What might the new face of the church look like?

By Jamie Manson
Plenary speech for NCRs 50th Anniversary Conference

In my discussion of the question, What might the new face of the church look like? I
have chosen to focus on young adults and the future of the church in the United States.
As I have traveled around the country over the past five years talking to different
Catholic groups, there are no questions I get more than What is the future of the church
in this country? and Where are our young adults?

If the studies are anywhere near correct, the new face of the church wont have much of a
face at all.

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll only 15 percent of American millennials
define their religion as Catholic, compared with 20 percent of all Americans, Another 10
percent say they are only culturally Catholic, and 9 percent have left the church.

Various studies find that anywhere from 15 percent to 30 percent of young Catholics go
to Mass weekly.

In a massive 2014 Religious Landscape Study, (http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/) Pew found

that religious nones a shorthand they use to refer to people who self-identify as
atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is nothing in particular
now make up roughly 23% of the U.S. adult population. They further found that
religiously unaffiliated people are more concentrated among young adults than other age
groups 35% of Millennials (those born 1981-1996) are nones.

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If you read my column in NCR you know that, pretty frequently, Im quite critical of the
institutional church. So you may find the following statement a shock: I dont think the
church is primarily to blame for the die off of interest in institutional religion.

I think it has far more to do with our cultures shift from a communal model of society to
an individualistic model. Over the past three generations, U.S. culture has undergone a
radical transformation in which the needs of the individual, rather than the needs of the
community are of primary importance. And though it may sound like an exaggeration,
today young adults are living in a cultural milieu that is without precedent.

To explain this in a more interesting way, I like to present my own family as an example.
So, if youll indulge me for a moment, Ill tell you a bit about my own familys
experience of this cultural transformation.

My maternal grandparents were born in Italy in the early 1920s. They immigrated to the
U.S. through Ellis Island as small children. My mother was born in 1950, and I was born
in 1977. When you look at the different worlds in which these three generations were
raised, the comparisons are pretty astonishing.

My immigrant grandparents grew up in the traditional model of family the village

model. This is how most human beings lived up until the late 1960s. They lived in a
world where individuality wasn't nearly as important as community. Their families, their
extended families, their communities gave them their identity. Their religious traditions
and moral codes were handed onto them; the community told them who they were.

That was my grandparents' world: they were assigned very strict gender roles. My
grandmother had an eighth grade education and then was forced to leave school and get a
job in order to help support her family. From the moment she was born, her life was
really already prescribed. She was supposed to find an Italian husband (that her family
approved of) and she was going to have children and be a housewife, and that was it. My

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grandfather was going to get a job and he had to marry an Italian woman (that his family
approved of), and he was going to provide.

These roles were really not alterable. The minute my grandparents got married, they
moved in with their extended family. Even when they bought their own home, they lived
within a block or two of their parents and their siblings and their families. They lived in
community, in a village. That's the way human beings have always been socialized up
until very recently. And really, outside of the U.S. and many countries in Europe, most
of the world still lives in this communal model.

My mother was born in 1950, so she grew up during the great time of change and
upheaval in the 1960s. Her life began in a world where gender roles were very strict. But
by the time she reached her teens, the womens struggle for equality was in full swing
and the birth control pill started to become available. These developments quickly led to
the loosening of gender roles

Greater numbers of women began to seek higher education. Eventually women could
live independently of men. Men and women no longer absolutely depended on one
another for their very survival, the way they did in my grandparents time. They married
for love. Our culture began to shift from the communal model to the individual model.

Today, young adults are born into this individualistic culture, a culture in which
community necessarily doesn't tell them who they are. Community doesn't tell them
what to believe. Individuals have the right to decide what they believe in, what their
values are, and how they are going to live their lives. This kind of individuality is
unprecedented in human history.

We cannot overestimate the impact that our new, individualistic culture has had on the
Church. The church has always thrived in a communal culture. Communities relied on
the church to give them their religious identity, their religious beliefs, even their political

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beliefs. The church and the community defined an individuals identity. And the needs of
the individual were never superior to the needs of the community.

But now most young adults in the U.S. are raised in an individualistic worldview. Some
of them were raised by parents who told them that they did not have to go to church.
Some were told that they could choose their religion when they get older. I cant imagine
my grandparents being given this message. My grandfather was never told to go out and
find himself! They did as they were told. They did what the community expected of
them. They werent told to choose the religion that made them happy.

But young people today decide and define what their values and beliefs are. And this is
one of the key reasons why we're not seeing young people in church and why it's so hard
to get young people into church. Young people are growing up surrounded by a
spiritual marketplace. Everything from traditional religions, to yoga, to Zen
meditation, to New Age thought, to Oprahs Super Soul Sunday, are competing for their
time and money, all with the promise of helping them find the meaning of life. And
young people get to shop around to figure our what their beliefs will be.

