April 30, 2026 • 12 mins
A Gallup poll a few days back says the percentage of young men under 30 who describe religion as very important is up from 28 percent to 42 percent over two or three years. The Gallup survey says young men are now more likely than young women to say religiion play a role in their lives. At the same time, Roman Catholic church parishes are reporting a dramatic uptick in the number of young MEN attending services, with "standing room only" Easter services. The Washington Post reports
Catholicism is “drawing in Gen Z men” seeking “truth, beauty and, yes, girlfriends." So what's the real story? To find out, we're turning to Stephen Okey, professor of theology and religion at Saint Leo University, headquartered not far from Tampa and with a Tampa campus.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News, a couple of
stories that have been in the news in recent weeks.
A Gallup pole a few days back says the percentage
of young men under thirty who describe religion as very
important is up from twenty eight percent to forty two
percent over the last couple or years or three years.
The Gallup surveys as young men are now more likely
than young women to say that religion plays a role
(00:22):
in their lives. And at the same time, in the
Roman Catholic church parishes are reporting a dramatic uptick in
the number of young men attending services, some reporting standing
room only on Easter Sunday. The Washington Post, in a
story reported that Catholicism is drawing in gen Z men
seeking truth, beauty and girlfriends. So what's the real story?
(00:43):
To find out, we're turning to Steven Oki, who is
professor of theology and Religion at Saint Leo University, headquartered
not too far from Tampa and with a Tampa campus
professor oke.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Welcome, thanks for having me well.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I always take with a grade assualt. When a reporter
describes a couple of anecdotes from a neighborhood somewhere on
the northeast corridor and projects it to the nation as
a whole.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
So, so, is there a trend going on here, how
big is it and how does it factor into other
trends that show a general decline in religious affiliation among
the younger generation or that have been the trend up
until now.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, that's a fantastic question.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So I would note maybe a couple of things that
I've seen, you know, both in the Gallop Polly reference
and some few reports, and also you know, in my
own experience that number one, I do think that there
is some pretty good evidence of a recent uptick over
the last couple of years, particularly you know what I'm
familiar with in the Roman Catholic Church. There have been
(01:44):
increased numbers of baptisms and conversions, and you know.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Easter vigil celebrations have been more full.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know, than five ten years ago. And so I
do think that that is a real trend that we're seeing.
So that and I think, you know, in the church,
I think that's something to sell great and be excited about.
I think it's also important to sort of temper that
with a recognition of the sort of larger trends that
are you know, countervailing against that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And so you know, about five.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Years ago, the statistic I saw was that for every
person entering the Catholic Church, about twelve people were leaving.
And the more recent numbers are saying for every person
entering the Catholic Church, about eight people are leaving. And
so that's closing a gap. That's an improvement, but that
still suggests that there's still a net you know, disaffiliation
(02:36):
going on. And so yeah, So on one hand, I
think that there's you know, something good happening. There's science
for optimism, but I don't think that this is you know,
sometimes in reporting or in discourse, people talk about sort
of revival, and I don't know that this is quite
too revival level number.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, you're, of course a professor at a Catholic institution
of higher learning, and I know Saint Leo serves many
different demographic groups. Smorably, at least many of your students
are in this age group. Does this sort of dynamic
match up with what you're hearing from them about church
attendance or social life.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah, I would say the experience of Saint Leo matches
a lot of what we're hearing, and so, you know,
we do have I would say, maybe like a small
number overall students who are really active in campus ministry,
who are you know, weekly communicants, that mass that sort
of thing, certainly relative to the overall population of the campus.
(03:35):
But I would also say that those students tend to be,
you know, very strongly and very intensely committed, and so
in that way, I think that it fits we do have.
