Millennials | OC Catholic

EPISODE#222
OC CATHOLIC RADIO: TRENDING WITH TIMMERIE – MILLENNIALS IN THE CHURCH

On this episode, host Rick Howick is thrilled to welcome back a dear friend to OC Catholic Radio.

Timmerie Geagea is a powerful and persuasive “millennial” voice for authentic feminism. We were fortunate to hear her well-informed views on our show today.

Catch her nationally syndicated radio show “Trending,” where she discusses popular current topics in the context of timeless Catholic values. You can stay in touch with Timmerie through her website radiotrending.com.

Originally broadcast on 2/27/21

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HOW FR. SPITZER WANTS TO MAKE CATHOLICISM CREDIBLE FOR DOUBTING MILLENNIALS

Washington D.C., Jul 27, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA/EWTN News) – How can Catholics respond to young people’s questions and concerns about faith, science, and modern problems?

Father Robert Spitzer, S.J. thinks a new educational series called Credible Catholic can help.

“The problem of faith and science and evidence is really significant. Just invest a couple hours of your time and you’ll improve not just the faith of your children, not just their sense of transcendent dignity… at the same time they’re going to be a lot happier,” Spitzer told CNA July 25.

Spitzer is a past president of Gonzaga University and frequent commentator on the relationship between science and religion. He has produced seven television series for the EWTN Global Catholic Network. He is the president of the Garden Grove, Calif.-based Magis Center, which aims to revitalize Catholic and Christian belief among contemporary Americans.

The Magis Center has helped develop the Credible Catholic series, which has seven presentation modules specially dedicated to common intellectual challenges to faith. The Credible Catholic presentations can be viewed directly from the Credible Catholic website or downloaded.

“Our hope is to turn the tide of Millennial unbelief,” Spitzer said.

Surveys from the Pew Research Center show a “steep decline” in religion in the U.S. among younger generations. Self-identified religiously unaffiliated “nones” numbered 39 percent among the age 18-29 demographic in 2016, up from 23 percent in 2006. If the trend continues, this proportion will grow to 50 percent in the next five years, the Credible Catholic website said.

Credible Catholic contends religious disaffiliation is being driven by “secular myths”: the idea that science has proven that God does not exist; the idea that suffering proves God does not exist; the idea that humans are just like other animals, made of atoms and molecules, with no proof of a transcendent “soul”; and the idea that there is no proof that Jesus was special or divine, and no proof of his existence or Resurrection.

Father Spitzer has selected seven Credible Catholic modules as essential. They deal with evidence of the soul from medical science; evidence of God’s existence from science; proof of God’s existence from philosophy; and proof of Jesus’ resurrection and divinity. Other essential topics address the question “why be Catholic?”, the nature of true happiness, and why an all-loving God would allow suffering.

The modules aim to address the stated intellectual reasons Millennials are leaving the Church.

When young people leave their faith, a significant minority give up belief in God entirely. Among this group, half do so “because of a perceived contradiction between faith and science,” Spitzer said.

In Spitzer’s view, young people are being strongly exposed to “a raft of pretty superficial arguments for atheism.”

“They’re easy to address, and there’s a ton of evidence to do it with,” he added. “Once you give all this evidence, it makes the faith look more credible than anything they might have heard from their friends in high school or their professors in college or especially on new media.”

In Spitzer’s view, young people seem particularly affected by “a malaise that is arising out of the problem of suffering.”

“The kids just can’t figure out if there is any good that can come from suffering, and why a good God would allow it,” he said. This is an age-old question, rather than a scientific problem, but “it has a really good answer.”

The Credible Catholic modules are designed with the goal that no special training is needed for them. Presentation guides aim to help a presenter lead the module. Individual guides and student workbooks are also available,

At present the Credible Catholic series is a set of 20 modules that serve in a complementary role to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The modules help explain difficult concepts and cover materials addressing issues that affect society today.

