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God is doing something incredible with Gen Z, and secular media is noticing.
The same outlets that once confidently proclaimed, “Religion is dying! Young people are leaving churches in droves! Christians to be a minority by 2050!” now seem to be changing their tune.
Lately, the headlines from mainstream media read more like, “Catholicism sees major resurgence among Gen Z” (Fox News) and “Young people are converting to Catholicism en masse” (New York Post). CNN recently published a podcast titled “Catholicism Is So Hot Right Now. Why?” To most people, headlines like these were unthinkable until a few months ago. So what’s going on?
This current media frenzy may seem to have come out of the blue, but to me, a Gen Z Catholic, it’s been a long time coming. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the media’s reaction came fairly late.
The “Quiet Revival” of the Youth
The shift in rhetoric was something I personally observed in real time, so I believe I can pinpoint where things began to change.
Beginning in January 2025, I was researching this very subject for a college report. The bulk of existing articles I encountered regarding young people and religion were still overwhelmingly negative. They mainly cited statistics from Pew Research’s “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” a 2022 report with bleak predictions about the religious landscape in the U.S. The report was predicated on the assumption that young Americans would continue to leave Christianity, going from Christians to “nones” (no religion). In every scenario, Christians are projected as a shrinking minority and “nones” as an increasing share of the population.
As a young Catholic involved in multiple youth and young adult ministries, that didn’t sound right. I had seen for myself how Christ was moving my generation, changing hearts and giving young lives new meaning in the Catholic Faith. Sure, secularism is prevalent, but these articles weren’t telling the whole story. Writing my own report, it seemed, would be an uphill battle.
That is, until Pew Research came out with an updated study on February 26: “Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off.”
That study turned heads and prompted speculation, but two additional polls put the attention strongly on Catholicism and young people. One was Harvard University’s Cooperative Election Study, which showed an increase in Gen Z Americans identifying as Catholic, from 15% in 2022 to 21% in 2023, with young men leading the trend. (That’s an estimated 4.2 million more people!)
The other was even more shocking and historic: young Catholics in the United Kingdom now outnumber Anglicans 2-to-1. According to the Bible Society, UK Catholics make up 41% of Gen Z in 2025, while only 20% identify as Anglican, reflecting a larger trend of Catholicism growing in the UK.
2025 Holy Week numbers also showed a new influx of converts in many countries, including France and Australia, leading some media outlets to dub our current moment a “quiet revival.”
We “zoomers” are rediscovering that the Catholic Faith offers the fullness of truth, goodness, and beauty. In an ever-changing world, we long to be part of something greater than ourselves. For many, myself included, this longing has led us to the timeless traditions of the Church, and in particular, to the Traditional Latin Mass.
Gen Z and the Latin Mass
The Traditional Latin Mass (or TLM), codified by Pope Pius V in 1570, was the predominant rite of Mass until the introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of Mass) by Paul VI in 1969.
The Traditional Mass is celebrated in Latin, accompanied by Gregorian chant. The priest faces the altar (away from the people), a posture called ad orientem (“to the East”). It comes from the ancient Christian tradition of praying while facing East, derived from Matthew 24:27: “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man.”
The TLM’s emphasis on solemnity, incense, and ancient ritual is attractive to youth searching for meaning and stability in a chaotic, post-modern world. Nowhere has this been more evident than with the 19,000 pilgrims who participated in the Chartres pilgrimage in France this year. The annual three-day walk from Paris to Chartres is centered around the celebration of the Latin Mass. 2025 had the largest attendance in its history. According to the Catholic News Agency, “[registration] closed within five days of opening, necessitating a waiting list of 2,000 additional participants.” CNA also notes the “average age of pilgrims was 20 years old.”
The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), a society of priests who offer the TLM, has also reported “prolific growth” within their parishes, with many congregations “doubling their numbers” and “outgrowing their buildings” by the hundreds.
Crisis Magazine reports that from January 2019 to June 2021, total attendance at Latin Masses in America grew a whopping 71%, declaring, “at a time when general Mass attendance was decreasing, attendance at the TLM was dramatically increasing . . . It has been in fact growing at rates unheard of in the modern Catholic Church.”
Virginia Aabrams of the National Catholic Register notes that “[TLM] attendance among 18- to 29-year-olds bucks the downward trends in religiosity among that demographic.”
My own TLM community in Miami is growing at an amazing rate, so much so that we were featured on the front page of the Miami Herald in August 2023! Last year, we became an apostolate of the FSSP. Led by our chaplain, Fr. Zachary Akers, our community spans across all ages, and teenagers and young adults are a large and vigorous presence.
As an altar boy for the TLM, the old rite has shaped me in many ways. It’s taught me reverence, decorum, and dignity. It’s shown me the transcendent beauty of our Faith and taught me to seek God in silence. It’s connected me to the traditions of my ancestors, and it’s made me a better man.
When I walk into Our Lady of Belen Chapel to serve Mass, I see pews packed with young Catholics dressed in their Sunday best, praying the Rosary. I see a sacristy bustling with altar boys, eager to serve the most active roles in the liturgy. I hear chants from a choir of young volunteers who love to sing to their Lord. I smell the desserts and coffee awaiting us after Mass as we build up our community bonds.
On Sundays like this, it feels undeniable to me—the Church is in good hands.
Photo by Shalone Cason on Unsplash
