Catholic Young Adults Among Most Likely to Associate Faith with Environmental Justice

This blog is written by CARA Research Assistant Emma Mitchell. It is based on her analysis of CARA's recent national survey on Church teachings about the environment.

Catholic young adults (i.e., those ages 18 to 34) are not only more likely to promote environmental justice than older Catholic adults (i.e., those ages 35 and older), but they also are more likely to understand environmental justice to be connected to Catholicism, and to be motivated by their faith in their work for environmental justice.

Of the Catholic adults polled by CARA, young adults are significantly more likely to be familiar with the concept of environmental justice. Young adults are 12 percentage points more likely than older adults to “know well what environmental justice is about,” and 10 percentage points more likely to “have a general sense of what it is about.” Additionally, while there is no significant difference between younger and older adults and their belief in the existence of climate change, young adults are significantly more likely than older adults to believe that environmental justice is a legitimate issue that needs urgent attention (a difference between 82% and 69%), and they are more likely than older adults to have engaged in environmental-justice related activities in the past three months (a difference between 89% and 78%).

American K-12 schools adding climate change education to their curriculums over the past several decades gives one argument as to why young adults may be more likely to be familiar with environmental justice and be concerned about climate change as a pressing issue. It is also possible that young adults are more concerned with immediate environmental reform because they recognize that the effects of climate change will only become worse in the coming decades of their lives (young adults are 10 percentage points more likely than older adults to be concerned that climate change will cause them harm at some point in their lives). Along with these possible reasons, it seems that there is a religious element to young adults’ heightened concern for the environment.

When asked how much their engagement in environmental justice is motivated by their Catholic belief, young adult Catholics were 7 percentage points more likely (21% vs 14%) than older adults to say that they were “very” motivated by their Catholic beliefs to engage in environmental justice. Additionally, in an open-ended question, respondents were asked, “How would you describe the connection between your personal spirituality and your commitment to environmental justice?’ Young adults were significantly more likely (Chi-square less than 0.05) than older adults to describe personal spirituality and environmental justice to be connected. Examples of these responses from young adults include:

I believe environmental justice is real and an urgent matter to discuss both as a subject of my spirituality and my own logical sense.

I would describe it as somewhat strong connection.

I believe this is a world of God and it should be protected.

I would say they are intertwined.

The connection between environmental justice and loving your neighbor is very present in my mind.

A special relationship!

It is difficult to say why younger Catholics are more likely to associate environmental justice with their religion and spirituality than older Catholics. One possibility is that young adult Catholics understand their Catholic faith to be connected to environmental justice because they are more likely to have come across environmental justice in Catholic settings. This poll found that young adults are 31 percentage points (a difference between 84% and 52%) more likely than older adults to have come across the topic of environmental justice in Catholic settings, including at Mass, in conversations at their parish, on the internet, and in Catholic publications. Specifically, young adults are 12 percentage points more likely than older adults to have heard about Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on the current climate crisis and the responsibility of Catholics and all people to care for the environment.

Related to this, the poll also reports young adults more likely to be frequent mass attenders, more likely to be involved in parish activities, and more likely to spend time in private religious activities than older adults. This is another potential reason why young adult Catholics are more likely to have come across environmental justice in Catholic contexts, and thus understand environmental justice and faith to be connected.

The results of this poll suggest a young Catholic demographic for whom both their faith and environmental justice are not only important, but linked. This raises interesting questions for what the future may bring as these young, environmentally-concerned adults take on greater leadership roles in the Church, and see their faith not just as a piece of, but as a leading force in their generation’s work for environmental justice.

Back to the Past (2019)?

In 2000, Gallup measured the percentage of the U.S. adult population self-identifying as Catholic at 25%. In 2022 (the most recent figure currently available), this share measured 23%. If you are skeptical of Gallup, the General Social Survey (GSS) in 2022 also measured the adult Catholic population at 23%. The overall U.S. population has grown since 2000 so self-identified Catholics have as well (by 8.5%), even with a smaller overall percentage share.

It would be a bit unfair to compare 2000 to 2022 without acknowledging 2020. The Catholic Church in the United States is still getting back to pre-pandemic levels when it comes to parish life. There are two key barometers of parish life that this post will focus on: Mass attendance and infant baptisms. 

CARA estimates weekly levels of Mass attendance using its series of CARA Catholic Polls (CCP) linked to search volume estimates for Mass-related terms on Google Trends. There is a margin of error using these methods, as there are with surveys, but they can generally show relative differences over time. The "normal" pre-pandemic estimates are shown below to the left, for 2019. More than four years ago, news of a potential pandemic spread after the New Year in 2020 and in March the pandemic was declared and stay at home orders varied around the country. After Ash Wednesday 2020, Mass attendance plummeted (many shifted to watching online or television). In 2024, Ash Wednesday attendance was higher than it was for that day in 2020 (54% compared to 52%). 

 

Prior to the pandemic, Christmas always had the highest levels of Mass attendance. It has not returned to normal. Our hypothesis is that this is still the time of year when frequent warnings of increasing cases of disease are noted and some people may still shy away from large indoor gatherings at this time. Yet, the overall slope of increasing Mass attendance is evident since late 2020 and we will be watching Easter this year (note: Easter in 2023 had slightly higher attendance than in 2019).

In 2007, The Official Catholic Directory (OCD) made a change to how it asked dioceses for baptism data by separating out the previous definition of infant or adult baptisms to an expansion of: infant, minor, and adult baptisms. Infant baptisms are those received by minors under the age of 1. The 2007 OCD includes the baptismal data for the preceding year, 2006. Each OCD reports the previous year's sacramental totals. The most recent volume is for 2023 and includes 2022 data. The figure below shows how infant baptisms have changed since 2006.

First, it is important to note that the biggest component in the decline in baptisms are declining fertility rates. Catholics and non-Catholics in the United States are having fewer children. In 2010, there were approximately 130 babies born per 10,000 residents of the United States. This fell to 109 per 10,000 in 2020 and increased in the most recent data for 2021 to 110 per 10,000.

In 2010, when there were 130 babies born per 10,000 residents in the U.S., there were 112 infant baptisms per 10,000 Catholics. Thus, perhaps about 10% of Catholic infants born that year were not baptized before their first birthday (numbers of Catholic minor baptisms, for those ages 1 to 17, have been increasing over the years since the OCD began asking for new reporting categories). In 2020, there were just 56 infant baptisms per 10,000 Catholics while the country experienced a birth rate of 109 babies born per 10,000 people. Presumably, many Catholic infants were not baptized in 2020 and one can understand how this could have occurred as in some states it might not have been possible or families may have been concerned about gatherings and put these sacraments off to a future year. We don't have a complete estimate for the babies born per 10,000 residents for 2022 yet. However, the graph above shows that the number of infant baptisms rose in 2021 and 2022. In 2022, there were approximately 72 infant baptisms per 10,000 Catholics. 

Making comparisons between dioceses is difficult as one must disentangle differences in birthrates. Some states are much more likely to be home to young families than others. This often has to do with economic differences as well as the affordability of raising a family (and even perhaps the weather). In 2006, there were 133 infant baptisms per 10,000 Catholics. There were 22 dioceses with infant baptisms per 10,000 Catholics that exceeded the 2006 rate in 2022. A majority of these dioceses are in the South (55%) followed by the Midwest (36%), and the West (9%).