“You want to invest in your child’s happiness in moving him out of superficiality to a life of real dignity and leadership for the good?” Spitzer asked. “Just please, invest three or four hours in watching these modules. I swear it’ll make a difference not only to them but to you.”

Other planned programs in the Credible Catholic series will discuss faith and morals; the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults; Marriage and pre-Cana courses; Baptism; and Confirmation. When completed the modules will cover the complete Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Credible Catholic series is available at the website www.crediblecatholic.com.

EPISODE #23
TRENDING WITH DON & TIMMERIE: WITCHCRAFT AND ASTROLOGY

Millennials continue to stray from religion and turn to other things such as witchcraft and astrology. What can we learn about sacramentals and being grounded in the faith while others search for meaning? Don and Timmerie also discuss prayer and how we can continue to grow in our faith and face the challenges presented by prayer as fundamental to the life of Saint John Paul II.

Originally broadcast on 10/29/17

NEW CAMPAIGN INVITES MILLENNIALS TO ‘COME HOME’ TO CATHOLIC FAITH

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Catholics Come Home, an organization dedicated to inviting those back to the Catholic faith, has launched a new campaign meant to reach out to the millennial generation.

In addition to its CatholicsComeHome.org website, the campaign has created CatholicsComeHome.com, an interactive website aimed at millennials who are seeking “something more.”

“Our CatholicsComeHome.org website and ‘Evangomercials’ have aired for over 18 years, helping more than a half a million souls home to the Catholic Church,” said Tom Peterson, the president and founder of Catholics Come Home, in a phone interview with Catholic News Service. “We are now speaking directly in the language of millennials through our new website and new Evangomericals on our CatholicsComeHome.com site to help encourage young people to accept our invitation home to Jesus and his holy church.”

Evangomercials is a name Catholics Come Home trademarked to describe its TV commercials on Catholic evangelism, which the organization says “change hearts.”

Peterson said he was inspired to help millennials, after speaking to Catholic families around the world who were saddened by their children and grandchildren leaving the church.

“Statistics show that 80 percent will leave their faith by age 23,” he said. “We felt the call to help in this new means of evangelization.”

With the rising influence of secularism, young people now more than ever have left the faith.

“There’s a tsunami of secularism that has permeated our culture, our nation and the world,” said Peterson. “Young people are the largest group to leave their faith. Many are also leaving, not only the church, but leaving Christian faith in Jesus, period. The increase of secularism, specifically the agnosticism and atheism has skyrocketed. The time is critical to do something to help bring souls to heaven. The young people need our help now.”

Catholics Come Home is not only an invitation to Catholics, but people of all faith and religious backgrounds.

“Our campaign is not only directed to young Catholics who have drifted from the faith, but also to any young person out there who may not have been exposed to faith at all, or who may have grown up in a different faith tradition,” said Peterson.

“In our focus groups, we noted that so many young people are looking for something more. We’ve created a new Evangomercial, called ‘Something More,’ that specifically addresses their needs,” he continued. “We’ve also used that concept of finding ‘something more’ in many of our other messages aimed at millennials. We’ve discovered that they’re looking for authenticity. They’re looking for answers, but they don’t want to be told what to do, they want to be invited in a gentle way. We feel that the new messages on our Evangomericals and website, will do just that, with God’s grace and the help of the Holy Spirit.”

The website tells the stories of those who turned away from the faith, and have since then reclaimed it.

“We’ve seen millennials return to the faith, through the efforts of Catholics Come Home,” said Peterson. “Three of their stories are on our website, CatholicsComeHome.com, and those millennials were featured on our worldwide primetime television show, also called Catholics Come Home.”

He said, of those featured on the website, some left the faith completely, while others were looking for a deeper faith.

“We find that millennials are looking for the same thing as older Catholics, and that is something more,” said Peterson. “We now know that something more is what Saint Augustine tells us, that our hearts are restless, until they rest in God.”

Although the campaign is aimed at millennials, he said, the message to them remains the same.

