Young adults are the most engaged and most at risk of leaving the church

A new survey shows young adults are the most engaged in the Latin Church in the US – but the dynamic is “fragile,” and questions of leaving the church persist.

The data also indicate the nation’s Roman Catholics, as Catholics in the Latin Church are commonly known, reflect a mix of both distrust and hope – with Catholics having greater trust in parish pastors than bishops, and with the church at a “crossroads” in the US.

The results were released 4 November in a report titled “Trust, Practice, and Renewal in the Catholic Church After Two Decades” by Leadership Roundtable.

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Young adults, the smallest demographic cohort among the data, “are by far the most engaged in the Church,” said the report.

At the same time, they are also uncertain about remaining in the church. The survey – which identified a “consistent pattern where the institutional Church scores lower than local parishes across” – pointed to the dynamic as a “troubling bifurcation in Catholic experience,” with “one view of the Church at home, another at the diocesan and national level.”

On balance, “the data reveals an institution at a critical juncture,” said Leadership Roundtable founder Geoffrey T. Boisi in a 4 November news release announcing the report.

With “our most engaged Catholics” also “most at risk of walking away,” the task of restoring trust in church leaders and “strengthening our governance and management structures … must continue,” he said.