Young adults support life and marriage—yet most buy into moral relativism.

The Knights of Columbus, in collaboration with Marist College, have published an important study on the moral values of “Millennials”—that generation now 18 to 29 years old. American Millennials: Generations Apart—Religion is fascinating and deserves to be read in its entirety.

It contains some very good news: American Millennials in general and Catholic Millennials in particular are committed to the institution of marriage and believe marital infidelity is wrong. They’re also pro-life: almost 60 percent believe that abortion is morally wrong.

Two ominous statistics stand out, however: 61 percent of American Catholic Millennials answered that it was OK for people of their religion also to practice another religion. Worse yet, 82 percent said morals are relative and there is no definite right and wrong for everyone. Despite the incessant work of John Paul II and Benedict XVI to educate the faithful against these errors, moral relativism and religious syncretism remain all too common among young Catholics.

How can that be? Perhaps the experience of a Millennial friend of mine, an altar boy turned atheist, will shed some light on the problem. Relatively early in his abandonment of the faith, this bright, well-informed young man tried an experiment. While on a retreat led by his religious-education teachers and attended by Catholic teens, he decided that he would participate fully and enthusiastically but that he would—without identifying them as such—espouse Buddhist rather than Catholic positions.

To his disgust, no one on the retreat noticed. It wasn’t just that no one refuted him publicly. After all, others might choose to do that out of misplaced charity. Rather, he reported that his insights and contributions were enthusiastically praised, that no one seemed to have the slightest qualm about what he said, and that no one during or after the retreat questioned him on any point.

He came away convinced that his teachers didn’t have sufficient knowledge even to distinguish their own faith from another religion. Any lingering respect he had for the Church was obliterated. Granted, he was already moving away from the faith, or he would never have tried such an experiment. He might have left the Church no matter what. But because not one person on his retreat possessed the necessary formation to see through him and confront him publicly or privately with the discrepancies between what he espoused and what the Church affirms, he ended up leaving with the idea that the Church is a joke.

It doesn’t have to be so bad. One of the bright points in the Marist study is the finding that Millennial Catholics are interested in studying their faith. This is excellent news—and a serious challenge for those of us now teaching the faith. Indeed, the prevalence of relativism and syncretism among the young reveals just as much about older Catholics as younger ones. It points to our own unconscionable failure to proclaim the faith with clarity and conviction.

We are not lacking the tools. The Scriptures, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the encyclicals of John Paul II and Benedict XVI are all sufficiently clear. They teach that there is only one God in three Divine Persons, and that God alone is worthy of worship.

It follows that the practice of another religion in addition to Catholicism is logically untenable even if it weren’t contrary to the faith—and it is. The same documents demonstrate that the moral law is rooted in the nature of God, in truth, and in the God-given dignity of the human person.

The last two popes, in particular, have spoken openly in their encyclicals about the threat moral relativism poses not only to the faith but also to human dignity. If the young are confused, it is not because the Church in her teaching office is unclear on these points.

The problem is one alluded to by the Fathers of Vatican II in Gaudium et Spes (No. 19): “To the extent that [believers] neglect their own training in the faith or teach erroneous doctrine or are deficient in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion.”

Miss Hutton is a member of Holy Ghost Parish in Knoxville and a full-time godmother.

Tags: Millennials, Obsessions