He mentioned that his parish is experiencing the exact same phenomenon so many parishes in Ireland, in Britain, in France, across much of Europe, and in parts of Africa, are experiencing - a notable increase in young people attending Mass.
A proportion come from hardline Atheist families, had not been baptised and underwent adult baptism. Tom had never done an adult baptism until two years ago. He did two just last week, one the week before, four around Christmas. He has adult baptisms almost every week.
A proportion come from hardline Atheist families, had not been baptised and underwent adult baptism. Tom had never done an adult baptism until two years ago. He did two just last week, one the week before, four around Christmas. He has adult baptisms almost every week.
Interestingly, many of the young people at home and abroad are attracted particularly to the Traditional Latin Mass - the Tridentine rite in the version approved by Pope John XXIII in 1962. Tom finds that mindboggling.
I am not a regular mass-goer, though I have not completely broken away from Roman Catholicism. I nearly did, drifted back and then away again, then back again over and over. When I go, I too prefer the TLM. I find it far more emotionally connecting, more spiritual, an oasis of calm that touched the senses. In contrast I find the Paul VI Mass bores the pants off me.
That reminds me of when a young British historian doing a programme for the BBC and she was doing a piece about the relaunch of the Catholic hierarchy in England by Pope Pius IX. She decided to attend a TLM, as that would have been the mass of the time, and then do a piece to camera afterwards from the church. She had been brought up a Catholic. In the piece to camera she said the TLM had shocked her. It was so intense, so beautiful. She said she had never experienced anything so spiritual. She and her wife now go to the TLM every Sunday.
Pope Francis by his own admission hated the TLM. Then again he admitted he could never understand the appeal of ritual and tradition. He imposed severe restrictions on the TLM's availability. It looks like Pope Leo intends to overturn the restrictions of Francis.
So why are so many young people now attracted to Catholicism again? In the case of people brought up as Atheists, it may be the tendency of children to rebel against the mindset of their parents, an ancient psychological phenomenon. People who lived in the 1940s lived through an era of want. In the 1950s, as a reaction against that, the 1950s were an era of consumerism, to give their children a good life and all the things they wanted. To their horror then saw their children in the 1960s renounce that consumerism and the life they had led, and adopt the attitudes of the flower power era. That was just typical generational rebellion against their parents. Such a phenomenon has been recorded all through history.
The decision of children of Atheist parents to return to religion may be that same phenomenon - of rebelling against the defining characteristics of their parents.
But why are other young people attracted suddenly to religion? One reason why religion held sway in the past was because there was a real personal experience of mortality. People lived in extended families. They saw their parents and grandparents die. With high child mortality they saw siblings die, cousins die, school friends die. They experienced frequent pandemics with massive death rates before vaccines became available. They saw people suffer and die with illnesses that future generations were inoculated against.
Generations were haunted by the issue of mortality, and in promises of an afterlife religion often gave people some comfort. However as awareness of mortality died, as people moved from extended families to nuclear families, as illnesses were no longer death sentences, and childhood mortality collapsed, people lived more in the present away from the shadow of death. That meant that the appeal of religion declined.
Young people are now being confronted more with the issue of mortality than recent generations. There are high rates of youth suicide. The spectre of war has returned and is everywhere, whether with Putin's war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, or now Trump's war in Iran. They live in a world where the fear of war is real again. That brings home the issue of mortality again. So did the experience of the pandemic - a common phenomenon that just dropped from public awareness until Covid hit. (My great-grandparents, I worked out, lived through five pandemics, so it was something they were used to.)
Add to that, liberals have championed the concept of rampant individualism - summed up by the BBC News slogan "the news YOU want, when YOU want it." We live in a society where "we" is less important than "me". That has left many people feeling isolated in an increasingly individualistic society. Religions, in contrast, are more "we" than "me" and have communal religious ceremonies, meetings, etc. So young people may find religion an antidote to the isolation of modern life.
They may also found modern culture superficial, empty, devoted to trivia - the latest fashion, the latest trend, the land fad on the net. Religion's analysis may not always be right. Indeed on sexual matters it is often dead wrong. But it does at least try to offer a broader analysis beyond society's superficiality.
Throw together, societal isolation, an empty-headed culture, loneliness, and fears of death with wars, and perhaps it was predictable that religion in this context would stage a comeback. Those who were certain that it was dying and irrelevant must be shell-shocked at the fact that churches are filling up again, and that growing numbers of young people are turning up again.
But it is happening. Two years ago the entire city of Paris, long a city with little church-going, suddenly found that churches at Easter were packed that they ran out of consecrated hosts for communion all over the city. That had not happened in living memory before. Some parishes that had slashed the number of masses have been increasing the number of masses again. There are also growing inquiries about people joining the priesthood.
It is a striking turn-around.
On a separate point: the move from extended families to nuclear families, and then individuals living alone, something championed by liberals, is the number one cause of the massive housing shortage all over Europe and North America. People who in the past would have lived in nuclear or extended families now face societal pressure to live alone but the housing stock that would facilitate that is not there and arguably never will be.
The pressure to live alone, and the mocking of those living in collective family homes, has been a cultural disaster.
⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.
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