You know, we have had I think more students going
through OCIA in the last few years than we had
earlier in my time at Saint Leo in the mid
mid twenty tens.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So in those regards, I think that's true.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
I think something else that the Gallup poll notes, and
I think that this matches at least to some extent
with the students I've interacted with on campus, as it
tends to be people who are more politically conservative, who
are becoming north who are more active in their faith
or taking their realse practice more seriously. And I think
that that also fits with larger trends we've seen over
(04:20):
the last couple decades in terms of how political affiliation
seems to be a factor in religious activity and participation.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
How much of this is tied into the socialization of
the post COVID area COVID era. Many of these young
people were in school and lost a year or more
of socialization with the remote learning. And you know, there
are of course other polls and surveys that point to
young men, the demographic that we're talking about, in particular,
(04:53):
reporting problems with loneliness and not making social connections. How
does that factor.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
In, I think pretty heavily. And so it's worth keeping
in mind that, you know, for the age group we're
talking about in terms of gen z uh, the the
young the oldest members of gen z were you know,
like graduating college when COVID started, but the youngest members
were maybe like late elementary, early middle school. And so
(05:18):
that's a big, very significant, you know, like period of
development age you know, within that one generation around this
one event. And so you have people for whom you know,
like early experiences of school and the socialization that goes
with that profoundly affected all the way to people who were,
(05:39):
you know, finishing up college and had to do the
last couple of years of college online essentially or in
a different context. And so again a big range a
lot of different experiences in there. I think one of
the things that you know, COVID really laid there for
a lot of people is how important community and connection
and especially physical connection is. And as much as it
(06:01):
you know, made people, I think recognize and think about
the ways in which they might want to celebrate religiosity online,
it also made them hunger for you know, being present
with one another, you know, being in the same space,
listening to the same music, you know, receiving the sacraments,
all those sorts of things. And I think to some extent,
(06:22):
there's almost there's a bifurcation you can see where there
were people who you know, once that was no longer
available to them, and the option was to attend really
to services online, they just kind of dropped out and
lost interest altogether. But the other side of it was
people for whom once that was not available and had
(06:42):
they could only do a serve online, the hunger and
the desire for it became much stronger and much more
pronounced for them. And so I know, you know, in COVID,
one of the big concerns among church leadership was the
people who you know, they're not they they've lost whatever
habit they had of coming to services on Sundays is
because of COVID?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Are they going to come back?
Speaker 4 (07:03):
And I think my impression is there's a lot of
people who did not come back, but many of those
who did or who are still coming back, are doing
so with greater appreciation and desire for what they were
previously most previously unavailable for them.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Now we see this trend in this poll saying that
young men appear to be going to church more or
at least in some contexts. Does is there any impact
on the numbers of young women who are going to church?
Presumably one of the reasons they would be going would
be presumably to meet the opposite sex, So what's what's
(07:40):
going on with that? Are are are our younger women
more or less likely to be involved in church? Or
is there any sort of trend going on there?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So, the general democratic demographic trend for decades, in especially Christianity,
is that women tend to be more involved religiously than men,
and so women go to religious services more often, participate
in relious activities more often in a higher percentage of
than men.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
That's must have been an almost.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Demographic truism for for decades across multiple generations, and even
in the gallop hole, you know, one of the things
that they that they showed is.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
The sort of the.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
In generations older than gen Z, it still remains the
case that women outnumber men in terms of religious participation.
So the really interesting data point is that within the
gen Z generation, the men now are about equal or
even a little bit more in terms of participation and
(08:48):
commitment and whatnot than the women are. It's unclear if
that that difference is statistically significant or is basically a
statistical tie, but that is a striking factor. It does
seem like one of the driving factors for that is
probably relationships. And so gen Z is now, you know,
in an age group where for a lot of people,
they are looking you know at potential, you know, getting married,
(09:12):
having spouses, having children, things like that. And there's good evidence,
you know, throughout the last several decades that when people
who are you know, religiously uninvolved or disaffiliated, when they
are likely to return to religious practice is when they
are entering into you know, new major life events like
getting married or having children. That's one of the things
(09:33):
that brings them back, you know, whether that's for the
nice wedding in the church, you know, with mom and
dad there, or if they're having children and you know,
they want to have their children baptized and that sort
of thing, And so I think it fits in that regard.
