Many American Catholics are worried about the apparently weak religious faith, practice and commitment of Catholic youth today and what it portends for the church’s future. Some observers are less concerned, however. Four Catholic sociologists -- William D'Antonio, James Davidson, Mary Gautier, and Katherine Meyer -- for example, have suggested that some scholars (including yours truly) overstate the magnitude of the problem. The title of their Dec. 6 NCR essay, for instance, summarizes their view about my recent book, Young Catholic America: “Assumptions in study on young Catholics lead to unnecessarily grim outlook.” I wish they were correct. But they are not. The situation, in fact, is grim.
I agree with D'Antonio, Davidson, Gautier and Meyer that our respective research studies are methodologically sound and produce reliable data -- at least for answering certain research questions. The problem in this case is that my colleagues are relying upon data that are incapable of addressing the issues about the youth in question here. In their piece, my colleagues did not mention two crucial facts about our differing studies, the understanding of which helps to explain why we come to such different conclusions about Catholic youth.
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