This culture has placed tremendous stress on traditional religions like the Roman Catholic
Church, which never in its history had to try to woo new members. It never had to
reach out and make itself desirable. Why? Because in the past people went to church
ultimately because the fate of their souls depended on it.

That's what my mother grew up learning. Because she grew up in a communal model of
society, the church still had that kind of power; that deeply influential power over
morality and religious beliefs.

The contemporary requirement that churches attract young peoplewith good music,
preaching and program-- and retain young people is the heart of the challenge. And it
doesnt just affect the Roman Catholic Church. The mainline Protestant churches are
having the same exact struggles. Their numbers are falling off rapidly. Even

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Evangelicals are having trouble retaining young adults. Once young Evangelcials go to
college, the churches tend to lose their grip on them. This is significant because
Evangelicals tend have phenomenal skill with youth ministry.

So even the more absolutist types of religions are struggling to figure out how to attract
and retain large numbers of young adults. Traditional religions never had to do this
before. They never had to compete in a spiritual marketplace.

There is also a significant change in the way in which we communicate in our postcommunal, individualistic culture. And technology has only exacerbated this. We dont
share communal meals together the way we used to, which means were not physically
present to one another as much. Our communication is very fractured. We used to talk
over the phone. And though the voice was disembodied, there was still some intimacy in
hearing someone's voice.

But now we communicate with email, and now even more so with text messaging, which
is a remarkably fragmented way to communicate. It doesn't really require any intimacy.
It just requires my telling you where I am or what I want, and then you responding to
that. This has created a breakdown in our presence to one another. We can be in contact
with one another in a variety of ways and at any moment of the day, but our
communication, which comes from the root word meaning to become one with, is
eroding.

Now, there are great benefits to the individualistic culture and its personal freedoms. Its
generally free of the patriarchal structure than typically characterizes the communal
system. It's a culture that is based on equality and equal opportunity. But as wonderful as
this is, there are a lot of losses that happen in this kind of culture. As free and contactable
as young adults are, they are deeply hungry for presence and community. In many ways,
the deprivation is even greater than it was in previous generations. They are facing a
serious lack of intimacy in their lives.

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Most significantly, for the first time in human history, young adults arent born into a
community that will surround them and support them for the rest of their lives. Todays
young adults have to go out and seek and build their own communities.

A few years ago when I taught introductory religion courses at a Catholic college, I
would give the students an assignment: create your own religion. Almost every student I
taught was baptized Catholic. And yet, almost none of them had developed religions with
rituals or priesthoods. But almost every students religion offered an opportunity to get
together in small groups and discuss their spiritualities.

I eventually came to the conclusion that sitting and talking with a small group offers them
not only what is lacking for them in church, but also in our culture: community, intimacy,
and presence.

Now the irony, of course, is that community, intimacy and presence are really what our
whole Eucharistic tradition is about. Isnt this what a true Eucharistic community is
supposed to offer us? But my students werent making this connection.

This isnt to say that young adults are disinterested in ritual. Those who still go to church,
or at least long to go to church, express a desire to be a part of something greater than
themselves; to connect with a tradition with a legacy and a history. How cant they,
growing up in a culture that is not only ruggedly individualistic, but that no doubt often
feels rootless and in constant flux?

The issue is that the rituals of the church do not seem relevant to the lives of many young
Catholics. (I say this with full knowledge that in many cases this is not a young adult
problem---there are plenty of older adults that no longer find meaning in the liturgy and
sacraments either.)

Years ago, in his book, Sacramental Theology, Franciscan theologian Kenan Osborne
wrote, We must find Jesus not just in the table of the Eucharist, but in the world around

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us. If we do not see Jesus in this table of the world, we really will not find Jesus in the
table of the Eucharist.

Though Osborne wasnt talking about young adults or the future of the church at the time,
his beautifully worded insight, I think, speaks to this decline in the relevance of the
churchs rituals among U.S. Catholics, especially young adults.

When young adults are taught to connect their lives in the world with the churchs
symbols, the rituals can take on profound meaning and relevance.

One of the best examples of this Ive seen was in a piece in America
(http://americamagazine.org/issue/662/faith-focus/christ-and-cooks) magazine, written by
my divinity school classmate, Alice Kearney. In the essay, entitled Christ and the
Cooks, Kearney describes her work as director of youth and young adult ministry at a
large parish in the diocese of Trenton. Over and over, she heard young adults claim that
going to church was not feeding them, so her strategy was to invite them to share a
meal and teach them how to make it.

