Postsecular Catholicism: Toward a Renewed Understanding and Pastoral Praxis in Catholic Families with Disaffiliated Children in the Archdiocese of Boston

Abstract

The Catholic Church is experiencing seismic shifts in the national religious landscape as much younger generation Catholics have been disengaging with the church and its practices and rituals significantly. I wish to propose a new paradigm of understanding this phenomenon for the church that focuses on the Catholic family, where traditionally faith is passed on to future generations. This paradigm characterizes a considerable experience of what may be called post-secular Catholicism. The methodology of this project engages with Catholic parents in the local archdiocese of Boston. The project connects the disaffiliated through their stories of departure, a qualitative phenomenological narrative study. I found that decisions for disaffiliation of emerging adults and older occur within a systemic family culture. It involves a dynamic relationship with Catholic parents and others for years. This family matrix of disaffiliation is also understood into a broader relationship with the institutional church on the one hand and larger secular culture on the other. At the center is the Catholic family pulled between the practice of sacramental life in the church and the larger secular culture with both common and divergent values, notions of spirituality, ritual, and opportunities to engage in social justice. This research suggests a renewed understanding of Catholic disaffiliation as a significant theological and social experience of Catholic families. It also offers a pastoral and practical approach to consider a pre-evangelical model of dialogue that allows an ongoing relationship with the church through the parish's families, in the larger cultural context where the faithful navigate their lives.

Full text

Postsecular Catholicism: Toward A New Understanding And Pastoral Praxis In
Catholic Families With Disaffiliated Children In The Archdiocese Of Boston
By
Carl S. Chudy
A final project report submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree
at Harford Seminary
May 2021
Project Advisor: Professor Scott Thumma
Hartford Seminary
Harford, Connecticut
USA

ii
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
D.MIN. FINAL PROJECT REPORT
This is to certify that the D.Min. Final Project Report of
Carl S Chudy
has been approved by the Examining Committee for the final project
requirement for the Doctor of Ministry degree in May 2021.
Examining Committee: ____________________________
Professor Scott Thumma, Advisor
Professor Allison Norton
Professor Miriam Therese Winter

iii
Copyright by
CARL S CHUDY
2021
All Rights Reserved

iv
ABSTRACT
The Catholic Church is experiencing seismic shifts in the national religious
landscape as much younger generation Catholics have been disengaging with the
church and its practices and rituals significantly. I wish to propose a new paradigm
of understanding this phenomenon for the church that focuses on the Catholic
family, where traditionally faith is passed on to future generations. This paradigm
characterizes a considerable experience of what may be called post-secular
Catholicism. The methodology of this project engages with Catholic parents in the
local archdiocese of Boston. The project connects the disaffiliated through their
stories of departure, a qualitative phenomenological narrative study. I found that
decisions for disaffiliation of emerging adults and older occur within a systemic
family culture. It involves a dynamic relationship with Catholic parents and others
for years. This family matrix of disaffiliation is also understood into a broader
relationship with the institutional church on the one hand and larger secular
culture on the other. At the center is the Catholic family pulled between the practice
of sacramental life in the church and the larger secular culture with both common
and divergent values, notions of spirituality, ritual, and opportunities to engage in
social justice. This research suggests a renewed understanding of Catholic
disaffiliation as a significant theological and social experience of Catholic families.
It also offers a pastoral and practical approach to consider a pre-evangelical model
of dialogue that allows an ongoing relationship with the church through the
parish's families, in the larger cultural context where the faithful navigate their
lives.

v
Carl S Chudy
Personal: Born: April 24, 1957, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Final Vows: Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1985)
Ordained priest: Corpus Christi Church, Willingboro, New Jersey
(1986)
Education: D.Min., Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut (2021)
MA., Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut (2018)
M.Div., Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, Illinois (1986)
B.A., St. Francis De Sales College, St. Francis, Wisconsin (1980)
Major: Philosophy
Mission
Experience: Interfaith Outreach Coordinator, Our Lady of Fatima Shrine,
Holliston, Massachusetts (2016 – present)
Provincial Superior, Xaverian Missionaries USA, Wayne, New
Jersey (2008 – 2016)
Vocation Director & Interfaith Dialogue, Our Lady of Fatima Shrine,
Holliston, Massachusetts (2007 – 2008)
Superior Delegate, Xaverian Missionaries, Kamias, Philippines
(1999 – 2006)
Formation Director and Assistant Pastor, Xaverian Missionaries,
Maligaya, Philippines (1994 – 1999)
Vocation Director, Youth Ministry & Ministry in the African
American Community, Chicago, Illinois (1987 – 1993)
Vocation Director, Franklin, Wisconsin (1986 – 1987)
Internship in Sierra Leone, West Africa (1982 – 1983)
Mission
Projects: Coordinator of the Metrowest Interfaith Dialogue Project (2017 –
present)
Co-coordinator of the Common Ground Project as an International
Forum of Dialogue Among the Religious and Nonreligious (2012 –
present)
National Board of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (USA)
(2012 - 2016)
National Advisory Council of the US Catholic Bishops (2012 –
2016)
Midwest Mission Task Force, Chicago, Illinois (1987 – 1992)

vi
Publications: "The Virgin Mary: Bridging Muslims and Catholics," The Journal
of Social Encounters: Vol. 4: Issue 2, 34-41. (2020)
Article Series: “US Catholicism and the Biden Presidency.” (2021)
“US Catholics Between the Elections and the Coronavirus
Pandemic” (2020)
“The Clash of Objectivism and the Common Good in America”
(2019)
“The US Catholic Church and the Agenda of President Trump”
(2018)
Missione Oggi (Magazine of the Xaverian Missionaries in Italy)
https://www.saveriani.it/missioneoggi
Blog writer: Secular Spectrum (2016 – 2019)
https://bit.ly/3qslJBp
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularspectrum/
 Religious and Secular Literacy: Dialogue in a Liberal
Democracy
 Nonreligious and Religious Engagement: Common Ground &
Where it Can Lead
 Not What Things Seem to Be
 See Me
 What our Fractured Civic Spaces Teach
 Going Beyond Those Who Believe and Don’t Believe in God
 Reason Rally for Us All
 National Day of Prayer or Reason?
 Civil Conversations in Divisive Times
 The Secular-Religious Dance
 The Compassion of Religious and Secular Voices
 Not What Things Seem to Be
 Sustained Conversations Change Us
 Rethinking our Relationship with the Cosmos

vii
Only in our doing can we grasp you.
Only in our hands can we illumine you.
The mind is but a visitor:
it thinks us out of the world.
Each mind fabricates itself.
We sense its limits, for we have made them.
And just when we would flee them, you come
and make of yourself an offering.
I don’t want to think a place for you.
Speak to me from everywhere.
Your Gospel can be comprehended
without looking for its source.
When I go toward you
it is with my whole life.
-Rainer Marie Rilke

viii
Acknowledgments
I am thankful for the opportunities of dialogue and interchange through
some years that encouraged me to look both within my Catholic tradition and
outside of it in new ways, to comprehend, in some small manner, the inexplicable
mystery of God in all things. It is underlined by a motto of my religious order, “See
God, see God, and find God in all things.”
This project is a culmination of ongoing dialogue opportunities, with
religious and secular voices, within the changing religious landscape and the
departure of many from traditional religious institutions. Our religious order, the
Xaverian Missionaries, began a religious-secular dialogue in 2012 in Scotland and
extended it to the United States. Here, I encountered many disaffiliated religious
seekers and have caught a glimpse of their extraordinary spiritual journeys. I am
deeply grateful for the encouragement of my religious congregation and my
colleagues in the United Kingdom as we began to explore these dynamics together
up until the present time.
I am also grateful to Dr. Scott Thumma, Dr. Miriam Therese Winter, and all
of the faculty of Hartford Seminary, who gave me space to explore these issues.
Finally, I want to thank Dr. Theresa O’Keefe of Boston College and Dr. Michele
Dillion of the University of New Hampshire for their immeasurable assistance and
insight in this project.

ix
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1
I. THE MULTILAYERED CONTEXTS OF THE CATHOLIC FAMILY
EXPERIENCE OF DISAFILIATION ........................................................................ 3
The Western Region of the Archdiocese of Boston .............................................. 4
The Institutional Catholic Sub-Context ............................................................... 7
The Anxiety of Pluralism ...................................................................................... 8
Pluralism Plays Out in Catholic Families ........................................................... 10
II. DIALOGUE AND THE PRACTICAL THEOLOGY OF DISAFFILIATION ...... 13
A Theology of Dialogue in and with Disaffiliated Families ............................... 15
Dialogue in a Secularized World ....................................................................... 17
Postsecular Dialogue and Practical Theology .................................................... 20
Stepping Beyond the Church .............................................................................. 23
III. LITERATURE REVIEW: PASSING ON FAITH TO A NEW GENERATION . 26
Postsecular Catholicism ..................................................................................... 27
Families of Faith in Postsecularity ..................................................................... 30
Catholics in a Culture of Choice ......................................................................... 33
Going, Going, Gone: Catholic Disaffiliation in America .................................... 37
Family Disruptions & Disaffiliation ................................................................... 40
IV. GENERATION ONE: AFFILIATED PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS....... 43
Demographics ..................................................................................................... 44
Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 46
Acquiring a Sense of Being Catholic in Diverse Backgrounds ........................... 47
Raising Children Catholic and Perceiving Disaffiliation ................................... 49
Tensions where Catholicism is deeply embedded in the family and there is a tacit
rejection of that faith .......................................................................................... 52

x
Parents Cope with Tensions of Disaffiliation in Various Ways ......................... 54
V. GENERATION TWO: DISAFFILIATED CHILDREN ...................................... 58
Demographics ..................................................................................................... 60
Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 62
Growing In and Out of Parental Catholicism .................................................... 63
Handling Tensions with Parents Around Disaffiliation .................................... 66
Bringing Hybrid Catholicism on New Pathways ............................................... 68
VI. MULTI-GENERATIONAL CATHOLICS, MULTIPLE VIEWS OF FAITH,
MEANING, AND BELONGING ............................................................................. 81
The Catholic Family Culture of Disaffiliation .................................................... 81
Family Culture, Parish Culture, & the Wider Secular Culture .......................... 84
Family Between the Faith/Secular Generational Divide ................................... 87
The Institution of the Church and the De-churching of the Family .................. 88
Creating Different Relationships with Religion .................................. 90
A Generation of Tinkerers ................................................................... 91
Influences that affect the worldviews of Disaffiliated Adults ............. 92
De-Churched Spirituality, Ritual, and Morals in Disaffiliated Families ........... 94
VII. NEW ROAD MAPS BEYOND DISAFFILIATION .......................................... 98
From New Evangelization to Pre-Evangelization ............................................ 100
Pre-evangelization and Disaffiliated Families ................................................. 102
Questions Arising out of Dialogue ................................................................... 105
From Dialogue to New Road Maps .................................................................. 106
Pre-Evangelical Dialogue with a Divergent Sense of Identity ......................... 107
Postscript for Families, Clergy, Lay Leadership .............................................. 111
Things We Cannot Change ................................................................ 111
Things We Can Change ...................................................................... 113
APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................ 116
On Methodology ............................................................................................... 116
APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................ 118

xi
Informed Consent Form, Surveys, Focus Group Protocols ............................. 118
Research Informed Consent ............................................................................. 118
Focus Group Protocol – Generation Set I ........................................................ 121
Focus Group Protocol – Generation Set II ...................................................... 122
Survey Questions – Affiliated Catholic Parents ............................................... 123
Survey Questions – Disaffiliated Catholics ...................................................... 124
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 125
FIGURES
Catholic Family Disaffiliation Culture ........................................................ 83
Wider Matrix of Religious and Social Disaffiliation ................................... 85
Pew Research Center New Religious Typologies ........................................ 91
TABLES
Demographics Generation One .................................................................. 46
Demographics Generation Two .................................................................. 62

1
INTRODUCTION
The growing number of Catholic families with disaffiliated children has
created many unanswered questions by parents and their children and the larger
church. From the parent’s point of view, there is little guidance from church
leadership except urging them to ask their children to come back to mass. For the
disaffiliated, little space to examine doubts in the church. In both cases, the gulf
between the sanctuary and the pews can be extraordinary. Within this gap, I wish
to look at some challenges disaffiliation poses for families and the church.
The first is to understand how disaffiliation occurs in Catholic families and
their mixed relationships with the church and larger secular culture. Seeking ways
to respond creates dialogue and new insights that may soften the pastoral paralysis
we currently experience. The second challenge is the traditional means of
intergenerational faith transmission, universally practiced for centuries in the
church, has become increasingly ineffective for many families in our part of the
world. The traditional assumptions that faith and morality pass to future
generations through families and institutional faith experience no longer seems
adequate for many. What can we learn from these experiences? Thirdly, is it
possible to consider the experiences of disaffiliation, not as a failure, but as a
continuation of their faith journey where the church needs to reach out beyond the
confines of the parish? Could not the institutional church benefit from this
dialogue with these experiences? Finally, what does it mean to be the church in the

2
throes of these questions where the spiritual care of our young people is shared
elsewhere in religious and secular niches?1
The uniqueness of this project is to understand the dynamic of disaffiliation
within Catholic families where church departures increasingly influence where
these families link both the church and the secular world. It also underlines the
experience of disaffiliation as one of the most theologically significant phenomena
in contemporary Catholic life today.2
This project explores the experiences of disaffiliated Catholic families, the
theological frame to understand disaffiliation of their children, and other research
that helps underline conclusions from this project. It also presents an analysis of
my interviews with a subset of Catholics in the local archdiocese of Boston, both
affiliated parents and disaffiliated children. I wish to explore the dialogue between
these two generations and its meaning for Catholic disaffiliated families, an
experience between the church and the larger secular culture. Finally, I wish to
make some suggestions for re-imagining the church’s outreach to these families
through a pre-evangelical model of dialogue.
1 James Michael Nagle (2019): Learning to Leave: Expanding Shared Praxis to Understand the
Religious Life and Learning of Young Catholics Beyond the Church, Religious Education,114-115.
DOI: 10.1080/00344087.2019.1631949., 114-115.
2 J. Patrick Hornbeck II. Deconversion from Roman Catholicism: Mapping a Fertile Field. American
Catholic Studies, vol. 122, No.2 (Summer 2011), 1-29.

3
CHAPTER I
THE MULTILAYERED CONTEXTS OF THE CATHOLIC FAMILY
EXPERIENCE OF DISAFFILIATION
This study argues that the family dynamic is the essential element of
disaffiliation. The Catholic experience of disaffiliation entails a significant degree
of complexity. Catholics in general, nor the families where their initial faith
experience, merely absorb ideas from pulpits and religious education classes. They
negotiate with them. In this sense, the Catholic Church's Catechism says little
about what Catholics know or think about their faith, nor how it is experienced in
the family.3
Catholics exercise “interpretive authority” when engaging their tradition,
and “lived religion” means a process that is never disconnected from the flow of
people’s everyday lives. Some religious meanings available to them in spiritual
understanding, values, and religious practices may be evocative, and others may
be deemed less so. Catholics feel pretty competent to draw from certain aspects of
the overall Catholic tradition while leaving other elements forother Catholics, a
kind of compartmentalization.4 This reality is a way of shaping and re-shaping
3 Jerome P. Baggett. Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith. Kindle
Edition, 553-554.
4 Ibid, Kindle Edition, 554. The term I use here, compartmentalization, a type of cordoning off more
important beliefs and practices from less important ones, is a dynamic I have seen run through many of my
interviews with both generations, parents, and children.

4
religious culture in the day-to-day life of individuals, and in this case, of their
families. Some call this cafeteria Catholicism, and I contend that most Catholics
engage with their faith this way.
In this sense, Catholic families interact with layers of religious and secular
cultural contexts or ecologies, which help shape how they find identity and
inspiration with the Catholic faith and the tensions they also produce.5 One way to
understand the interactions of these elements is to see how families interact in this
complex web of people, meanings, and relationships, all affecting each other in
demography, culture, and organization. These include the changes in the
Archdiocese of Boston and the parish(s) they are associated with, certain pivotal
issues within the Catholic institution, the opportunities and anxieties of pluralism,
and how that pluralism plays out in Catholic families.6 Let us look at these contexts
more closely where outlooks on faith, church, and spirituality that navigate in the
larger secular culture.
The Western Region of the Archdiocese of Boston
The Archdiocese of Boston, as of 2017, had 288 parish communities, and in
2007 the Catholic population was estimated at 1.8 million.7 The western region of
the archdiocese is where this study takes place, in southern Middlesex County and
western Norfolk County. There are sixty-seven parishes in this region, one Catholic
College, Regis College, and three Catholic high schools. The auxiliary bishop for
5 Jerome P. Baggett, Kindle Edition 579 of 4320. Culture here refers to the “historically transmitted
repertoires of symbols that shape people’s perceptions of reality and, at the same time, render that reality
meaningful to them.”
6 Ibid
7 There is an ongoing process of closing and amalgamation of parishes and schools, and it continues
to this day, so the number of parishes may be different than what I indicated, but the difference would not be
big. See: http://www.thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=179672.

5
the five regions and the bishop of the western part is Bishop Robert P. Reed. The
bishop of the overall diocese is Cardinal Sean O’Malley. In select parishes in this
region and other parts of the archdiocese, I had opportunities to listen and learn
from the faith life narratives of both parents and their adult children in how they
experience disaffiliation.
The participants of generation one are affiliated parents and grandparents
of the disaffiliated. Those of generation two is the disaffiliated children (most not
children of the parents interviewed) coming from some local parishes and other
parts of the state. For both generation sets, our primary source includes St. Mary’s
Parish in Holliston, St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hopkinton, St. Cecilia Parish
in Ashland, and Sacred Heart Catholic Community in Hopedale. Others come from
other parts of the archdiocese.
A prominent feature in the archdiocese that has developed in the last twenty
years is the experiences of church closures and mergings. More than two hundred
parishes have been affected by this.8 In conversations with priests, some mergers
have been successful, and others have not. There are many reasons for these
changes, particularly demographic changes and priest shortages that make staffing
difficult, but also because of disaffiliations and shrinking and aging congregations.
In the archdiocese of Boston, those who left the church reflect overall national
figures to some extent. There are twenty states where no religious group comprises
a more significant share of residents than the religiously disaffiliated. These states
tend to be more concentrated in the western U.S., although they also include a
8 Closures and Mergers of Parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston:
https://www.bostoncatholic.org/sites/g/files/zjfyce811/files/2019-12/RCAB-ParishesSuppressed-Merged-
WelcomingParishes-2017.pdf.

6
couple of New England states, namely, Vermont and Massachusetts. In the early
2000s, Catholics still constituted the most significant single Christian
denomination at thirty-four percent, but the disaffiliated cohort is right behind, at
thirty-three percent. Since then, things have changed dramatically, and the non-
churchgoers outnumber churchgoers. 9
As of 2005, Boston and the surrounding dioceses comprised the fourth-
largest diocese in the United States compared to Los Angeles, New York, and
Chicago. 10 However, the changes in Boston’s Catholic culture show former
Catholics now constitute the largest (non) religious bloc in the Boston area. Some
ex-Catholics have joined other religious bodies. Others take no interest in religious
affairs. Still, others think of themselves as Catholic, but they neither practice their
faith in church nor follow its teachings. As the journalist, Philip Lawler observes:
“In the opening years of the twenty-first century, practicing Catholics are once
again a small minority in Boston.”11
The share of Massachusetts Catholics dropped nine percentage points since
the last survey in 2007, while the unaffiliated grew sixteen percent. The Pew Study
puts the percentage of Catholic disaffiliation in the northeast at 36% for white
Catholics and Hispanics at a much lower level, 18%.12 This changing parochial
structure that will continue ironically seems to provoke little interest among parish
leadership to understand the dynamics of disaffiliation and how it affects families.
9 Robert P. Jones, Daniel Cox. America’s Changing Religious Identity: Findings from the 2016
American Values Atlas. Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) (Washington D.C.: PRRI, 2017), 8.
10 David M. Cheney, 1996-2005; code: v2.3.4, 17 Nov 05. USA Statistics by Province of the
Catholic Population. http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/country/spcus1.html.
11 Stephen Bullivant. Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 3.
12 Nate Cohn. “Christian Numbers in US Tumbling: Share of Catholics in Mass.” New York Times,
May 13, 2015. (accessed January 4, 2019).

7
The Institutional Catholic Sub-Context
As a Catholic interfaith leader, my interest in disaffiliation came through
interfaith dialogue that includes non-religious voices. Many of these nonreligious
voices left institutional faith traditions. For this reason, I wish to frame this
research around a religious dialogical model with secular spirituality and
aspirations as part of our commitment as Catholics in a post-secular environment.
As the Catholic Church of Boston, our roles as religious men and women who
belong to different religious orders differ from the diocesan priests and lay who
collaborate with the bishop in most parishes. While the authority for public
ministry comes from the bishop, our lifestyle and focus of work are under our
leadership structures and historical tradition of our religious charism and purpose.
Catholic community development through parishes and the social ministry of the
archdiocese is the focus of diocesan clergy and lay leadership, although some
religious congregations manage parishes.
The Xaverian Missionaries' religious institute13 dedicates itself to dialogue
and connection among different faiths and secular worldviews as a Christian
understanding of mission. We, therefore, have a responsibility to enhance the work
in the local church with the necessary commitments in interfaith dialogue and
religious-secular dialogue that experience disaffiliation. This experience gives us
some independence from church parish structures that allow a wider latitude. This
dialogue and its evolving intuitive understanding of Catholicism began through
Vatican II and post-conciliar pastoral practice. As a result, we understand our call
13 Historically, the founding of our congregation occurred in Italy in 1895 with the exclusive purpose
at that time to work in China. In the last 126 years expanding to work in 21 different countries globally, our
work has increasingly focused on interfaith and intercultural dialogue.

8
our charismatic gift to the peripheries of faith communities and drawing different
religious and secular voices together in dialogue and collaboration.
The experience of both legacy and loss in Catholic disaffiliation is a
particular place where the responsive dynamics to pluralism affects the institution
profoundly in the religious departure of young people.14 There are some factors at
play in their leave-taking in part because of their ecclesial experience: the Catholic
institutional crisis (closing and amalgamation of parishes), changes in families that
affect church practice, issues around LGBTQ members and their children, issues
around women and leadership, particularly for the clerical state, what it means to
be Catholic today (Identity) in the mix of life, the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and
traditional models of leadership that find it difficult in meeting new needs in the
evolving religious culture. Along with this is the Catholic polarity experienced in
social issues from abortion, immigration, and global climate change that most
often run along partisan lines.
The Anxiety of Pluralism
The backdrop of the experience of disaffiliation is considering a pluralism
of views among Catholics about what it means to be Catholic today, or what we call
Catholic identity. Peter Berger defines pluralism as the social milieu where peoples
of different ethnicities, worldviews, and moralities live together in a positive
relationship. For pluralism to unleash its full dynamic, there must be a sustained
conversation, or what he calls cognitive contamination. It refers to the fact that if
14 The Duke University study by Sharon Sandomirsky and John Wilson states: “When it comes to
explaining why people would choose to leave their religion of origin, especially if they elect to do this soon
after they enter adulthood, we believe that attention should focus on the family. The reason for this is that
religion and the family are the least differentiated of all social institutions.” (Harrison & Lazerwitz 1982).