“The message to millennials or anyone, is that Jesus loves us, has a plan for our lives and wants us to spend an eternity with him in heaven,” said Peterson. “The way we deliver that message to millennials has to be done in words and images that will appeal to that age group.”

CatholicsComeHome.com, was launched in June, in advance of World Youth Day July 26 to July 31.

On July 12, the Georgia-based organization announced another initiative — a global evangelization outreach to be carried out via its new international language websites and Evangomercials in “the nine most common Catholic languages” around the world: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Czech and Tagalog. Work is underway to launch websites in Korean, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin and Arabic.

HOW MILLENNIALS VIEW CONTRACEPTION, ABORTION

WASHINGTON (CNS) — U.S. millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, don’t want to be pigeonholed into categories.

They are predominantly religiously unaffiliated and not identified by any political party. They are more ethnically and racially diverse than the general population.

This group of 18- to 35-year-olds doesn’t like to be labeled as “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” They mostly approve of the use of contraception and they support policies to make contraception more widely available and affordable. They also have a predominantly positive view of marriage, not viewing it as old-fashioned or out of date.

These findings are from a study released March 27 by the Public Religion Research Institute, which surveyed 2,314 young adults online in February. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

The study, “The 2015 Millennials, Sexuality and Reproductive Health Survey,” looked at how race and religion shape attitudes on these topics.

During a presentation in Washington to review the results, panelists including health care advocates and Robert Jones, the research institute’s CEO, emphasized that today’s young adults tend to form their views on sexuality and reproductive health based on those of friends and family.

They said millennials focus on relationships and tend to take a more liberal view such as supporting same-sex marriage or accepting those who are gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual. The group, as a whole, also tends to be pragmatic. As one panelist pointed out, millennials have always lived in a world where HIV/AIDS exists.

“Experience trumps ideology,” said more than one panelist, noting that often young adults base their opinions on experiences of people they know.

According to the survey, 71 percent of millennials said the use of contraceptives was morally acceptable and 9 percent said it was morally wrong. Fourteen percent said it depends on the situation.

When the survey group was broken down by religious and ethnic traditions, white evangelical Protestants stood out as the only group that views abstinence as more effective than contraceptives.

Seventy-two percent of white Catholics and 74 percent of Hispanic Catholics said an emphasis on safe sexual practices and contraception was more effective than abstinence. The Catholic Church teaches that artificial contraception is morally wrong.

Seventy-eight percent of millennials overall favored making all forms of legal contraception readily available on college campuses and 81 percent favored increasing access to contraception for women who cannot afford it.

On the issue of abortion, millennials reflect the attitudes of the general public. Fifty-five percent of them said abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Along religious divides, 80 percent of white evangelical Protestants again said abortion should not be legal. Fifty-one percent of white Catholic millennials and 55 percent of Hispanic Catholics said abortion should be legal.

The Catholic Church believes abortion is morally wrong and that human life is sacred from conception onward.

Compared to other ethnic groups, Hispanic millennials exhibited the greatest moral reservations about having an abortion. Forty-five percent of Hispanic millennials said having an abortion is morally wrong, compared to 35 percent of whites, 30 percent of blacks and 23 percent of Asia Pacific Islanders.

The survey found that most millennials seek out information about sexual health and relationships from doctors or health care providers, friends and the Internet. Thirty percent said they seek such information from a parent and 11 percent look for it from a religious leader.

The survey also showed that 73 percent of millennials said sexual assault is at least somewhat common on college campuses and 53 percent said such incidents are somewhat common in high schools.

In another reveal, the survey notes that millennials view men who concentrate too much on work as a more serious concern for families than women who have a full-time job. Forty-nine percent of millennials said that family life suffers when men focus too much on their work, compared to 30 percent who said family life suffers when a woman has a full-time job. Sixty-six percent of millennials disagreed that women working full time is a threat to family well-being.

When panelists reviewing the survey were asked what it is millennials, so often described as nonjudgmental, really want, the consensus was that they want what everyone else does: love, support and companionship.

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