She organized cooking classes for 21- to 35-year-olds as a way to jump-start the parishs
long-dormant young adult ministry.

The meals were chosen for their catechetical potential. One week, they baked bread
from scratch and enjoyed a wine tasting. Another time, they simmered soup in the
monastic style and talked about Sabbath rest in our busy world. One week was devoted to
making a meal to be delivered to a local shelter for women and children.

Alice writes, Over the course of the cooking class, I found that our little community
became a communion, and individual members came to support and minister to each
other. They were more than just friendly faces to see at Mass. They enriched the parish
experience for one another. Not only did their Mass attendance increase, they sat
together.

They experienced Jesus in the table of the world: in the communication that was essential
to growing their friendships, in their deepening presence to another. They created
communion, and suddenly Eucharist made so much more sense to them. It inspired them
to go to Mass.

I believe that these young adults began to experience one of the richest aspects of the
Catholic tradition: our sacramental understanding of the world.

In his book, Why Stay Catholic? Michael Leach writes, Catholicism is about seeing
what the eyes cannot see and understanding what is at the heart of things: truth, love,
mercy, goodness, beauty, harmony, humility, compassion, gratitude, joy, peace. Its about
seeing the ordinary and perceiving the extraordinary at the same time.

While the Catholic tradition has seven big S Sacraments, our sacramental view of the
world makes it so that we have countless small s sacraments that we give and receive
every moment of our lives.

Catholic theology teaches us that the finite is capable of the infinitethat all that God
created is good, and that every being participates in the being of God. Or, as Margaret
Farley says it, God speaks Gods word in all of creation. Therefore, all things in
creation are capable of revealing Gods presence to us.

Catholic theology teaches that grace perfects nature. So human beings and God are in a
dynamic relationship. We are co-creators with God. We are called to be visible signs of
Gods presence in our world, in our actions, in our relationships, in our encounters.

For the Catholic, Gods presence is everywhere, and nothing falls outside Gods embrace.
I love that notion of the human person and creation. I love that understanding of God. It
helps me make meaning of my life everyday. And for that reason, I still call myself a

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Catholic, even amid my many struggles with church doctrine around women and
sexuality. I think it is at the core of many people who still identity with the church.

I would even venture to say that sacramental view of the world helps to explain the
extraordinary popularity of Pope Francis, especially among young people.

People arent compelled so much by watching him perform big S Sacraments as they
are watching him perform small s sacraments in countless videos, photos, and tweets
that have gone around the world: embracing the sick and suffering, washing the feet of
the imprisoned, taking selfies with young people.

The disconnect among Catholics between the Big S and little s sacraments is clearly
demonstrated, I believe, by the fact that Francis Effect still has not translated into any
substantial increase in church attendance or increased commitment to participating in the
life of the institutional church.

Catholics are compelled by the little s sacraments, but cannot connect them to the big S
Sacraments.

Part of it is the fault of our institutional church. Though our theological tradition calls us
to be visible signs of the life of Godjoy, hope, healing, lovein our world and among
those in our communities, too often our institutional church, sadly, is a more of a visible
sign of exclusion, rather than a reflection of Gods justice.

Parishes are closed because of a lack of priests, while so many gifted women, married
men, and out LGBTQ people stand idle, unable to answer Gods call fully in the church
they call home. Lay people, who give so much of their spirits to the life of the church,
have no collaborative roles in the structures and decision-making of the church. Same-sex
couples are refused to possibility of having the sacramentality of their relationships
recognized and honored. Too many Catholics still believe they must not take communion,
and so they go away hungry from the table. So much deprivation, and for no good reason.

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So many barriers placed between God and Gods beloved people. I know that many
Catholics, especially young adults, cannot bring themselves to participate in a religious
community that codifies exclusion like this.

Some theologians have suggested that the future of the church is outside of the walls of
the church. I think they are really on to something.

I think this whole idea of the sacramental view of the world is so life-giving, and can be
so life-giving for young adults if we start to figure out how communicate it to them to
ever-richer ways. If we begin to help them see that sacraments dont just happen within
the walls of the church. But, rather, if you really believe this Catholic idea, the
sacramental view of the world, then Gods table is everywhere in the world. God is
reaching out to us in all of creation, seeking communion with us, and longing for us to
find communion with one another.

I think young adults will understand this, because so many young adults are doing
sacramental work in the table of the world, and many of them don't even know it.

I know countless young adults who are already doing this work with commitment,
passion, and sacrifice by laboring in homeless and domestic violence shelters, hospitals
and hospices, group homes and addiction recovery centers. They are working abroad in
war-torn squalor, and locally in rundown, inner-city basements. They are empowering
poor mothers, educating children, aiding undocumented immigrants, planting rooftop
gardens in the projects, and feeding the hungry in pantries, soup kitchens, and nursing
homes.

