If anything, there is greater pressure from peers, professors, parents and sometimes even from our own priests to become increasingly lax around Catholic truths; to be less “rigid”, less traditional and less “uptight”.
However, my experience within my university “CathSoc”, or Catholic Society for those not up to date with the lingo, is that what young Catholics desire is, if not tradition, then at the very least, theological orthodoxy.
This truth resonated profoundly with me a few weeks ago when our CathSoc accidentally advertised an Anglican “Eucharistic Adoration” service – an oxymoron if I have ever heard one. This issue was raised to me by several friends, while acknowledging that no Catholic could possibly attend such an event in good faith.
I proceeded to raise this issue to a priest, who can be described as someone who takes a more liberal and progressive stance when it comes to the liturgy and Church reform. To cut a long story short, this priest felt that as this proposed service was essentially just Christians “gathering together in prayer”, Jesus would be amongst them, even if He wasn’t truly present in the pseudo-sacrament.
The priest also alluded to how, in the name of ecumenism, this gathering of Christians should be encouraged, even if it meant temporarily compromising on beliefs around something as sacred as the Eucharist.
In case it needs to be said, the Catholic Church maintains that only ordained men can consecrate the Eucharist, transubstantiating bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. This is a faculty the Anglican Church does not possess, as the ordination rite was changed in the 16th century and thus made defective.
Additionally, this also resulted in a break in apostolic succession, further separating our Anglican brethren from the role of the priesthood. All of this is clearly laid out in Pope Leo XIII’s 1896 papal bull Apostolicae Curae: this is not a new idea within the Church.
Following the conversation with the priest, I found myself in a bit of a moral crisis. Do I listen to my priest, in humble obedience; having the consequences of such an event fall on his head, and his head alone? Or do I speak up for Catholic truth and, hopefully, prevent anyone from potentially committing idolatry by adoring that which is not God? And should I do so even if I face personal consequences in my CathSoc presidency for openly opposing my priest?
I chose the latter course.
I sent a rather lengthy message to our Catholic Society Whatsapp group chat, emphasising the importance of joint Anglo-Catholic prayer, particularly for the return of our separated brethren, while maintaining the integrity of Catholic truth regarding the Eucharist and the act of adoration.
I cannot begin to describe the overwhelmingly positive response to the message. Many people responded with heart emojis, prayer hands and thumbs-ups. I received a plethora of messages thanking me for what I had said, and gratitude for Catholic truth having been defended in a firm but loving way.
So why was it that, before I sent that message, I had so many hesitations for reiterating Catholic truths to a Catholic WhatsApp group, members of whom are all part of the University’s Catholic society? I think it is in no small part due to how the Catholic Church, particularly its Synod process, has mischaracterised the ideals of the youth. I personally have sat in synodal meetings where I have been told by individuals (usually over the age of sixty), that what the youth want is a Church that is more inclusive, more open-minded, and more tolerant.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this is what these individuals wanted from the Church when they were in their early twenties. However, nowadays, these pithy statements around tolerance, inclusivity and open-mindedness are typically, though not always, dog whistles employed by someone in favour of altering Catholic teachings; especially around the likes of sexuality, gender and the increased role of women within the Church hierarchy.
From my own experience, this is not what the youth are asking for from the Catholic Church – particularly the youth who seem to be flocking to the Traditional Latin mass.
As a 21-year-old Catholic woman, I can tell you unequivocally that I do not want the Church to relax its stance on anything just because some liberal Catholics in a synodal meeting do not like that people feel bad when they are called out for sin. I reverted to Catholicism when I was seventeen because of the Catholic Church’s position on sexual ethics, abortion, pornography, divorce, contraception, etc.
It was these “hard sayings” of Catholicism that convinced me that this must be the true Church. Every other major church denomination has compromised on at least one of these positions – if not on all of them. In the face of the Sexual Revolution, the “nth” Wave of Feminism, and the increasing demand that one not only tolerate but openly celebrate LGBTQIA+ ideology, the Catholic Church has remained firm in its assertion that the scriptural and traditional stance on these matters is fundamentally and unchangeably true.
If young people wanted to be in an environment that was constantly affirming the aforementioned social issues, then they simply would choose not to be Catholic. What I humbly implore the Church hierarchy to consider is the fact that the experience of a twenty-something-year-old Catholic in 2025 is radically different from that of thirty or forty years ago.
Today, young Catholics are living in a world where one must justify why they go to church rather than why they don’t. They are living in a world where they must argue why they are getting married before they have started a career – or why they would marry at all instead of just cohabitating. They must justify why they are open to life and why they actually look forward to having many children, instead of opting for the 1.44 children most modern British women are choosing to have.
Young Catholics want the Church to be a refuge, a sanctuary where they can shelter from the constant buffeting of liberal ideas they face in university, at work, online, in the media, and even in their own family and friendship circles.
What the Church hierarchy doesn’t understand about young Catholics is just this – that they want to be Catholic. No compromise. No capitulations. No concessions. Just the faith as it was handed to us by Christ over two thousand years ago.