9
people keep talking with each other, they will influence each other.15 Cognitive
contamination relativizes polarized perceptions as people encounter realities that
contradict previously believed, say in religious/secular relationships.
There are two kinds of pluralism, and each requires interaction with the
other. First, there is religious pluralism as commonly understood: several religions
co-existing peacefully in the same society. Then there is the religious-secular
pluralism experienced in many parts of the world where religious and non-
religious worldviews live side-by-side, such as the separation of church and state
in our nation’s constitutions. Second, there is a co-existence, often uneasy,
between religious and powerful secular discourses, initially rooted in modern
science and technology and expanded meanings of spiritualities in more
contemporary times. 16 Navigating these contexts with faith requires different
responses to moderate the anxiety that pluralism causes. It can be envisioned as
many points as possible between two opposite reactions: a conservative
retrenchment to hold on to the past and to undergird certainty, a kind of
fundamentalism, and on the other side, a trend toward relativization that attempts
to embrace diversity in some way but compromising fundamental truths. Both
polar reactions respond to the angsts of pluralism.17 Much of the institutional
Catholic Church in Boston respond closer to the conservative pole.
15 Peter L. Berger. The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist
Age. (Boston: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2014), 1-2.
16 Kaye V. Cook, ed. Faith in a Pluralist Age by Peter L. Berger. (Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books,
an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2018). Kindle Edition, 285 of 3195.
17 Berger, 10-12.

10
Pluralism Plays Out in Catholic Families
The ongoing changes in America’s religious identity are seen, for example,
in a recent study of the Public Religion Research Institute’s (PRRI) 2017 report,
America’s Changing Religious Identity, directed by Daniel Cox, Ph.D., and Robert
P. Jones, Ph.D. Similarly, Joseph Baker and Buster Smiths’ American Secularism:
Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief Systems shows how changes to American
society have fueled shifts in the non-religious landscape and examines the diverse
and dynamic world of secular Americans. This dialogue also reveals that religions
and secular worldviews are embedded in all dimensions of human experience and
cannot be understood apart from their political, economic, social, and cultural
moorings.
Many millennials of Catholic families are deeply aware of the realities of
pluralism, more so than any generation before it.18 Their friends often identify
themselves in multiple ways: in other religious traditions that may be affiliated but
minimally, those who may be termed nonreligious, and various multi-belongings.
They may relativize their own Christian and Catholic uniqueness in this mix as they
struggle to distinguish their unique identity from others. Their prevailing cultural
view can be more secular than religious. It may be why many disaffiliated see a
distinction between their Catholic understanding and new spiritual insights that
may have little relation to the church. It also may be why there can be utter
bewilderment on the part of affiliated Catholic parents who themselves see the
church and spirituality in such diverse ways than their children.
18 Arzina Zaver, “Pluralism and Social Media: Cultivating a New Outlook?” The State of Formation,
August 8, 2014, https://stateofformation.org/2014/08/pluralism-and-social-media-cultivating-a-new-
outlook/.

11
Secular principles and norms undergird our legal, economic, political, and
social institutions, as well as the conduct of everyday life. Yet, religion has not
disappeared but is a salient force. 19 Despite the influence of secularization in
families, a University of Minnesota study calls the centrality of religious rooted
moral boundary-making. The idea that morality is exclusively religious is tension
and contradiction that young generations experience with their parents. Catholic
families perceive the disaffiliated negatively by and large. Parents and
grandparents become worried that their children weaken their moral compass
without a meaningful relationship with the church. Yet, they feel the contradiction
because they know their children to be good, righteous people. They anchor these
sentiments in moral concerns that bring up family relationships that are often
unspoken or poorly articulated. Since religion has historically been the locus of
social identity and ethical consideration, some can see non-religiosity as a moral
threat.20
Robert Wuthnow argues that the connection between the institutions of
family and religion has become extremely fragile, increasingly diverse, and
unhinged in a pluralism of lifestyles (Wuthnow, 1999, 219). The first issue is how
do Catholic families engage with each other in this diverse reality? That
engagement is not only with their loved ones exiting the religious institution, but
it is an engagement with the secular niches where their children may be finding
community, inspiration, and opportunities to be effective. The second issue may
19 Michele Dillon. Postsecular Catholicism. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). Kindle
Edition, 4.
20 Penny Edgell, Douglas Hartmann, Evan Stewart, and Joseph Gerteis. Atheists and Other
Cultural Outsiders: Moral Boundaries and the Non-religious in the United States. Social Forces, Vol. 95,
No.2 (December 2016), pp. 607-638. Published by Oxford University Press.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26166844. (Accessed: 10-02-2020).

12
be how the sustained dialogue in the matrix of disaffiliation shapes and reshapes
how they perceive one another regarding faith. Finally, if the passing of faith in the
family becomes less the way faith traditions and morality endures, what are the
implications for the church and its families?
Postsecular Catholicism, or any religious tradition, navigates the tensions
of faith traditions in the context of secular realities. Catholicism in the Archdiocese
of Boston, and indeed throughout the country, are lived secular realities infused
with a sacred meaning. This encounter requires an ongoing interchange between
religious ideas and secular realities. As Michele Dillon asks: “Can the Church give
a new voice to its strongly embedded commitment to the common good? And can
it forge new directions in language, doctrinal thinking, and institutional practices
that find greater resonance with the lived experiences of increasingly secularized
Catholics?” This question confronts every Catholic family in the modern world.21
Catholic disaffiliation that begins within families is understood in the
overlapping contexts where they navigate their lives. The Archdiocese of Boston’s
changing cultural realities that impact its life and membership and how the
phenomena of pluralism affect Catholic families reveals the complex nature of
understanding Catholicism and faith today. It also helps us see the understanding
of the institutional church as a cultural reality and a home for faith. Now I wish to
turn to the theological significance of deconversion, not as a failed attempt toward
religiosity, but a different and valid understanding of Christian discipleship.
21 Dillon, Kindle Edition location 67 of 5448.

13
CHAPTER II
DIALOGUE AND THE PRACTICAL THEOLOGY OF
DISAFFILIATION22
What is the theological orientation we take as Catholic families engage with
their disaffiliated children and grandchildren, and indeed the pastoral approach of
church leaders to how we connect meaningfully with those who have exited our
religious institutions? The answer to that question lies in a broader reappraisal of
contemporary Catholic mission that does not pull back from the pluralism of our
culture but courageously engages and dialogues with our post-secular age with
imagination and hope. Theology can be a compass, a navigational aid for faith in a
changing world, as it helps us explore the changing religious landscape within
Catholic families. As Carolyn Chau states in her important work, Solidarity with
the World: “ [There is a] need for greater understanding of the secularity of the
modern Western world and the retrieval of mission as a key, ongoing aspect of
22 There are several terms in the research of disaffiliation that are used. “Disaffiliation”,
“unaffiliated”, “deconversion”, and “non-normative Catholicism” will be used interchangeably, even though
there are nuance differences. Simply it refers to those who would once have considered themselves to be
(Roman) Catholic, but who now no longer does. By ‘non-normative’ I mean two discursive dimensions at
once: ways of belief and practice that diverge from those specified as important for Catholic life by official
Catholic teaching, and ways of belief and practice that diverge from what baptized Catholics take to be
specified as important for Catholic life by official Catholic teaching. (Beaudoin and Hornbeck II, 2018)
(Bulivant, 2019)

Christian ecclesial identity. 23 My engagement in this project study sees both the
interviews and analysis of the affiliated and disaffiliated family members through
the theological lenses of dialogue and the method of practical theology.
I propose to consider the theology of dialogue by which we engage in the
lives of others outside of our church communities as our evangelical stance and
practical theology as the understanding we bring as we enter the lives of those who
have disaffiliated. The purpose of this dialogue is not to find a solution to the
“problem” of disaffiliation but to suggest a theological framework to engage with
those who leave the church and gather learning opportunities. God is present in
both affiliated and disaffiliated family members, and that such encounters are an
opportunity for revelation.
Dialogue leads us to realize the sacredness and meaning of disaffiliated
stories we engage with and the ecclesial traditions that shaped the lives of parents
and children. We hear stories of search and hope, frustration and crisis in the
search for belonging, believing and values that undergird one’s life to have
influence. Instead of merely a “failure” of one’s faith by exiting the church,
dialogue unveils the experience of disaffiliation as “one of the most theologically
significant phenomena in contemporary Catholic life.”24 The contribution of
practical theology, even though still orientated toward an institutional practice of
faith and exclusively Christian model,25 is in my mind key to understanding the
23 Carolyn A, Chau. Solidarity with the World: Charles Taylor and Hans Urs von Balthasar on
Faith, Modernity, and Catholic Mission. (Oregon: Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers)
Kindle Edition, 3.
24 J. Patrick Horbeck II, “Deconversion from Roman Catholicism: Mapping a Fertile Field.”
American Catholic Studies, Vol. 122, No. 2 (2011), 1.
25 Tom Beaudoin. “Secular Catholicism and Practical Theology.” IJPT, vol. 15, (Walter de Gruyter,
2011), 24-25.

15
work of the Spirit of lived Catholic praxis of post-secular Catholics and their
significance for the institutional church.
A Theology of Dialogue in and with Disaffiliated Families
Families wrestle with what it means to be Catholic in prominent ways.
Everyday Catholic life contains an ambiguous regular theological play between
normative practice and non-normative belief and practice. Nevertheless, the
theological space to speak openly and frankly about common faith and practice and
the doubts accompanying them is always there. Whether it meets official
expectations or not, it is this space where Catholic ideals and Catholic realities
blend in convergence and divergence and where the whole of Catholic identity may
be more fully understood.26
Pope Benedict XVI emphasized in the 2012 Synod the need in the New
Evangelization27 to be unapologetically bold in the proclamation of the gospel.
However, some bishops pushed back on this and suggested that the church should
instead adopt “a new attitude of humility, gentleness, and listening.” 28 Pope
Francis amplified this ecclesiology, which urges the church to be a place of hope
where “young people often fail to find responses to their concerns, needs, problems
26 Tom Beaudoin and J. Patrick Hornbeck II. “Deconversion and Ordinary Theology:
A Catholic Study.” Chapter Four. In Exploring Ordinary Theology : Everyday Christian Believing
and the Church. Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/fordham-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1114098. Created from
fordham-ebooks on 2018-07-03 13:54:17, 34.
27 United States Catholic Bishops Conference. What is the New Evangelization? Washington, DC.
New Evangelization | USCCB “In a special way, the New Evangelization is focused on 're-proposing' the
Gospel to those who have experienced a crisis of faith. Pope Benedict XVI called for the re-proposing of the
Gospel "to those regions awaiting the first evangelization and to those regions where the roots of Christianity
are deep but who have experienced a serious crisis of faith due to secularization."
28 Tracey Lamont. Ministry with Young Adults: Toward a New Ecclesiological Imagination.
Religions 2020, 11, 570; doi: 10:3390?rel11110570, 4.

16
and hurts in the usual structures.”29 In response to this, he continues: “We need
to practice the art of listening, which is more than simply hearing. Listening, in
communication, is an openness of heart which makes possible that closeness
without which genuine spiritual encounter cannot occur.”30 Essential is an attitude
to dialogue I too wish to propose in and with families with disaffiliated children.
As necessary as this dialogue is across faiths and cultures worldwide, it is
this same dialogue that is indispensable across the gulf of affiliated and
disaffiliated family members. The family is the ordinary place where emerging
adults and older people trust enough to be vulnerable and share their stories of
hurt, hope, sadness, and joy. It is here, in this nexus of trust, that families cross the
gender gap of faith in eye-opening ways. This listening means that both parents
and children become aware of the meaning and value revealed underneath their
faith conversations.31
In this sense, I wish to re-imagine the idea of intergenerational faith
transmission from passing or giving faith to discovering a faith that already exists
in some “unfinished” form in all of us, something most relevant in adolescents and
young adults children. This dialogue of faith cannot anticipate outcomes but points
us into new, more profound experiences of God that are unforeseen and often
unpredictable. This “missionary” focus is more on how we can meet our younger
generations and others where they indeed are, rather than where we want them to
be.32 My own missionary experience across three continents has taught me that
we are not bringing God to anyone; God is already present in the world, in all
29 Pope Francis. Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). Libreria Editrice Vatican. November
24. Available online: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-
francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html, paragraph 105.
30 Ibid, paragraph 171.
31 Lamont, 6.
32 Ibid.

17
people, and in all creation in the hidden sacraments that may emerge in the
encounter.
We help to unveil ways younger generations can make faith their own, and
in so doing, seeing faith anew ourselves. We are all changed by this dialogue. As
Pope Francis alludes to, the primary evangelical relationship in a disaffiliated
family is not about whether the entire teaching of the church is accepted; instead,
doors are opened to make room for everyone to explore more.33
It does not imply that the church's tradition, its rich resource that has
sustained families for centuries, may no longer be as relevant or may be relegated
to the periphery of secularization. Nor does authentic dialogue relativize the
tradition of scripture and what the church has learned since the time of Christ.
With many, however, (there are always exceptions), we can not start with
catechesis.34 Despite having been catechized in their childhood, disaffiliated adults
have grown to perceive the institution of the church very differently than older
generations. Of course, church tradition illumines all ages in the unique places we
find ourselves and in the concrete realities of the here and now, but that is
discovered slowly, in dialogue.
Dialogue in a Secularized World
This dialogue plays out in a myriad of ways worldwide. But religious-secular
dialogue is a relatively new phenomenon,35 despite the efforts on the part of a post-
Vatican II church that began to see the value of this dialogue in the Vatican
33 Ibid, 7.
34 Sherry Weddell. Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus (Our
Sunday Visitor. Kindle Edition.), 125.
35 I am associating religious secular dialogue to the type of dialogue just described when speaking
of dialogue between affiliated parents and their children, as well as church leadership and the disaffiliated.

18
institution of the Secretariat for Nonbelievers in 1965.36 Pope Paul VI developed
this understanding further in his first papal encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam (1964),
when he wrote that it is not the right course for the Church "to isolate itself from
dealings with secular society.” Instead, the path for the Church to follow in its
dealings with the world "can better be represented in a dialogue … conceiving the
relationships between the sacred and the secular in terms of the transforming
dynamism of modern society, in terms of the pluralism of its manifestations,
likewise in terms of the maturity of man, be he religious or not, enabled through
secular education to think, to speak and to act through the dignity of dialogue."37
The church took up the religious-secular dialogue again in 2005 with the
Vatican initiative of Courtyard of the Gentiles that began developing international
conferences gathering religious and non-religious adults. It deals with encounter
and dialogue, a space of expression for those who are not religious and those who
are asking questions about their faith, a window open to the world, to
contemporary culture, and the voices that resonate contemporary.38 The three
purposes are:
• A place for meeting and discussion on the key issues and challenges that affect
modern society.
36 Pontifical Commission of Culture. The Courtyard of the Gentiles.
https://www.cortiledeigentili.com/
37 Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam (On the Church). Libreria Editrice Vatican. August 6, 1964.
http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_06081964_ecclesiam.html,
paragraphs 78-80.
38 Pontifical Council of Culture. What is the Courtyard of the Gentiles?
http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/en/dipartimenti/ateismo-e-non-credenza/che-cos-e-il-cortile-dei-
gentili--.html, The main website is: https://www.cortiledeigentili.com. The Secretariat for Nonbelievers was
subsumed into the Pontifical Council of Culture by John Paul II.

19
• A duet - and not a duel - between voices and prominent personalities of secular
and Catholic cultures.
• In a spirit of openness and acceptance of the other, a network of people work
to overcome the mistrust between two irreconcilable worlds.39
More recently, in this context of dialogue with secular culture, Pope Francis,
in his first encyclical, Joy of the Gospel, says: “As believers, we also feel close to
those who do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition, …We consider
them as precious allies in the commitment to defending human dignity, in building
peaceful coexistence between peoples and in protecting creation.” Thus, the larger
context is embedded in three significant dialogues necessary for the common good:
dialogue with states, dialogue with society – including dialogue with cultures and
the sciences – and exchange with other believers who are not part of the Catholic
Church.40
In this light, the church’s relationship with the secular need not be solely
adversarial. Yet, in the time of Pope Francis, that oppositional tone resonates still
with many as in the “Benedict Option,”41 a nostalgia for a less diverse culture. I
understand that the Catholic notion of dialogue does not retreat from a secular
world but requires we enter it to take seriously the spiritual journey of those who
39 More recently, an important conference took place in Rome entitled, Understanding The
Culture of Unbelief, in May of 2020. My blog post on the event is here:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularspectrum/2019/07/understanding-cultures-of-unbelief-for-religious/
Since 2012, our religious congregation, the Xaverian Missionaries, have emulated Courtyard of the
Gentiles in an international program we call, Common Ground. Information for this may be seen here:
https://www.xaverianmissionaries.org/religious-secular-dialogue/
40 Pope Francis. Evangelii Gaudium. (The Joy of the Gospel) Libreria Editrice Vatican.
November 24, 2013. http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-
francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html, paragraph 257.
41 Steven Thorngate. “Who is the Benedict Option For?” The Christian Century. May 8, 2017.
https://www.christiancentury.org/review/who-is-benedict-option-for The “Benedict Option” spells out a
more or less linear path of corruption, an orthodox faith accommodating itself to secular modernity.

20
disaffiliate, as we take seriously any dialogue partner, secular humanist, Muslim,
Buddhist, Presbyterian. How we help Catholic families to do this is the pressing
question I will hold to later in the study. For the moment, taking the faith journey
of disaffiliation and its theological meaning acknowledges the constellation of
cultural practices that represents a type of Catholic theology, which is also a
“secularizing” process.42 Understanding this phenomenon is the work of practical
theology.
Postsecular Dialogue and Practical Theology
Practical theology is a method to learn in the dialogue of the affiliated and
unaffiliated. It is concerned with the hermeneutical investigation of lived religion
“in loco.” Its contribution in this project is to make theological sense of how
contemporary Catholic families and others relate to the sacred in their lives.
Predominately Protestant, practical theology is still in its infancy in the American
Catholic hermeneutic. But it holds a deep theological curiosity and a broad
complex view of how the many ways faith lives. Terry Veling, in his reflections on
Catholic practical theology, shares: “‘If God were a theory,’ writes Abraham
Heschel, ‘the study of theology would be a way to understand him.’ But, what if
God were not a theory but a method? What if we are meant to be studying, not the
‘theory’ of God, but the ‘way’ of God—God’s method, God’s ways, God’s thoughts,
God’s hopes, God’s desires, God’s concerns—or, in traditional theological
language—God’s will? At its simplest—and yet most difficult—practical theology is
a way of life that needs to be practiced.”43
42 Beaudoin, 2.
43 Terry A. Veling. “Catholic Practical Theology: Reflections on an Emerging Field.” Compass: a
Review of Topical Theology. 45(2), February 6, 2011. 38.

21
The German scripture scholar, Gerhard Lohfink, describes how people in
the gospels related to Jesus noticeably diverse ways. Not everyone was an apostle,
not everyone was a disciple, and not everyone who had something to do with Jesus
associated with him in the same way, yet all contributed in some way to Christ’s
mission. He states that in all of the gospels, the gospel of Mark expresses different
connections to Jesus and his ministry. Along with the twelve apostles, there was a
broader circle of disciples who participated in the life of Jesus in tenuous ways,
whether they made their houses available, those who helped in different situations,
or just by offering water.44
These diverse ways of associating to Jesus in whatever capacity their
circumstances allowed mirror the many ways Christians today understand and
relate to Christ and how they do that, either within an institutional religious
tradition or outside of it. In this sense, I suggest that many American Catholics
today can be characterized as post-secular Catholics. Here, I refer to those with a
Catholic heritage, however nominal, who do not find Catholicism or the practice of
Catholicism as the center stage to their everyday lives.
Postsecular Catholics have typically baptized Catholics who, by the time of
adulthood, find themselves having to deal somehow with their Catholicism and do
so as a part of their identity, but those in traditional pastoral ministry or academic
theology are often called fallen away or lapsed Catholics. Unfortunately, post-
secular Catholics then learn to call themselves these names.45 Nevertheless, there
44 Gerhard Lohfink. Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was. (Indiana: Liturgical Press,
2012), 86-99.
45 Ibid, 24.

22
are post-secular Catholics in most Catholic families in the United States today and
are the predominant group in the Archdiocese of Boston.
Again, Terry Veling offers some common ground of the practice of
disaffiliated Catholics and Catholic theological tradition that can be seen in the
lifegiving practice of faith both in and outside of the church, and which is apparent
in the conversations with the disaffiliated in this study: a) a deep appreciation and
respect for human cultures, with a constant need of dialogue among us; b) a deep
appreciation of Catholic social teaching, stressing the dignity of the human person
and the inextricable tie between love of God and love of neighbor; c) appreciation
of God’s presence in the ordinariness of life which our rich sacramental tradition
expresses; d) an appreciation of a prophetic imagination which is mainly
developed in liberation and political theology; e) an appreciation and respect for
faith working together with reason, and for faith working with good works; f) an
appreciation scriptures and what they mean for our times, and finally: g) a
commitment to seeking and encouraging the good in all things, especially with the
most disenfranchised.46 When people depart from church practice, they often take
core elements, like Veling’s list, of their Catholic faith with them.
I want to highlight the creative character of Catholic praxis in those who are
disaffiliated from the church and who have not wholly disconnected from their
Catholic theological ethos. Bringing this understanding to Catholic families
provides a sense of connection with a full new understanding of their children's
lives. One way of doing this is to note the religiousness that remained in their lives
46 Ibid.

23
during and after disaffiliating and how it is understood and practiced outside of
the institutional church.
Disaffiliated Catholics often bring something of their faith with them to
wherever they land in life. Their religiousness continues, although quite different
than what is conventionally expected by church authority and their families. Many
disaffiliated rejects the spiritual but not the religious label. First, there is the
creative but critical continuity with a tradition they appreciate while
simultaneously leaving elements they discerned are unnecessary and harmful.
Second, many often retain a religious identity as distinct from the conventional
practice of the Catholic faith. Catholic identity thus emerges with a complexity of
patterns of spirituality and practice. 47
Stepping Beyond the Church
A biblical model that gets at the heart of the church's challenge in this
dialogue is the episode of the mysterious figure who approaches Peter and the
apostles walking on the stormy waters. (Matthew 14:25-31). When the apostles
saw Jesus of Nazareth walking toward them, Peter’s intuitive test to discern if it
was their teacher was to ask the figure to command him, Peter, to do the same – to
step out from the security of the boat (Matthew 14-29). The Gospel episode implies
that if the figure had told Peter to stay attached to the conventional security of the
boat, Peter would have recognized it was not his teacher. It also applies to a
47 James Michael Nagle. Learning to Leave: Expanding Shared Praxis to Understand the Religious
Life and Learning of Young Catholics Beyond the Church. Horizons in Religious Education Series. (Oregon:
Pickwick Publications, 2020), 10.