So many young peoplewho have turned away from the Catholicism-- are honoring the
dignity of human life, fighting for justice, and sacrificing to serve the margins of society.
By doing this they are, whether consciously or unconsciously, doing the traditional work
of the church. But most young people would never even think to call their work church.
They would not recognize that by living and working on the margins they are incarnating

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the sacramental life. They are doing the work mandated by the Gospels, but not many
would even know to see it this way. They might even be taken aback is they were told
this. But they truly are creating and participating in the life of the church outside the
walls of the church.

The model is not new, of course. In many ways, I believe, women religious have already
given us a model of this church outside the walls of the church. They have incarnated the
reality that the church is at its very best when it works at on margins and they have been
among our best examples of this.

Women religious consecrate their lives not only to living out the teachings of the gospels,
but also to following Jesus command to read the signs of the times. The work that
women religious do is decades, if not centuries, ahead of the male hierarchy. They have
created among themselves the church that so many restless Catholics long for: small,
supportive, non-hierarchical, intimate communities grounded in sacramental life and
outreach to the poor and marginalized. In many ways, the sisters have built the church of
the future.

I think there is a very significant, untapped place for women religious to support young
adults. Though they may not be ready to take traditional vows, new generations of
Catholic would benefit tremendously from getting to know women religious, witnessing
their deeply Catholic lives, feeling the support of their communities, enriching their
spiritual practices by learning about their charisms and wisdom. Some young adults long
for a safe, sacramental space. Women religious could offer them the opportunity to be
explore being Catholic in this true and deep sense of the word.

In addition to women religious, there are countless non-vowed women and men who are
doing the work of justice and compassion, the true work of the church, throughout our
world. Theyre not always in the institutional church or even in the parish. But these
women and men are modeling the work to which God calls us, by serving in hospitals,

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prisons, shelters, schools, community centers and anywhere else God longs to be made
present.

I believe that these servant leaders are the keys to the future of the church. They can
guide new generations in understanding what it means to bring about the very life of God
in a broken world. This is spiritual leadership that will truly speak to newer generations
of people, who are less compelled by parish structures and traditional religious devotions
but who are most definitely interested in committing their lives to working on the
margins.

Studies so far have shown that though Pope Francis is popular among young adults, this
hasnt translated into an increase in church attendance. Catholics are feeling good about
the pope, but not good enough to go back to Mass. Or, perhaps they have tried to go back
to Mass and learned that not much has actually changed on the ground in the parishes.
But just because young adults arent gravitating toward the church doesnt mean that they
have any less of a need for community, for a sense of meaning, for a system of values and
beliefs, for spiritual mentors to walk with them through their own rites of passage -- birth,
marriage, sickness, sorrow and death. Sadly, like many of us, they continue to be sent
away from the church empty.

We spend a lot of time and energy worrying, analyzing, writing and arguing about the
institutional church. But we must not become so preoccupied with the church of our
dreams that we fail to notice the flourishing church that we can and do create for one
another.

I believe progressive Catholics would do well to take some of the energy behind our
righteous anger at some of the bishops or their hopes for the pope, and use that energy to
discover the myriad ways that we are already churchin our work, in our families, in our
volunteering, in our communities. We must discover all of the ways in which we bring
the very life of God into our world. We must discover all of the ways that we are doing
the traditional work of the church, even if it is well outside the walls of the institution.

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We can spin our wheels all day wondering what Pope Francis will or will not do, or
worrying about what a bishop did or did not say. But Jesus calls us in the gospel to feed
one another now. People are hungry now. Its getting late. What are we going to do about
it? That is the question that should burn most inside of us.

If in our words and our work we are mirroring the teachings of the Gospel, then together
we have created church in our longing for communion, in our searching for the sacred,
in our hungering for meaning. It is this ability to see the presence of Jesus not only in the
Eucharistic table, but also in the table of the world that makes us Catholic. If we really
embrace our sacramental view of the world, it becomes impossible to tell where the
church begins and where it ends -- if it ends at all.

The only criteria is whether this work deepens our love for another, bring about the life of
God more fully in our community and helps to attune our vision to see Gods at work in
our in our world. We must get rid of that hierarchical baggage that compels is to declare
what is and what is not church, or to insist on where God can and cannot be. I just dont
think future generations will work in those categories.

Together we need to explore the ways in which we are already church, and to enhance the
opportunities to become more fully church--with or without the hierarchy. We need to
discover what sacred experiences we are hungering for and what brings us the more
abundant life that Jesus taught us to seek. Our sacramental view of the world opens our
eyes to this. Together we need to recognize that the new face of church that we seek is
already among us.