Gen Z Finds Meaning in Traditional Religion

Progressives do not seem to understand the dramatic societal transformation that is occurring among young people searching for meaning in an increasingly chaotic culture. Failing to recognize these changes, David Hogg, the clueless Democratic National Committee Vice Chair, recently told an interviewer that young people just want to “get laid and have fun.”

Making Sense of God: F... Keller, Timothy Check Amazon for Pricing. The truth is that Gen Z is rejecting the kind of life that Hogg is promoting, preferring instead to find meaning in authentic relationships and traditional institutions. A growing number of them are finding meaning in Catholicism. A recent Harvard University survey revealed a significant increase in the percentage of Gen Z identifying as Catholic, with numbers climbing from 15 to 21 percent from 2022 to 2023. Even Millennials are increasingly identifying as Catholic, going from 6 percent to 20 percent during that same time period.

Rejecting the conclusion that Hogg proposed, young people find that the Catholic Church is filling an emptiness that Hogg cannot understand. Hogg—whose only claim to fame is that he was a student who witnessed a school shooting in Parkland, Florida—has parlayed his anger and bitterness into a career based primarily on lobbying for gun control. Recently, Hogg became a big problem for the Democratic Party when he suggested that the DNC needed to mount primary challenges to those Democrats who are not “woke” enough to appeal to young people.

It is not likely that Hogg will continue in his current position at the DNC because he is so out of touch with the mainstream culture. Hogg does not seem to understand that “wokeness” cannot give meaning to one’s life. Wokeness is not a religion, even though it may be the only source of meaning he seems to have been able to find in his life. Unlike Hogg, most members of Gen Z know that wokeness will never provide the kind of meaning that they are searching for, and an increasing number of them are turning to traditional religion.

This is a global phenomenon. Figures released by the Bishops’ Conference of France announced that 10,384 adults received the sacrament of baptism at the 2025 Easter Vigil. This is an increase of 45 percent over the 7,135 adults who were baptized in 2024 and a 90 percent increase over the 5,463 adults who were baptized in 2023.

According to Église Catholique en France,

13 dioceses (more than 10 percent of all dioceses in France) have more than doubled the number of baptized adults. In ten years, catechumens in France have increased from 3,900 in 2015 to 10,392 in 2025. This is an increase of more than 160 percent. 

When Faith Fails: Find... Done, Dominic Check Amazon for Pricing. Among the new adult catechumens, the 18–25-year-old cohort accounts for more than 42 percent of the catechumens and is surpassing the 26–40 age group. Among the new adult catechumens, the 1

Social media is helpful in trying to understand this cultural shift toward traditional religion. Recent convert to Catholicism Cameron Bertuzzi, a 38-year-old host of what was once a Protestant YouTube channel, said that he was moved to Catholicism after becoming convinced—through his reading and his engaging in online Catholic content, including Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire—that the traditional religion held the answers he was looking for.

This speaks directly to what Pope St. John Paul II called the “New Evangelization.” While it is hardly “new,” considering the fact that the pontiff created this concept in 1983, it is an evangelization that involves adapting to the current culture and engaging in cultural dialogue about the beauty and the truth of the Faith. The New Evangelization has three qualities: new means, new expressions, and new ardor; and although Pope John Paul II could never have anticipated almost 40 years ago the role of the Internet and social media in his ideas for a new evangelization, many new Gen Z converts point to their conversion as resulting from their exposure to what some Catholics used to be a bit embarrassed to call “Catholic Apologetics.”

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