24
commitment to re-imagine Catholic disaffiliation by going beyond the safety of the
“ark” of the church and its traditional notions of de-conversion. 48
This project, along with much seminal research done in disaffiliation, is an
attempt to show that Catholic families and their children are navigating the times
we live and the evolving shape of a Catholic mission in a post-secular age together.
In doing so, they become part of the transformation of the culture around us, as
Gaudium et Spes of Vatican II challenges us to do:
“Today, the human race participates in a new stage of history. Profound and
rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the entire world. Triggered
by the intelligence and creative energies of (humankind), these changes
recoil upon him, upon decisions and desires, both individual and collective,
and upon the manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to
people. Hence, we can already speak of a true cultural and social
transformation, one which has repercussions on (humanity’s) religious life
as well.” (4)
What the Council fathers recognized in the mid-sixties has indeed happened by the
early 21st century. Therefore, in this project, I argue that the reality of a post-
secular age requires a reshaping and re-understanding of the Catholic mission.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the dialogue in Catholic families
experiencing disaffiliation is crucial for reshaping the Catholic mission. It further
suggests that to be the church of our times with the disaffiliated is about
accompanying modern secular persons in their quest for authenticity and the
challenges that attend this quest. It also requires that the church learn the secular
language of modernity— “expression,” “authenticity,” “benevolence,” “rights,” and
speak to the genuine desires implicit in it. Dialogue with pluralistic culture thus
48 Ibid, 117.

25
has the aim of greater mutual understanding of other’s spiritual orientations.49 I
would also dare to say that it may bring clarity to the church’s missional
orientation.
In this brief chapter, I hope to lay out a theological orientation to the
experiences of disaffiliation in Catholic families that provides a theological
framework to understand the approach through faith in the choices of children and
grandchildren, who were raised in the Catholic faith, but then make life choices
outside the institutional church. The Catholic tradition of dialogue, adaptable
across a broad range of communities, and practical theology that requires
understanding disaffiliation as a meaningful and vital faith journey, provide a
crucial impetus to a renewed mission to the periphery. The next chapter will survey
some critical research that helps us ground this study in previous studies with
much larger data sets.
49 Chau, Kindle Edition, 194.

CHAPTER III
LITERATURE REVIEW: PASSING ON FAITH TO A NEW
GENERATION
The impact of Catholic disaffiliation and the broad, sweeping meaning to
the institutional church is a concern that has been the subject of research for
decades now.50 One of the practical implications for Catholic families is this: How
do we pass on the faith to the next generation that does not want it? What are the
implications for families, parishes, and the church as a whole?
All the Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, stress the
importance of intergenerational faith transmission for centuries as a duty of faith
of families and their local faith communities. The family is ideally the first
community where Catholics first experience the joy Christ brings to the world
ideally. His love surrounds children through the love, care, and affection parents
lavish on their sons and daughters. Yet, for generations now, the experiences of
disaffiliation have brought a sense of confusion to families and religious education
teachers and youth and young adult ministry. CCD programming and Catholic
50 Such studies include: Bryan T. Froehle and Mary L. Gautier, Catholicism USA: A Portrait of the
Catholic Church in the United States, Maryknoll, N.Y. (Orbis) 2000; William D. Dinges, Mary Johnson, Juan
L. Gonzales, Jr., and Dean R. Hoge, Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice, Notre Dame,
Ind. (University of Notre Dame Press) 2001; Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul
Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, New York (Oxford University Press)
2005;William V. D’Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge, and Mary L. Gautier, American Catholics
Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church, New York (Rowman and Littlefield) 2007; Jerome
P. Baggett, Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith, New York (Oxford University
Press) 2009; Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,
http://religions.pewforum.org.

27
education no longer assure children will remain Catholic and active members of
their parish communities. What was influential in the past is no longer is for many.
Necessary disaffiliation research has provided substantial support as we
continue to deepen our understanding and its pastoral implications in the church.
I hope to offer a small contribution to the hiatus of studies with Catholic family
research and its pastoral implications. In this chapter, I review some of this
research on the characteristics of younger generations that impact religious
affiliation and how this study reflects this. But first, I begin with a description of
post-secular Catholicism by Dr. Michelle Dillon, a term I use throughout this
project.
Postsecular Catholicism
Understanding the American context can help us see the complex social and
cultural patterns shaping our ministries and our families. The first area is the
process of secularization and its impact in the United States and Europe, and other
parts of the world. Dr. Michele Dillon writes: “The forces of change unleashed by
modernity were supposed to bring about the public retreat, if not the
disappearance, of religion. Instead, modernity’s emphasis on reason opened the
door to scientific thinking, which was expected to displace religious beliefs and
deference to religious authority.” She goes on to say, “It followed that if all
individuals are created equal and endowed with reason, they should be able to
reason about all things, including religion, and should be free to govern themselves

28
in all things.”51 This secular idea became a bedrock for the democratization of
political, economic, and social life and how many people understand religion.52
The reality today is that America is secular. Secular principles undergird our
legal, economic, political, and social institutions. Yet religiosity is also quite alive
as well. So, secularization is uneven in its reach and its consequences. Like religion,
secularity takes many forms, and it varies in intensity along the trajectories of
belonging, belief, and behavior. 53 Secularity is one option among many, as is belief
in God.
In a time when many tend to moralize, in an unqualified way, about how
secularized the church has become, we need to remind ourselves that
secularization is not primarily regarded as an outside threat—secularization also
comes from within the Christian faith itself; it is a legitimate consequence of the
Christian tradition. To be more precise, secularization is a child of the Christian
tradition, even though many people would indeed like to regard it as an
“unwanted” one.
To understand how religion and secularization have become intertwined
within Christianity—an entanglement that becomes increasingly complicated—we
must remind ourselves of the distinction between the religious and the secular.
William Cavanaugh has argued that the religious-secular importance is not a
description of historical reality but an invention accompanied by differences like
51 Michele Dillon. Postsecular Catholicism: Relevance and Renewal. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2018) Kindle location 129 of 5448.
52 See Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1989).
53 Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, eds. Secularism & Secularity: Contemporary International
Perspectives. (Hartford: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, 2007), 7-9.

29
private-public, religion-politics, and church-state, to legitimize the liberal nation-
state. Following Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Cavanaugh also observes that before the
Enlightenment, religion included the public values that secularism later claimed.
Likewise, Mark C. Taylor has stated: “religion and secularity are not opposites; to
the contrary, Western secularity is a religious phenomenon.”54 Yet this dualism
has to hold on to pastoral practice at the heart of the culture wars in America.
In my interviews with those who disaffiliated from the church, “secular”
thinking and speaking were expressed in many ways. One interviewee spoke of
being quite close to the local parish in his teen years up to college. After that, his
drifting away from church practice coincided with the subject of conversations and
the language he used that had no relation to religion with college friends. It was
not drifting away from belief in God and an implicit acknowledgment of the
relevancy of spiritual practice for others. It just was not part of his world anymore
as his friends were quite diverse religiously. So, he lives in a more “nonreligious”
or secular ambient but sees no contradiction with his religious background.
In light of this, Jurgen Habermas, a secular sociologist, argues that the
realities of western modernity require a change in the public consciousness and an
appreciation of religion in the secular culture, what he calls a post-secular
consciousness.55 Dr. Dillon writes: “A post-secular consciousness recognizes that
54 Bengt Krstensson Uggla. “Secularization and Religion in a Post-secular Age.” Parse
Journal. Issue 6: Secularity, Autumn 2017. http://parsejournal.com/article/secularisation-and-
religion-in-a-post-secular-age/#note-3891-15 (Accessed May 14, 2019) Some would say that
secularity is a product of the failure of institutional religions in some ways.
55 Habermas, “Notes,” 3– 4. On the tensions and complexities in Habermas’s use of postsecularity,
see Michele Dillon, “Jurgen Habermas and the Post-Secular Appropriation of Religion: A Sociological
Critique,” in Philip Gorski, David Kim, John Torpey, and Jonathan Van Antwerpen, eds., Probing the Post-
Secular (New York: New York University Press/ Social Science Research Council, 2012), 249– 278; and
other essays in that volume. See also William Barbieri, ed., At the Limits of the Secular (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2014).

30
while secularization is the settled reality, religion has public relevance and
culturally useful resources for addressing contemporary societal ills.”56
Postsecularity supposes here a mutuality of the religious and the secular. This
project assumes that this mutuality entails ongoing dialogue, tolerance, and active
engagement between religious and non-religious individuals.57
Postsecular Catholicism, or any religious tradition, navigates with the
tensions of the traditions of faith in the context of secular realities. Catholic lived
realities are most often secular realities, infused with sacred presence. This
encounter requires an ongoing interchange between religious ideas and secular
practicalities. As Michele Dillon asks: “Can the Church give a new voice to its firmly
embedded commitment to the common good? And can it forge new directions in
language, doctrinal thinking, and institutional practices that find greater
resonance with the lived experiences of increasingly secularized Catholics and
other citizens? 58 As the culture continues to change, traditional religions are
struggling to adapt.
Families of Faith in Postsecularity
The effects of post-secularity on families cannot be underestimated.
Sociologist Nancy Ammerman poses questions that many religious parents and
grandparents throughout this study are wrestling with:
Will our children have faith to guide them? Will they be able to leave
behind the chains and fears and dysfunctionalities of some religious
traditions without losing their sacred and moral grounding? Will
they forgive the bad religious behavior of some and find common
56 Dillon, Kindle Location 173-5448.
57 Ibid.
58 Dillion, Kindle Edition location 67 of 5448.

31
cause with others who are more admirable spiritual exemplars? Will
our doubts breed religious indifference in the next generation? Will
this generation of independent individualists be willing and able to
make real commitments to religious ideas and ways of life that may
make demands on them?59
She suggests that instead of responding to religious/secular pluralism as an
accommodation to the culture (relativization), a strategy of cultural bilingualism
is needed. She means that solid faith communities contribute to the country's
common good when they are skilled in building diverse communities of faith and
communities of tolerance. For Ammerman, our growing religious and nonreligious
pluralism is our friend! Ecumenical and interfaith efforts are essential places to
foster familiarity with the sacred/secular culture in our communities shaping us.
Yet, this is easier for those who are disaffiliated than those affiliated with the
institutional church.
I encounter many parents, grandparents, and friends who share stories of
the departure of loved ones, and the common good is far from their minds. Instead,
it may be judged as a “failure” on parents or scapegoating to other influences like
liberal education in the university. It is also hard for those who disengage from
church and religion to explain why they leave their families, and it is hard for their
families to hear it. It is often a taboo subject for discussion, and the
religious/nonreligious divide seems insurmountable. However distorted this
thinking can become, it does underline the internal familial challenges.
The impact on Catholic families who value the belief and practice of their
faith for their children and grandchildren can be both troubling and disturbing.
59 James L. Heft, SM, ed. Passing on the Faith: Transforming Traditions for the Next Generation
of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The Abrahamic Dialogues Series, No. 6. (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2006), 7.

32
Traditionally children, initiated in the sacraments and reared in mass attendance
and sacramental immersion, would continue to do so for their children as well, a
catechesis combined with church practice. “Raise a child in the faith, and they will
not depart from it,” Proverbs 22:6 reminds us. Home devotions were also
encouraged. Historically, the sacramental initiation program, or religious
education, began with a post-reformation program for parishes that started in the
seventeenth century to train children in the faith and provide the opportunity for
the next generation to do the same.60 Unfortunately, this tradition, which worked
well for hundreds of years, experienced cracks in the system from the early 1960s
on.
The rise of the “nones,” “somes,” and “dones” have radically affected the
realignment of family and religion. In the United States, religion and family have
long been viewed as working together in an unbroken. It was through families that
the faith continued.61 I contend that the changes in the family are a source of the
seismic shifts of the Catholic religious landscape. I turn now to two necessary
studies that help us understand profiles of the disaffiliated in the Catholic context
and a more recent study whose qualitative approach is exceptionally informative,
a research method I employed in this study.
60 Horton Davies, Ian Green. The Christian's ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in England c. 1530–
1740. (New York: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press. 1996), 16-18. Before the Protestant
Reformation, Christian catechesis took the form of instruction in and memorization of the Apostles' Creed,
Lord's Prayer, and basic knowledge of the sacraments. The word "catechism" for a manual for this instruction
appeared in the Late Middle Ages. The use of a question-and-answer format was popularized by Martin
Luther’s Small Catechism in 1529. He wanted the catechumen to understand what he was learning, so the
Decalogue, Lord's Prayer, and Apostles' Creed were broken up into small sections, with the question "What
does this mean" following each portion.
61 Robert Wuthnow, Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their Journeys of Faith.
(Boston, Beacon Press, 1999), 217.

33
Catholics in a Culture of Choice
The Jesuit, Thomas P. Rausch draws on several surveys, but much of his
research comes from Dean R. Hoge and his associates, Young Adult Catholics:
Religion in the Culture of Choice.62 The approach of this study looks through the
lens of Catholic identity and raises questions about how the church hands on its
tradition and incorporates young people into its life.
In one of the studies the author cites, 3,680 undergraduates were surveyed
from forty-six colleges and universities with optimistic findings. As shown later,
the data set of disaffiliated of this project spans two generations, from 22 to 55
years of age. Thus, this study is worthwhile despite very similar characteristics
extending beyond the emerging adult years into mid-adult years.
It reported a prominent level of spiritual engagement and commitment
among college students. Here are some indications:
• 77% say they are spiritual beings
• 71% trust in a “higher power.”
• 1/3 33%of the respondents said they prayed, discussed religion and
spirituality with friends
• 30% The ultimate spiritual quest is to be a better person
• 14% To know what God requires of me
62 'Dean R. Hoge, William D. Dinges, Mary Johnson, and Juan L. Gonzales, Jr., Young Adult
Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), ix of
123.

34
• 13% To know my purpose in life.63
One may glean from this that while there is a higher interest in spirituality
and religion in general, fewer people engage in religious practice. On the
organizational/institutional side, engagement and membership in a Catholic
Church diminished much more dramatically. Pausch wonders if the discrepancy
between spirituality and religious practice is partly about researchers who define
spirituality too broadly, even uncritically. If religion is narrowly described as
formal and institutional, while spirituality is personal and experiential, are social
scientists creating this binary as mutually exclusive?64 However, since this study,
there is a much more nuanced understanding of the spiritual but not religious with
more diversity than merely emphasizing nontraditional spirituality over
institutional commitment.65
Considering this, Pausch focuses his analysis instead of on Catholic identity.
Young adult Catholics (Ages 20-39) share many of the same features as non-
Catholics in these studies on disaffiliating. However, the bonds that tied them to
the institutional church diminished considerably. As a result, two issues come to
the fore in the Catholic Church: a) Large numbers of young Catholics have a very
“thin” sense of their identity as distinct from other religious identities; b) A small
but significant group who come across very conservative seek to define their
Catholic identity in ways that re-live much more traditional practices and theology.
63 Thomas P. Pausch, S.J. Being Catholic in a Culture of Choice (Liturgical Press, Collegeville,
Minnesota), 1.
64 Ibid, p. 2.
65 Yunping Tong and Fenggang Yang. Internal Diversity Among “Spiritual But Not Religious”
Adolescents in the United States: A Person-Centered Examination Using Latent Class Analysis. Review of
Religious Research (2018) 60:435-453. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-018-0350-9.

35
Catholic teenagers were behind Protestant peers by as much as twenty-five
percentage points in such standards as religious belief, practice, experiences, and
commitments. This sense of diminished Catholic identity lies in the gap between
what the Church teaches and what Catholics understand and do. It seems that
Catholicism is more incidental to their relationship with Christ. The uniqueness of
their Catholic faith is perceived no different than any other form of Christianity,
and the authority of what is said and taught is less credible.66
Some contributing factors for a weakened Catholic identity that Pausch
draws from the Hoge study and other findings have exciting connections to those
persons interviewed in this project, who often exhibited one or more of these
qualities in varying degrees:
a) Religious individualism: Pervasive religious individualism of postmodern
America has been well noted by Robert Bellah. 67 Individual conscience
becomes absolute. The influence of Protestantism in Calvin’s suspicion, for
example, of the Catholic sense of sacred in the world led to an emphasis on the
“radical transcendence of God,” pushing him out of the world and emphasizing
the autonomous self.
b) A Culture of Voluntarism: Religious identity is more about personal choice
and much less about a core identity that has a history and wisdom beyond
personal experience. Self-constructed identities draw from the free market
religious economy where many options are available, much more so for this
generation than any other generation.
66 Ibid, 6.
67 Robert Bellah lecture: Individualism and Commitment in America. Individualism and
Commitment: "America's Cultural Conversation" by Robert Bellah (hartfordinstitute.org)

36
c) Loss of a Catholic subculture: Like those of Protestant congregations,
demographic changes have contributed to a breakdown in a local religious
subculture. In the Catholic community, this change was dramatic, particularly
in urban centers where Catholicism thrives most.
d) A Crisis of Credibility: There is a gap between the authority of bishops, priests,
and others in several areas such as sexual ethics, the insistence on “culture
wars” and the rifts between the right and left, the role of women, and same-
sex marriage, among other issues.
e) Theological illiteracy: The Notre Dame study points to young Catholics
seeking common ground in a pluralistic world and a religious education that
engaged the emotions but did not challenge the intellect. The lack of grounding
in their faith sees no way to dialogue with other religions and give a coherent
grounding for what they believe.68
Each of these characteristics outlined by Pausch resonates meaningfully
with the conversations I had with those who severed their formal relationship with
the institutional church in this study but does not necessarily encompass/describe
their entire relationship. For example, this lack of solid Catholic identity did not
wholly undo that relationship for one fundamental reason: their family. On the
contrary, it is their families that keep them tethered to some degree to Catholic
identity. Thus, their Catholicity maintains some hold through holidays, family
deaths and celebrations, prayer concerns, and their interaction with their parent’s
faith practice.
68 Pausch, pp. 9-18.

37
Going, Going, Gone: Catholic Disaffiliation in America
I was invited, along with about sixty-five other Catholic leaders, in diocesan
structures across the country, to look over findings of a new study concerning
Catholic disaffiliation in 2018, Going, Going, Gone: Catholic Disaffiliation in
America.69 It was an opportunity to discern some pastoral implications for
diocesan structures, although not specifically on the family. I was the only one not
representing any diocese, but my approach then was through the lens of a
dialogical model of pastoral outreach. This study underscored critical qualitative
analysis, which “yielded textured and nuanced personal narratives that more fully
revealed the dynamics of disaffiliation.” The interviews with disaffiliated young
Catholics revealed profound struggles within the numbers.70
First, this study focused on young people who previously self-identified as
Catholic but longer do so. Several issues fell beyond the scope of this study and my
analysis as well. They included the impact of the Hispanic reality as a
multigenerational immigrant experience and the “Sorta-Catholics” of those not
disaffiliated “yet,” describing themselves on the margin of the Church. Second, the
“almost-done Catholics” is a new typology in the research of Josh Packard and
Ashleigh Hope that identifies a significant percentage of people who remain
affiliated with their church but are on the brink of being “done” (hence the
69 Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics. A Study by Saint Mary’s
Press of Minnesota, in collaboration with the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).
Released September 2017, 7. The interviews of five young adults that were summarized and videotaped are
quite marvelous and worth listening to. You can see some of them here: https://catholicresearch.smp.org/my-
story/
70 Ibid.

38
typologies of none and done). 71 Third, the “engaged Catholics” maintain their
Catholic Christian identity, and knowing why this is the case would also be
instrumental. Finally, this study did not include the more extensive social, cultural,
and historical settings that influence their lives, which I attempt to do.72 Given the
limits of the study, which are helpful indications for further research, the results
resonate with my own and help confirm my conclusions.
Based on the studies I examined, there is no single reason many young
people (and not so young) raised as Catholics no longer identify with the Church.
Further, no one profile describes those who have left the Church. The diversity of
reasons demands that a pastoral response needs to be informed by identifying
contributing factors, both ecclesial and social. The St. Mary’s study delineates
three disaffiliated types: The injured, the drifter, and the dissenter. I include some
quotes from the interviewees of this Dmin project to show the lines of intersection
between our studies.73
A powerful dynamic that can lead to disaffiliation is the negative
experiences associated with faith and religious practice, both in the family and
church. Current research highlights the significant role that family plays in the
transmission of faith to young people, so it is not surprising that disruptions in the
family can negatively impact one’s faith. Moreover, these disruptions contributed
to or even caused the final severing of ties to the Church in many cases. One subtle
dynamic, for example, were those categorized as injured.74
71 Josh Packard, PH.D., Ashleigh Hope. Church Refugees: Sociologists Reveal Why People are
DONE with church but not their Faith. (Loveland, Colorado: Group Publications, 2015), 13-29.
72 Going, Going, Gone, 9-10.
73 Ibid, 13.
74 Ibid, 14-16.

39
“I was not wholly familiar with Catholic practices, but I had gone to
mass in the college I attended. While coming up to communion, the
priest indicated I was not holding my hands correctly, so he did not
give me communion and insisted I hold my hands a certain way. I did
not quite understand and a second time he did the same thing.
Eventually, he would not give me communion and I walked back to
my seat very embarrassed. (Katelyn, G2-2, 6)
“So what? What difference does faith make anyway?” For some people, the
dynamics of disaffiliation seem to stem from uncertain faith and lack of
engagement with a faith community. This is the Drifter. The connection between
religious belief and practice and the relationship between lived experience and
dedication slowly fades until, at some point, these young people question why they
are affiliated with the church in the first place. Their church experience exemplifies
rules and rituals without any connection to their ‘real world.’ Here many feel like
they are on their own to navigate their lives with their faith. Without peer or adult
support, this journey becomes tiresome and lonely. A practical, new study from the
Springtide Institute touches upon this by looking at the need for relational
authority.75
“In college were my friends church goers? One or two of them in my
freshman year, but you know, we weren’t getting up every Sunday
going to church. We were all good friends, but religion was never
really on the forefront of things we discussed.” (John, Individual
interview, 2).
Dissenters reflect more intentional disaffiliation. Though this group shares
a common starting point, their endpoint seems to vary significantly. Dissenting
young people who actively leave the church express disagreement with church
teaching on social issues, particularly same-sex marriage, abortion, birth control,
all couched in an individual’s right to choose. Others take issue with their
75 Springtide Research Institute. The State of Religion and Young People: Relational Authority.
(2020), 52.

40
perception of church teaching regarding the Bible, salvation, heaven, hell,
purgatory, and life after death. Though many in this group participated in Catholic
education, religious education, and youth ministry, there is disillusionment
because of questions that were never answered.76
“It is incredibly disheartening to me to see pastors and churches
support family separations at the border or oppose police reform and
support the Muslim ban and so on and so forth. You know, it’s just
morally wrong.” (Peter, individual interview, 8)
Family Disruptions & Disaffiliation
In the St. Mary’s Press study, respondents cited the religiosity of their
parent(s), their interfaith or mixed marriage, the perceived “hypocrisy” in the lives
of family members, or resentments to being compelled to attend mass or other
services.77 Others connect their childhood and teen experiences of religion in a
pluralistic culture with a plethora of choices and find they can live good and happy
lives without formal religious practice.
There are multiple paths by which younger people may disaffiliate from the
church, and the family dynamics involved in these are complex. Often these may
include negative experiences associated with faith and religious practice, both
familial and ecclesial. Current research highlights the role family plays in the
transmission of faith to young people. Disruptions in the family can have a negative
impact on a young person’s faith, which can include divorce, illness, death of family
members, frequent moving, and other issues.78
76 Ibid, 21-22.
77 Going, Going, Gone, 11-12.
78 Ibid, 14-15.