The other thing that I think might be a factor
in all of this is gen Z in particular has
(09:57):
lived essentially their lives in a context where mobile phones, smartphones,
social media, dating apps.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
All of this has been a big part of their lives.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
And I mean many of them were getting you know,
smartphones when they were you know, you know, barely out
of kindergarten in some cases, and there's a lot of
good questions about the long term health of that. But
I think for a lot of them, there's a sense
of dissatisfaction with you know, being online so much, even
(10:31):
as they remain online so much that you know, attending
church in person, meeting people through church, going to those
kinds of events is more attractive because to some extent,
and you mentioned socialization earlier, when they were younger, they
were often less socialized apart from smartphones and the.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
World online than older generations were.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
And so you know, for myself, as a as a
late millennial, I was, you know, I was in high
school when I started, you know, using a computer actively
or when the Internet became available.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I was in college when I got my first cell phone.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
And I was already in a career when I got
my first smartphone, and so my socialization pattern is very
different from you know, people who are now in the
early twenties.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
We've focused in particular on Roman Catholic churches. Are there
parallels going on here with other Christian denominations or any
other faith traditions within the US?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I expect that that is the case.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I'll be honest, I don't know that I can speak
particularly intelligently to that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I know.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Part of why it's you know, a conversation right now
is just because it's you know, this is the Easter season,
and you know, the Easter Vigil, which is the you know,
the celebration on Saturday before Easter Sunday is typically when
new Catholics are received into the church, especially if they.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Are to be baptized.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
And so that's really when we see this uptick of
people joining the church. Uh, you know, being made public
in a real way.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
It's common in a lot of other Christian traditions that
you know, people who are you know, entering or joining
the church or be you know, you know, professing their
faith in Christ.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Or getting that is that that will happen throughout the.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Year, and so you have less of a focusing on
you know, a particular uh, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Season of the year for that.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
And so that's why I think the like in particular
the Catholic dimension of it is getting a lot of
attention right now.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Steven Oki, Professor of Theology and Religion at Saint Leo
University in Pasco County and with campuses elsewhere, Thank you
very much for joining us on beyond the News.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Glad to be here.
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News, a couple of
stories that have been in the news in recent weeks.
A Gallup pole a few days back says the percentage
of young men under thirty who describe religion as very
important is up from twenty eight percent to forty two
percent over the last couple or years or three years.
The Gallup surveys as young men are now more likely
than young women to say that religion plays a role
(00:22):
in their lives. And at the same time, in the
Roman Catholic church parishes are reporting a dramatic uptick in
the number of young men attending services, some reporting standing
room only on Easter Sunday. The Washington Post, in a
story reported that Catholicism is drawing in gen Z men
seeking truth, beauty and girlfriends. So what's the real story?
(00:43):
To find out, we're turning to Steven Oki, who is
professor of theology and Religion at Saint Leo University, headquartered
not too far from Tampa and with a Tampa campus
professor oke.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Welcome, thanks for having me well.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I always take with a grade assualt. When a reporter
describes a couple of anecdotes from a neighborhood somewhere on
the northeast corridor and projects it to the nation as
a whole.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
So, so, is there a trend going on here, how
big is it and how does it factor into other
trends that show a general decline in religious affiliation among
the younger generation or that have been the trend up
until now.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, that's a fantastic question.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
So I would note maybe a couple of things that
I've seen, you know, both in the Gallop Polly reference
and some few reports, and also you know, in my
own experience that number one, I do think that there
is some pretty good evidence of a recent uptick over
the last couple of years, particularly you know what I'm
familiar with in the Roman Catholic Church. There have been
(01:44):
increased numbers of baptisms and conversions, and you know.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Easter vigil celebrations have been more full.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know, than five ten years ago. And so I
do think that that is a real trend that we're seeing.
