Gen Z Finds Meaning in Traditional Religion

Progressives do not seem to understand the dramatic societal transformation that is occurring among young people searching for meaning in an increasingly chaotic culture. Failing to recognize these changes, David Hogg, the clueless Democratic National Committee Vice Chair, recently told an interviewer that young people just want to “get laid and have fun.”

The truth is that Gen Z is rejecting the kind of life that Hogg is promoting, preferring instead to find meaning in authentic relationships and traditional institutions. A growing number of them are finding meaning in Catholicism. A recent Harvard University survey revealed a significant increase in the percentage of Gen Z identifying as Catholic, with numbers climbing from 15 to 21 percent from 2022 to 2023. Even Millennials are increasingly identifying as Catholic, going from 6 percent to 20 percent during that same time period.

Rejecting the conclusion that Hogg proposed, young people find that the Catholic Church is filling an emptiness that Hogg cannot understand. Hogg—whose only claim to fame is that he was a student who witnessed a school shooting in Parkland, Florida—has parlayed his anger and bitterness into a career based primarily on lobbying for gun control. Recently, Hogg became a big problem for the Democratic Party when he suggested that the DNC needed to mount primary challenges to those Democrats who are not “woke” enough to appeal to young people.

It is not likely that Hogg will continue in his current position at the DNC because he is so out of touch with the mainstream culture. Hogg does not seem to understand that “wokeness” cannot give meaning to one’s life. Wokeness is not a religion, even though it may be the only source of meaning he seems to have been able to find in his life. Unlike Hogg, most members of Gen Z know that wokeness will never provide the kind of meaning that they are searching for, and an increasing number of them are turning to traditional religion. 

This is a global phenomenon. Figures released by the Bishops’ Conference of France announced that 10,384 adults received the sacrament of baptism at the 2025 Easter Vigil. This is an increase of 45 percent over the 7,135 adults who were baptized in 2024 and a 90 percent increase over the 5,463 adults who were baptized in 2023.

According to Église Catholique en France, 

13 dioceses (more than 10 percent of all dioceses in France) have more than doubled the number of baptized adults. In ten years, catechumens in France have increased from 3,900 in 2015 to 10,392 in 2025. This is an increase of more than 160 percent. 

Among the new adult catechumens, the 18–25-year-old cohort accounts for more than 42 percent of the catechumens and is surpassing the 26–40 age group.  Among the new adult catechumens, the 18–25-year-old cohort accounts for more than 42 percent of the catechumens and is surpassing the 26–40 age group. Tweet This

Social media is helpful in trying to understand this cultural shift toward traditional religion. Recent convert to Catholicism Cameron Bertuzzi, a 38-year-old host of what was once a Protestant YouTube channel, said that he was moved to Catholicism after becoming convinced—through his reading and his engaging in online Catholic content, including Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire—that the traditional religion held the answers he was looking for.

This speaks directly to what Pope St. John Paul II called the “New Evangelization.” While it is hardly “new,” considering the fact that the pontiff created this concept in 1983, it is an evangelization that involves adapting to the current culture and engaging in cultural dialogue about the beauty and the truth of the Faith. The New Evangelization has three qualities: new means, new expressions, and new ardor; and although Pope John Paul II could never have anticipated almost 40 years ago the role of the Internet and social media in his ideas for a new evangelization, many new Gen Z converts point to their conversion as resulting from their exposure to what some Catholics used to be a bit embarrassed to call “Catholic Apologetics.”   

Even though Bertuzzi is not part of Gen Z, he was convinced of the truth of Catholicism through what can only be called the New Evangelization: 

Early on in his conversion, Bertuzzi had many intellectual objections to the Catholic faith. As an Evangelical Protestant, Bertuzzi offered various objections regarding the Eucharist, divine simplicity, and hell. He engaged in debates with Matt Fradd, the [Catholic] host of “Pints with Aquinas,” on a number of these issues, and he slowly grew to appreciate the Catholic point of view. Bertuzzi also brought in leading scholars—both Catholic and Protestant—to discuss various topics…Over time, as he talked with friends who were helping him in his process of discernment, he realized that the papacy was the central issue of his investigation…it was the arguments and evidence for the papacy which were the primary reason for his decision to convert. 

This attention to the truth of the teachings of the Catholic Church should not diminish the appeal of the beauty of the liturgy, as well as the extraordinary architecture and art that the Catholic Church has brought to the culture.

Conversion is a process. And in order to sustain these new Catholics, it is the role of the New Evangelization to continue to nurture them. Hallow, one of the most popular apps created to encourage the Faith, is a Christian prayer and meditation app that provides audio-guided prayers, meditations, Bible stories, and music; it is especially popular within the Catholic community. Celebrity Catholic Mark Wahlberg and The Chosen’s Jonathan Roumie serve as narrators on Hallow, offering reflections and prayers as well as programs to nurture the Faith. 

Fr. Dave Pivonka, President of Franciscan University of Steubenville, has offered a daily Hallow series on the Holy Spirit, providing prayerful reflections on the power of the Holy Spirit. Two years ago, Fr. Pivonka hosted a series about the life and spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi. With over 18 million downloads in more than 150 countries, Hallow is the world’s most popular prayer app—and a major contributor to the New Evangelization. 

While prayer apps are engaging and most helpful, the conversion of Gen Z Catholics will need to be sustained by more than apps. This is where the People of God play a role in doing all we can to make these new Catholics feel at home. 

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis provided the metaphor of Christianity as a large house with a hallway or a foyer leading to many rooms within that house. The hallway represents the most basic of Christian beliefs: a proclaimed faith in God; perhaps a shared belief in the salvific role of Jesus Christ; an acceptance of the beatitudes, especially those that stress social justice; and a respect for some of the commandments, especially the command to love our neighbor as ourselves. The hallway is nice, but it is in the rooms of the house where the doctrinal exposition of those beliefs and various ways of living are available. Lewis writes:

It is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in…you must keep on praying for the light and of course even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one.

Even though Lewis was not writing about the Catholic Church, his metaphor of the rooms has resonance for all of us—new Catholics and old Catholics. The faithful are in the rooms in that large Catholic house. It is the job of faithful Catholics to keep the fires going and make the rooms so inviting that no one will want to leave.