41
Interruptions in the family can also be viewed as instability which may affect
the learning of religious identity. For example, children raised by divorced parents
are more likely to be religiously unaffiliated than children whose parents were
married during most of their formative years. (35% vs. 23% respectively) The PRRI
study, Exodus: Why Americans are leaving Religion – and Why They’re Unlikely
to Come Back, states: “Roughly three in ten (31%) religious Americans who
divorced parents brought up say they attend religious services at least once a week,
compared to 43% of religious Americans who were raised by married parents. “79
Interfaith marriages or religiously mixed households also play a role in
disaffiliation. For example, among those raised Catholic, there is a strong
correlation between those whose parents were both Catholic and those who had
one parent with a different religious or nonreligious identity; about four in ten
remain Catholic as adults. In contrast, two-thirds of those raised in Catholic
households by Catholic parents remain Catholic as adults. It carries over to the
likelihood of religiously unaffiliated people to marry like-minded partners, about
54%, a shift from previous generations80.
“We went through a terrible divorce, and this had a very difficult impact on
our daughter when she was young. She would love to attend church
activities and was quite active. Eventually my ex-husband moved and
remarked to my daughter that she never wanted to see her again. Father
images of God certainly did not go over well with her afterward. Today she
is an atheist.” (Laura, G1-6, 12)
In conclusion, this literature review looks at some important research done
in Catholic disaffiliation as those who remain affiliated. These dynamics of
79 Robert P. Jones, Daniel Cox, Betsey Cooper, and Rachel Lienesch. Exodus: Why Americans are
Leaving Religion – and Why They’re Unlikely to Come Back. Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
Released on September 22, 2016. 8-9.
80 PRRI, Exodus, 9.

42
“deconversion” are apparent in the realities of post-secular Catholicism and its
effects on families of faith. The two principal studies I focus on here are Catholics
in a Culture of Choice and Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in
Young Catholics. They both provide insights into three realities that affect
disaffiliation in Catholic families: the fluidity and flagging sense of Catholic
identity. Second, from this, an increasing obscured relationship with the
institutional church. The third element is family dynamics that may play a role as
the second generation navigates their lives with or without their Catholic faith.

43
CHAPTER IV
GENERATION ONE: AFFILIATED PARENTS AND
GRANDPARENTS
I turn to the faith stories of affiliated Catholic parents and grandparents
(Generation one) whose children disaffiliated from church belief and practice.
These participants volunteered for the study from several parishes in our local area
of the western region of the Archdiocese of Boston. They included St. Mary’s
Parish, St. Cecilia’s Parish, The Catholic Community of the Sacred Heart, and St.
John the Evangelist Parish. A few others hailed from three other parishes in other
parts of the archdiocese. However, most of the participants came from St. Mary’s
Parish in Holliston, and a number of them knew each other.
Recruitment for the study occurred through the project website, word of
mouth, advertising locally and in the archdiocesan newspaper. In total, forty-five
people enrolled in the study of this generation set. Enrollment included completing
an initial online survey of critical demographic information before the actual
interview, of which I collected thirty-six or 80% of this group’s completed surveys.
From this 80% response, it is possible to get a general overall demographic sense
of the group. 37 or 82% participated in one of eight 90-minute focus groups. I
interviewed four additional people individually, and

44
four of the original participants could not be interviewed as we lost contact with
them throughout the study. Thus, in total, forty-one interviews took place (91% of
the original participants). All interviews occurred through zoom.
Demographics
These Generation One parents and grandparents are White or Caucasian,
with income levels from fifty thousand yearly and above. Table 1 below breaks
down some demographic and church participation information. These participants
are consistent with the overall racial population of this part of Massachusetts and
represent a substantial portion of the Catholic population in this area. This group
was recruited through relational channels. I invited participants in parishes I was
known to, both by pastors and their congregants. Also, near our included area are
significant Latinx, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Azorean Catholic populations that
were not part of this study, which is a recognized limitation of this study. Therefore,
I stayed with parishes I could access more quickly and easily, given the language
issues.
Of these affiliated Catholics, most held higher levels of education, college,
and post-graduate. This matched salary figures, which were fifty thousand a year
or more. The town of Holliston and surrounding areas are expensive places to live,
with some of the highest tax brackets. One reason people move to this area is
because of the quality of the school system.
Along with these demographics, frequent church attendance and their sense
of the importance of religion were quite common. Most parents or grandparents
attended church weekly and asserted that faith is very or fundamental to them.
These findings are not a surprise, but they indicate that the disaffiliation of their

45
children did not change their participation that in any way. In fact, for some
parents, their religious practice was more important than ever to witness the
importance of faith for their children, aside from the fact that it continues to be
essential for them to personally.
Many of these parents and grandparents were raised Catholic since their
childhood. Others converted to Catholicism before or after their marriages. Despite
the diversity of Catholic experience, I found few differences regarding how they
feel about the importance of their faith and their hopes for their children and
grandchildren to continue that faith. It reveals that this is a story of differences
among these parents and shared views within this demographic frame. That frame
shows them as women, white, married with biological parents, in a higher income
bracket, and regular mass attendance is vital.
Gender
Female
69.44%
Male
30.56%
Race or Identity
White or Caucasian
97.22%
American Indian
2.78%
Marital Status
Separated or divorced
13.89%
Widowed
2.78%
Married
80.56%
Other
2.78%
Education level
High school graduate
5.56%
Some college or trade
8.33%
College degree
30.56%
Post graduate work or degree
55.56%
Description of Family
Two biological parents
77.78%
Remarried/mix
8.33%
Single parent
5.56%
Other
8.33%
Total income last year
Under $15,000
2.78%
Between $15,000 & $30,000
2.78%
Between $30,000 & $50,000
8.33%
Between $50,000 & $75,000
19.44%
Between $75,000 & $100 K
16.67%
Between $100 K and $150 K
33.33%
Over $150 K
16.67%

46
Mass Attendance
More than once a week
30.56%
Once a week
52.87%
Once or twice a month
2.78%
A few times of the year
2.78%
Seldom
8.33%
Never
2.78%
How important is your Catholic faith
now
Extremely important
61.11%
Very important
22.22%
Somewhat important
8.33%
Not so important
2.78%
Not at all important
5.56%
TABLE 1
Data Analysis
The research of generation one involved capturing meaningful experiences
and perceptions that the participants shared as they make sense out of their
Catholic background and its relation to the disaffiliation of their children. I used
thematic data analysis to organize and simplify conversations in the interview
process in manageable codes, categories, and themes.81 With the transcriptions of
all the interviews in focus groups or with individuals, the line-by-line analysis
found significant quotes that were coded. All of these codes were rearranged into
categories where initial themes could be detected.
Coding was accomplished by collecting phrases and quotes organized into
initial categories that gathered similar content across different individuals as the
data accumulated. -themes emerged. For example, the overarching theme of
raising their children Catholic elicited subthemes such as children brought up with
81 Karen L. Peel (2020) "A Beginner's Guide to Applied Educational Research
using Thematic Analysis," Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation: Vol. 25,
Article 2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/ryr5-k983 Available at:
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/pare/vol25/iss1/2

47
Catholic education, children, church practice, and hopes of parents in children’s
faith upbringing.82
This iterative process allowed for comparison among categories to distill
interviews into insights that are reflected in four overarching themes: a) Acquiring
a sense of being Catholic in diverse backgrounds; b) Raising children Catholic and
perceiving disaffiliation; c) Points of tension where Catholicism is deeply
embedded in the family, and there is an implicit rejection of that faith to one degree
or another; d) Parents cope with tensions of disaffiliation in several ways. What
follows through each theme are quotes from participants of generation one. The
names at the end of each section are fictitious, and the letter - numbers designation
is their focus group, or it is labeled an individual interview.
Acquiring a Sense of Being Catholic in Diverse Backgrounds
What does it mean to be Catholic? The answer to that question lies in the
lives of this generation’s participants with very different family experiences and yet
carry many everyday experiences across all families. Being Catholic is a perceived
Catholicism grounded in their own family and church experiences concerning the
local parish. That experience is what they attempted to pass on to their children in
diverse ways. The models they emulate are those who passed on the faith to them,
their parent(s), grandparents, extended family members, neighbors, as well as
significant friendships from mass attendance and church activities.
Growing up as a Catholic Christian, generation one participants
experienced faith with two practicing parents and with only one as well, with the
82 Elizabeth Rainwater, “Millennials Leaving Religion: A Transcendental Phenomenological
Research Study on Religious Disaffiliation.” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Walden University, 2019), 81-82.

48
mother. Also, sometimes neither parent were church goers but sent their children
to church regularly.
So, my parents were not real churchgoers, but they always drove us to
church and dropped us off and then picked us up afterward. They didn't
really have a very personal relationship with the Lord and but there were
plenty of other relatives that lived close by that were very faithful and clearly
had a relationship with the Lord. And I'm looking back on this now. At the
time, I probably knew about my parents not going to church, dropping us
off and picking us up, but I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the
difference between our relatives who are faithful and were not, except for
the fact that they went to church. (Claire, parent, G1-1)
Catholic culture refers to a network of faith relationships that began in the
family but were not limited to the immediate family. They can include extended
family members, neighbors, close friends, and others with a strong relationship
with the local parish. Even school could have a more significant influence than at
home.
So, it was really in high school where I started kind of discovering stuff about
the Catholic Church. And then when I got to college, that's really where I
consider that I kind of found my own way in terms of the faith. And it was
really great. (Eliona, G2-7)
So, we really didn't get in your terminology, we really didn't get the faith
passed on by our parents. But our extended family, I think, had an influence
on that. And I'm confident that many of them prayed for us pretty regularly
because of my brother and I were very close in age. And we were out of the
house a lot, getting into that neighborhood and so on. (Bob, G1-1)
Catholic parents in the past provided essential resources and witnessed
great devotion for many of the participants of generation one. Some participants
talked of the religiosity of their mothers, but not necessarily of their fathers. The
church will be the mother's responsibility, and there was little question why the

49
father did not accompany them to mass. Sometimes both parents did not attend
mass but made sure their children did.
And my grandmother lived with us until I was about twelve and she was
even worse. Oh, yes, she was very strict. She was. But again, they didn't go
to church every Sunday. They did. My mother worked two jobs, so she
cleaned the house and did the laundry on Sundays. We went to mass
whether we had to ride our bikes or walk or whatever, we had to go. (Leticia,
individual interview)
My father went to parochial school in Peabody, his parents were from
Ireland, my grandparents were from Ireland, very religious. And he went to
a public high school, Peabody High School. He did not go to mass with us.
He didn't go to Mass at all. He didn't go to church at all. But we never really
noticed that. My mother went, you know, took us and she was responsible
for getting us there. (Luna, G1-4)
Passing on a sense of being Catholic was also exhibited in multi-religious
families where one parent may be Catholic and the other another faith. I ran across
many Catholic Jewish parents in the families interviewed. (Evelyn, G2-2) Some
participants came from families where Catholicism and Protestantism were a
normal part of life. (Claire, G2-1) Several participants grew in non-Catholic homes
and became Catholic through their spouses or other circumstances.
So, we went to the Presbyterian Church for a little while. We were confirmed
there, and we went to church for a while. It was a church which was far from
home. We had to drive to get to church, and the family stopped going after
a while. We had no car. I couldn't walk to church, but I could walk to a
Catholic church. So, I ended up walking to the Catholic Church. And by that
time, I had met (my husband) there. (Riley, G1-4)
Raising Children Catholic and Perceiving Disaffiliation
In part, passing on the faith to a younger generation means introducing
them to sacramental life in the Catholic context. The Church teaches, “The

50
sacraments of the New Testament were instituted by Christ the Lord and entrusted
to the Church. As actions of Christ and the Church, they are signs and means which
express and strengthen the faith, render worship to God, and effect the
sanctification of humanity and thus contribute in the greatest way to establish,
strengthen, and manifest ecclesiastical communion.” 83 Faith formation thus
began for the participants with an introduction to the faith through the sacraments
of initiation, from baptism, holy communion, and confirmation. It ordinarily
occurs in childhood up to the late teen years in most dioceses. Indeed, this was the
case for our participants who invested a great deal in the faith formation of their
children. Yet looking back, they shared influences that they perceived as challenges
to their efforts.
Well, we took them to church. My husband and I took them to church on
Sunday, and we did succeed with them in grammar school. And then when
they got to high school, they went to Catholic high school and then three of
them went to Catholic colleges. OK, so, you know, you would think that they
would have gotten something from that. But I don't know the Jesuits. I don't
know if they were very good about, you know, passing on faith at Boston
College and Fordham University. (Leticia, individual interview)
These parents invested themselves in the faith formation of their children
in many ways. Some instilled a home prayer life, and others involved themselves
quite concretely in-home practices and encouraged their children to involve
themselves in the parish outside of catechetical classes and mass. Many of these
practices were experienced by parents in their childhood.
I made it a point to always to do prayers at night, something I did as a kid.
We always said prayers together at night on. Bringing them to mass with
me, although as they got into the terrible twos, it was not something I
83 Code of Canon Law, c.840, Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition (Washington,
DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1999).

51
wanted to do. They were disruptive and I didn't want to be disruptive.
Saying prayers was a big part of what we did. They each had a cross in the
room from the time they were born. (Evelyn, G1-2).
I was involved with their CCD classes. I wanted to be always open and
available to them for that. We celebrated all of the holidays. Christmas was
a huge feast in our house, all the way through Advent, all the way through
Epiphany, the traditions of our faith. (Evelyn, G1-2)
Faith formation was a way to instill faith in Jesus Christ and the church and
understand its importance in daily life.
I wanted them to know that there was something there that was important
to them, and my daughter got it because I remember when I was going
through a separation from their father, we would be driving along and I'd
pull over to go to church and she would say, “Mama, we're going to God's
house again.” I wanted them to have that sense of a higher being and a
higher power. It was really important and to this day, and I think to myself,
what do people do in times of great stress and difficulty and illness? (Leticia,
individual interview)
Different issues in the family have a part to play for some in how faith
practice development occurred.
It's hard to have a spiritual conversation with your kids just about
spirituality. So, it seems like without some circumstantial context, perhaps
like you're talking about somebody who died too young. But I mean, you
know, I just can't think of anything that's occurred that that kind of
prompted that kind of conversation. (Jacob, G1-4)
[My husband] came to mass when we were dating one time at St. Anne's and
I think he just didn't feel a connection but was fully supportive of me raising
the children Catholic and being near to say, hey, you can go to church. I wish
that there were a deeper connection, of course, but he was always supportive
of that. I think where his influence kind of changed things a little bit is when
the kids get older and they started seeing that Mom is really faithful, but dad
doesn't practice at all. Maybe I'll try that. Maybe it's OK to try that.
(Charlotte, G1-6)
It was a horrible divorce. I was devastated. You know, it was just really hard
on me, so it was hard on her (daughter). Life dealt a bad hand. And she was
at that point with her faith which wasn't really that strong for a seven-year-

52
old. When her father says she does not want to see her anymore and I am
asking her to believe in God as a father. (Laura, G1-6)
Tensions where Catholicism is deeply embedded in the family, and
there is an implicit rejection of that faith
The tensions felt in these families regarding the disaffiliation of their
children as they look back during these interviews covered different areas. The first
area is their lack of understanding why their children no longer wished to be
involved in the church. Interestingly, not knowing why they are disaffiliated
persists up to the present moment and continues is a source of worry.
And he said, you know, it's one of the things I'm thinking about doing. I may
become a priest. And we said, that's fantastic. He went off one year to college
and came home. And it was we had the rule that if you live under our roof,
please go to mass with us, whether you go by yourself or you come with us.
And it just got to the point where my husband and I just threw up our hands.
He wouldn’t go anymore. And I don't know what happened. It was just like
it stopped just after college. He just decided he wasn't going to go to church
anymore. (Olivia, G1-2)
For some reason, our sons just seem to have checked out after they got out
of high school. One was married in a church and had their son baptized. The
other one did not have any children baptized. But we have no idea why and
this is so disheartening. But I don't think there's anything we did wrong.
(Layla, G1-3)
A second area which the parents referred to several times was blaming
outside influences on their children’s disaffiliation.
And so, then during college, you know, he would go to church sometimes
but and then eventually, as he was into his twenties, he would, you know,
almost be like Christmas and Easter only. And then one time he missed
Easter, which really upset me. (Sophia, G1-1)

53
So, the departure point is, you know, for at least for my three older kids was
sort of the college time and the change of kind of a liberal, you know,
awakening, if you will, that can take place in college. And that was a big part
of it. And a secondary part was the divorce. You know, when my first wife
and I were very active in the church. (Isaac, G1-4)
Now, I want to think of [my daughter] as a teenager. She was very willing to
get involved. Once the associate pastor here left and the new priest was
pretty dogmatic in terms of because I said so, and this is what we're doing,
and questions were not really welcomed. But her experiences have not been
happy when she came into her own self. And now she will ask me to pray for
people. She will go to a funeral. She will go to a wedding in a Catholic church.
She will receive communion. Other than that, she is totally disaffiliated.
(Emily, G1-6)
Other observations of the children regarding faith practice touch upon
tensions they may have with the church as an institution, some of its teachings, or
the seeming contradiction that their children's moral lives stem from faith. Yet,
they do not practice that faith and are ethical, upright individuals.
Well, you know, what he does in his free time is that he volunteers and helps
poor black people who need help because he takes them to hospitals, he
takes them to the store. He volunteers a lot of time taking care of people. So,
he has three daughters and he's just I mean, he's just amazing with his three
daughters, the way he loves them and the way they love him and his wife.
(Claire, G1-1)
So, I guess and a lot like they had said before, a lot of reasons why at least
two of my three have fallen away is because, you know, the Catholic views
on same-sex attraction, the Catholic views on women being on the altar or
as priests, the priest not being able to get married, the same social issues
that I think 99 percent of Millennials wonder about. I do too. (Piper, G1-7)
Finally, this theme lacks good communication between parents and their
children regarding their Catholic faith and how that moves forward in their lives.
It touches the issue of what faith talk looks like overall and how the family speaks
together about the faith they share.

54
I was never good with talking about faith, talking about a relationship with
God. I never prayed with my kids. I did journal to my daughter when she
was a baby and journal some faith topics. I've never shared that with her.
And I was always like that. (Lilian, G1-3)
We talked more at our kids about faith than with them. (Claire, G1-1)
My daughter stopped going to church after confirmation and we never really
talked about it. (Evelyn, G1-2)
In their gradual departure there was an awkwardness in sharing her feelings
about church with Mom… I never had the courage, but I would like to talk
with my daughter with what she really believes in. (Charlotte, G1-6)
Parents Cope with Tensions of Disaffiliation in Various Ways
Previously mentioned was the little or no inquiry as to why their children
stopped engaging in church practice for many of these families, often out of not
wanting to upset one another. Because parents were hesitant to inquire very deeply
the cause of this behavior, their concern caused by the lack of understanding into
their children’s disaffiliation sometimes resulted in disappointment, guilt, and as
one parent remarked, “disheartenment.” On the other hand, for another parent, it
seemed an “untouchable” subject. (Charles, G1-4).
And when they remember me, when I'm long gone, they'll remember. You
never know. You don't know what God has planned. So, I'm trying to do
that. But at the same time, it's still hurts. If something brings you such joy,
you obviously want that for your children so that experiences of them letting
go and pulling away is just very painful. (Charlotte, G1-6)
Others coped by harboring some underlying belief that one day their
children will return to church practice, or they seek answers within themselves as
why the disaffiliation occurred in the first place.
My son, he just kind of like went away. He went like the way of the world,
like the prodigal son. Yeah, he's I mean, we've always prayed the rosary with

55
our kids, and we've always done what we've always told them about Jesus
and he's going to come back too. I do believe that. (Alan, G1-1)
But now there is a lot of diverse information, a lot of arguing about religious
issues, et cetera, so kids at this age know lot more about this. And they're
getting more information versus all the positive reinforcement I used to get
when I was a kid in my little bubble. They are taking in all this different
information and trying to make sense out it. (Charles, G1-4)
Presently, the participants see the tension of disaffiliation influencing their
relationship with the children’s families and specific concerns for their
grandchildren.
His wife (their daughter-in-law) had no religious background at all. And so,
that has a great deal to do with religious influence. For example, they
haven't had their daughter baptized or anything (Leticia, individual
interview)
Yes, what bothers me is that if they have children, that they will then pass
that on to them, to their child, to their children. But that said, his wife had
no religious upbringing, but she has the same values. So, you know, it can
happen. They're very good people somehow. Church structure doesn't mean
to them what it does to us. (Noah, G1-5)
I can say that with my husband when we were struggling, and we didn't have
much. I knew that I could pray when he was looking for a job. I just prayed
like all day, every day. And I had hoped. What upsets me is that my son and
my daughter are not conveying that to their children. Do they have hope?
That's what I'm wondering. I don't know if they have hope like we do.
(Madison, G1-4)
I would like them to be baptized. And then my 16-year-old granddaughter
was baptized, but she chose not to have confirmation. And she's a wonderful
girl. You know, I think if she were well led in the right direction, she would
pursue that, but her mother and father don't, you know, don't they don't
push it so, they don't even make it available.(Charles, Individual interview)
But you certainly had this feeling you missed these things that you would
hope to share with them on a deeper level with my grandchildren. I am
trying to figure out what my role is with them and how far I can go to share
my faith without overstepping the bounds.(Charlotte, G1-6)

56
Another concern as they cope with their children’s disaffiliation is around
their relationship with Jesus Christ.
...by understanding what Jesus taught and did, I hoped they would totally
embrace it. I know [my daughter] has shown so many signs of the
Beatitudes, she loves the Beatitudes without knowing she's living the
Beatitudes. I know that she's involved in the works of mercy without
necessarily calling it, oh, I'm a Catholic because I do this. It's not tied down
to being connected to the church. It's who I am as a Catholic as God has
helped me to evolve. And I think we're all going to keep on evolving.
(Charlotte, G1-6)
One of my biggest concerns is that they would never get to know the
historical Jesus and the beauty of the teachings, you know, particularly his
teachings on the Sermon on the Mount. (Patrick, G2-8)
There's so much they're missing out by not knowing Jesus, knowing his
personal love for them, you know? It doesn't matter to me what church they
go to. I don't care if they become Catholics again or go to another church
just as long as they know a personal relationship with the Lord. (Sophia, G1-
1)
Some attempted to take an active role in faith formation if their children
allowed them to.
We try to nurture faith in our grandchildren in which the parents have an
objection. (Alan, Individual Interview)
We try to teach our grandchildren the faith in simple ways, in the way we
teach the prayers and about Jesus’ life. (Layla, G1-3)
My son wants me to share my faith with my grandson. (Eliona, G1-7)
My nephew was not baptized, so I secretly did it myself. (Olivia, G1-2)
Finally, conversations on institutional church issues had a challenging effect
on their children’s desire to remain engaged in church practice. Coping here meant
to live with the unanswered questions that these experiences engendered. They
included clergy sexual abuse and issues around the same-sex attraction.

