the parents who indicate their faith is extremely important in their daily lives, 67% of their teens said the same.
- Of the middle-of-the-road parents who claim their faith is only somewhat important in their lives, 61% of their teens said the same.
- Of the parents who report that faith is NOT important to their daily lives, 47% of their children shared the same attitude and only 2% of their teens stated faith was extremely important.
**Young adults who have left the Catholic Church stopped identifying as Catholics at a median age of 13, long before leaving home.
For every 1 person who joins the Catholic Church 6 are leaving and most become unaffiliated with any Christian faith.
The number of teens who claim to be atheist doubles the number of atheist adults.
The current generation of Generation Z (the current generation of adolescents and teens) is the first post-Christian generation in history.
Sources: *National Study of Youth and Religion; **Going, Going, Gone: the Dynamics of Catholic Disaffiliation
The evidence of this and other studies show that young people today are walking away from faith more than any other generation in history. It also shows that the single most important social influence on the religious and spiritual lives of adolescents is their parents. This may be empowering, alarming, or both but we as parents must consider these statistics seriously and see this as a real opportunity to affect the spiritual lives of our children for the better.