So that and I think, you know, in the church,
I think that's something to sell great and be excited about.
I think it's also important to sort of temper that
with a recognition of the sort of larger trends that
are you know, countervailing against that.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And so you know, about five.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Years ago, the statistic I saw was that for every
person entering the Catholic Church, about twelve people were leaving.
And the more recent numbers are saying for every person
entering the Catholic Church, about eight people are leaving. And
so that's closing a gap. That's an improvement, but that
still suggests that there's still a net you know, disaffiliation
(02:36):
going on. And so yeah, So on one hand, I
think that there's you know, something good happening. There's science
for optimism, but I don't think that this is you know,
sometimes in reporting or in discourse, people talk about sort
of revival, and I don't know that this is quite
too revival level number.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, you're, of course a professor at a Catholic institution
of higher learning, and I know Saint Leo serves many
different demographic groups. Smorably, at least many of your students
are in this age group. Does this sort of dynamic
match up with what you're hearing from them about church
attendance or social life.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah, I would say the experience of Saint Leo matches
a lot of what we're hearing, and so, you know,
we do have I would say, maybe like a small
number overall students who are really active in campus ministry,
who are you know, weekly communicants, that mass that sort
of thing, certainly relative to the overall population of the campus.
(03:35):
But I would also say that those students tend to be,
you know, very strongly and very intensely committed, and so
in that way, I think that it fits we do have.
You know, we have had I think more students going
through OCIA in the last few years than we had
earlier in my time at Saint Leo in the mid
mid twenty tens.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So in those regards, I think that's true.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
I think something else that the Gallup poll notes, and
I think that this matches at least to some extent
with the students I've interacted with on campus, as it
tends to be people who are more politically conservative, who
are becoming north who are more active in their faith
or taking their realse practice more seriously. And I think
that that also fits with larger trends we've seen over
(04:20):
the last couple decades in terms of how political affiliation
seems to be a factor in religious activity and participation.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
How much of this is tied into the socialization of
the post COVID area COVID era. Many of these young
people were in school and lost a year or more
of socialization with the remote learning. And you know, there
are of course other polls and surveys that point to
young men, the demographic that we're talking about, in particular,
(04:53):
reporting problems with loneliness and not making social connections. How
does that factor.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
In, I think pretty heavily. And so it's worth keeping
in mind that, you know, for the age group we're
talking about in terms of gen z uh, the the
young the oldest members of gen z were you know,
like graduating college when COVID started, but the youngest members
were maybe like late elementary, early middle school. And so
(05:18):
that's a big, very significant, you know, like period of
development age you know, within that one generation around this
one event. And so you have people for whom you know,
like early experiences of school and the socialization that goes
with that profoundly affected all the way to people who were,
(05:39):
you know, finishing up college and had to do the
last couple of years of college online essentially or in
a different context. And so again a big range a
lot of different experiences in there. I think one of
the things that you know, COVID really laid there for
a lot of people is how important community and connection
and especially physical connection is. And as much as it
(06:01):
you know, made people, I think recognize and think about
the ways in which they might want to celebrate religiosity online,
it also made them hunger for you know, being present
with one another, you know, being in the same space,
listening to the same music, you know, receiving the sacraments,
all those sorts of things. And I think to some extent,
(06:22):
there's almost there's a bifurcation you can see where there
were people who you know, once that was no longer
available to them, and the option was to attend really
to services online, they just kind of dropped out and
lost interest altogether. But the other side of it was
people for whom once that was not available and had
(06:42):
they could only do a serve online, the hunger and
the desire for it became much stronger and much more
pronounced for them. And so I know, you know, in COVID,
one of the big concerns among church leadership was the
people who you know, they're not they they've lost whatever
habit they had of coming to services on Sundays is
because of COVID?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Are they going to come back?