57
The local priest was accused of sexual abuse and that complicated things for
my children. (Charles, individual interview) My son’s issues with the church
stem from the clergy abuse cases. (Leticia, individual interview) The sexual
abuse crisis made it hard to separate faith from what happened in the
church. I did not have answers for my kids. (Charlotte, G1-6)
My oldest son is gay, and he grew very uneasy with the church position on
the LGTBQ community.(Anne, G1-5)
In sum, from this large amount of interview material, I organized codes
around four overarching themes. In the first theme, generation one conversations
centered around the experience of these parents who invested a great deal in the
faith formation of their children. In some circumstances, they attempted to instill
faith in their children through the traditional means of religious education,
sacramental preparation, and home prayer and rituals. In the second theme, these
parents spoke of the challenges of passing on the faith to their children and how
they began to perceive their departure from church practice. The third theme
participants shared various points of tension felt within families where the faith
was essential to the parents, but not to the children. Finally, the fourth theme
attempted to gather experiences of the numerous ways they tried to cope with the
tension of disaffiliation with their children. In the next chapter, we turn our
attention to the other side of the coin, interviews with those who disaffiliated from
Catholic Church practice, some of whom were the children of generation one
participants (5 or 24%) included in this chapter.

58
CHAPTER V
GENERATION TWO: DISAFFILIATED CHILDREN
This chapter elicits the voices of the disaffiliated. Unlike affiliated parents
and grandparents recruited through parishes or other archdiocesan structures,
these participants, who grew up in the Archdiocese of Boston, have moved to
various parts of the state and country, with one individual living in South Africa.
They are twenty-one individuals who volunteered for the study through advertising
done in the local secular press and on social media platforms and word of mouth.
Of the twenty-one respondents, five (24%) are children of generation one
Catholics who participated in the study. One is the child of a Catholic parent who
was also later disaffiliated from the church. Of the twenty-one participants who
received the link for the survey information, twelve (57%) responded, providing
enough demographic data to make general observations about the entire group.
Out of twenty-one, thirteen (62%) were interviewed in two focus groups and
individual interviews. At a particular point, contact with other 38% of the original
participants discontinued contact as the study continued, and a pandemic ensued.
Nevertheless, these thirteen in-depth interviews still provide an exciting window
into their disaffiliation stories.
The issue of disaffiliation or de-conversion, which is the process of moving
from identification and active engagement with Roman Catholicism to

59
disaffiliation and disengagement, are significant experiences in contemporary
American Catholic life.84 It has been acknowledged at the highest levels for more
than forty years. In 1975 Pope Paul VI observed: “Today there is a very large
number of baptized people who for the most part have not formally renounced
their Baptism but who are entirely indifferent to it. (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 56)
Pope John Paul II said in 1990: “Entire groups of the baptized have lost a living
sense of the faith, or even no longer considers themselves as members of the
Church. (Redemptoris Missio, 33) In 2013 Pope Francis remarked: “We cannot
overlook the fact that there has been a breakdown in the way Catholics pass down
the Christian faith to the young in recent decades. It is undeniable that many
people feel disillusioned and no longer identity with the Catholic tradition.”
(Evangelic Gaudium, 70).85
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, those who consider themselves
disaffiliated always remain part of the church by their baptism. Canon Law says,
‘Baptism incorporates us into the Church,’ furthermore, ‘seals the Christian with
the indelible spiritual character of belonging to Christ. Nothing can erase such a
mark.’ (Catechism 1267, 1272) This theological fact does not forestall the reality
that the largest group in the Boston Archdiocese are non-practicing or disaffiliated
Catholics.86 The group of disaffiliated individuals included in this study presents
a small but rich understanding of what is entailed in this de-conversion experience
84 Patrick Hornbeck, 1.
85 Stephen Bullivant. Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II.
(London: Oxford University Press, 2019), 3.
86 Ibid

60
concerning their families, church, social milieu, and, more significant cultural
dynamics.
Demographics
As with the affiliated participants in the previous chapter, these participants
represent the larger population of the disaffiliated.87 Within this demographic
subset, there is some homogeneity regarding race, education level, and income
levels. What is interesting regarding age, this small subset presents two different
generations from age 22 to 55. Disaffiliation is popularly thought of as an issue for
Catholic emerging adults, and it certainly is. But the age spread shows the
intergenerational dynamic of disaffiliation that is more recent for some and has
lasted a long time for others.
Education is a prized cultural value locally in this area. It is reflected in the
high educational levels. Some research lends credence to the idea that higher
education levels among the disaffiliated in these families may be one factor that
leads to a diminishment in religious observance. 88 What emerges in the data
analysis are the high moral values and sense of service that represents the parents'
remarks of their disaffiliated children, despite them not attending church. In
addition, the dominance of community and social service employment over other
types of jobs may exhibit their service-orientated lives.
87 Ibid
88 “In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?” Pew Research Center's Religion &
Public Life Project, May 30, 2020. https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/26/in-america-does-more-
education-equal-less-religion/.

61
Religious identity may refer to personal preferences or cultural upbringing,
but not necessarily religious practice. A significant percentage of the disaffiliated
in the study still identify themselves as Catholic, but not exclusively. Christian and
non-denominational identities are also substantial and just as effective as those
who profess no religion to a particular institution. That said, more than 66% do
not consider religion important. More than half have had no formal Catholic
education but were involved in religious education, mostly CCD (66%). About a
quarter participated in extra parish activities in youth ministry (25%).
Gender
Female
50.00%
Male
50.00%
Age
18-24
16.67%
25-32
41.67%
35-44
33.33%
55-64
8.33%
Race or Identity
White or Caucasian
91.67%
Hispanic or Latinx
8.33%
Marital Status
Separated or divorced
8.33%
Single, never married
33.33%
Married
58.33%
Education level
Some college or trade
16.67%
College degree
16.67%
Post graduate work or degree
66.67%
Total income last year
Between $30,000 & $50,000
8.33%
Between $50,000 & $75,000
16.67%
Between $100 K and $150 K
16.67%
Over $150 K
16.67%
Current Occupation
Computer and Mathematical
8.33%
Architecture and Engineering
8.33%
Community and Social Services
16.67%
Legal
8.33%
Educational
8.33%
Present religious identity
Catholicism
58.33%
Christianity
25.00%
Judaism
8.33%
Islam
8.33%
Buddhism
8.33%
Hinduism
8.33%
Inter/non-denominational
16.67%
No religion
16,67%

62
Other
8.33%
How important is religion to you now?
Extremely important
16.67%
Somewhat important
16.67%
Not so important
66.67%
Catholic Education
Catholic elementary
16.67%
Catholic high school
8.33%
Catholic college or university
16.67%
None of these
58.33%
Involvement in religious formation
and activities
Catholic religious education (CCD)
66.67%
Youth ministry
25.00%
Catholic campus ministry
8.33%
TABLE 2
Data Analysis
The research of generation two centered around focus groups and
individual interviews, where focus groups were not feasible for the participants. As
was the case for generation one, thematic data analysis was used to highlight
quotes provided by the transcriptions of the interviews.89 The questions began
with their perspective of their religious upbringing and how their sense of
Catholicism changed over time. Next, the key research questions attempted to
investigate the areas of their Catholic faith that were problematic and elements of
that faith that they may still retain, and why that was the case. Finally, how do they
interact with their parents and other family members regarding their disaffiliation
experience?
The emerging themes chosen for the research focus at this part of the study
have some similarities with affiliated parents and grandparents and crucial
differences. So it is because the interview questions looked at some of the same
issues of Catholic de-institutionalization through families. These themes include
89 Peele, ibid.

63
a) Growing in and out of Catholicism; b) Handling tensions with parental
expectations; c) Bringing hybrid Catholicism on new pathways.
Growing In and Out of Parental Catholicism
The early experiences of faith of those interviewed were as diverse as the
experiences of the affiliated parents in the previous chapter. Even though less than
half were not involved in a formal Catholic education, most engaged in the formal
religious education program for sacramental preparation. At church and at home,
in their social environment and extended family, their Catholic experience was
marked by very optimistic and challenging experiences.
When I was growing up and going to CCD and stuff like that, my parents
were very involved in CCD. My mother actually taught CCD for a number of
years. It was very helpful, and she was very involved in my life as a young
Catholic. (John, individual interview)
My Mom grew up in a very strong Catholic environment, so I see a root of
my life in Catholicism because I was raised in it in a strong way through my
Mom. But so anyway, it was very strong and part of my life. From ages,
whatever, three to probably 14, and it meant being an altar boy, being a lead
altar boy, maybe even thoughts of priesthood at some point. But boy, that
fell apart at about fifteen. (Damien, individual interview)
For some, growing up Catholic was often seen as a positive experience that
awoke a strong spiritual intuition. However, that was not the case for others.
Friends from other faiths that were important had some impact as well. At an early
age, some had meaningful religious experiences.
I prepared for confirmation, and I went into that willingly and happily, you
know, I was I taught summer Bible camp, which was like an amazing
experience with the kids. There were times I mean, in college, I thought
about a religious studies major. You know, I was recently working at BYU
and got friendly with the theology department, and they wanted to take me
in like I've always had this deeply spiritual sense. (Debbie, individual
interview)

64
And I would go to church as kids, and it was definitely part of our lives. I
mean, you know, I remember my mom teaching us our prayers and, like,
pray every night before going to bed. I think that, in retrospective, going to
church wasn't impactful. (Debbie, individual interview)
And then I knew also that there were kids that weren't going to Catholic
Church, that were maybe going to other churches or services or weren't
going to any services. So, I sort of saw myself somewhere falling in the
middle on this spectrum of how Catholic I really was. (Samantha, individual
interview)
Things began to change as they became emerging adults and went from
parental faith influence at home to college independence. That transition occurred
in many ways as they began to experience a larger, more diverse world. As a result,
disaffiliation could be a subtle drifting away or a departure from a largely positive
experience into something altogether.
I was very involved in my church and when I went to college and did not
have my parents there to say, hey, you should go to mass. Hey, we all went
to mass, let’s go. It just fell away when I moved from home and after college,
when I moved on my own. I just never really got back into the faith end.
(John, individual interview)
I know this is not just Catholicism, pretty much any institution in the world,
you're going to deal with politics and hierarchy I just felt that church never
felt like home to me. I taught there, which I loved. I loved working with kids,
but it just didn't feel I had a place there that I guess that would tie me to the
church. (Janice, individual interview)
I mentioned I just jumped around and the people I was with became my
family. I went to the Lutheran church, and I went to the temple, and we went
to by temple sometimes because it was so beautiful. (Janice, individual
interview)
I had some kind of epiphany. I've heard people say like, oh, I was done with
the Catholic Church after the sexual abuse scandals arose or I was done with
it because of something a particular religious leader said or whatever. And
I just it was not like that for me at all. It had been a largely positive
experience. I met some really great people. (Cindy, individual interview)

65
Departure from Catholic Church practice was also precipitated by difficult
experiences as well in the college years. Issues around perceived hypocrisy by
leaders that represent the institutional church are noteworthy.
(At my college Catholic campus) there was the promotion of sanctity of
holiness, but in a very, very critical manner of constantly being judged and
criticized if you were not doing it the way that somebody else wanted you to
do it. Then when Trump was elected in twenty sixteen, there was a plethora
of harassment towards black students and Muslim students, and the
administration did nothing. (Katelyn, individual interview)
This perceived sense of duplicity extended over other issues that predictably
included clergy sexual abuse issues, stances toward the LGTBQ+ Catholics, mixed
messages in a problematic political clime, the importance of women leadership,
and the ambiguities around prenatal sexual ethics like abortion. Some of these are
not mere abstract cases but touch upon their friendships and families.
There are a few things I find problematic with the Catholic Church,
predominantly views on LGBT people. I know I've seen some things coming
from Pope Francis that are very promising about LGBT teens and people
growing up. I have a cousin who is openly gay. I would see him, you know,
he was one of the best friends growing up. But then I go to church and being
gay is viewed as wrong. What do I do with that? (John, individual interview)
It's funny because obviously the big elephant in the room is abuse scandal.
And obviously, I mean, that's hugely upsetting. Like, I think I've always had
it clear in my head. It's not that being Catholic has anything to do with
making someone an abuser. But I do think institutionally there was a lot of
secrecy and cover ups, and it hurts. (Debbie, G2-1)
But I remember I sat in church one day and I looked to my mom and I'm
like, how come none of the priests are girls? I was like, are you kidding me?
I was so mad, and I was like seven, you know, that's not fair. And she's like,
well, basically that's just the way it is. And I was like, well, I don't really like
that. I have struggled for leadership in sports and academics as a woman
and the contradictions with the church do not sit well with me. (Samantha,
G2-1)

66
Handling Tensions with Parents Around Disaffiliation
Tensions with parents around life religious expectations from the initial
stages in emerging adulthood that move perhaps into later adulthood are managed
in various ways. It can range from little or no communication, and in so doing,
avoiding conflicts, unspoken confusion, and resentment on one side, and guilt on
the other. In other cases, some conversations may revolve around the distinctions
between faith in God, Jesus and the moral life, and the institutional aspect of the
church.
I no longer identity as Catholic, and my parents have reconciled themselves
to this. They continue to practice their own faith in a parish. I think the
difference is where I see where I reached my breaking point with stuff like
that [in the church] They also are not big fans of some things in their parish,
like their pastor. But they're still going and they're still putting the envelope
in the in the basket. But generally, we really don’t talk about important
things. (Peter, individual interview)
My mother has this belief in all things like don't do that because that comes
back to you. We always say that's the Catholicism coming back to bite you
right in the you know, so if you do it, just know something else that's come
around the other side like that, you know, of course, those type of things you
but you are you always come back to OK, well, if you pray hard enough, it
might come true. (Alicia, individual interview)
Definitely we did not disagree on some basic faith matters like when you
die, you go to heaven, you know, some people will say to you, yeah, well,
guess what gives you hope, right? (Alicia, individual interview)
So, I talk about it a lot with my parents. They're always very supportive and
very helpful, but I think even they know that there comes a point where I
think they just believe that it's something that I'm just going to have to work
through. (Damien, G2-2)
Tensions and questions with their parents around their gradual departure
from church practice were, at times, a negotiation of what they were willing to do
with the church and what they were not willing to do, and how that happened. In

67
one example, the entire family was disaffiliated because of the negative experience
of the mother formerly employed in the parish.
Generally, I have no problem with what the church teaches, but for me,
church attendance does not need to be weekly in order to be a good person.
It’s all about being a good person, not an extreme approach. (Debbie,
individual interview)
And so, when my mom passed away, there was no connection left really for
me. Because she was Catholic, but none of my family who lives in town here,
that's my dad's side of the family. So that was a big part of it, too, was just
kind of like, you know, you keep going because I don't want to say it was just
a sense of obligation, but it was something she and I did together. (Janice,
individual interview).
I just jumped around with the people that I was with. They became my
family. I went to the Lutheran church, and I went to the temple sometimes
because it was so beautiful. And I think that's when I started really realizing
that for me, my religious experience was dependent on community. It really
had nothing to do with the church I went to or what religion I was, it was
about feeling a connection to something larger with other people that you
love. (Janice, individual interview)
So, it (the firing of her mother as religious education director) impacted our
whole family because she was like, well, I got burned basically by the church.
And she’s not really interested in continuing with the church. She said,
that's not Catholic to me. Right. So, we're not going either. (Samantha, G2-
1)
The tensions felt retreating from church practice affected the families of the
disaffiliated, particularly around the issues of non-Catholic spouses and the
passing on of the faith to the grandchildren. They were warmly accepted and dearly
loved by the Catholic parents. But it did provide experiences of doubt, silence, and
concern on the status of the Catholic faith in their children’s families, particularly
for the grandchildren. The grandparent’s need to share faith with their
grandchildren in small ways was in the last chapter. What is interesting here, there
is little reference to that among their disaffiliated children. Concerns about the

68
Catholic faith in the grandchildren by their parents did not come up. Instead, the
focus was on their non-Catholic spouses.
I don't know if that makes sense, but, you know, really, she (my wife) didn't
grow up Catholic, her parents aren't Catholic. Her mom is Jewish actually,
and her dad was raised Methodist. And so, everything that she knows about
the Catholic Church is just what she's heard. I guess my concern would be
that it may come back negatively on myself or my family. (Andrew,
individual interview)
My church stopped with the religious differences in our marriage, and it was
at that time that I stopped identifying myself as Catholic. (Peter, G2-1)
My wife is Baptist, and she is quite involved in her church. Her father is
pastor of the church and is a very spiritual man. I loved bible study there
and eventually considered myself Baptist, not Catholic. I am presently in the
seminary to become a pastor. (Damien, G2-2)
Bringing Hybrid Catholicism on New Pathways
Here I brought together remarks of the legacy of Catholic faith after
disaffiliation and bringing that to new spaces and identities (third spaces). In
Catholic disaffiliation, there are often elements of Catholic identity that are
retained and made part of new emerging identities of spirituality and faith. For
some, this may look like a phenomenon that Paul Hedges calls strategic religious
participation. However, through the lens of practical theology, it is not uncommon
for spiritual-seeking adults to retain elements of different practices that make
sense to them so that their understanding of Catholicism becomes a way to connect
to other religious or spiritual experiences.90
I would definitely say the Catholic Church helped found my morals. You
know, like I said, I was very involved in the church. I was also very involved
90 Paul Hedges. “Multiple Religious Belonging after Religion: Theorizing Strategic Religious
Participation in a Shared Religious Landscape as a Chinese Model.” Open Theology. 3. 10.1515/opth-2017-
0005, 67. The author brings this east Asian model to other the realities of Western SBNR’s and prefers to
call it instead “strategic religious participation.”

69
in the scouting movement when I was young as well. (John, individual
interview)
When I think about if I still consider myself a seeker and whatever religious
community that I find myself, I know that it will need to be sort of social
justice oriented, and that comes from my Catholic upbringing. I grew up in
a liberal Catholic parish. (Peter, individual interview)
It's the notion of agape in that God is almost like a verb, like God is this act
of love that you see around you and God is in everything that you value. So
that notion became very real to me. I've written down what I want to share
with my daughter as she grows up and as she debates and looks at these
questions and asks, you know, what are we when her Jewish family goes and
takes a holiday or celebrates some event? (Beatrice, individual interview)
I still pray every night and I still pray in a very Catholic way. I guess I
consider things like candles, the prayers, the music, almost more like
centering. Rituals, if you will, and every religion has their own centering
rituals. (Beatrice, individual interview)
I still pray to God, Jesus, and Padre Pio when I feel lost. (Katelyn, G2-2)
I don't care about how people feel about religion. There was a reason
Catholicism and there's a reason Catholicism is and it's to help guide people
to the sense of security, happiness, and safety in a very holistic way. But
again, like I had said before, human error is a very powerful thing, and the
church can distort what it teaches. (Damien, G2-2)
Some individuals in the study make connections that speak of a more
significant spiritual identity from their Catholic upbringing. As one interviewee
said, “I take my pieces of worship where I can and where I'm comfortable, and I
leave the rest to somebody else to figure out, so it doesn't need to be in one
particular place.” Here are some perspectives of that synthesis for them.
For me, that's what it is. I feel best and I would most spiritual and connected
serving a higher purpose when I'm doing service or when I'm getting the
vote out, or when I'm joining an effort to, you know, marching for Black
Lives Matter. (Janice, individual interview)
And honestly, I mean, to me, that is if there's one message that I would have,
it's I am 100 percent confident in any world where there is a higher power.
I'm 100 percent confident that I'm fine and I'm happy with what I'm doing
right now. (Janice, individual interview)

70
It's enjoyable to share experiences that are spiritual with others, like my
sister-in-law who is a Wiccan. So, I don't see them as much as I used to. But
when we're together, if there's like a ritual going on, like a pie holiday, you
know, we'll do a ritual together. (Beatrice, individual interview)
And, you know, those holidays, even though it's probably not the right thing,
at least I go back to church and touch base just to make sure that God knows
I'm here, I'm still here. (Alicia, individual interview)
We are all a piece of God. So that is how we should be treated. And it's like,
yes, I am Buddha. You are Buddha. We are. But I am glad you are. I don't
know. It's like it's just, you know, of course we're all sons of God anyway.
That's just me. Stream of consciousness. (Debbie, G2-1)
So, it's like you're given pieces to this looking glass as you go through your
faith. But it comes little by little because the things that I would have been
taught at high school would not make sense, or the things that I would have
been taught now or maybe five years down the road would not make sense
if I were given those pieces in high school. I have to go through these
journeys. (Damien, G2-2)
And me being human, I have the luxury of saying who I want to be with and
who I don't. And so, I still don't consider myself Catholic because I don't go
to church and I don't, you know, celebrate the traditions. And I don't
necessarily read the Bible consistently, but I still have a lot of faith and a lot
of trust in in God and in Jesus and all of the saints that gave their life to
humanity. But just knowing that there is just some differentiation that
maybe I'm just going to have to be OK with, because at the end of the day,
we're still all humans and we still hold our prejudices. (Katelyn, G2-2)
I spoke of the disaffiliated participants of this study by beginning with what
Catholic disaffiliation is and how it was understood in the church in the church's
authority from 1975 until the present. However, departures from the church since
the early sixties were significant. I introduced three predominant themes that
express underlying experiences in all the interviews and demographics reports.
First, growing up Catholic and growing out of Catholicism for various reasons
raises tensions and challenges in their relationship with their parents, which works
out quite differently for each participant. Yet, their Catholic faith was not wholly
abandoned.

71
On the contrary, it is an integral part of shaping who they are in fundamental ways.
For some, their Catholic faith became a springboard for other spiritual experiences
and a standard for a sense of belonging in communities elsewhere. For others, it is
still the place and point where they connect with their families. The following
chapter looks more deeply at a comparative exploration of these two diverse family
narratives.

81
CHAPTER VI
MULTI-GENERATIONAL CATHOLICS, MULTIPLE VIEWS OF
FAITH, MEANING, AND BELONGING
In my conversations with Catholic parents and their children who have not
found a lasting home in the church, the first impression is that the Catholic faith
experience of parents and grandparents is not altogether different from the
religious formation of their children. Just as disaffiliated Catholics find themselves
in a pluralistic world with the practice of the Catholic faith as one option among
others that may hold more satisfaction, their parents and grandparents spoke of
similar circumstances. One parent may be more consistent with the relationship
with the local parish, often the mother. They experienced faith formation not only
in religious education programs and youth ministries of parishes but also with
extended families and friends. Usually, it meant consistent mass attendance; other
times, it did not. There was in place, to one extent or another, a flexible Catholic
culture in a larger context by which people navigated their faith experiences
through their families.
The Catholic Family Culture of Disaffiliation
I wish to consider the family culture of disaffiliation on the broader lens of
intergenerational disaffiliation and its changing relationship to the institutional
Catholic Church. The notion of Catholic family culture has some affinity to

82
psychotherapeutic theories of family systems. It generally refers to what goes on
at the family level, rather than merely examining individual members. It
approaches family dynamics of communications, transactional patterns, conflict,
separateness and connectedness, cohesion, and adaption to stress.91 In Catholic
family culture, disaffiliation is understood within a more extensive,
intergenerational dynamic in the way families share beliefs and values in relation
to the local parish.92 By considering Catholic families as a system or culture, I look
beyond the individuals who left church practice to understand the more prominent
family dynamics that may nurture and cope with the stress of disaffiliation.
The first and second-generation themes discussed in chapters four and five
co-relate incongruent and conflictive ways. These themes together outline one way
of understanding family disaffiliation dynamics. Figure one shows how
disaffiliation works out in Catholic family culture. The first column is generation
one, affiliated parents and grandparents. The second column is generation two and
three, disaffiliated children and their children. Both experiences of faith, meaning
and belonging, parental expectations, and children’s expectations and their
interrelationship make up the family culture of disaffiliation.
91 Karen L.Fingerman & Eric Bermann. “Applications of Family Systems Theory to the study of
Adulthood.” International Journal of Aging and Human Development, Vol. 51 9l, 2000, 9.
92 Ibid, 10.

83
Generation One GenerationTwo
FIGURE 1
Figure one shows how disaffiliation works out in Catholic families of this
study. The first column is generation one, affiliated parents and grandparents. The
second is column generation two, disaffiliated children. Both experiences, parental
expectations and children’s expectations, and their interrelationship make up the
Catholic family culture of disaffiliation. (1) In the first row, the efforts of parents
to raise their children Catholic, which in the initial years of childhood, were
received without difficulty. The relationship between parents and children in this
regard is affirming and harmonious. However, this changes as the children
approach emerging adulthood, where they are negotiating the faith of their parents
with their own need to assimilate and own this faith. (2) The second row depicts
the movement of hope in their children’s Catholicism that leads inevitably to
tensions with the choices of their children that lead away from church practice,
initially in small matters. In response, the children find ways to cope with their
parent’s disappointment. (3) In the third row, as things develop and their children
marry and move into careers, some grandparents find ways to bring the Catholic
faith to their grandchildren as the parents may not be involved but allow the
grandparents to do so. Again, however, this is not a consistent experience.
Raising Children Catholic and
Perceiving Disaffiliation
Tensions of faith adherance in
Catholic families
Coping with disaffiliation
through grandchildren
Growing in and out of
Catholicism
Coping with tensions of parental
faith expectations
Bringing aspects of Catholicism
in other life directions

84
However, some generation two parents may welcome the catechesis of the
grandparents, valuing aspects of their Catholic faith. Still, they may also want to
expose their children to other spiritual experiences while exploring them for
themselves.
This family culture of disaffiliation plays out this way in general:
Disaffiliation (1) is often a process, (2) sometimes involves multiple variables at
work simultaneously, (3) is often linked back to a family context where each
generation progressively became less religious and as a result, religion plays less
of a role during one’s upbringing, and (4) often comes to fruition when the
individual becomes more independent from the original family household
physically spiritually (when religion becomes seen more as a choice when
disagreements arise about the Catholic faith when the individual enters into
contact with less religious friends, and with life transitions). Of course, this does
not mean that disaffiliates do not adopt elements of the Catholic faith, though
admittedly, by most indicators, they are far less involved in church practice than
those who hold a religious affiliation. Moreover, their remaining religiosity may
further decline with each successive generation. That said, re-conversion is also a
possibility, according to the broader research. 93
Family Culture, Parish Culture, & the Wider Secular Culture
The dynamics of the Catholic family culture of disaffiliation do not occur in
a vacuum, of course. Instead, there are dynamic relationships with the parish or
church culture and the broader secular culture, which is the reality of all Catholic
93 Joel Thiessen & Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme. “Becoming a Religious None: Irreligious Socialization
and Disaffiliation.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2017) 56 (1): 77,79.

85
families. Together, all three cultures constitute the more comprehensive social and
religious configuration of disaffiliation. Based on conversations in focus groups
and interviews, those relationships could be represented thus:
FIGURE 2
Disaffiliation family dynamics are understood within wider relationships
that influence faith, meaning, and values, and belonging, notably the parish
culture where the family is members. I call it a culture because it provides a
community where faith symbols, rituals, and activities create meaning for the
community. The center of sacramental life is celebrated in the mass, the sacrament
of reconciliation, and other sacraments that mark significant life stages, initiation
into the Christian community, marriage, ordination, and the sacrament of
anointing of the sick. In addition, religious education, faith formation
opportunities, and the critical friendships and service opportunities they engender
make significant faith resources for families.
Parish Culture
•Sacramental life
•Religious
education
•Other ministries
and activities
Catholic family Culture
•Parents
•Grandparents
•Children growing
up
•Grown children
•grandchildren
Wider Postsecular Culture
•College
•Marriage and
family
•Career
•Encounter with
other religious and
non-religious
relationships

86
The interviews that spoke of the importance of parish life for parents and
their desire to raise their children showed up in providing Catholic education
opportunities, involving their children in youth ministry activities, and enrolled in
religious education and sacramental initiation. Participation in the Eucharist was
particularly noted. As one parent stated: “We wanted our kids to know that faith is
important.” (Leticia) This same parent said: “In our day, Catholic culture was
experienced in multiple ways, today not so much.” The parish became the only
source of Catholic support and not the larger community. In figure 2, The arrow
pointing toward the church for the parents visualizes this critical relationship. As
a family, this relationship was as significant as their children were growing up.
The other meaningful relationship to Catholic families is the wider secular
and multireligious (post-secular) culture where both parents and children are
deeply involved. Secular principles and norms undergird legal, economic, political,
and social institutions. These families live their religious faith in this secular milieu
and multireligious neighborhoods. Parents are much more tethered to the parish
culture than their children are generally. They live with both the parish and secular
culture but use the parish culture as a source for their religious faith, meaning, and
sense of belonging.
On the other hand, the children had a relationship with the parish that grew
weaker as they became emerging adults. At the same time, their relationship with
the wider secular culture grew more robust. Whatever relationship they may have
with their parish, if any, becomes nominal at best. Thus, disaffiliation from the
Catholic faith has its source in three fundamental deeply intertwined experiences:
family, church, and the impact of the larger post-secular culture.

87
Family Between the Faith/Secular Generational Divide
For a growing population, being religious today in the United States may no
longer be about belonging to a particular religious tradition, like Roman
Catholicism. However, for millions of people, it still is. In a sense, belief in God and
particularly participation in church tradition has become one option. However,
they also experience hyphenated religious identities where people choose certain
spiritual practices and teachings, but not necessarily what religions believe in. That
is the case with all the disaffiliated in this study. One of the disaffiliated
interviewees, for example, calls herself “Catholic-ish.”
Secularity, secularism, and secularization are distinct realities with a great
deal of interrelation. In the Middle Ages, being secular referred to priests who
worked out in the world in local parishes and not as monks in monasteries. To this
day, we call Catholic priests who collaborate with local bishops in parishes secular
priests. In the centuries that followed, what it meant to be secular began to separate
itself from religious authority definitively, starting from 18th-century
enlightenment. The two revolutions of the 18th century, the American and the
French, produced two intellectual and constitutional traditions of secularism, or
separation of church and state. In this study, I am not referring to secularism but
to secularity, which involves individuals and communities in their philosophical
convictions about their lives and the world, unattached or loosely attached to any
sense of religiosity or religious institution. How they relate to communities and

88
national entities may affect secularism and secularization, but their secularity is
about their identity.94
Many Catholic families may find themselves caught in between their
commitment to their parishes and the demands of the broader secular culture,
increasingly perceived as conflictive. On the other hand, their children and
grandchildren gravitate not toward the parish for a sense of spirituality and
meaning, as they did as children, but toward the broader pluralism of choices of
faiths and spiritualities, relationships and lifestyles they do not find in the parishes.
The dividing line is generational and certainly not new in our time.95 In this tug of
war within Catholic families, the church must readdress our relationship with the
secular.96
The Institution of the Church and the De-churching of the Family
With all its merits and problems, the parish community is the principal
place for many Catholics to find support. For those in this study, it was often not a
direct path through Catholic parents for generation one, although for some, it was.
Others found a “home” in the parish community through many diverse avenues:
finding an alternative to a difficult life at home (Lilian); faith life that revolved
around the church as there was nothing at home (Ava); going from Catholicism to
born again, and returning through marriage (Olivia); positive relationships with
94 Dr. Barry Kosmin & Ariela Keysar, eds. Secularism and Secularity: Contemporary International
Perspectives. (Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT),
2007, pp. 1-3.
95 Robert D. Putnam & David E. Campbell. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.
(New York: Simon & Shuster, 2010), 132.This pivotal study looks at the succession of intergenerational
disaffiliation since the early sixties to the present, with each successive generation becoming less attached to
religious institutions.
96 Massimo Faggioli, Catholicism & Culture. (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2017), 131-132.

89
priests (Leticia); fathers and mothers who may not have attended mass but made
sure their children did (Grace, Leticia); where parents were diverse faiths or
coming from other faiths to Catholicism (Riley, Evelyn). Thus, the church is not
merely an institution with creeds and norms but the central place for personal
growth, friendships, and support for themselves and their families.
These parents hoped to show their children that faith needed to be an
important portion of their life (Leticia). Yet with the disaffiliation of their children
in one way or another, their concerns for them have significantly heightened. If
they do not come back to church, will they lose their faith completely (Grace)?
Some hold fears that life’s difficulties will be more complex without their faith
(Ava). Some concerns go beyond the lives of their families to their sense of eternal
life and wondering if they will be united with their children and grandchildren.
There are also concerns that they would never really come to know Jesus of the
gospels, the source of strength and hope (Charlotte, Patrick). For them, all of these
and more are matters that can only be satisfied within the church.
Yet, as concerned parents and grandparents for their disaffiliated children
and their families, generation two does not seem to be concerned about these
matters in the same way. Yet, many of them grew up in positive church
experiences. They developed essential friendships in church and followed their
parents unquestioningly in church practice (Samantha). Some set a “deep spiritual
sense” and retained an interest in Catholic practice up through college (Debbie).
Yet, their transition from Catholic practice to other paths raised their anxieties as
well. Some feel a sense of “guilt,” wondering if their parents are happy with their
choices (Cindy). Yet, for others, their disaffiliation had no discernible effect on

90
their relationship with their parents. They accept it, even though disappointed
(Peter).
This complex matrix of family faith experience, emotion, and aspiration
within the family was often bewildering for the parents because of the assumptions
that their experience of growing into the faith would also be their children’s
experience. The unspoken gulf between the church and the rest of their lives spoke
volumes of their intense involvement in the larger secular culture they live in and
a diminishment of their relationship with the church, which began while still
attending mass. The Catholic faith experience of generation two became a
jumping-off point for other choices outside of the Catholic experience, yet taking
elements of that tradition that was part of their experience with them. The reasons
for this transition may be better understood through insights from some of the
extensive research that has already been done. Culture and societal change create
an entirely different context for faith between the generations.
Creating Different Relationships with Religion
There are common cultural contours that help us understand young adults
and older across different relationships with religion that are pretty diverse. The
Pew Research Center recently designated seven groups from highly religious to
non-religious in its new religious typology 97 This new typology classifies
Americans into seven groups, broadly speaking, based on the religious and
spiritual beliefs they share, how actively they practice their faith, the value they
place on their religion, and the other sources of meaning and fulfillment in their
97 Pew Research Center, A Look at our New Religious Typology, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
tank/2018/08/29/religious-typology-overview/ Accessed March 19, 2019.

91
lives. This typology is a generalized way
to understand the variety of
disaffiliation experiences there are. All
of those disaffiliated in this study may
fit in a number of these categories. It is
important not to overgeneralize the
“unchurched” and to understand that
people may experience diverse ways of
religious identification at the same
time.
A Generation of Tinkerers
The single word that describes
young adults’ approach to religion and
spirituality and indeed life
opportunities is in the experience of
tinkering, coined by the sociologist
Robert Wuthnow. He says, “a tinkerer
puts together a life from whatever skills, ideas, and resources are readily at hand.”
Research shows the key to understanding the tinkerer is through the experience of
uncertainty. For them, it is sufficiently confident that pre-defined solutions are not
enough. The tension that permeates our culture makes tinkering necessary for our
younger generations. What at first seems like a straightforward orthodox belief,
such as the view that the Bible is inerrant, turns out to be a mash of orthodoxy and
F
IGURE
3

92
relativistic assumptions about truth, salvation, and civility. Each person claims
authority. A metaphor used quite often is that of spiritual seeking.98
Influences that affect the worldviews of Disaffiliated Adults99
Hybridity and multiple religious belonging: Millennials are naturally
interdisciplinary due to the availability of diverse cultures, opinions, and ideas
through the internet. This generation faces more choices than any previous
generation, including lifestyle choices, sexual orientation choices, religious
choices, and others. They may identify with more than one religious worldview and
may be hesitant to share them with others not to appear discriminatory. Many
disaffiliated people have an essentialist or universalistic perspective that all
religiosity and spirituality are good, but none get it right.100
Education: College and university education exposes young people to
various worldviews, and during this exposure find themselves questioning the
worldviews they brought with them. It is a time of experimentation and an
opportunity to seek a flexible identity in the process, often in opposition to their
families.
Geographic nomadism: There is a certain sense of impermanence by
traveling and collecting experiences. There may be several job changes that may
98 Robert Wuthnow. After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings are Shaping the
Future of American Religion. (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 2007. 13-15.
99 Stephanie Yuhas. Losing My Religion: Why Millennials are Leaving the Church. Chapter 8 of
The Emerging Church, Millennials, and Religion: Volume 1: Prospects and Problems. (Eugene, OR: Wipf
and Stock Publication Publishers) 2018.
100 Michelle Voss Roberts, in Religious Belonging and the Multiple says, “Hybrids, rhizomes, and
fluids are the kinds of metaphors needed to theorize the complexities of multiple religious involvements.
They circumvent vexing problems of essentialism, theological exclusivity, and institutional elitism. Hybrids
reflect the contingency and dynamism of all religious identity. Rhizomes subvert the effort to find a single
center (institutional, doctrinal, or liturgical) that defines identity. Fluidity offers the permeability of
boundaries previously thought to reinforce the incommensurability of religions.” 59.

93
take them to distinct parts of the country. Committing to a church is very difficult.
They seek novelty, freelancing, and remote work instead of a 9 to 5 job. Covid
lockdowns have helped encourage this. Their social media illustrate the trend
toward global nomadism. The diverse ideas that they receive inform their eclectic
approach.
Late Bloomers: As a whole, Millennials are starting families later than in
the past, not settling down or buying cars and houses, compared to previous
generations. A third of Millennials still live with their parents. These are critical
factors for church attendance and affiliation. Those that are unmarried are less
likely to attend religious services, and many are religiously unaffiliated. There are
far fewer resources available to single emerging adults in parishes than families in
general in parish life.
Anti-Institutional Perspectives: There is a deep distrust for traditional
cultural institutions in general and religious institutions. Politics have helped
make things difficult for many with rising college debt, dire predictions for long-
range earnings, and the rising gap between the 1% and 99% that has fed a
disassociation with politics (evidence in their voting record). Religiously, some
social issues and the role of women in the church are in stark contrast to the views
of many Millennials. Those that were wounded in the church through emotional
and sexual abuse also evidenced this mistrust.
Digital natives: They are “digital natives”—the only generation for which
these innovative technologies are not something they’ve had to adapt. Not
surprisingly, they are the most avid users. It is a moment when Brené Brown’s TED
Talks on vulnerability and Taylor Swift’s random acts of kindness go viral. It’s a

94
moment when virtual interconnectivity is more immediate than the ‘real’ world in
some ways so that an American millennial feels more comfortable setting up a Kiva
loan to a farmer in Kenya than bringing chicken soup to a neighbor.101
The diverse ways generation two relates to religion and its institutions
comes from how American culture shaped them, the dynamics of family culture in
their homes regarding faith, and their relationship with the institutional church.
One underlying question church leaders and families may need to ask ourselves:
How can our parishes assist families in preparing young people to abide in the
real world they live in with the gift of faith? The evolving answers to this question
will speak much because of our efforts to take the life narratives of the disaffiliated
seriously.
De-Churched Spirituality, Ritual, and Morals in Disaffiliated Families
One final area I wish to focus on from the interviews of these families and
individuals is the perceptions of spirituality and morals understood in the
disaffiliated family members and their relation to the church. They include prayer,
ritual, and an overarching sense of justice and charity. Distinctions between
affiliated parents and their disaffiliated family members in these matters’ rests on
the existential experiences of the community. In some instances, there seems to be
a dichotomy between relationships in a local community and the overall
institutional church. “I have no animus toward Catholicism or institutional
religion, but I realized my religious experience depended on a (diverse)
community, not on the church (as institution) (Janice).” Some remarked that this
101 Angie Thurston and Casper ter Kuile. How We Gather. This first volume was supported by The
Crestwood Foundation. www.howwegather.org

95
is also the mind of some parents as well. “Our parents were more spiritual than
religious (Cindy).” Although generally, most of the parents value their sacramental
spiritual practice within the church. One of the disaffiliated interviewees spoke of
Catholic prayers she learned as something she still says while running (Alicia).
Another prayer to God, Jesus, and Padre Pio when she feels lost (Katelyn).”
Along with alternative spiritual practices that are meaningful gathered from
other traditions, what is striking is a sense of wholeness and completeness in their
spiritual awareness. “Today, my spiritual life feels whole and complete (Damien).”
“I have shifted to a new sense of self in a very positive way: appreciating religious
experience but not exclusively needing it anymore (Cindy).” In this sense, some
could still understand themselves as Catholic, but differently than their affiliated
family.
This seismic change in the lives of Catholic families is not just a kind of
rupture of “traditional religion” and “secular spiritualities.” Still, it is also a
demographic correction that may arise out of leadership failures in the Catholic
Church and a comprehensive rejection of the activities, beliefs, and values
associated with religions. Moreover, it is a profound resettling back into older
patterns of religious affiliation that were already in place generations before the
unusual uptick of affiliative practice in the 1950s.102 The stories of growing up
Catholic shared in this study verify these “pre-1950’s” dynamics with their parents,
and their grandparent’s church practice was significantly inconsistent.
102 Elizabeth Drescher. Choosing our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s Nones. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 247.

96
The lack of theological language for the majority of the disaffiliated who
believe in God does not undermine their expressions of a “practical theology of
immanent transcendence” that sets any divine engagement primarily in the
concrete reality of the here-and-now, rather than a mystical bridge between God
and humanity and a promised life eternal. The church and their parents would
understand their language as secular with little claim to a divine relationship. In
this sense, the religious and the secular need not compete with one another where
different languages refer to common spiritual concerns. Yet, it is an obstacle to any
faith talk in the family.103
This leads to a decisive point I want to make. Understanding spirituality, no
matter how similar or different it may seem from the institutional church’s
perspective, is intimately tied to social justice. It is valid for the church, and
religious and secular views of spirituality resonate. “As a seeker, no matter where
I land, social justice is key (Samantha) (Debbie).” “Being spiritual for a higher
purpose is all about doing service (Janice).” For many, the disaffiliated
acknowledge their Catholic backgrounds for their social justice grounding. “Being
involved in scouts helped me understand the importance of the moral life (John).”
“My Catholic background formed my sense of justice (Peter).” The legacy of their
Catholic faith was important in their sense of prayer and the spiritual, the power
of ritual, and the link between faith and the contribution to the healing of the world
and the enhancement of life through ethical, compassionate action.104
103 Ibid, 248.
104 Ibid.

97
In sum, this chapter attempts to look at the data of first- and second-
generation Catholics, affiliated and disaffiliated through the lens of pluralism, first
by laying out the inter-relational dynamic of the Catholic family culture of
disaffiliation, based on the themes from interviews. It views disaffiliation not
merely as choices of individuals but shows the systemic way disaffiliation is born
and sustained. This family culture understands itself in a more extensive
relationship, pulled between the parish and the broader post-secular cultures.
Within this larger framework, the binary debate of a religious and secular
worldview collides within the family. Yet, the bleeding borders of the sacred and
secular are not contradictions necessarily, but opportunities to expand how we all
understand and respond to faith and the kin-dom of God.

98
CHAPTER VII
NEW ROAD MAPS BEYOND DISAFFILIATION
In a recent issue of America Magazine, I found the following:
“In a pastoral message released in December 2020, Cardinal Gerald Lacroix
of the Archdiocese of Quebec announced a dramatic transformation in
how the Catholic Church in the province should understand itself. Faced
with declining resources and a faithful but increasingly small cohort of
weekly Mass attendees—between two and eleven percent of the province,
according to The Economist in 2016—Cardinal Lacroix called on the
church in Quebec not to struggle to hold on to what it has left but to see
itself as a mission church moving outward. “We must reorient our pastoral
teams toward a more intensely missionary activity, turned toward the
people and groups that we join too little,” the cardinal said.”105
The Cardinal’s concerns represent one institutional response to a long-held crisis
of the church. He underlines a change in how the church understands itself by
engaging in a more intense missionary activity that turns toward people that “we
join too little.” In that same vein in 2017, the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops invited faith leaders from around the country, around thirty-five hundred,
to an extraordinary gathering themed, Convocation of Catholic Leaders:
105 Dean Dettloff. “Catholics in Quebec are leaving the church in droves. Can reinventing parish life
save it?” America Magazine, February 25, 2021. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-
society/2021/02/25/catholic-church-quebec-reinventing-parish-life-240097

99
The Joy of the Gospel in America. It was an opportunity to respond to Pope
Francis’ call from his Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel. It was
envisioned to embark upon a new chapter of “new evangelization,” to understand
the realities of Catholicism in America and to re-dedicate ourselves as “missionary
disciples.”
There were two outcomes in the gathering hoped for in the challenging
times we live in today. The first was to equip and re-invigorate leaders to what it
means to evangelize in the country's context today. Second, an effort was designed
to take insights into strategic conversations in the many local dioceses of the
United States. The challenges offered in the Joy of the Gospel were underlined in
this way: “The bishop’s mission is to …foster pastoral dialogue, out of a desire to
listen to everyone and not simply to those who would tell him what he would like
to hear. The principle aim of these processes should not be church organization
but rather the missionary aspiration of reaching everyone.” (Evangelii Gaudium
(Joy of the Gospel), 33).
Like the church in Quebec, Pope Francis emphasized new thinking: “I invite
everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures,
style and methods of evangelization in their communities.” (EG, 33) In studying
the Catholic context of America today, a key figure in understanding the reality
shows that around twenty-three percent of Catholics attend mass weekly, even
though this figure is twelve years old and is most likely, lower today, mainly
because of Covid. Essentially, most Catholics overall disconnected or absent from
our parish communities is most striking to many, yet, as this study expresses, this
has been a growing reality for decades. Of the twenty-two peripheries named in the

100
gathering that we studied more closely, it was the “rise of the Nones and an
understanding of inactive and disconnected Catholics that was significant to me.106
From New Evangelization to Pre-Evangelization
Outreach to those who left the church behind in their lives has picked up
pace in recent years under a new nuanced understanding of contemporary
evangelization called the new evangelization. The bishops write on their website:
“While our current historical moment represents a crisis in the life of the Church,
it is also a beautiful invitation, a kairos for us. It is serving as a summons to smart
and spiritually alert catechists, evangelists, and witnesses, willing to give their lives
to the great task before them.”107
They are undoubtedly correct to understand this is a crisis for the church,
particularly for their families, but not necessarily a felt crisis for those who left.
Most disaffiliated feel pretty liberated, as is noted in some of the remarks of chapter
five of this study. In my time working with the US Catholic Bishops on their
National Advisory Council, this issue assumed a great deal of concern by the
conference, particularly in light of the ongoing CARA/St. Mary Press’ study by
Robert J. McCarthy and John M. Vitek, Going, Going, Gone.108 The results have
spilled over to “New Evangelization” offices in most dioceses throughout the
country.
106 Participant Guidebook and Journal for Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel
in America. (Washington DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2017), 17-22.
107 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Outreach to the Unaffiliated.”
https://www.usccb.org/committees/evangelization-catechesis/outreach-unaffiliated (accessed March 1,
2021).
108 This study was referenced earlier in this thesis, the most recent national study to date.