Speaker 4 (07:03):
And I think my impression is there's a lot of
people who did not come back, but many of those
who did or who are still coming back, are doing
so with greater appreciation and desire for what they were
previously most previously unavailable for them.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Now we see this trend in this poll saying that
young men appear to be going to church more or
at least in some contexts. Does is there any impact
on the numbers of young women who are going to church?
Presumably one of the reasons they would be going would
be presumably to meet the opposite sex, So what's what's
(07:40):
going on with that? Are are are our younger women
more or less likely to be involved in church? Or
is there any sort of trend going on there?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So, the general democratic demographic trend for decades, in especially Christianity,
is that women tend to be more involved religiously than men,
and so women go to religious services more often, participate
in relious activities more often in a higher percentage of
than men.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
That's must have been an almost.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Demographic truism for for decades across multiple generations, and even
in the gallop hole, you know, one of the things
that they that they showed is.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
The sort of the.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
In generations older than gen Z, it still remains the
case that women outnumber men in terms of religious participation.
So the really interesting data point is that within the
gen Z generation, the men now are about equal or
even a little bit more in terms of participation and
(08:48):
commitment and whatnot than the women are. It's unclear if
that that difference is statistically significant or is basically a
statistical tie, but that is a striking factor. It does
seem like one of the driving factors for that is
probably relationships. And so gen Z is now, you know,
in an age group where for a lot of people,
they are looking you know at potential, you know, getting married,
(09:12):
having spouses, having children, things like that. And there's good evidence,
you know, throughout the last several decades that when people
who are you know, religiously uninvolved or disaffiliated, when they
are likely to return to religious practice is when they
are entering into you know, new major life events like
getting married or having children. That's one of the things
(09:33):
that brings them back, you know, whether that's for the
nice wedding in the church, you know, with mom and
dad there, or if they're having children and you know,
they want to have their children baptized and that sort
of thing, And so I think it fits in that regard.
The other thing that I think might be a factor
in all of this is gen Z in particular has
(09:57):
lived essentially their lives in a context where mobile phones, smartphones,
social media, dating apps.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
All of this has been a big part of their lives.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
And I mean many of them were getting you know,
smartphones when they were you know, you know, barely out
of kindergarten in some cases, and there's a lot of
good questions about the long term health of that. But
I think for a lot of them, there's a sense
of dissatisfaction with you know, being online so much, even
(10:31):
as they remain online so much that you know, attending
church in person, meeting people through church, going to those
kinds of events is more attractive because to some extent,
and you mentioned socialization earlier, when they were younger, they
were often less socialized apart from smartphones and the.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
World online than older generations were.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
And so you know, for myself, as a as a
late millennial, I was, you know, I was in high
school when I started, you know, using a computer actively
or when the Internet became available.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I was in college when I got my first cell phone.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
And I was already in a career when I got
my first smartphone, and so my socialization pattern is very
different from you know, people who are now in the
early twenties.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
We've focused in particular on Roman Catholic churches. Are there
parallels going on here with other Christian denominations or any
other faith traditions within the US?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I expect that that is the case.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I'll be honest, I don't know that I can speak
particularly intelligently to that.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I know.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Part of why it's you know, a conversation right now
is just because it's you know, this is the Easter season,
and you know, the Easter Vigil, which is the you know,
the celebration on Saturday before Easter Sunday is typically when
new Catholics are received into the church, especially if they.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Are to be baptized.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
And so that's really when we see this uptick of
people joining the church. Uh, you know, being made public
in a real way.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
It's common in a lot of other Christian traditions that
you know, people who are you know, entering or joining
the church or be you know, you know, professing their
faith in Christ.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Or getting that is that that will happen throughout the.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Year, and so you have less of a focusing on
you know, a particular uh, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Season of the year for that.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
And so that's why I think the like in particular
the Catholic dimension of it is getting a lot of
attention right now.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Steven Oki, Professor of Theology and Religion at Saint Leo
University in Pasco County and with campuses elsewhere, Thank you
very much for joining us on beyond the News.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Glad to be here.
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