101
First, a brief understanding of the history of the new evangelization is in
order.109 This idea was first used by the Latin American bishops in 1968 in a
“Message to the People of Latin America” to address how the Gospel can reach both
the elite and the poor equally.110 The political and social conditions of Latin
America resulted in a discernment that the Church must respond to these new
situations with a new evangelization, methods that would bring the Gospel of
Christ to all people, no matter their condition in life. Pope John Paul II used the
concept “New Evangelization” in a sermon while visiting his native country Poland
during the first year of his pontificate. He experienced firsthand the tensions
between the Church of Poland and the Communist government while he was a
priest, bishop, and cardinal. Therefore, his use of “New Evangelization” recognized
opportunities for evangelization in those tensions.111
In the pastoral exhortation, Ecclesia in America (1999), Pope John Paul II
wrote, “The program of a new evangelization . . . cannot be restricted to revitalizing
the faith of regular believers but must strive as well to proclaim Christ where he is
not known.”112 Hence, the New Evangelization explains the nature of the Church’s
mission: wherever people are, the Church must be present. The “New
109 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catechetical Sunday, September 16, 2012.
“What is New about the New Evangelization.” Fr. James Wehner, STD. Rector/President of the Pontifical
College, Josephinum. https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/catechetical-
sunday/new-evangelization/upload/What-is-New-About-Evangelization-2.pdf. (accessed February 27,
2021).
110 Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops, Message to the People of Latin America,
September 6, 1968, “The Church in the Present Day, Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the
Council,” 22.
111 John Paul II, “The Cross of Nowa Huta: A New Seed of Evangelization,” Homily, June 9, 1979,
L’Osservatore Romano, English Edition, July 16, 1979.
112 John Paul II, On the Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: The Way to Conversion,
Communion, and Solidarity in America [Ecclesia in America] [EA], no. 74,
www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_22011999_ecclesia-
in-america_en.html. (accessed March 1, 2021).

102
Evangelization” was a developing concept in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.
Today, it is the framework of evangelical understanding in reaching out to those
who left the church.
Ecclesial concern stemming disaffiliation research, such as those mentioned
in this study, has prompted a project published by St. Mary’s Press, Beyond
Disaffiliation: A Process for Hope-filled Action by Maura Thompson Hagarty and
Ellen B. Koneck. 113 Some parish renewal programs are diocesan-centered and
extra-parochial with disaffiliation in mind. It has spawned new research, such as
The Springtide Research Institute, which tries to understand the distinct ways new
generations experience and express community, identity, and meaning.114 These
and perhaps other programs focus on the parish, particularly catechesis and youth
and young adults. As important as all of these are, they overlook the family's
principal place where disaffiliation is born, and its dynamics continue. These
programs are crucial for the younger generations still with the church, particularly
those who feel most alienated within the church.
Pre-evangelization and Disaffiliated Families
As one may surmise from this study thus far, reaching out to disaffiliated
Catholics with catechesis is ordinarily not realistic. This is because catechesis
assumes a relationship with the church, no matter how minimal, and is not a
starting point. So, sharing the content of faith and church teaching may be
interesting, but as Sherry Weddell says, “…it rolls off like water off a duck’s
113 https://www.smp.org/product/5927/Beyond-Disaffiliation-A-Process-for-Hope-Filled-Action
114 Dr. Josh Packard, Executive Director. The Springtide Research Institute.
https://www.springtideresearch.org/.

103
back.” 115 Mainly because most if not all disaffiliated Catholics have no real
relationship with the institutional church. They do, however, with their families.
My familiarity with pre-evangelization coincides intimately with my own
missionary experience, which may be understood as a ministry of dialogue. I saw
how this dialogue plays out as I served in three continents globally, across faith
and cultural borders, and religious and secular worldviews. Thus, even though this
initial stage in evangelization is unknown in parishes, it is well known in
missionary work globally and has evolved enormously for the last seventy years.
In 1951, Pierre-Andre Liege introduced the term “pre-evangelization” in the
French publication Catholicisme. He stressed this in mission areas where there are
peoples of other faiths and traditional beliefs. Here, we needed to share our faith
that was “accessible” and that made sense in local religious, cultural, and social
realities. This helped to strengthen the need for inculturation throughout Vatican
II’s challenges up to the present. A national catechetical gathering in Bangkok
formally recognized the term “pre-evangelization.” For the first time, they defined
a three-step process in the experience of “conversion”: pre-evangelization,
evangelization, and catechesis proper. The initial stage was a necessary
experience of trust and openness in a multifaith reality, as is expected in interfaith
dialogue. It is a stage of deep respect for each other’s worldview, a time of listening
115 Sherry Weddell. Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus
(Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 2012). Kindle Edition, 125.

104
and understanding, and sharing each other’s lives of faiths in a non-judgmental
approach.116
In a like manner, this engagement with each other’s faith, sense of
belonging, and meaning in families with very different viewpoints about the
institutional church takes place not within the parish or in church structures. Still,
the family and the post-secular world, the family is embedded. This pluralism
within the family, reflective of the more considerable pluralism in the post-secular
culture we abide in, needs a way to mitigate the anxiety it produces and to both
find common ground and honor crucial differences where God is present in all of
them. Pre-evangelization provides an opportunity of connecting meaningfully
intergenerationally. However, it also affirms the church's responsibility to those
who left, which does not stop merely because they are not in the parish anymore.
More fundamentally, we need to consider this paradigm that witnesses the
power of God and the centrality of Christ both within the institutional church and
outside of it. We are always to negotiate the tensions between the forces of tradition
and those of change. Since ancient Christianity, we have always needed to forge
new directions in language, doctrinal thinking, and institutional practices that find
greater resonance with the lived experiences of contemporary Catholics in
America.117
Whether continuing their Catholic faith practice in a parish community,
Catholics do not compartmentalize their secular roles and experiences from their
116 Tamra Hull Fromm. Pre-Evangelization and Young Adult “Native Nones:” A New Paradigm for
Reaching the Unchurch. (Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2021), 40-41.
117 Dillon, Kindle Edition, 1-2.

105
church participation. In our modernity, post-secular Catholicism recognizes the
mutual relevance of the religious and the secular and their tensions. The
extraordinary diversity in spirituality and morals makes the secular offers many.118
What are some central issues that come in this pre-evangelical dialogue?
Questions Arising out of Dialogue
Through the narratives shared in this study of affiliate Catholic parents and
disaffiliated children, what is certain is that questions surrounding Catholic
families in the intergenerational transmission of faith are some of the most critical
questions of the church today. Both parents and their children and grandchildren
have expressed those questions and concerns to some extent in this study. In
addition, I heard heartfelt experiences in the life stories, and reasons to both
remain in the church and leave church practice in their own words – directly,
candidly, and without filters.
Like other qualitative studies in the departure of many from other
institutional faiths, I found myself amazed at the sense of faith that transcends
church organization and the constant search for authenticity in our open
conversations. At the same time, despite the differences expressed in these
Catholic families, they also showed how to firmly but lovingly disagree about the
things that matter the most.119 Moreover, they have not stopped talking or caring
for each other, which makes the Catholic family and the experience of disaffiliation
118 Ibid, 9.
119 Tony Campolo & Bart Campolo. Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on Christianity
Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son. (New York: Harper One, 2017), inside cover.

106
a unique center of this dialogue and understanding in the changing landscape of
the Catholic faith.120
From Dialogue to New Road Maps
Catholics who wrestle with their children’s disaffiliation and their children
who wrestle with the church carry some anxieties. What is going on in our society
at large that shapes our parish communities and their families? What are young
people’s spiritual and religious needs, and where are they met if not within the
church? What can we learn from innovative third spaces121 that are attracting our
younger generations? How can parishes resource and support families in this
dialogue? How can families sustain an ongoing, lifelong conversation where
everyone is learning and growing, whether in the church or outside of it?122
The image of new road maps in Maura Thompson and Ellen Koneck’s guide
on looking beyond disaffiliation is quite helpful. If we were to consider pastoral
practice and how we think about faith in the families and how religion is passed
onto new generations, we rely on certain assumptions that are pretty traditional.
It involves the sacramental preparation and reception of the sacraments of
initiation, their ongoing involvement in the parish, and for some, Catholic
education in one form or another. Consequently, it is assumed they, in turn, will
do the same for their children. These are the maps we currently rely upon.
120 Going, Going, Gone, 7-8.
121 Third spaces are a term that refers to experiences between religious institutions and secular
realities. One of many studies was initiated at Harvard Divinity School in 2015 with Millennials called How
We Gather.”
122 Maura Thompson, PhD & Ellen B. Koneck, MAR. Beyond Disaffiliation: A Process for Hope-
Filled Action. (Minnesota: St. Mary’s Press, 2019), 4.

107
The fundamental question is, do these maps reflect the terrain that is no
longer recognizable? They may for some, but for many others do not. When has
anyone interrogated these maps and the assumptions behind them? I can name
forty-five Catholic parents who have been doing just that, which you can conclude
from chapter four of this project, even though it was a project they previously did
not think they would need to do, at least in hindsight. The project outlined here is
a way to re-think those road maps by exploring the contours of the changing
landscape.123
I would suggest that ongoing dialogue within families, supported with
church resources, is a way of thinking about revising old maps, as intimidating as
that sounds. It is this lifelong dialogue that helps illuminate the needs, longings,
and desires of younger generations. At the same time, it also reveals the hopes and
concerns of parents and grandparents, who also need to be understood. Pope
Francis concludes in his post-synodal letter to young people: “The Church needs
your momentum, your intuitions, your faith. We need them! And when you arrive
where we have not yet reached, have the patience to wait for us.” (Christus Vivit,
299)
Pre-Evangelical Dialogue with a Divergent Sense of Identity
The contours of this dialogue in Catholic disaffiliated families are shaped
around two different senses of identity that interact with each other. First, parents
and grandparents talk of their Catholic identity understood near the parish
community, sacramental life, rituals, and prayers. It is part of their identity and
123 Ibid

108
value system and lifestyle, even if some may not attend weekly. The traditional
perception is that identity is primarily personal and non-negotiable, emerging as a
set matrix of characteristics that do not change much after adulthood. Their
Catholic identity, formed through many experiences and their children's
assumptions, exemplifies this sense of consistent, lifelong identity regarding faith.
Who do they understand themselves as Catholics are expressed primarily
concerning the Catholic Church and its institutions?124
For the disaffiliated, there is a tendency to focus less on identity or not and
more on how individuals through the worlds they interact use identity to live what
they come to think of as good and meaningful lives. In this sense, identity is a
process that continues throughout life, at times shifting, and other times not as
much. It is a story of one’s life that unfolds over time that influences how they live
out their lives. Unlike their parents, it is not associated exclusively with the
institution of the Catholic Church. This is called narrative identity.125
It is no wonder that younger Catholics growing up in the faith have little
difficulty including other experiences outside of the parish as meaningful spiritual
experiences that bear on how they see themselves. However, narrative identity
continues to make and unmake itself.126 When we spoke of this difference in the
ways families see their identities and the role of religion in it, one parent tried to
understand her atheist daughter by imagining her as a “seeker” to be “authentic”
in her way, as much as she disagreed with her choices. For my purposes,
124 Drescher, 37.
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid, 38.

109
authenticity here means there is a coherence of the different elements of one’s life
across all contexts and relationships. Some of the disaffiliated cannot incorporate
specific experiences of their church and what it teaches into the overall narrative
of their relationships and experiences without causing a sense of inconsistency.
These conversations mainly related to their perceptions of women's leadership in
the church, issues around their LGBTQ friends, and clerical sexual abuse scandals.
The religious institution’s positions or actions in these areas are paradoxical with
their overall network of relationships and valued experiences.127
On the other hand, the affiliated parents were much more able to
compartmentalize the church they disagreed with or had questions. They could
bracket certain things, like those already mentioned, find other reasons to remain
in the church, and not feel they were inconsistent and could still uphold their faith.
The most poignant example was parents in the study whose children were abused
by a local priest. As difficult as one can imagine, the utter disappointment and
anger and sense of betrayal, they continue to find other reasons to remain in the
church. There are other resources of the church that still resonate with their needs.
The differences in the connections between Catholic parents and their
disaffiliated children shows how different Catholic identity plays in faith choices,
meaning, and belonging. It is an enormous challenge for Catholic families that
requires the support and resources of church leadership. I show in this study how
difficult faith conversations are for families. Yet, the more they share on a faith
127 Ibid, 39.

110
level, and the more local parishes can support them in this ministry, disaffiliation
may be understood more deeply with important lessons for families and parishes.
I wish to reframe the understanding of those who have left the church and
the unique position of the Catholic family that stands as a bridge between the
church and the larger post-secular culture committed to pre-evangelical dialogue.
I understand disaffiliation in the Catholic family as an ongoing opportunity of
exchange based on love and faith where the church often cannot reach. It is a place
where that dialogue is already occurring in all the birthdays, anniversaries, deaths,
baptisms, and other family opportunities. These are some of the best “third spaces”
where utter honesty, doubt, and continued searching may find a hearing.
I suggest a pre-evangelical paradigm, rather than a new evangelical model
as a dialogical model for families living with disaffiliation and maneuvering their
extended family lives through several generations. It is not a turning away from
religion but the emergence of multiple overlapping and diverse conceptions of
what it means to be human, believers in Christ, and children of God in a pluralistic
world. I would also suggest further research to look at what a pre-evangelical
model could look like in its detail and how it could be used.
There will always be young Catholics, formed in the faith, which will remain
in the church, as is undoubtedly the case. There will always be others who feel
called to discipleship in Christ in the Catholic tradition. Nonetheless, there are also
younger generations, and not so young, still with the church and barely hanging
on, at the periphery of our parish communities. The church’s responsibility does
not end at the doors of the parish. The family is the church’s extension into the

111
broader post-secular culture we live in, and their support and resource in the
unique experience of disaffiliation are vital.
Postscript for Families, Clergy, Lay Leadership
How does the church then look beyond disaffiliation, transforming a
community’s anxiety into action? Reinhold Niebuhr captures well the advice I
would share with families, clergy, and lay leadership today as we respond to the
impacts of disaffiliation, with a slight amendment: “God, grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the
“data” to know the difference.”128
Things We Cannot Change
I think that no matter how hard our parishes have worked at the
effectiveness and impact of ministry programming and reach out, for all the
extraordinary spiritual opportunities for all our generations, disaffiliation will not
be “canceled.” Throughout this project, I have attempted to show that the
phenomena of religious disaffiliation and institutional religions' are all
experiencing, including the Catholic Church, are more prominent than any church
programming can contain. It stems from experiences of enormous cultural changes
in a post-secular world. There is no “silver bullet” or particular program that will
turn things around. Instead, the church must learn the language and culture of
disaffiliation as it navigates secularity.
128 Ryan P. Burge. The Nones. (Fortress Press. Kindle Edition), 128.

112
Many Americans considered themselves Catholic by default, and not only
because of adherence to church teaching and practice. The changes of a post-
secular culture like ours gave many the honesty and frankly the courage to express
themselves by severing ties with the church or keeping nominal connections at
best, with little response from the church. It is not because of a lack of desire for
faith in God, Christ, spirituality, prayer, and reach out to our vulnerable neighbors.
Secularization and religiosity have grown together for generations now, and both
are vital forces in the lives of many Americans. But implicit, spiritual longings have
been de-linked from the institutional church. Therefore, we can no longer assume
merely because one is born into a practicing Catholic family that that person will
continue in the faith.129 The option of the Catholic faith is precisely that for our
younger generations, an option among many and not a default choice.
Denial of this reality is expressed in many ways. A renewed apologetics, a
propensity to “turn back the clock,” and raising regrets for the critical claims of
Vatican II in our lives are all ways some Catholics use to grapple with our pluralism.
The culture wars, which is an ecumenical Christian affair, is the battleground
where there are attempts to mitigate enormous cultural patterns that have been
going on since the 18th century. Doubling down on faith traditions and a longing
for the hegemony of religious faith, which no longer exists, will somehow render
post-secular dynamics impotent. Partisan politics and the upsurge of Catholic
integralism130 encourage some of those who remain in the pews. But it also has
129 Studies in Catholic disaffiliation show that good catechesis and opportunities in Catholic
education do not really make a big difference in the realities of disaffiliation. Despite doing all the “right
things,” church departures endure. See chapter three and chapter five for more.
130 Steven P. Millies. “What is Catholic Integralism: One of the Oldest Ideas in Christianity has
Come to Renewed Prominence.” US Catholic. October 14, 2019.

113
been an underlying cause of continued disaffiliation of our younger generations
who wonder at the over politicization of the church. Our concern for religious
freedom is also symbolic of the multi-cultural and multi-religious realities we are
grappling.
Things We Can Change
The data analysis I did with both generation groups in this study outlined
meaningful quotes from all the interviews on tables, labeling them with pseudo
names and numbers according to focus group or individual interviews. Yet behind
every row on my spreadsheets is a story of a human being to tell. People who grew
up in parishes but left them in their emerging adult years have an important story
that needs to be heard. Additionally, each Catholic parent or grandparent is also
represented in the many interviews that have a different story to tell, equally as
important. Both stories, in families that love and support one another hold crucial
lessons for us all.
I think that many of us have a challenging time putting ourselves in the
shoes of people who have left the church and never came back, or those who
worked hard to raise their children in the faith, only to see that different life paths
were unexpectedly chosen. For those of us in church leadership, either clergy or
lay, who may never have heard these stories or taken them to heart, may look for
overly simplified answers and scapegoats of one sort or another. It is to do a great
https://uscatholic.org/articles/201910/what-is-catholic-integralism. (Accessed March 23, 2021) Catholic
integralists believe: “rendering God true worship is essential to [the] common good, and that political
authority therefore has the duty of recognizing and promoting the true religion.”

114
disservice to these people in our ministries and a failure to understand that not
everyone comes to faith through belonging to a parish community in the same way.
My own experiences listening to those disillusioned with traditional parish
faith for some years in my tradition and in other religious traditions and those who
raised their children in that faith have been eye-opening for me. Listening with
empathy and without judgment allowed me to understand more deeply the
struggle and search for authenticity that these individuals showed. Free of my need
to correct or dissuade, I could understand not only why they chose the paths they
did but also how much my church could learn from these stories. Pope Francis
reminded us that an encounter is an essential place for spiritual experience and
church renewal.
We can change our posture of thinking with the only option of inviting
people back to the church without really understanding deconversion experiences
in the first place, or why they left, or even worse, discount their experiences as
unimportant or uninformed. We can also provide more substantial support to
parents who struggle with their children’s exit from the church with a sympathetic
ear and prayer and practical ways to help their families continue conversations and
dialogue of faith with their children and grandchildren.
We need to change the idea that creative and innovative programming is
required before we can understand the disaffiliation experience and listen to those
who left the church. Both understanding disaffiliation and listening deeply to their
stories are vital changes we can make. They demand a “pre-evangelical attitude”
within the work of the New Evangelization that expresses the humility, gentleness,

115
and listening heart that other bishops have recognized. As we attempt to do this
from our parishes, we need to think also of how we support and encourage
disaffiliated families where this dialogue has the most possibility. Many have
severed their relationships with the parish, but even though their Catholic parents
differ, they have not severed connections in the family. Thus, the Catholic family
can be the principal place where this dialogue may find resonance.
Finally, this pre-evangelical attitude, crucial in building trust and friendship
and new understandings of others and us, is not a new notion. It began with Jesus
as he constantly reached out to those outside of his Jewish faith and those of the
traditional religion of Rome, like the centurion. Jesus’ encounters prodded others
to consider new ways of thinking about God’s presence in the world. In like
manner, the church needs to change the way it thinks about God’s presence in the
world beyond its institutional borders. Belongingness is not created through
programs but relationships. It can only occur within this dialogue, as it has
occurred with missionaries worldwide in more than two thousand different
languages. This dialogue and further research can help us explore new strategies
and pathways in the experiences of disaffiliation and pastoral renewal.

116
APPENDIX A
On Methodology
This study attempts to understand the impact of deconversion or
disaffiliation in Catholic families with disaffiliated children and what families and
the church may learn in response. To do this, I employed surveys and qualitative
interview protocols to gather data around two-generation sets: affiliated Catholic
parents and grandparents and their disaffiliated younger adults children within
the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.
1) I recruited participants through connection with local parishes where forty-five
affiliated Catholics joined the study. In addition, I created a website of the
project that was used to explain the study to the public and as a recruitment
tool (xaverianmissionaries.org/catholic.disaffiliation/). Of the forty-five,
forty-one affiliated Catholics were interviewed either in focus groups. For the
most part, five had individual interviews.
2) Disaffiliated Catholics were contacted through secular media, both print, and
social media. In total, twenty-one participated in the study to some extent. Five
of that number were children of the generation one set who their parents
recommended. In total, though, twelve were interviewed either in focus groups
or individual interviews. Most of these interviews were individual, with three
focus groups.
3) I used the thematic data analysis approach to simplify and organize the data
that I collected from the focus group and individual interviews. All interviews
were held on zoom and recorded. In addition, the participants electronically

117
signed informed consent forms before the interviews. After each of the
interviews was completed, they were transcribed by a third-party service and
analyzed.
4) The analysis would comb through all the transcripts, underlining pertinent
quotes and statements. Next, groups of these quotes would be organized into
code categories. For example, one code category for the generation one
interviews was: “Sense of diminishment of Catholic influence today.” A number
of codes resonated with the code category. Finally, code categories were
organized under main themes that interrelated these categories. For generation
one, four overarching themes were articulated. For generation two, three
themes were set.
5) An online survey was used to gather data for demographic material, including
data around the relationship to the local church or religion in general. For
generation one, thirty-six surveys were collected and collated. For generation
two, twelve surveys were completed and returned.
6) Overall, the methodology yielded valuable data that resonated with other
studies, including those featured in the literature review. However, it would
have been better if another person collaborated with me to look at this same
data. That said, the data results were satisfactory.

118
APPENDIX B
Informed Consent Form, Surveys, Focus Group Protocols
Research Informed Consent
Title of Study
Secular Catholicism: Toward Renewed Pastoral Understanding & Praxis with Catholic
Families with Disaffiliated Family Members in the Archdiocese of Boston
Researcher
Fr. Carl Chudy, M.Div., M.A.
Doctor of Ministry Program, Hartford Seminary
101 Summer Street, Holliston, MA 01746
862.264.7000
cchudy@xaverianmissionaries.org
xaverianmissionaries.org/catholic.disaffiliation
Purpose of Study
This study is to understand the impact of deconversion in Catholic families
with disaffiliated children to consider new pastoral perspectives and practice in
intergenerational faith transmission. It will take place among select parishes and
households in the western region of the Archdiocese of Boston.
Procedure
The research method will be to have two sets of 2-3 focus groups consisting
of six to eight people. The first generation set of focus groups will be young adult
disaffiliated Catholics. The second generation of focus groups will be Catholic
parents with disaffiliated children.
If you consent, you will be asked to join one of these focus groups who will
gather for an hour and a half session, either online or physically, depending on
Covid-19 safety precautions. Then, a group discussion based on specific questions
will be conducted for about an hour and a half. The conversation will be recorded,
and a note-taker will also be present. Some participants may be asked to have an
individual interview in addition to the focus groups.

119
Voluntary Participation
Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. If you choose to
participate, you may still refuse to answer any questions that you do not wish to
answer. You may also withdraw from the study at any time.
Risks
There are no known risks associated with focus group discussions.
However, you might feel distressed during the conversation. If this happens, please
inform me promptly.
Benefits
While there is no guaranteed benefit, you may find it beneficial to discuss
these matters with others who share your own experience to one extent or the
other. This study is intended to benefit the church's good, mainly Catholic families,
and support those who leave the church, as she seeks ways to share our faith more
relevantly in post-secular times.
Confidentiality/Anonymity
Your name will be kept confidential in all the reporting and thesis writing
related to this study. A note-taker and I will be the only people present during the
focus group discussion. I will be the only person who listens to the discussion
recordings, although I will employ a transcription service to transcribe the
recordings. When I write the report and conclusions to the study in a thesis, I will
use pseudonyms (made-up names or codes) for all participants, unless in writing
that wishes to be identified by name. If you wish to choose your own pseudonym
for the study, please indicate the first name you would like me to use for you here:
______________________.
Storing of recordings and transcripts
The recordings of discussions and interviews and the digital copies of
reports on these transcripts will be stored in a cloud drive and temporarily on a
local computer with encryption. They will be stored for the duration of the study.
After the research project is complete by May 2021, the data will be held on the
cloud drive for ongoing verification and research.
Sharing of Results
I plan to write a thesis based on these focus group discussions and some
individual interviews, the information you provided in the initial questionnaire,
along with my research in the theology of disaffiliation and its implications today
for Catholic families. This thesis will be submitted to the Department of the Doctor

120
of Ministry at Hartford Seminary, Connecticut. The impact of this study may be
developed later in parish programming and other publications. If so, I will
continue to use the pseudonyms described above.
Before you Sign
You agree to a recorded interview with others in a focus group for this
research study by signing below. Be sure that any questions you may have are
answered to your satisfaction. If you agree to participate in this study, a copy of
this document will be given to you.

121
Focus Group Protocol – Generation Set I
1) Introduction: Faith Background of the Parents (15 minutes)
a) Think back to your childhood and how faith was passed on to you. Could
you tell us something about that?
2) Transition (15 minutes)
a) What practices did you think were particularly important to introduce
your children to faith, and how did you think your children received these
practices as children?
3) Key (60 minutes)
a) How did you come to know when your child (children) no longer wished to
practice the faith as you know it? What do you understand as to why they
left?
b) What are your biggest concerns for your children and grandchildren
regarding their spiritual trajectory?
c) Have you had any conversations with child (children) about God, spiritual
matters, or religion? How did that come up and go? Any difficult
conversations?
d) How helpful or not is your CHURCH in equipping or supporting you as a
parent for the job of passing on your religious faith and practice to your
children? Describe/explain.
4) Ending (10 minutes)
a) Reflect on our discussion up to now; what stands out most for you?
b) Is there anything else you would like to add that was not part of our
discussion?

122
Focus Group Protocol – Generation Set II
1) Introduction: Faith Background of the disaffiliated (15 minutes)
a) How did you feel, as a younger person, about faith and religious
belonging? How did it change over time?
2) Transition: Initial Departure from the Church (15 minutes)
a) At what age did you stop identifying as a Catholic, and what factors helped
you come to that realization? (probe in the length of time toward decision)
3) Key: Factors in the Experience of Disaffiliation (60 minutes)
a) Can you share what aspects of your Catholic experience were unfeasible,
problematic, or difficult to live? How did those things affect you?
b) Are there things from your Catholic experience that are still important to
you in some way today?
c) What kind of conversations may you have had with your parent(s) about
your misgivings regarding church? How was your relationship with your
parents affected?
d) Is there an alternative spiritual or secular worldview that guides your life
in some way today? If so, how does it guide you?
4) Ending (10 minutes)
a) Reflect on our discussion up to now; what stands out most for you, or was
there anything else you would like to add that was not part of our
discussion?

123
Survey Questions – Affiliated Catholic Parents
The following questions were multiple choice.
1) What is your age?
2) What is your gender identification?
3) What is your race?
4) What is your marital status?
5) What is your highest level of education?
6) What is your present occupation?
7) How would you describe your family?
8) My total family income last year was:
9) How often do you attend mass, not including weddings and funerals?
10) How many children, by age, currently live in our household?
11) How many children, by age, currently live outside your household?
12) How long have you been Catholic?
13) Are you married in the church? How long?
14) How important is your Catholic faith to you right now?
15) How long have you been a member of your parish?

124
Survey Questions – Disaffiliated Catholics
The following questions were multiple choice.
1) What is your age?
2) What is your gender identification?
3) What is your race?
4) What is your marital status?
5) What is your highest level of education?
6) How much is your household income?
7) Which of the following best describes your current occupation?
8) How many children, by age, currently live in your household?
9) Do you identify with any of the following religions?
10) How important is religion to you right now?
11) Thinking about when you were younger, was there any period when you
were being raised Catholic and self-identified as Catholic?
12) Which of the Catholic sacraments did you receive, if any?
13) Were you ever involved in parish-based Catholic religious education
programs, youth ministry programs, campus ministry, or none of these?

125
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ammerman, Nancy T, Carroll, Jackson W, Dudley S, Carl, and McKinney, eds.
Studying Congregations: A New Handbook. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press, 1998)
A Study by Saint Mary’s Press of Minnesota, in collaboration with the Center for
Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). Going, Going, Gone: The
Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics. Released September 2017.
Baggett, Jerome P. Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their
Faith. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Beaton, Rhodora. “Between the Center and the Margins: Young Catholics, “Sorta-
Catholics,” and Baptismal Identity,” in Religions 2019, 10, 512;
doi:10.3390/rel10090512.
Bella, Robert. Individualism and Commitment in America. Online Lecture.
http://www.robertbellah.com/lectures_4.htm)
Berger, Peter L. The Many Altars of Modernity: Toward a Paradigm for Religion
in a Pluralist Age. (Boston: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2014).
Bengston, Vern L., Putney, Norella M. Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed
Down Across Generations. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013)

126
Beaudoin, Tom. “Secular Catholicism and Practical Theology.” IJPT, vol. 15
(Walter de Gruyter, 2011).
Beaudoin, Tom and Hornbeck II, J. Patrick. Deconversion and Ordinary Theology:
A Catholic Study. Chapter four in Exploring Ordinary Theology: Everyday
Christian Believing and the Church. Edited by Leslie J. Canon Francis and
Jeff Ashley. Ashgate Publishing, 2013).
Bulivant, Stephen. Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and the America
since Vatican II. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Campolo, Tony & Campolo, Bart. Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on
Christianity Between an Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son. (New
York: Harper Collins, 2017).
Carroll, Anthony and Norman, Richard, eds. Religion and Atheism: Beyond the
Divide. (New York: Routledge – Taylor and Francis Group, 2017), xvii.
Castillo-Montoya, Milagros. “Preparing for Interview Research: The interview
Protocol Refinement Framework.” The Qualitative Report 2016 Volume 21,
Number 5, How to Article 1.
Chau, Carolyn A. Solidarity with the World: Charles Taylor and Hans Urs von
Balthasar on Faith, Modernity, and Catholic Mission. Eugene, OR:
Cascade Books, 2016.
Chudy, Carl. “Including the Nonreligious in Interfaith Dialogue.” Panel
Presentation for the project requirement for the Masters of
Transformative Leadership and Spirituality Program. Hartford Seminary,
(March 2018) https://youtu.be/AvdAY2SjrJI
Cohn, Nate. “Christian Numbers in US Tumbling: Share of Catholics in Mass.” New
York Times, May 13, 2015. (accessed January 4, 2019).

127
Cook, Kaye V, ed. Faith in a Pluralist Age by Peter L. Berger. (Eugene, Oregon:
Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2018).
Clydesdale, Tim and Garces-Foley, Kathleen. The Twenty-Something Soul:
Understanding the Religious and Secular Lives of American Young Adults.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition, #840. (Washington, DC: Canon Law
Society of America, 1999).
Cohn, Nate. “Christian numbers in US Tumbling: Share of Catholics in Mass Down
in New York Times. May 13, 2015. (Accessed January 4, 2019).
Campolo, Tony & Campolo, Bart. Why I Left, Why I Stayed: Conversations on
Christianity Between and Evangelical Father and His Humanist Son.
(New York: Harper One, 2017).
Connor, Phillip. “The most common Mediterranean migration paths into Europe
have changed since 2009.” Pew Research Center, September 18. 2018.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/18/the-most-common-
mediterranean-migration-paths-into-europe-have-changed-since-
2009/#toc-anchor-305846-1 (Accessed December 29, 2020).
Cook, Kaye V., ed. Faith in a Pluralist Age by Peter L. Berger. (Eugene, Oregon:
Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2018).
D'Antonio, William V. The American Catholic Family: Signs of Cohesion and
Polarization. Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 47, No.2 (May 1985),
395-405.
David M. Cheney, 1996-2005; code: v2.3.4, 17 Nov 05. USA Statistics by Province
of the Catholic Population. http://www.catholic-
hierarchy.org/country/spcus1.html.

128
Davies, Horton, Green, Ian. The Christian's ABC: Catechisms and Catechizing in
England c. 1530–1740. (New York: Clarendon Press of Oxford University
Press. 1996).
Delio, Ilia. Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology, Consciousness.
(Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2015), 18-20.
Dettloff, Dean. “Catholics in Quebec are leaving the church in droves. Can
reinventing parish life save it?” America Magazine, February 25, 2021.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/02/25/catholic-
church-quebec-reinventing-parish-life-240097.
Dillon, Michele. Postsecular Catholicism. (New York: Oxford University Press,
2018).
Drescher, Elizabeth. Choosing our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s
Nones. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Edgell, Penny, Hartmann, , Stewart, Evan and Gerteis. “Atheists and Other
Cultural Outsiders: Moral Boundaries and the Non-religious in the United
States. (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Social Forces, Vol. 95, No.2
(December 2016). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26166844.
Faggioli, Massimo, Catholicism & Culture. (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2017).
Fingerman, Karen L & Bermann, Eric. “Applications of Family Systems Theory to
the study of Adulthood.” International Journal of Aging and Human
Development, Vol. 51 9l, 2000.
Fox, Jonathan. Political Secularism, Religion, and the State. (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Francis, Pope. The Joy of the Gospel.(Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Vatican City,
2013).

129
http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/docum
ents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html
Fromm, Tamra Hull. Pre-Evangelization and Young Adult “Native Nones:” A
New Paradigm for Reaching the Unchurch. (Oregon: Pickwick
Publications, 2021).
Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics. A Study
by Saint Mary’s Press of Minnesota, in collaboration with the Center for
Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). Released September 2017.
Habermas, Jurgen. “Notes on Post-Secular Society,” New Perspectives Quarterly
25 (2008).
_____________ An Awareness of What Is Missing: Faith and Reason in
a Post-Secular Age (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010).
Hagarty PhD, Mara Thomason and Koneck MAR, Ellen B. Beyond Disaffiliation:
A process for Hope-filled Action. (Winona, MN: St. Mary’s Press, Christian
Brothers Publications, 2019), 4.
Hatch, Nathan. The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1989).
Hedges, Paul. “Multiple Religious Belonging after Religion: Theorizing Strategic
Religious Participation in a Shared Religious Landscape as a Chinese
Model.” Open Theology. 3. 10.1515/opth-2017-0005, 67.
Heft, James L., SM, ed. Passing on the Faith: Transforming Traditions for the
Next Generation of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The Abrahamic
Dialogues Series, No. 6. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006.
Heimbrock, Hans-Gunter. From Data to Theory: Elements of Methodology in
Empirical Phenomenological Research in Practical Theology. Research

130
Report: International Journal of Pharmacy and Technology. (Walter de
Gruyter, 2005 vol. 9).
Hoge, Dean R., Dinges, William D., Johnson, Mary, and Gonzales, Juan L Young
Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2001)
Hornbeck II, J Patrick. “Deconversion from Roman Catholicism: Mapping a Fertile
Field.” American Catholic Studies, vol. 122, No.2 (Summer 2011).
Johnson, Junius. “The One and the Many in Bonaventure Exemplarity Explained,”
Religions 7, no. 12 (December 8, 2016): 144, accessed January 5, 2019,
http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/7/12/144.
Jones, Robert P., Cox, Daniel, Cooper, Betsey, and Lienesch, Rachel. Exodus: Why
Americans are Leaving Religion – and Why They’re Unlikely to Come
Back. Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Released on September
22, 2016.
Jones, Robert P. & Cox, Daniel. America’s Changing Religious Identity: Findings
from the 2016 American Values Atlas. Public Religion Research Institute
(PRRI) (Washington D.C.: PRRI, 2017).
Konig, Cardinal. President for the Secretariat for Nonbelievers. “Dialogue with
Nonbelievers.” 1968. Eternal Word Television Network.
https://web.archive.org/web/20000614101645/http://www.ewtn.com/lib
rary/CURIA/PCIDNONB.HTM.
Kosmin, Barry A. and Keysar, Ariela, eds. Secularism & Secularity:
Contemporary International Perspectives. (Hartford: Institute for the
Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, 2007).
Leedy, Paul D. and Jeanne Ormord, Ellis with Johnson, Laura Ruth. Practical
Research: Planning and Designing (12th Edition). (New York: Person
Publications, 2019).

131
Lester, Stan. An Introduction to Phenomenological Research. (Tauton: Stan
Lester Developments).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255647619_An_introduction_
to_phenomenological_research. (Accessed April 13, 2020)
Morgan, David L, ed. Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art.
(Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1993).
Nagle, James Michael. Out on Waters: The Religious Life and Learning of Young
Catholics Beyond the Church. (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications,
2020).
___________ Learning to Leave: Expanding Shared Praxis to
Understand the Religious Life and Learning of Young Catholics
Beyond the Church, Religious Education, 2019. DOI:
10.1080/00344087.2019.1631949.
Manning, Christel. Losing our Religion: How Unaffiliated Parents are Raising
their Children. (New York: New York University Press, 2015).
Moore, Thomas. A Religion of One’s Own: A Guide to Creating a Personal
Spirituality in a Secular World. New York: Gotham Books, 2014.
Morgan, David L., ed. Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art.
(Newberry Park: Sage Publications, 1993).
Packard, Josh and Hope, Ashleigh. Church Refugees: Sociologists reveal why
people are DONE with church but not their faith. Loveland, CO: Group,
2015.
Pausch, S.J, Thomas P., Being Catholic in a Culture of Choice (Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota).

132
Peel, Karen L. "A Beginner's Guide to Applied Educational Research using
Thematic Analysis," Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. Vol.
25, Article 2 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/ryr5-k983 Available at:
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/pare/vol25/iss1/2
Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. “In America, Does More
Education Equal Less Religion?” May 30, 2020.
https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/26/in-america-does-more-
education-equal-less-religion/.
Pew Forum Foundation. The Religious Typology: A New Way to Categorize
Americans by Religion http://www.pewforum.org/2018/08/29/the-
religious-typology/
Pope Paul VI, Pope. On Evangelization in the Modern World (Evangelii Nuntiandi)
(Washington, DC: Libreria Editrice Vaticana- USCCB, 1999).
Pope John Paul II, “The Cross of Nowa Huta: A New Seed of Evangelization,”
Homily, June 9, 1979, L’Osservatore Romano, English Edition, July 16,
1979.
Pope John Paul II, ”On the Encounter with the Living Jesus Christ: The Way to
Conversion, Communion, and Solidarity in America.” Ecclesia in America.
www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/document
s/hf_jp-ii_exh_22011999_ecclesia-in-america_en.html.
Putnam, Robert D. & Campbell, David E. American Grace: How Religion Divides
and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Shuster, 2010.
Penny Edgell, Douglas Hartmann, Evan Stewart, and Joseph Gerteis. “Atheists
and Other Cultural Outsiders: Moral Boundaries and the Non-religious in
the United States.” Social Forces, Vol. 95, No.2 (December 2016), pp. 607-
638. Published by Oxford University Press.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26166844. Accessed: 10-02-2020.

133
Pontifical Council of Culture. What is the Courtyard of the Gentiles?
http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/en/dipartimenti/ateismo-e-non-
credenza/che-cos-e-il-cortile-dei-gentili.html.
Rainwater, Elizabeth. “Millennials Leaving Religion: A Transcendental
Phenomenological Research Study on Religious Disaffiliation.” (Ph.D.diss,
Walden University, 2019).
Ramos, Joshua Rey. “A Critical Interpretation of Olivier Roy: “On Globalization,
the Cosmopolitan, and Emerging Post-Secular Religiosities.” Joint PhD
Thesis, University of Denver, and the Iliff School of Theology, 2018.
Rausch, Thomas P. Being Catholic in a Culture of Choice. (Collegeville: Liturgical
Press, 2006)
Rolheiser, Ron, OMI. Disciples with Many Faces, Series of meditations offered on
his website: http://ronrolheiser.com/disciples-with-many-faces/.
(Accessed March 22, 2020).
Secretariat for Evangelization, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Catholic Evangelization in an Ecumenical and Interreligious Society,
2004.
Sensing, Tim. Qualitative Research: A Multi-Methods Approach to Projects for
Doctor of Ministry Theses (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, an Imprint of Wipf
and Stock Publishers, 2011).
Sheldrake, Philip. Spirituality: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2014.
Simon, Mary Marilyn. “Analysis of Qualitative Data.” Excerpted from Simon MK
(2011). Dissertation and scholarly research: Recipes for success (2011 ed.)
Seattle, WA, dissertation Success, LLC.

134
Simon, Marilyn K. and Goes, Jim. What is Phenomenological Research?
Website: Dissertation Recipes: Dissertation Resources and Advice for the
Rest of Us. https://dissertationrecipes.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/04/Phenomenological-Research.pdf (Accessed
April 10, 2020).
Sutton, Jane. “Qualitative Research: Data Collection, Analysis, and Management.”
The Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy. 2015 MY-Jun; 68.
Smith, Christian with Denton, Melinda Lundquist. Soul Searching: The Religious
and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005).
Smith, Christian with Snell, Patricia. Souls in Transition: The Religious and
Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. (New York: Oxford University Press,
2009).
Smith, Christian and Longest, Kyle. Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In,
Out of, and Gone from the Church. (New York: Oxford University Press,
2014).
Smith, Christian, Ritz Bridget, and Michael Rotolo. Religious Parenting:
Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2020).
Synod of Bishops, XV Ordinary General Assembly. Young People, the Faith and
Vocational Discernment. Instrumentum Laboris. (Vatican City, 2018).
https://bit.ly/2VO8lJW
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard
University Press, 2007).
Taylor, Mark C. After God. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).

135
Thiessen, Joel & Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah. “Becoming a Religious None:
Irreligious Socialization and Disaffiliation.” Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion (2017) 56 (1): 77,79
The State of Religion and Young People: Relational Authority. Springtide
Research Institute (2020).
Thompson PhD, Maura, & Koneck, MAR, Ellen B. Beyond Disaffiliation: A
Process for Hope-Filled Action. (Minnesota: St. Mary’s Press, 2019).
Thurston, Angie and ter Kuile, Casper. Five Reports of the How We Gather Study.
Cambridge, MA, 2017. https:// www.howwegather.org
Towles, Christopher James. “Creating Space to Wonder: Curiosity Toward
Religious Diversity.” Doctor of Ministry Thesis, 2017, Hartford Seminary.
Tong, Yunping & Yang, Fenggang. “Internal Diversity Among “Spiritual But Not
Religious” Adolescents in the United States: A Person-Centered
Examination Using Latent, Class Analysis,” in Review of Religious
Research, 2018. 60:435-453. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-018-0350-9.
Uggla, Bengt Krstensson. “Secularization and Religion in a Post-secular Age.”
Parse Journal. Issue 6: Secularity, Autumn 2017.
http://parsejournal.com/article/secularisation-and-religion-in-a-post-
secular-age/#note-3891-15
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Participant Guidebook and Journal
for The Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America.
(Washington DC: USCCB, April 2017).
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Outreach to the Unaffiliated.”
https://www.usccb.org/committees/evangelization-catechesis/outreach-
unaffiliated (accessed March 1, 2021).

136
Van der Ven, Johannes/Gerwen, G, “Ecclesiological Explorations from Volunteer
Ministry.” (Journal of Empirical Theology 3, 1990).
Weddell, Sherry. Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and
Following Jesus. (Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, 2012).
Wessman, Robert Aaron. “Missionary Options for a Secular Age: Remaining in the
World for the Salvation of the World.” PhD Dissertation. Leuven University,
2019.
Wuthnow, Robert. After the Baby Boomer: How Twenty and Thirty Somethings
Are Shaping the Future of American Religion. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2007.
_____________Growing Up Religious: Christians and Jews and Their
Journeys of Faith. (Boston, Beacon Press, 1999)/
Veling, Terry A. “Catholic Practical Theology: Reflections on an Emerging Field.”
Compass: a Review of Topical Theology. 45(2).
Xaverian Missionaries USA Main website. “Religious Secular Dialogue”
https://www.xaverianmissionaries.org/religious-secular-dialogue
(Accessed January 2, 2021).
Yuhas, Stephanie. “Losing My Religion: Why Millennials are Leaving the Church.”
The Emerging Church, Millennials, and Religion: Volume 1: Prospects and
Problems. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publication Publishers) 2018.
Zaver, Arzina, “Pluralism and Social Media: Cultivating a New Outlook?” The
State of Formation, August 8, 2014,
https://stateofformation.org/2014/08/pluralism-and-social-media-
cultivating-a-new-outlook/.